Hail and Farewell!

Hail and Farewell #1,2,3

by George Moore

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. There, he befriended many of the leading French artists and writers of the day.

As a naturalistic writer, he was amongst the first English-language authors to absorb the lessons of the French realists, and was particularly influenced by the works of Émile Zola. His writings influenced James Joyce, according to the literary critic and biographer Richard Ellmann, and, although Moore's work is sometimes seen as outside the mainstream of both Irish and British literature, he is as often regarded as the first great modern Irish novelist.

Reviews

[A. Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may well be Moore's masterpiece, but I suspect that those who love it do not all love it for the same reasons. It is a book in three parts--Ave, Salve, and Vale--and the Latin headings are indeed a clue to Moore's class attitude. The Ave is most personally compelling because Moore strips bare his insecurity and doubt, his "inveterate belief in [his] own inferiority." It is a remarkable relief to read such sustained honest insecurity. My copy has many underlinings, such as "We are moulded, but the influences that mould us are indirect, and are known to nobody but ourselves." The second movement is filled with portraits of the Celtic Revivalists, and Moore's great familiarity with these figures allows him to make them a little more real, a little more dimensional, than they often are, to say nothing of more human. His great affection for Edward and AE is wonderful to read and makes one wish to have known them,too. Gregory and Yeats are interesting and enjoyable vignettes, as are some others. But, Edward and AE are the backbone. Alas, for me, the closing section is dominated not only by Moore's abandonment of his calling to Ireland, which really was such a lovely Romantic thing, but by his unbelievably arrogant and consuming loathing for Catholicism. He goes on and on and on about it, in every way possible, including the fracture of his relationship with his brother. As the first volume of the memoir made me love him, and the second volume made me love his friends, the final volume made me tired of him.