Troubles

Oct 13, 2011 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, ireland-irish, read-in-2011

"Troubles" is the story of Ireland 1919 to 1921, the Irish and the Anglo-Irish and the British, and how they ultimately can't all live together under the terms of the past. It is seen through the eyes of a shell-shocked British veteran, the Major, come to the Majestic Hotel in County Wexford to disabuse a young woman of the notion they may be affianced. He doesn't recall more than polite conversations during leave.

From there the alternately comic and tragic story moves with the "troubles" that b...more

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Nov 29, 2010 Douglas Dalrymple rated it 4 of 5 stars

Thoroughly satisfying. Better, I’m tempted to say, than The Siege of Krishnapur, but that’s a hard call to make. Farrell’s strengths are well represented: wonderfully appealing characters, flawless and delightful prose, the crisp drawing of comic scenarios and violent eruptions. It has a few awkward points. One – possibly – is the treatment of the Major’s waffling loyalties. His apparent fickle-mindedness towards the ‘Shinner’ and Unionist causes is appropriate for his character and situation, b...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Val rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookers

1970 'Lost Booker'

I think everyone should read everything J G Farrell wrote and only regret that he didn't have time to write more. They should certainly read his trilogy of books depicting the dismantling of the British Empire.
The Siege Of Krishnapur
Troubles
The Singapore Grip
(I read all three in the 1990's not the 1970's, but don't remember the correct dates.)

Farrell's books have their settings at pivotal moments in the history of empire, but he is more concerned with the dismantling of the ide...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

By chance, this books centers around a big house, just like The Little Stranger, which I had just read. In this case, it is a big crumbling hotel which symbolizes the progressive decay of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy.
This process is viewed in the eyes of a stranger to Ireland, the Major, who travels to the Majestic Hotel in County Wicklow, after he has been discharged from the Army after the First World War. He is travelling over to meet his fianceé, to whom he became engaged during leave after me...more By chance, this books centers around a big house, just like The Little Stranger, which I had just read. In this case, it is a big crumbling hotel which symbolizes the progressive decay of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy.
This process is viewed in the eyes of a stranger to Ireland, the Major, who travels to the Majestic Hotel in County Wicklow, after he has been discharged from the Army after the First World War. He is travelling over to meet his fianceé, to whom he became engaged during leave after meeting her briefly. As he arrives, the situation between both remains unresolved, as Angela seems unwilling to even to talk to him on their own. Meanwhile, he becomes absorbed in the environment of the Majestic and its parade of eccentric characters: Edward, Angela´s father, her friend Sarah, the servants and all the old ladies who live there more or less permanently. The Major is depicted as a typical British man from the upper classes, with a "stiff upper lip", but he is essentially a kind, shy person they all grow to like and depend on.
Relunctantly, Ireland grows on him, and he gets fond of the people he is sharing the hotel with. The fight of the Irish people for their independence is seen from his point of view, but he is not without sympathy towards the hungry population. The attacks towards the British ruling class and the police get closer to home as the novel approaches the end, and nobody can afford to remain uninvolved.
Apart from a political novel, it is also a touching story about unrequited love. This is one of those books where the author does not tell you what the characters are feeling, or experiencing: he makes you see it so you can reach your own conclusions. The Major will not admit to himself that he is in love with Sarah, until almost a third of the novel has passed: so the author doesn't approach the subject directly either.
The other area I really enjoyed is the various characters, all important in their own right or for narrative purposes, in particular, the old ladies or the twins. But even the cats or the hotel itself are "characters" in this book.
I will definitely read the other two books in this "Empire" trilogy.(less)

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May 12, 2007 Preeta rated it 5 of 5 stars

I haven't read the other two books (The Singapore Grip and The Siege of Krishnapur) in Farrell's trilogy, but I've been meaning to for years. This book is magnificent in its evocation of Decline. On the deepest level, it's about the decline of the British Empire; every aspect of the novel reflects that theme, from the protagonist's anomie to the setting -- a once-grand, now derelict hotel "boiling with cats." I love love love that phrase, and it's definitely representative of Farrell's delicious...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Maureen rated it 4 of 5 stars

After watching Ryan's Daughter *in its entirety* to celebrate St Patrick's Day, imagine my delight at discovering that this book also features a shell-shocked English major coming to live in civil-war-era Ireland.

