Walk the Blue Fields

by Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan’s brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, and earned her resounding accolades on both sides of the Atlantic. Now she has delivered her next, much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland. In the never-before-published story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll’s old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives only emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and, during the ceremony and the festivities that follow, battles his memories of a love affair with the bride that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life; later that night, he finds an unlikely answer in the magical healing powers of a seer.A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland’s greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Claire Keegan was raised on a farm in Wicklow. She completed her undergraduate studies at Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana and subsequently earned an MA at The University of Wales and an M.Phil at Trinity College, Dublin.

Her first collection of stories, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. Her second, Walk the Blue Fields, was Richard Ford’s book of the year. Her works have won several awards including The Hugh Leonard Bursary, The Macaulay Fellowship, The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, The Martin Healy Prize, The Olive Cook Award, The Kilkenny Prize, The Tom Gallon Award and The William Trevor Prize, judged by William Trevor. Twice was Keegan the recipient of the Francis MacManus Award. She was also a Wingate Scholar. She lives in Wexford.

Reviews

[Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There’s pleasure to be had in history. What’s recent is another matter and painful to recall.” ( from the story “Walk the Blue Fields”)

Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan is a collection of seven stories revolving around the themes of loss, regret, missed opportunities, and loneliness. From forbidden love, unhappy marriages and child abuse to gender identity, infidelity and misogyny- these stories explore some of the most complex aspects of human relationships and behavior. The tone of most of these stories borders on melancholic. Few authors can depict raw human emotion with such eloquence as Claire Keegan. Keegan’s characters are real and relatable – in their flaws, in their virtues and their simplicity. At this point after reading so many of this author’s works, I associate Claire Keegan with her clear, elegant and dream-like quality of writing, vivid imagery and deeply evocative stories. I am happy to say that with this collection, the author does not disappoint.

The first story, "The Parting Gift" is about a young girl preparing to leave her home and family in Ireland. As she prepares to leave for America, her memories take her back to a lifetime of abuse and neglect and we know that she will never willingly return to this life. The title story “Walk the Blue Fields” revolves around a priest, unable and unwilling to break his vows for the woman he loves, who ends up officiating her marriage. “Dark Horses” sees a man lamenting the loss of a good woman whom he has driven away with his thoughtless, misogynistic behavior. In “The Forester's Daughter” a man brings home a dog he finds in the forest which his daughter mistakenly assumes is a birthday gift for her. I had previously read The Foresters Daughter ( which was published as a solo edition by Faber and Faber. You can read my review here .) Another story, “Close to the Water's Edge”, with some variation, appears in Keegan’s “Antarctica”, another of her short story collections. Here we meet a young gay man who celebrates his birthday with his mother and homophobic stepfather – a celebration he exits when the indirect slurs become too much to bear. “Surrender(After McGahern)” is the story of a police sergeant who is unwilling to commit to the woman with whom he has been in a relationship. When she sends him a letter stating her intention to end their relationship, he devours a crate of oranges ( an act of solace or self-indulgence?) before he decides to “surrender”. The final story in the collection, "Night of the Quicken Trees" incorporates folklore, Irish superstitions and magical realism in a tale about an unlikely relationship between a superstitious woman and her neighbor, a loner who lives with his goat.

“Putting the past into words seemed idle when the past had already happened. The past was treacherous, moving slowly along. It would catch up in its own time. And in any case, what could be done? Remorse altered nothing and grief just brought it back.” ( from the story "Night of the Quicken Trees")

I will not rate these stories separately because I found each one to be special in its own way, which is rare in a short story collection. At the end of the book, Keegan includes a brief segment on the folklore, specific terminology and geography featured in some of the stories. I would recommend reading that part before reading the stories.

I absolutely loved this collection of short stories. A must-read for fans of this immensely talented writer.

[Fionnuala]

On the edge of the road, a small, plump hen walked purposefully along, her head extended and her feet clambering over the stones. She was such a pretty hen, her plumage edged in white, as though she’d powdered herself before she’d stepped out of the house. She hopped down onto the grassy verge and, without looking left or right, raced across the road, then stopped, re-adjusted her wings, and made a clear line for the cliff. The woman watched how the hen kept her head down when she reached the edge and how, without a moment’s hesitation, she jumped over it. The woman stopped the car and walked to the spot from which the hen had flung herself. A part of her did not want to look over the cliff...

That cliff is on the seaward side of a winding road high over the Atlantic ocean on the western edge of the island of Achill, itself perched on the western edge of the island of Ireland.

I know that road, that cliff, that island, from childhood holidays, so it was with a little racing of the heart, a little skip, a little hop over the edge into a well of forgotten memories that I read the first story in this collection. Keegan is so good at conjuring place that I was there on the edge of the cliff, peering over the rim of the world alongside the woman watcher, feeling the wind whip my eyes and the salt burn my lips while the waves filled my ears with their tremendous sound. Achill really is such a wild outcrop. Anything can happen there, and ideas for great short stories are no exception.

Because a great short story IS like the roar of wind and waves in our ears, the sting of salt on our eyes and lips. It tumbles us into an unknown world, propelling us towards the edge of new possibilities, towards new ways of seeing.