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Apr 20, 2010 Joyce Lagow rated it 5 of 5 stars

As in The Siege of Krishanpur, Farrell, in this book set against the increasing violence against the English in the Irish struggle for independence, created, in his characters, parodies of the English ruling class, holding them up to ridicule rather than sympathy for being caught up in a tragedy. In Farrell� s view, clearly the English have caused their own tragedy; he spotlights a (fictional) group of English people living at the deteriorating Majestic Hotel in County Wexford, Ireland as a way...more

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May 07, 2013 Jrobertus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Farrell has written a trilogy of books about the British empire, including The Siege of Krishnapur. This book is set in Ireland after the end of WWI. Major Brendan Archer met a young Anglo Irish girl during the war and beleives he is engaged to Angela. In 1919 he goes to stay with her at the Majestic, a Victorian era hotel on the Irish coast. She lives there with her eccentric father Edward, brother and two twin sisters. She expires from cancer but Brendan stays on immersed in life in Ireland as...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Alex Rendall rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Troubles is an unusual entry on the list of Booker Prize winners, as it didn’t actually win its Prize until 2010, despite having been written 30 years earlier. This came about because the rules for eligibility for the award were changed; until 1970 the Booker prize was awarded to books that were published during the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. This lead to all books published during 1970 to be ineligible for the award at th...more Troubles is an unusual entry on the list of Booker Prize winners, as it didn’t actually win its Prize until 2010, despite having been written 30 years earlier. This came about because the rules for eligibility for the award were changed; until 1970 the Booker prize was awarded to books that were published during the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. This lead to all books published during 1970 to be ineligible for the award at the time. In 2010 The Lost Man Booker Prize award was commissioned and Troubles was voted the winner out of a shortlist of six titles.

Having explained the rationale for the award, I can now introduce the novel itself. Troubles is set in the Republic of Ireland in 1919, at a time when the Irish War of Independence was about to break out. The title is apposite, not just because of the political problems reflected in the novel’s setting but also the context in which it was written, as Ireland was suffering outbreaks of ethno-political violence at the height of The Troubles in 1970. Like Something to Answer For, looming conflict is a key theme in Troubles, with a growing sense of unease proliferating as the novel progresses. Set in the crumbling Majestic Hotel, the novel follows Major Brendan Archer’s escapades, after he travels to Ireland to meet the fiancée he acquired while on leave during World War I. His engagement, rather predictably, proves to be short-lived, but not necessarily for the reasons one might expect. The Major becomes ensconced in the faded glamour and shabby chic of the Majestic, unwilling to stay but not able to leave, as the place and the people begin to crumble around him.

The Majestic can be said to be a microcosm of Ireland at the time, although this is perhaps a slightly simplistic comparison to draw. Edward Spencer, the owner of the Majestic, is a member of the English gentry, attempting to keep control of his estate at a time when the local populace is growing restless for change. The place becomes ever more ruinous and decayed as Edward desperately tries to keep a grip on his fiefdom, while attacks on the hotel residents by local villagers become more frequent and alarming. The gathering clouds seem to be visible to everyone except him. This could be said to mirror the British government’s naive attempts to keep Ireland under British rule, at a time when the Irish were desperate for independence and were willing to fight in order to achieve it.

Decay is another important theme in the novel, and is not just implied by the physical deterioration of the hotel. Plants grow out of control to unnaturally large sizes and seem to be taking over parts of the building (Brendan describes seeing the bulge of a tree root appearing through one of the floors that is the width of his arm), while the number of semi-feral cats living in the building grows and multiplies at the same rate as their hostility towards their human hosts. The elderly residents also appear to be synonymous with decay; ladies of a certain age, widows or spinsters, all on reduced means, who are aging rapidly with deteriorating health (winter is described as a trial for all at the Majestic, as they face up to the reality that a number of the more frail guests will almost certainly be killed off by chills and colds).

None of the characters in Troubles particularly endear themselves to the reader, least of all the Major, who is paralysed by indecision throughout the novel. He becomes stuck at the Majestic like the other residents, trapped in a vestige of life as it used to be at a time of conspicuous change. Edward Spencer is blind to the faults of his rakish son and indolent twin daughters, and becomes ever more inactive and insane, haunted by the death of his wife. Most of the villagers are untrusting and hostile, while the wheelchair-bound Sarah treats the Major’s attempts to befriend her with gleeful disdain. While the domestic situation at the Majestic deteriorates, nobody seems willing to make any effort to change anything. The impasse between those who want change and those who are unwilling to relinquish what they have reflects the political situation as it was at the time the novel was written, and emphasises the key point that Farrell may well have attempted to make, that those who refuse to accept and embrace change may suffer the same type of inevitable doom that befalls the Majestic Hotel.

J.G. Farrell was to win the Booker again in 1973 for The Siege of Krishnapur, the novel that formed the second part of his Empire trilogy (this was to be concluded by The Singapore Grip in 1978, which did not win the Booker). Troubles was the first of these three books, and, despite not being recognised by the Booker panel at the time due to a technicality, the belated award has given this intriguing postcolonial novel the recognition which it fully deserves.(less)

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Nov 04, 2012 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

Major Brendan Archer, lately returned from the trenches, takes himself off to Ireland to claim the hand of a girl he once met, and believes he may have proposed to, some years previously. He finds himself in a crumbling hotel, peopled by old ladies in extravagant hats who spend their afternoons playing whist, and run by a former officer in the Indian Army. The top floors of The Majestic are teeming with colonies of feral cats. Outside, the IRA wait to pounce. Inside, the crazed major-domo Murphy...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This took a long time to get going- the first third or so lacks much direction, and the direction it has is disappointingly heavy handed: so there's this hotel in Ireland? During the troubles? And it's owned by Anglo-Irish Unionists? And the hotel's falling apart. Um... subtle. Also, flabby.
But once the characters are set and the background's been filled in, it becomes quite enjoyable, and even the symbolism is palatable. The NYRB cover is very misleading, though- like Bowen's 'The Last Septemb...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Courtney H. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookers

Before I hit up Siege of Krishnapur, I figured I'd get to Troubles, winner of the lost Booker and one of two J.G. Farrell wins (the Siege being the other, obviously). Troubles takes place largely in Ireland, in 1919, in a decaying hotel that largely cloistered itself from the chaos of the revolution happening around its walls. Of course, to cloister oneself off from that kind of chaos requires an enormous obliviousness of the Spencer family, who owned the hotel; and that obliviousness was a majo...more Before I hit up Siege of Krishnapur, I figured I'd get to Troubles, winner of the lost Booker and one of two J.G. Farrell wins (the Siege being the other, obviously). Troubles takes place largely in Ireland, in 1919, in a decaying hotel that largely cloistered itself from the chaos of the revolution happening around its walls. Of course, to cloister oneself off from that kind of chaos requires an enormous obliviousness of the Spencer family, who owned the hotel; and that obliviousness was a major reason that the Majestic Hotel fell from its place as a five star hotel for the upper class to a decrepit shadow of its former self, overrun by cats.

Farrell did an amazing job at inserting the mounting storm into the crevices of the story while focusing on the rich details of the crumbling Majestic. The book is a stark indictment of British colonialism -- its ineffectiveness, its follies, its stupid, oblivious, yet thoroughly intentionally racism and violence that begot so much violence -- and yet Farrell succeeds because he does not beat you over the head with this indictment. The power is in the unraveling of the Majestic and in the unraveling of Major Archer, the protagonist of the story. He came over from England because he found himself engaged to Angela Spencer, a girl he met once and whose father owned the Majestic. He began by bemusedly watching the cast of characters -- Angela; her father; her younger sisters; the old women former socialites who refused to give up their rooms at the Majestic; Sarah Devlin, a Catholic girl he became fixated on; and a host of characters from the hotel, the town, and the occupying British army -- and by watching the mismanagement of the already dilapidated hotel. Yet he himself was stalled: unable to leave, unable to avoid returning when he finally did leave; sure he might help improve things but in the end, entirely helpless himself. He was no better than the cast of characters he watched. The hotel and its declined lived in its absurd details -- the cats that swarmed the house; the decay even of Spencer's dogs; that horrible chicken that hung around the one dog's neck; the shrubbery taking over entire rooms of the hotel; the party intended to herald the old days and instead signaled its demise; and then that scene at the beach at the end. Not to give too many spoilers, but you'll know it when you see it. Indeed, even the Majestic's sign, the statute on the lawn -- they all lend depth to this space in time, which sat, soggy and sluggish as the maelstrom enveloped it.

I've heard of books that were both comedic and sad and have found it a difficult balance to hit, but Farrell did it, with this and with Siege. It didn't have individually funny lines, but it set scenes that were both hilarious and deeply sad. It isn't as simple as a book about good intentions gone awry, but rather thoughtless intentions of people who were so sure they were right, and who were too obtuse to see the mess they made, or to even realize when it is time to leave. The fogginess of their own awareness, of the war that England just emerged from in Europe and of the war they were waging in Ireland, colors each scene of the book. And around them the colonial empire decayed as well. At times, the hotel and the characters flex their muscles and then it falls back: other forces will overwhelm it and the hotel and its characters watch agape.

The book is both deeply detailed and entirely surreal. The book is odd and off-kilter: from the engagement that barely was, to the story arc of Sarah Devlin, to the cats, to the old women of stature and poverty. It is the details that make it surreal, that help you float with Archer through this whimsical place that improbably exists -- and which shouldn't exist, given the actual war being waged by people who had every right to be furious at the colonizing invaders who built the hotel and who far outstayed whatever welcome they ever might have had; and who failed utterly at doing anything to deserve a welcome. It is the comedy of those characters, played out as the hotel crumbles and the country devolves further into an encroaching chaos, that sells the surrealness and tragedy of the story.