This collection offers a variety of new ways of looking at old subjects, and while the stories aren't all set on the island of Achill, they still carry the whip of the wind in your face. Tears will come to your eyes as you read, but you will feel grateful to be alive, thankful that you are not that lover, that mother, that wife, that child. You will also be more appreciative of the mundane stability of your own life. And Keegan achieves all of this in language as spare as a rocky outcrop. One of her stories is a tribute to the Irish writer John McGahern and I can see his influence in the honed quality of her writing.
She has learned his lessons well.

[Helga چـو ایـران نباشد تن من مـباد · Rating 4 out of 5]

Minimalist yet poignant, provoking yet calming, the seven short stories in this collection revolve around the themes of loss, sorrow, loneliness, new beginnings, change and hope.

The stories are about ordinary people living their simple lives in the Irish countryside, trying their best to cope with life’s complications and unexpected difficulties.

My favorites were Walk the Blue Fields, The Forester's Daughter and Close to the Water's Edge.
With her 'show, don't tell' style, Keegan is fast becoming one of my favorite authors!

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF
I might come back to this collection again. I really enjoyed the first two stories and thought they were very good I would give 4 stars to both.
It's unusual for me to spend days listening to the next 3 short stories (there are more) and have no clue what they were about. "Walk the Blue Fields" is the third story, 44 mins long and I must have heard it 4 times. Just not sinking in.

[emma]

don't mind me, just adding everything claire keegan has ever written to my tbr

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

The land and the past assume different shapes and dimensions to become the uniting themes of the eight tales that compose this slim yet gripping collection. Claire Keegan writes with stark prose drenched with Irish mysticism and presents a wide array of rural characters who bloom with earthiness and who, at the same time, wither with thick longing for some essential need they find lacking in their lives.

Haunted by the past, they are shackled to an inescapable present that won’t allow them the possibility of a future.
The land, which is a source of wealth and spirituality, also epitomizes duty, heritage and binding roots that imprison the main characters in the jail of their own resignation. And so they live with a conflicted sense of belonging that is naturally paired with alienation, which doggedly morphs them into natural exiles in their native country.
Men and women in the stories seem incapable of overcoming the gaping void of miscommunication derived from a stifling home-life tradition and appear either as eccentric and damaged or domineering and abusive.
Claire Keegan blends quirky humor with mystery and darkness in a voice that is quintessentially Irish, deep and untroubled at once, and weaves a meticulous gossamer of spare lives trapped by the common themes of land and past, which take chameleonic shapes in every story.

In the The Parting Gift, a young woman flees from a terrible past embodied in the farmland that her father has cultivated with mute vileness.
A priest has to Walk the Blue Fields in order to forget the love and the biggest sin of his life and rediscover God in the velvety slopes of the moors.
Revenge and flowers allow The Forester’s Daughter to liberate herself from a seedless marriage.
The possibility of love sails away in a fishermen’s boat, leaving a bereft bachelor with his pet goat as his only companion in the Night of the Quicken Trees.

Visceral, simple and clear, Keegan’s prose refuses indulgence and sinks in deep, drenching bones and visions with calm instants of gazing across the fields, beyond the sharp cliffs and onto the unruly waters that dance with the same blue that tints the baluster of anciently painted skies.

“Where is God? he has asked, and tonight God is answering back. All around the air is sharp with the tang of wild currant bushes. A lamb climbs out of a deep sleep and walks across the blue fields. Overhead, the stars have rolled into place. God is nature.”

[Laysee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walk the Blue Fields struck me as lovely title for a book. It is a collection of seven well-crafted short stories by a young, award-winning Irish writer, Claire Keegan. The setting of (almost all) the stories is rural Ireland and most of them hark back to a more conservative era. The issues confronting the protagonists are, however, timeless matters of the heart.

Keenly observed and surfaced are the depths of yearning known to everyone who cherishes hope for the future and the insidious grip the past continues to exert over the present. Despite this, evident too is the inward bent to flee, pull oneself up by the bootstraps, get up when one has stumbled, and keep moving forward even when there is no certainty of better days.

Below is a short synopsis of each story sans spoilers.

The Parting Gift
An unnamed young woman who lives on a farm has her bags packed. She is spending the last morning with her family before she emigrates to New York. The leave-taking is sensitively written and we learn why she is seeking a new beginning.

Walk The Blue Fields
A priest is reluctantly presiding over a wedding ceremony. The groom glows like the sun; the bride quivers like an autumn leaf. There is a backstory that links all three characters and reveals why the past shapes the present and the days yet unseen.

Dark Horses
A man goes into a bar to drink away his sadness as his lover has left him. He dreams about her returning. Meanwhile, there is solace in beer talk.

The Forrester’s Daughter
A forrester courts a woman who grudgingly marries him. This is a story of how a half-hearted marriage becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of heartache and grief. The penny pinching forrester brings a dog home as a gift for the daughter's birthday. That it is not really a gift has dire consequences. Secrets too are revealed.

Close to the Water’s Edge
A young man from Harvard spends his 21st birthday with his mother and millionaire stepfather at a posh penthouse by the sea. What matters is not the quality of the food but the company at table. He looks longingly at the sea which brings to mind his grandmother’s love for the sea and what it taught her.