I'm frustrated at this review because I am not doing justice to Troubles, and I'm sure in my next review I won't do justice to Siege of Krishnapur. I've tried to talk about these books a few times, but the words elude me. Takes a better critic than me, that is for sure. All I can say is that I highly recommend this book, which was so very deserving of that lost Booker Prize. (less)

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Dec 05, 2011 Tyler Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish-literature

Ireland in 1919 is a country beginning to tear itself apart. The IRA has started a campaign of terror which will only accelerate in the coming years. The British army will respond with crushing and indiscriminate reprisals. To this powder-keg of a country comes Major Brendan Archer, survivor of the Great War, to be rejoined with Angela Spencer, to whom he might be engaged with.This unlikely setting is the background for a great comic novel.

The Major arrives at The Majestic, the grand, sprawling,...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Troubles was awarded the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010 for a novel published in 1970. The first
Man Booker Prize was awarded in 1971. The Setting is Ireland 1920-1921, a time of growing unrest between
the IRA/Sinn Fein and British occupiers. Troubles takes place in the
once grand, now dilapidated, Majestic hotel owned by widower Edward Spencer. Besides
Edward, his grown daughter Angela, his twin daughters Faith and Charity
and a nearly grown son, the Majestic's permanent residents include a group...more

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Sep 15, 2010 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars

JG Farrell seems to be an unsung hero of British literature, which is a shame on the basis of both this and The Siege of Krishnapur.

As in Siege..., Troubles evokes a time when the British empire is falling apart despite the best efforts of the colonial English to look the other way and pretend it's not happening; this time it's Ireland where the rot has (quite literally)set in, rather than India.

In Kilnalough, the Empire has a physical representation in the shape of the Majestic, a once great an...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Farrell, J. G. TROUBLES. (1970). *****. This is an incredible novel, the first I’ve read by this author – although his “The Siege of Krishnapur” is on my “to be read” list. This book was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2010, even though it was published in 1970. I don’t know the reasons behind this. His novel “...Krishnapur” did win the Booker Prize in 1973. In this tale, Major Brendan Archer, recently demobbed after serving in France in the Great War, travels to Ireland. The reason for his trip...more Farrell, J. G. TROUBLES. (1970). *****. This is an incredible novel, the first I’ve read by this author – although his “The Siege of Krishnapur” is on my “to be read” list. This book was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2010, even though it was published in 1970. I don’t know the reasons behind this. His novel “...Krishnapur” did win the Booker Prize in 1973. In this tale, Major Brendan Archer, recently demobbed after serving in France in the Great War, travels to Ireland. The reason for his trip is to visit a young woman who he may or may not be engaged to who lives in Kilnalough. The reason for his uncertainty is that he met her at a party on the night before he was sent off to battle, at a party in Brighton. He wasn’t at all sure what had transpired between them, but knew that he received a weekly letter from her while at the front in France, wherein she gave him all the news of what was happening in her small village in Ireland. His (maybe) intended, Angela Spencer, lived with her father in a hotel that he owned outside of the town, the Majestic. Once there, he finds that his fiancee (?) has become strangely altered, and that her family’s fortunes have suffered a spectacular decline. The Hotel Majestic has seen better days. It’s hundreds of rooms have suffered a serious decline and are disintegrating on a massive scale from lack of care. Its few remaining guests are typically older ladies who have managed to come back to stay based on the memories of its former glories. Most of them are of the age where they have nowhere else to go in any case. Angela’s father and owner, Edward Spencer, is more and more obsessed with the growing tensions in Ireland over independence vs. home rule and Catholic vs. Protestant. It is truly a time of troubles in Ireland. The decaying hotel and its occupants are used as a metaphor for the events of the time – although it is not used heavy-handedly. There is a great deal of humor in this novel, as the Major has to adjust to a variety of Irish attitudes about the political issues at hand. Despite my aversion to longish novels – as this one is – I was totally entranced by the plot and the writing. Highly recommended.(less)

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Aug 05, 2010 Denerick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book has gotten a lot of hype recently due to winning the 'lost' man Booker prize. Initially I was reluctant to read it, considering that scumbag Kevin Myers heartily endorsed it. Luckily I overcame this prejudice.

The book is layered. Superficially, Farrell's witticisms and turns of phrase provide a rich supply of comic relief in a decaying, barren old hotel populated by cats, old ladies, and the rotten remnant of the Anglo Irish Ascendancy. It is set in the Anglo-Irish War, though I would...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Kate Vane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Troubles is part of JG Farrell’s Empire Trilogy. It tells the story of a major after the First World War who becomes engaged by mistake to a woman from Ireland. He visits her at the hotel which is run by her family, where he is soon released from his obligation, but somehow he stays.

The hotel is gradually going to ruin but the staff and guests carry on, apparently oblivious, living hypnotically uneventful lives in the decaying remnants of colonial splendour. Meanwhile, outside, the world is chan...more

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Dec 24, 2012 astried rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, man_booker_prize

once again a good example on reading a book at the right timing. I'm glad I simply gave up on my first try and re-read it again after reading skippy dies. It gave me more interest to the Irish history and though I didn't actually understand all the fact still I was not completely blind & appreciate the weight of the trouble on Major's shoulder more.

I'd recommend reading this book to everyone, prior knowledege on Irish history not compulsory. even if you missed most of historical allusion, w...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Arcadius rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: b-anglosphere

As a big fan of the two later books in JG Farrell's Empire trilogy, I began this one with enthusiasm and very high expectations. And for the first 100 pages or so, all went well. There was the same long, slow build-up and growing sense of foreboding, and I thought we were on familiar territory. Unfortunately, at the same time as the shit really starts hitting the fan, the novel goes flat. The only real linkage between the crumbling of British rule in Ireland and the crumbling of the Majestic Hot...more
As a big fan of the two later books in JG Farrell's Empire trilogy, I began this one with enthusiasm and very high expectations. And for the first 100 pages or so, all went well. There was the same long, slow build-up and growing sense of foreboding, and I thought we were on familiar territory. Unfortunately, at the same time as the shit really starts hitting the fan, the novel goes flat. The only real linkage between the crumbling of British rule in Ireland and the crumbling of the Majestic Hotel is metaphorical. External events fail to drive either the narrative or character development, and we are stuck with people whose response to the gathering crisis in Ireland is largely confined to tut-tutting over their newspapers.

If the characters could make their own weather, this wouldn't matter too much, but this lot are too passive to make anything happen by themselves. And I think the essential problem is Major Archer, the key character through whose eyes we view the entire action (such as it is). A parody of wishy-washy, vaguely well-meaning, utterly ineffectual English liberalism, the Major only turns up in Ireland in the first place to find out whether he has got himself engaged to the daughter of the house. He doesn't know. And even if he did get engaged, it was only because he felt he needed some sort of reason to survive the Great War. No other motive seems to have occured to him.

The death of his uncertain fiancee relieves the Major of his quandary, and also of any plausible reason for remaining in Ireland. He is held back by his tepid attraction to a local Catholic girl, whom he unsuccessfully pursues with characteristic lack of conviction. Meanwhile, he frets uselessly about the ever-worsening political situation, wishing vaguely that everybody could be... well, you know, a bit more reasonable. Eventually (and unaccountably), he feels obligated to take over the running of the hotel in its final decline as the mental state of its owner Edward (father of the defunct fiancee) deteriorates. And at least to the little old ladies who are the last inhabitants of the place, he seems a tower of strength.

Presumably the Major is meant to symbolise a British ruling class which has had the moral stuffing knocked out of it by WW1, and which can no longer muster the ruthlessness and drive to hold onto its empire. That's fine, except that Farrell lands himself with a central character who is far too anaemic to carry a novel of this length. It's a pity there wasn't more focus on Edward, who is not only a much stronger and more vibrant character in his own right, but who - as a fully paid-up member of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy - has good reason to be where he is and a strong vested interest in the outcome of the external crisis. The Major is really just a detached outside observer - a glorified tourist with too much time on his hands.

Troubles is not devoid of merit, and I'm not going to dismiss it with 2 stars just because my sky-high expectations were disappointed. Farrell writes superbly, and some of the set pieces at which he excels (the Majestic's last ball, for example) are magnificent. Some of the subordinate characters (the twins, the love-interest Sarah, one or two of the old biddies) are entertaining and well drawn, and I wish we could have had more of them. Having slowed to a crawl in the overlong central section, the pace does pick up in the final 100 pages, and in the end I felt that there were enough good things in the novel for it to pass muster. Even so, imho 'Troubles' is not a patch on either 'The Siege of Krishnapur' or 'The Singapore Grip', and I suspect Farrell was still feeling his way towards a formula he was later to bring off with much greater aplomb. How sad that he died so soon after hitting his stride.
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Aug 17, 2012 Wanda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, ebooks, fiction-and-literature, favorites

6 AUG - read with Themis Athena.

Love this one!

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Aug 21, 2012 Alan Newman rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful book that looks at the Troubles in Ireland from 1919-1922, but instead of telling it from the viewpoint of Irish freedom fighters, it tells the story through members of the AngloIrish, British loyalists staying at a once grand hotel in the town of Kinalough. These aging colonialists, who consider themselves Irish, are clueless about the starvation, economic and military opression of the Catholic Irish that surrounded them. Instead they live their cloistered, pompous, hilariou...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Lawrence Windrush rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites, james-farrell

This is my first review and what better way to start than James Farrells Troubles.
I was lucky to come across a 1970 first edition of this in a charity shop for a few pounds, it's worth more than £400 now.