Surrender (after McGahern)
A mean spirited IRA sergeant behaves in a superior manner to his subordinate and the people in town. It is war time and bread is scarce. He visits a baker to buy a loaf of white bread (bread the baker’s son eyes longingly) and a crate of oranges that is to serve as comfort food. We find out why. Later in a section on story notes, the author reveals why oranges featured in this story.

Night of the Quicken Trees
A woman moves into a house on a Hill by the Coast that once belonged to a priest who has died. She intends to keep people at arm’s length because company is a nuisance. Next door is an old bachelor who is lonely, too. Are new beginnings possible for the woman who has not stopped regretting having spent one night among the quicken trees?

The plot in these stories unfolds in the interactions between the characters: words, silence, gestures. Keegan writes a clear prose and adopts narrative styles that convey the intended moods. The Parting Gift is told from a second person perspective. The narration is deliberately muted to distance the young woman from her toxic childhood. Symbolism is subtly employed to good effect, too. In Close to the Water’s Edge, a story in which the young man seeks meaning and authenticity, the sea is a symbol of freedom from the tyranny of life both for him and his grandmother. At the restaurant are a chained parrot and a bound lobster.

Below is a sample of Keegan’s prose:

‘... the trees are tall and here the wind is strangely human. A tender speech is combing through the willows. In a bare whisper, the elms lean.’

‘The silence is like every silence; each man is glad of it and glad, too, that it won’t last.’

‘To be an adult was, for the greatest part, to be in darkness.’

‘Dunagore was a strange place without so much as a tree, nor a withered leaf to be seen in autumn, just the shivering bogland and all the gulls wheeling around, screeching under restless clouds. The landscape looked metal, all sturdy and everlasting to Margaret, coming from a place of oak and ash, it was without substance.’

‘She tried not to dwell on anything. Putting the past into words seemed idle when the past had already happened. The past was treacherous, moving slowly along. It would catch up in its own time. And in any case, what could be done? Remorse altered nothing and grief just brought it back.’

‘Sometimes everybody was right. For most of the time people crazy or sober were stumbling in the dark, reaching with outstretched hands for something they didn’t even know they wanted.’

Read Walk the Blue Fields. This is my first work by Claire Keegan. I believe I have just discovered another Irish writer who will become a much loved author.

[Sandysbookaday (taking a step back for a while) · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCERPT: Taken from 'Night of the Quicken Trees'
Not every man can sharpen a scythe or cut turf. Stack, the forty-nine-year-old bachelor who lived next door, had a bald head and seeds of grey in his eyes. He'd lived and worked the land with his father all his life until his father died. He was thirty-eight when his father passed away and now he was left with all the bogs and an income from the turf. He did not live alone but with Josephine, the sleek brown goat who had the run of the house. By day she stared into the fire and at night she took up more than half the bed. Stack milked her every day, rubbed Palmolive on her teats and always remembered to bring her fig rolls from the town. He had courted a small farmer's daughter outside Lehinch for twelve years, bought her six hundred and twenty-four Sunday dinners but she wouldn't even let him touch the hem of her skirt or push the hair back out of her eyes so he could see her properly. Once she got a bit drunk and he placed his hand on her bare knee as they sat in the car outside her back door, but that was all. In the end, she went off and married a man who sold stone and Stack found Josephine through an advertisement in the Farmer's Journal.

ABOUT 'WALK THE BLUE FIELDS': A long-haired woman moves into the priest's house and sets fire to his furniture. That Christmas, the electricity goes out. A forester mortgages his land and goes off to a seaside town looking for a wife. He finds a woman eating alone in the hotel. A farmer wakes half-naked and realises the money is almost gone. And in the title story, a priest waits on the altar for a bride and battles, all that wedding day, with his memories of a love affair. In her long-awaited second collection, Claire Keegan observes an Ireland wrestling with its past.

MY THOUGHTS: Claire Keegan's writing is, as always, beautiful, atmospheric, and evocative. Whenever I am reading her work, I am absorbed into it so that it becomes more real than where I am reading.

This is a collection of seven stories of varying lengths, all of them sublime. They revolve around common themes - love (forbidden, presumed and otherwise), loss, infidelity, child abuse, loneliness and disappointment. That sounds depressing - they're anything but. Each story is touching and heartfelt in its own way. I cannot even pick a favorite from amongst them - they all touched me differently, but touch me they all did.

If you've not read Claire Keegan previously, then you're in for a treat. If you have already read her, you know what to expect.

A gem of a book.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#WalktheBlueFields @waitomodistrictlibrary #readingirelandmonth25 #beggorathon25

MEET THE AUTHOR: Claire Keegan was born in County Wicklow, the youngest of a large family. She travelled to New Orleans, Louisiana when she was seventeen, and studied English and Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992 and lived for a year in Cardiff, Wales, where she undertook an MA in creative writing and taught undergraduates at the University of Wales.

https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an quintessentially Irish book, peopled with women (young and old) who are angry with the men who are in --or not in -- their lives; sullen men who don't know what has happened to what they were hoping for; and children who see all that is happening in their homes and escape however they can. The settings are rural, the tales are somewhat contemporary but also occasionally almost folk tale in style.

Keegan has been compared to Trevor and Chekhov in her skills and style. I'm not expert enough to make that comparison but will say that these stories are very successful. My favorite is the titled story. "Walk the Blue Fields", the story of a priest's meandering walk after officiating at a local wedding, the painful search he is on, the unexpected conclusion. Wonderfully written.