It's one of the most original novels I have ever read. It's very elusive and subtle, at first it's a humorous social political historical novel but then it morphs into something completely darker and surreal. It charts Major Brendon Archer's supposed engagement to Angela Spencer, the daughter o...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Casey (Myshkin) Buell rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book in Farrell's Empire Trilogy (though the books don't have to be read in order, since the only connection between them is thematic), which explores the decline of the British Empire. Troubles is set in 1919 Ireland, the year of the Irish War of Independence, and attempts to explore the volatile issues which drove the times, though hardly touching directly on the war itself (no live I.R.A or Sinn Fein member ever appears 'on screen'). Through humor and metaphor Farrell tackle...more This is the first book in Farrell's Empire Trilogy (though the books don't have to be read in order, since the only connection between them is thematic), which explores the decline of the British Empire. Troubles is set in 1919 Ireland, the year of the Irish War of Independence, and attempts to explore the volatile issues which drove the times, though hardly touching directly on the war itself (no live I.R.A or Sinn Fein member ever appears 'on screen'). Through humor and metaphor Farrell tackles the larger picture, while through the direct narrative he deals with the individual lives affected. And it is these characters who give this novel its life. You have Major Archer, fresh from the trenches of France, who's come to the Majestic Hotel in Ireland to see if he's still engaged to a woman he can hardly remember. The Major is struggling to come to terms with a post WWI world, and is caught between his upbringing in the clearly defined moral and social codes of a pre-war British Empire, and the new reality of a changing world. This is most apparent in the Major's vacillation between a pro-Unionist stance, where he feels his loyalties should lie, and his sympathies toward the Irish people, who he clearly sees are oppressed. Then you have Edward Spencer, owner of the Majestic, a staunch Unionist who no longer even sees the Irish people as humans. Edward feels strongly that the Irish stabbed the English in the back by rebelling in 1916 while, as he puts it, Englishmen where dying in the trenches of France to "protect Ireland from the Kaiser". It doesn't matter to him that, as one character points out, tens of thousands of Irish Catholics were also dying in those trenches. Nor does it ever don on him to question, as another character points out, why the Irish should care which foreign invader ruled them. Then there's Sarah Devlin, a young Irish woman, who seems caught between her Republican ideals and her desire to be a part of the Anglo-Irish "quality". The guilt of her enchantment with the culture of the "enemy" leads her to continually sabotage her own life, and unfortunately hurt others in the bargain. Alongside these three we have a gaggle of old ladies, permanent guests at the Majestic; Murphy, the Irish manservant who is slowly becoming dangerously unhinged; and a herd of half-wild cats, who've taken over the upper stories of the hotel. Presiding over all is the once grand Majestic Hotel, now rapidly and spectacularly declining.

A note on the NYRB edition: This edition contains an introduction by John Banville. The introduction contains some spoilers, so you might want to hold off reading it until after you've finished the novel.(less)

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Nov 29, 2010 Frank rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish-authors, booker-winners

What a wonderful book, a wonderful and unique perspective on the oft-written-about Irish War of Independence from Britain (1919-21). The plot follows a survivor of the trenches of the Western Front, one Major Brendan Archer, who following his heart (or at least his sense of duty to a young woman whom he met on a furlough early in the War), goes to her family's hotel on the coast of Co. Wexford. "The Majestic" is a bastion of the Protestant Ascendancy, the ruling class in Ireland for all the many...more What a wonderful book, a wonderful and unique perspective on the oft-written-about Irish War of Independence from Britain (1919-21). The plot follows a survivor of the trenches of the Western Front, one Major Brendan Archer, who following his heart (or at least his sense of duty to a young woman whom he met on a furlough early in the War), goes to her family's hotel on the coast of Co. Wexford. "The Majestic" is a bastion of the Protestant Ascendancy, the ruling class in Ireland for all the many centuries (at least since Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1538). But even before the eponymous "Troubles" (as the Anglo-Irish and subsequent Civil wars are known colloquially in Ireland), the Majestic had grown a little shabby, a bit down on its heal—the parallel between the hotel and the class who occupy it is not lost. The supposed object of the Major's affection, Miss Angela Spenser, does not last long, alas; Farrell relieves the Major of the duty of informing her that their youthful promise cannot be kept by having her die of leukemia.

Remarkably, the Major "stays on" (cf. Paul Scott's Booker-Prize winning coda to his Raj Quartet Staying On about a British couple who remain in India after Independence in 1947). He's fascinated by the remains of Angela's family: her ne'er-do-well brother Ripon, her twin sisters Faith and Charity, but mostly her father, the widowed owner and manager of the Majestic, Edward Spenser. (Another footnote: the English poet Edmund Spenser wrote "The Faerie Queene" in nearby Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.) At turns harsh and domineering though with a fanatical affection for his dogs and all the trappings of his class, Edward becomes unhinged at the thought of "losing Ireland" to the Papist rabble, personified by the "Shinners"—the majority Sinn Féin revolutionaries.

And then there is Sarah Devlin: an educated and cultured daughter of the town's bank manager, with a fiery personality, acid tongue and biting wit. Both the Major and Edward hold a candle for the young woman, and both are duly rejected. Not the least of which for the fact that she is Catholic, and it just doesn't work like that.

An historical note: The Anglo-Irish War was not a conventional fight. Against the overwhelming manpower and firepower of the British Army (even on the foot of WWI), the Irish Republican Army conducted a guerrilla war, mostly under the command of Michael Collins; the British reacted by draughting former soldiers as Auxiliary police—the notorious and hated "Black and Tans" (a name based on their unusual combination of military surplus and police uniforms). The Black and Tans terrorised the populace, firebombing villages and towns, killing livestock and destroying crops, etc., in reprisal for the IRA insurgency. No attempt at winning hearts and minds there.

As time goes on, the Major realises that the residents as well as owners of the Majestic are in an untenable position. As Edward becomes increasingly fixated on the military and political situation, he turns over more and more of the responsibility of running the Majestic to the Major (who is one of the few paying guests). And then there's the fact that the building is literally falling apart around their ears.

If all this seems rather grim, it is tempered by Farrell's send-up of all involved: the Protestants' stultifying mores, the cool and clueless reserve of the one "true Brit" (the Major), the barely concealed contempt of the local indigenous populace (from whose ranks the servants at the hotel all come).

This book, originally published in 1970, was awarded a Booker Prize this year. From Wikipedia:

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe...[Beginning in 1968] the rules of the Booker changed in 1971; previously, it had been awarded retrospectively to books published prior to the year in which the award was given. In 1971 the year of eligibility was changed to the same as the year of the award; in effect, this meant that books published in 1970 were not considered for the Booker in either year. The Booker Prize Foundation announced in January 2010 the creation of a special award called the "Lost Man Booker Prize," with the winner chosen from a longlist of 22 novels published in 1970.

All-in-all, highly recommended.(less)

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Mar 27, 2013 Victor Carson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I recently read another of J.G. Farrell's novels, The Siege of Krishnapur. I agree with John Banville, who wrote the introduction to this new edition of The Troubles:

"Although The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker Prize in 1973, Troubles is surely his masterpiece, and the book of his that is certain to endure."

On the other hand, I have some of the same thoughts about The Troubles that I had about The Siege of Krishnapur. The pace is too slow, the characters are only two-dimensional at best, an...more I recently read another of J.G. Farrell's novels, The Siege of Krishnapur. I agree with John Banville, who wrote the introduction to this new edition of The Troubles:

"Although The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker Prize in 1973, Troubles is surely his masterpiece, and the book of his that is certain to endure."

On the other hand, I have some of the same thoughts about The Troubles that I had about The Siege of Krishnapur. The pace is too slow, the characters are only two-dimensional at best, and the meaning of the action is left to the imagination. Because the author was Irish and set The Troubles in Ireland of the early 1920's, I expected more personal passion for the story. The uprisings in India about 1875 might seem remote to an author writing in the 1970's but the revolution in Ireland was only fifty years earlier. Moreover, the rebellion was flaring again as the author was writing.

The setting for The Troubles is a badly deteriorating grand hotel within easy travelling distance of Dublin, along a beautiful stretch of shoreline. As the troubles and open rebellion flares, following the end of World War I, a Major who fought in the war visits a girl to whom he was "engaged". He stays at the hotel, now occupied by a handful of very old single women, a few servants, and his fiancee's father and family. Relations with the nearby town deteriorate during the novel, almost as rapidly as the violence spreads within the rest of Ireland. That anyone stays here, exposed to high danger is amazing to the point of foolishness. The British cause is clearly lost.

The book is interesting for some of the images the author draws that can clearly be applied to the rebellion. I offer a few examples:

"For this was the Major’s first night in Ireland and, like a man struggling to retain his consciousness as he inhales the first fumes of chloroform, he had not yet allowed himself to surrender to the country’s vast and narcotic inertia."

"In Chicago the violence was naked, a direct expression of feeling, not of some remote and dubious patriotic heritage. White men dragged Negroes off streetcars; Negroes fired rifles from housetops."