6/16 upped the rating from 4.5 to 5. After thinking about these stories during the past few days, I realize that they have lingered in a very good way.

......................................

August, 2013

My feelings for this collection are really unchanged except perhaps that discussing each story with others has helped me to define better why I like each one. Keegan writes of Ireland, the people, the land, the elements, fables and reality. I'm sure I will be reading this many more times.

5 rating confirmed.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

…Powerful and uncomfortable
…Real- but devastating unreal!
…Hope and despair!

Once again — Claire Keegan’s outstanding immersive writing is layered deeply with disturbing complexity.

These seven stories underline viscera relationships between parent and child — broken families- friendships - work - an unwelcome intruder- drunkenness - a crib-death…..the past - the present- the future — nature and the hard-knock conditions of life….both intensely personal and universal.

In the title story, a priest is leading a wedding. The beautiful bride (red hair, green eyes, pearl string necklace), is breathtaking….
She looks calm, but the Priest notice her hands shaking under the bouquet of flowers she was holding.
A secret love between the bride and priest is unsettling.

Even more unsettling was “The Parting Gift”….involving incest and the uncomfortable acceptance in the way the story is told.

Th descriptions and characterizations in these stories all have elements of tragedy …. sadness that can turn skin blue.
That said — there is something about Claire Keegan ….that once a reader discovers her — you’ll (me) want to read everything she writes no matter how disturbing we feel.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 5 out of 5]

çok çok çok beğendim. dünyada bilmediğimiz ne çok yazar, okumadığımız ne çok kitap var. yüz yayınları türkiye'de daha önce yayımlanmamış öykü yazarlarını yayımlıyor ve ne iyi yapıyor!
irlanda'nın yabani doğası, farklı mitolojisi, batıl inançları, gündelik yaşamı bu kadar mı iyi bir biçimde modern edebiyata dahil olur...
özellikle kitaba adını veren öykü ve son öykü üvez ağaçlarının gecesi hiç aklımdan çıkmayacak. özellikle son öykü kadınları anlatan okuduğum en iyi öykülerden. kadınların gücünden korkun beyler ;)
kapağı ve çevirisi, yerinde kullanılan dipnotlarıyla benim için, yayıncılık nasıl yapılmalı'nın cevabı diyebilirim.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keegan's stories are remarkably easy to read and because of this some readers will mistakenly believe they are just as easy to write. My favourite in this collection has to be the stand out 'The Long and Painful Death' which I was put off reading for at least a week because of its awful title - someone close to me died recently and I was not keen to read anything on the subject. I think this story really demonstrates Keegan's talent and her particular oeuvre - a woman alone, arriving at a cottage on far-away Achill Island, Co. Mayo. She wants to focus on her writing, but takes her time to settle in and appreciate the surroundings. The cottage we learn, belonged to Heinrich Böll and has been set-up, as a writers' retreat.
Our narrator receives a phone call early the next morning, a visitor wishing to present himself - he's actually outside the cottage. Our un-named narrator puts him off until 8 p.m., and what follows are the small preparations and the ways in which she occupies the free time of her first day. But it is beautifully done. I think Keegan with-holds the woman's name, because it then becomes so easy for the reader to slip herself into the story. A small extract:

At seven o'clock, she felt a strong urge to write but told herself it was not something she could do, because of the German. She would be starting, just getting warmed up when he would come and then her work would be disrupted and she would have to stop. She did not like stopping, once she started.
Instead, she looked at herself in the mirror, and pinned her hair up loosely, and dressed. In the open room she banked the fire with turf and whipped the cream. Then she went outside with a bowl and walked around the house and picked blackberries off the briars. When the bowl was full, she looked over the hills. The whitest clouds she had ever seen hugged tightly the brow of each, as though the hills had been on fire and the fires were now doused and smoking. She washed the berries, mashed them with sugar, and filled the cake. It looked to her a fine cake, laid there on the kitchen table. She put out white cups and saucers, small plates and spoons, two forks.

Such simple sentences. But, everything is carefully constructed and builds to the exact mood of the piece. It's a very brilliant short story - as good as one by Chekov.

There are another four outstanding stories in this collection - all just as good as the one above. So, out of total of seven - THAT is something of an achievement in a short-story collection. I don't think I've ever come across such a high satisfaction level in any other single author collection.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moments
Walk the Blue Fields is a beautiful collection of stories that showcases Claire Keegan’s talent for capturing small moments with considerable emotional weight. Each story feels like stepping into a perfectly observed slice of rural Irish life, full of subtle tensions, unspoken feelings, and characters who linger in your mind long after the pages close. Keegan’s ability to say so much with so little is honestly impressive.

The writing is gentle but razor-sharp, and there’s a kind of quiet power running through every story. Keegan has a gift for creating atmosphere, rain-soaked fields, dim kitchens, lonely roads, and using those settings to reflect her characters’ inner lives. Some stories hit harder than others, but even the softer ones feel carefully crafted and worth sitting with.