"Rover had always enjoyed trotting from one room to another, prowling the corridors on this floor or that. But now, whenever he ventured up the stairs to nose around the upper storeys, as likely as not he would be set upon by an implacable horde of cats and chased up and down the corridors to the brink of exhaustion."

The power of the book, in my opinion, rests on the end of the novel, when the rebels finally move against the hotel and the one man who is still there, the Major. The burning of the hotel, not set by the rebels themselves, also seems like an image for the rebellion itself.

"It was from these black windows that flaming, shrieking creatures suddenly began to leap—hundreds of them, seething out of the windows on to the gutters and leaping out into the darkness. Those not already ablaze exploded in mid-air or ignited like flares as they hurtled through the great heat towards the earth."

After that holocaust, the Major's return to England and his recovery from his infatuation with his Irish girlfriend is quite an anti-climax:

"But he was still troubled by thoughts of Sarah. His love for her perched inside him, motionless, like a sick bird. For many weeks he continued to think about her painfully. And then one day, without warning, the bird left its perch inside him and flew away into the outer darkness and he was at peace."(less)

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Jun 04, 2012 Victoria Young rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-prize, historical-fiction, post-colonial

JG Farrell's Troubles is definitely one of the most unsual books I've read. In short, it follows the misadventures of ex-WWI-serviceman Major Archer who is inadvertently drawn into the eccentric lives of the inhabitants of the formerly grand, but now decrepit, Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough, Ireland in 1920.

At first blush this novel comes across as an imaginative, nutty portrayal of the British ruling gentry in Ireland as they slide into irrelevance and decay, intransigently refusing to acknowled...more JG Farrell's Troubles is definitely one of the most unsual books I've read. In short, it follows the misadventures of ex-WWI-serviceman Major Archer who is inadvertently drawn into the eccentric lives of the inhabitants of the formerly grand, but now decrepit, Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough, Ireland in 1920.

At first blush this novel comes across as an imaginative, nutty portrayal of the British ruling gentry in Ireland as they slide into irrelevance and decay, intransigently refusing to acknowledge the civil uprising taking place before their very eyes. In a Mervyn Peake-ish kind of way they are all quite mad. However beneath the amusing battiness of the old women who won't leave the hotel, the hoard of felines who have colonised the upper storeys, pianos falling through crumbling ceilings etc, there is a gradual development of uneasy goings-on. Farrell uses two mechanisms to engender a sense of impending violence. Firstly, liberal use of stylised newspaper clippings of the escalating violence between the Black and Tans and the Sinn Fein are the only veiw the narrator offers of the Ireland that exists beyond the perimeters of the Majestic; secondly, a series of minor but increasingly threatening or macabre interactions within the hotel reflect the unseen violence without. This violence, which for most of the novel seems more latent than real, culminates abruptly as the British government contemplates an exit strategy from Ireland and the hotel's inhabitants finally prepare to disband.

There are a couple of detractions though, in my view. I thought the length was a bit excessive and there seemed to be a few plot lines that were left hanging or awkwardly terminated. The plot is steeped in political symbolism however, so maybe I've not fully grasped the inticacies of Farrell's metaphor? Another thing that made the reading process drag a bit was my inability to emotionally 'latch on' to the protagonist. I suspect Farrell was so busy layering metaphors and maintaining that quaintly absurd narrative tone that any development of pathos for his protagonist was left by the wayside. The only people that might seem worthy of our sympathy (the starving children in the hedgerows, the tenant farmers who have to steal back their crops, the reclusive fiancee Angela) only ever appear on the periphery of the story.(less)

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Jan 02, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

I’m finding it quite challenging to explain why it is that I liked Troubles as much as I did. Honestly, I don’t know why. I can’t seem to find rational arguments to make sense of it.

The fact that the introduction to the edition I read was written by John Banville, one of my favorite novelists, certainly predisposed me!

Reading Troubles reminded me of my first experience as an actor encountering the dramatic works of Samuel Beckett. In college, my acting class spent a semester working on Beckett....more

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Mar 02, 2013 Ruth rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would give this book another half star for the writing. My problem was that the entire book seemed like one long metaphor for the 2 main characters' pain at the decompostition of the Ireland that they knew. The character whose point of view you read is, like all the other characterscompletely inexplicable as to his motives for anything at all. It seemed Farrell was trying to be objective, but I thought he went too far. I felt there was no driving force, just endless disintegration: of physical...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Major Archer wasn't particularly pro or anti anything after the war. He was a bit lost - no real family, no real home - and had fond memories of Angela, the woman he met briefly but who wrote to him during the war and claimed him as her fiance. So he visited her in the once-lovely hotel Majestic owned by her family, and stayed on to read the daily news of killings and bombings throughout Ireland, to try and keep the hotel from disintegrating further as the family, and the empire, disintegrated....more

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