If there’s a reason this isn’t a full five stars, it’s that not all the stories resonate equally, and some leave less of an impact than others. But overall, Walk the Blue Fields is a beautiful, thoughtful collection that rewards patience and attention. My favourites are Walk the Blue Fields, The Forrester’s Daughter and Night of the Quicken Trees. It’s the kind of book you savour slowly, and when you’re done, you realise just how deeply it’s worked its way under your skin. I recommend reading this book, and it would probably be read in one sitting.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire Keegan is an amazing and beautiful writer, her novellas, Foster and Small Things Like These, are some of the best works I've read this year. She made me fall in love with the Irish countryside and her writing. So naturally I thought I would enjoy her work of short stories that make up, Walk the Blue Feilds. But like with all short stories, I always find myself feeling let down. Either the story was fantastic and I want more, or it was just blah, a glimpse into what I'm sure would make up a very mediocre novel.

Now it's not Miss Keegans' fault, her writing is superb, her settings are absolutely lovely, and her characters are likable and relatable. It's my fault. I want more. I'm greedy. I'm not satisfied with the 15 or 20 pages I get to spend with the characters. Just when it's getting good it's over.

Claire's short stories aren't for me. They were good, well-written, and generally depressing (which I highly enjoy). If you enjoy short stories then I'm sure you'll love these. But if like me you're hoping that Claire will finally sway you to love the short story format, it probably won't happen.

[Seher Andaç · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elimden bırakamadan ikinci okuma:
Yürüyüş yolumun üzerindeki meşe ağaçlarının arasındaki üvez ağacını fark edince aklıma ilk gelen “Üvez Ağaçlarının Gecesi” oldu. Yani bu kitaptan bir öykü. Kitabın bütünü, tüm öyküler o kadar iyi anlatılmış ki yine hayranlıkla kitabı kapattım. Özellikle “Su Kıyısında” öyküsü beni çok etkiledi. Suda boğulma tehlikesi atlatanın kıyıya çıkışını evrimle o kadar güzel bağdaştırmış ki, hem de tek cümleyle…
Sanırım porsuk ağacı gördüğüm zaman üçüncü okumamı da yapmış olacağım. Çünkü onun da adı kitapta geçmekte:)
….
İlk okuma:
Yolumun üzerindeki kitapçının vitrininde görünce kitabın ismine gerçekten vuruluyorum. Tanışmak için sadece bir bahaneye ihtiyacım var,biliyorum. Ertesi gün bahanem hazır: İstanbul kartım için parayı bozdurmalıyım! İlk oturduğum yerde okumaya başlıyorum ve bırakmadan devam ediyorum: metroda,işte,merdivenleri çıkarken,yürürken... Fırına girdiğimde sayfalar akmış sonuncu hikayedeyim. Henüz çıkmış sıcaklığı ile kese kağıdını dolduran ekmeğin kokusunu içime çekerek göğsüme bastırıyorum. Mayıs ayı ama sabah çok serin ısınıyorum. Kendi kendime konuşmaktan kendimi alamıyorum; bu hikayeler göğsümün üzerinde sıcak ekmek, yol artık mavi tarla...!
Neden diyorum neden bu kadar sıcak bu öyküler?
Yerel çünkü İrlandalı, son kelimesine kadar hem de! Bu kadar yerel bir dil ile anlatılan bir o kadar evrensel! Kısa cümleler ve nefes alan her canlı hikayeye dahil tüm dağ taş ağaç deniz ve mavi tarlalar!
Başka başka "kimin umurunda "!
Neydi neydi.... Müptelalara selam olsun!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please consider this gorgeous book about Ireland today if you're looking for a non gross and stereotyping way to celebrate the day!

This one’s been lurking on my virtual to-read since not long after it came out and a few glowing reviews made the rounds of my particular little literary-fiction loving circle of bookfriends. But this was another one that wasn’t quite flash enough to make it to the top of the pile- until someone actually scoured my to-read list, of hundreds of books, and picked this out as a Christmas gift for me.

I shied away from it at first- feeling like I had to give some sort of resistance to the cliche of the girl of Irish descent getting obsessed with a book about Ireland. I mean, it’s about Ireland. It’s got priests and silent men and mist and fog and moors and everything you’d think it would have. I gotta tell you though, this person knew me well. This book was so good. I gave up caring pretty quickly why I loved it so much.

And you know, as much as my instinct is sometimes to resist it- there is usually a reason for what we love, whether we inherit that love or develop it ourselves. I found that out when I read Orkney last year- no matter what I do, there are certain things that are just… magic to me. Ireland, when properly presented and shorn of leprechauns, insulting depictions of fighting and drunkenness, is one of those otherworldly things to me- something that induces that quiet mood in me where everything is still and there’s a chance I can grab at something that feels true and life changing, if only for a minute. Claire Keegan’s Walk the Blue Fields, which is a collection of five short(er) stories set in Ireland, is that otherworldly place. These stories center around.... (Read the rest on my blog at: http://shouldacouldawouldabooks.com/2... )

[Sinem A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kuzey; o sadelik ve soğukluk zaten çok güzel bir de kısa tasvirler, nesneler, doğa üzerinden derin duygular anlatabilen hikayelerle birleşince tadına doyum olmuyor.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book I picked up on a whim (and a vague memory of having heard good things) at my local independent Five Leaves. I am very glad I did, as this is an impressive collection of stories in the rich Irish tradition of the likes of William Trevor and John McGahern.

The settings are often mundane and rural but the stories generally transcend them and surprise the reader.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Claire Keegan’s Walk the Blue Fields is a collection of eight short stories, half of which are pretty darn amazing and half of which aren’t.

The Long and Painful Death is an amusing tale of a writer working at a fancy writing retreat in rural Ireland where she meets a local irate snob. The Parting Gift is a moving story of a young girl leaving behind an abusive childhood and escaping to a new, hopefully better, life.

The titular story is about a priest attending a wedding, where the bride was once a potential relationship for him before he left to join the Church. It deals with regret and doubt in a subtle but compelling way. The Forester’s Daughter is the longest and best story here - I reviewed it in a separate standalone edition so I won’t say anything further on it.

Close to the Water’s Edge is notable for being the only story set outside of Ireland. It’s set on the Texas coast where a young closeted man has an awkward birthday meal with his mother and piggish, but rich, stepfather, and has an almost fatal encounter when he flees the dinner. Surrender is about a grumpy former IRA sergeant who sets out to win back the woman who ended their relationship.

Both stories are well-written but I also didn’t feel anything strongly towards either of them. They’re not nearly as compelling as some of the others or seem to be about anything.

Night of the Quicken Trees is the second longest story here and is my least favourite. It’s about two lonely people who find each other. It has an odd fairy-tale quality to it and I had no idea what it was supposed to be about, beyond maybe being an updated version of an Irish folk tale.

Dark Horses is the shortest story here and isn’t easy to describe. It’s well-written and you get a sense of what it’s about when you read it - love and hope? - but it’s also seven pages long and that brevity, combined with its general vagueness, makes it completely unmemorable even if it won an award.

As brilliant a writer as Claire Keegan is, Walk the Blue Fields has the same unevenness of most short story collections with its mix of stories that’ll hit and miss. Still, if you enjoyed her novels Small Things Like These and Foster, it’s worth a look for the good stories collected here, particularly The Forester’s Daughter which is almost as long as either of her novels.

[Bilal Y. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edebiyat belki bize "Hayat nedir, nasıl yaşanır?" sorularının cevabını vermez ancak hayatın nasıl yaşanacağına dair sonsuz seçenek gösterir. Aşkın, yalnızlığın ve başka duygu ve durumların binbir çeşidine şahit oluruz hikaye okurken. Bu seçeneklerden tümeller oluşturmak felsefecenin işidir. Biz de analiz ederiz ama daha ziyade hikaye biriktiririz. Karakter de biriktiririz. Birçoğumuzun dağarcığında onlarca, yüzlerce, hatta  binlerce karakter vardır. Hepsi birbirinden farklı olduğu için ya da farklı anlatıldığı için zihnimizde yer kaplar. Karakter altyapısının sağlamlığı yanında ifadenin güçlü, sanatlı olmasıdır bizi çeken. Söz doldurmaz  sadece, boşluk da bırakır. Misal öykünün birindeki "işe yaramaz, çirkin güller" ifadesi. İroniktir bu ifade ve hayal kırıklığı barındırır... Bir başka öyküdeki "Çay kendini yeniden insan hissetmesini sağladı." cümlesi mesela. Bu cümlenin dilbilimsel bir serüveni de olabilir. Tabi ki çay içmek insan olmanın ölçüsü değildir. Ama bu cümle hem karakterin yorgunluğu ya da susuzluğuna işaret eder hem de karakterin çayla kurduğu ilişkiye... Bir de öyküleri okuduktan sonra içimizdeki İrlandalıyı bulmaktan ziyade, "Hepimiz İrlandalıyız" sloganı daha cazip gelecektir. Evet bize çok benziyorlar. Tek farkları dönüp baktıkları kocaman bir okyanuslarının olması: Atlantik...

[John Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well this was dark. Beautifully written as all Ms Keegan's books are, and although many of her stories have grim themes, this was far more dark than anything I have read of hers before. Child sexual assault, cot death, misogyny and much more are in these stories, often with sad or depressed people. Not my favourite of hers as she usually balances the grim with the hopeful, not so much here. Be warned.

[Karen· · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woman would be a terrible disadvantage: she'd make him match his clothes and take baths.

Ah, now there's the flinty truth, that irritant sharp stone in the shoe, one that turns out to be a tiny diamond of truth that holds a world of light and refracts it in all the colours of the spectrum. Keegan's prism highlights some of those unfortunates who do not understand the value of sharing your life with another person. Oh, there are couplings, yes, for man must take a mate, but strangely, the men in these stories see only the cost and none of the benefit*. Victor searches out a wife-as-housekeeper, without the least notion of what companionship might mean, or how on earth to achieve it. Brady goes home with the girl with the green spotlight shining through her hair. There are (miraculous!) place mats, warm plates, cutlery. When he woke, at dawn, she was asleep, her hand on his chest...That morning, walking down the main street, buying milk and rashers, he felt like a man. Too late he realises that it is the sense of pride in providing for someone else that can get you up on the cold wet mornings, that duty towards another that can help put grit in the soul. He has lost her, and with her his self-respect: now he's well on his way to drinking away the land that is left. Back then, when she was still there, some days were hard but not one of them was wasted. Too late, man, too late.

In the title story, a priest is conducting the marriage ceremony of the woman he has loved, who he loves still, the woman who now has stony green eyes that give nothing away, the woman who gave him an ultimatum, if he wouldn't leave the priesthood, then she could no longer see him like this. He could not leave the priesthood: but now his life too is empty. Where is God? All he wants is a sign. He wishes God would show himself. But maybe he already did?

As a foil to that priest there is the sergeant. His Susan is calling him in, an ultimatum is sent to him too, in unequivocal terms. I have waited long enough...The time has come for us to be together or remain apart. I see no cause for any further delay... The sergeant surrenders to the inevitable, to the mechanics of life. He has glutted, now come the lean years. A bitter taste in his mouth, a battle in which he is willing to be defeated, but as true as links engaging in a sprocket. A well-oiled machine.

Keegan can play in more than one register: there's a hauntingly painful story of a leave-taking that conveys the ambivalence of a parting that is both salvation and loss, rescue and damnation. There's a wild and wonderfully imaginative fairy tale, and there's a knowing wink-of-the-eye story about a writer of stories and the ways to avoid the terror of the blank page - or is it about inspiration? Aha. Perhaps it can't be one without the other.

These magnificent stories are like a smoothly sanded wood surface, all paint stripped away to show the natural growth of the timber, the glowing colour of the tree's inner life, the bare truth without overblown decoration. Bauhaus, not Baroque.

*According to research people in stable relationships tend to live longer. Women don't just make men match their clothes. They make them eat salad too.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

After having a great discussion during a group read, as I did with this book, I rarely feel like writing a review. So just know that this is a must-read for short-story lovers and if you're interested in rural Ireland, that's a bonus. The writing is elegant, well-crafted, subtle yet expansive. There is so much to these stories that while they can be enjoyed once in satisfaction, they need to be reread to be savored.

[Yücel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nefis öyküler. Yüz Kitap 'tan bu okuduğum üçüncü kitap (daha önce Richard Yates'ten Yalnızlığın On Bir Hali ile Breece D'J Pancake'den Kışın İlk Günü'nü okumuştum) ve üçü de çok kaliteli öykülerden oluşuyordu.
Bu kitapta da özellikle Korucunun Kızı, Su Kıyısında ve Ayrılık Hediyesi isimli öyküler çok çok güzel.
Öykü sevenlere tavsiye ediyorum.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of seven stories exploring themes of families, emotions, secrets, memories - not all of them welcome ones, and love that is taboo, morally, religiously as well as legally.

’Now you stand on the landing trying to remember happiness, a good day, an evening, a kind word.’ - from ’The Parting Gift’

’There’s pleasure to be had in history. What’s recent is another matter and painful to recall.’ - from ’Walk the Blue Fields

’Fragments of his time…cross his mind. How lovely it was to know her intimately. She said self-knowledge lay at the far side of speech. The purpose of conversation was to find out what, to some extent, you already knew. She believed that in every conversation, an invisible bowl existed. Talk was the art of placing decent words into the bowl and taking others out. In a loving conversation, you discovered yourself in the kindest possible way, and at the end the bowl was, once again, empty.’ - from ’Walk the Blue Fields

’He led her across the floorboards same as a cat’s tongue moves along a saucer of cream.’ - from ’The Forester’s Daughter

’On her wedding night she felt springs coming up like mortal sins through the mattress.’ - from ’The Forester’s Daughter

’She walked for half an hour with her bare feet in the frothy edge of the sea, then turned back along the cliff path and watched her husband, at five minutes past the appointed hour, slam the car door and turn the ignition. Just as he was taking off, she jumped into the road and stopped the car. Then she climbed in and spent the rest of her life with a man who would have gone home without her.’ from - Close to the Water’s Edge

’Women’s minds were made of glass: so clear and yet their thoughts broke easily, yielding to other glassy thoughts that were even harder. It was enough to attract a man and frighten him all at once. from - Surrender (after McGahern)

’Putting the past into words seemed idle when the past had already happened. The past was treacherous, moving slowly along. It would catch up in its own time. And in any case, what could be done? Remorse altered nothing and grief just brought it back.’ from - Night of the Quicken Trees

’Sometimes everybody was right. For most of the time people crazy or sober were stumbling in the dark, reaching with outstretched hands for something they didn’t even know they wanted.’ from - Night of the Quicken Trees

As is true with most short story collections, some are shorter, some longer, most are heartbreaking in one way or another, examining life and the nature of various emotions - sadness and heartbreak, anger and compromise. Everyday life, perhaps, at times, but there is beauty intertwined with the melancholy that Keegan shares even the darker moments, as well as a dream-like sense of hope in these stories set in rural Ireland.

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stack, like every man who has never known a woman, believed he knew a great deal about women. (...) Now that Stack knew a woman there grew the knowledge that he would never understand women. They would smell rain, read doctor’s handwriting, hear the grass growing.

Claire Keegan é uma autora muito especial, que consegue abordar assuntos complicados e melindrosos de forma delicada. Estamos a ler um conto sobre o quotidiano de uma família e, de repente, sem aviso, é introduzida uma informação que nos perturba; ou estamos a acompanhar alguém na sua rotina quando nos é revelado um segredo de que não suspeitávamos.
Num punhado de contos onde impera a presença do mar e do fogo, a liberdade e a purificação, temos personagens confrontadas com homens que simbolizam a adversidade, em atitudes que vão desde a micro-agressão até ao abuso sexual, passando pela masculinidade tóxica e por paixões ilícitas.
A especialidade de Keegan é a novela e isso é visível nesta colecção, já que são as histórias mais longas, como “The Forester’s Daughter”...

He has never understood the human compulsion for conversation: people, when they speak, say useless things that seldom if ever improve their lives. Their words make them sad. Why can't people stop talking and embrace each other?

...e “Night of the Quicken Trees”...

Putting the past into words seemed idle when the past had already happened. The past was treacherous, moving slowly along. It would catch up in its own time. And in any case, what could be done? Remorse altered nothing and grief just brought it back.

...as mais envolventes e tocantes, ainda que saliente também “Close to the Water’s Edge” em que é palpável a tensão entre as personagens que se vêm numa encruzilhada no presente e no passado.

She walked for half an hour with her bare feet in the frothy edge of the sea, then turned back along the cliff path and watched her husband, at five minutes past the appointed hour, slam the car door and turn the ignition. Just as he was taking off, she jumped into the road and stopped the car. Then she climbed in and spent the rest of her life with a man who would have gone home without her.

Elogio a literatura irlandesa até à exaustão, mas quando a consumo em audiobook, como também aconteceu com “Foster” e “Small Things Like These” da mesma autora, aquele sotaque maravilhoso quase me embala.

The Long and Painful Death – 4*
The Parting Gift- 4*
Walk the Blue Fields – 3*
Dark Horses - 4*
The Forester's Daughter - 5*
Close to the Water’s Edge -5*
Surrender (after McGahern) - 3*
Night of the Quicken Trees- 5*

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m making my way through Claire Keegan’s fiction, having read her Man-Booker-shortlisted Small Things Like These. I went back to read her initial short story collection, Antarctica, and now this, her second short story collection, Walk the Blue Fields. I bought the novella Foster, too. What do I like about her? I prefer concision, cutting/cutting/cutting, no fat, lyrical, poetic prose. I know I read some long books, but my preference is for subtlety. One of my favorite writers ever is Chekhov, and I like the stories of Joyce and O’Brien and Trevor, and she seems very much part of this tradition.

As usual, I loved the first and last stories, but I also liked the feminist strain in these stories--the unwanted visitor, the wayward priest, the unloving husband. I like the exploration of desire/lust as shaping lives, and the place of quirky Irish characters (reminded me a bit of Flannery O-Connor here) and the rich presence of Irish myth.

In the opening story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer gets a grant to write at a writer’s retreat, in the same cottage once occupied by Heinrich Böll. She is visited by a man who thinks all who have written there are unworthy of Böll’s name. It’s maybe a little slight, but Chekhovian light, writerly, a writer looking at a writer.

In the title story, probably the best one, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage, but over time we realize he once had had an affair with the bride. This leads him, of course, to intense reflection/grief on those memories and his life choices, even as he observes her struggles through the whole ceremony:

“There are tears there but she is too proud to blink and let one fall. If she blinked, he would take her hand and take her away from this place. This, at least, is what he tells himself. It's what she once wanted but two people hardly ever want the same thing at any given point in life. It is sometimes the hardest part of being human."

Unable to sit through the celebratory supper, the priest walks through blue fields (title!) and has an encounter with magic and maybe some kind of healing. Really surprising and well done. Lovely.

Another Irish-myth-based story I like is “Night of the Quicken Trees,” a story about an amusing, eccentric woman, who moves into a dead priest’s house, burns all the furniture, urinates on the grass, and develops a strange relationship with a weird next door neighbor, a guy who sleeps with his (no, not that!) pet goat. The story is quirky dark and mysterious.

In another good story, “The Forester’s Daughter,” a woman marries a simple man, initially resistant to marry him because she doesn’t love him, and so you know how this works out, in spite of the birth of children over the years.

“Stack, like every man who has never known a woman, believed he knew a great deal about women.”

He’s not a terrible human being, necessarily, but he is gruff and selfish, maybe to be seen as a traditional (which is to say selfish, patriarchal) Irish male. He yells at her for her spending “my money on roses,” and so flowers play an important part in making meaning for her sad life.

"A Parting Gift," is about a young woman, going away to school in America, who has been a victim of incest, with everyone in the family knowing about it. The story is disturbing, of course; the issue of a parting gift from the father (the abuser of his daughter), that moment, becomes a sudden flashpoint for a nexus of anguishing emotions.

[nastya · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories, all taking place in rural Ireland. We’ve got all that you might expect: alcoholism, sexual abuse of minors, priest choosing church over the living breathing woman he professed his love for. No happy people dwell on these pages.

Skilfully written but ultimately forgettable, maybe except for the last story, the fairy tale called Night of the Quicken Trees, but time will tell.

Drenched in desperation, disappointments, regrets, it is definitely a mood piece. Unfortunately, it left me untouched, stories lacked punch.

And I’ll remember the mood of the collection. But I have enough melancholic favorites that also affect me.

Now onto her new hyped release, Small Things Like These, and I’m curious to see how and if she changed as a writer in 13 years.

[emre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitap, kapağından itibaren Atlas Okyanusunu çağrıştırıyor insana. Sonsuzluğu ve ıssızlığıyla, Araplarca “yeşil keder denizi” denmesini pek haklı bulduğum okyanusu. Öykülerde, hemen tamamı İrlanda kırsalında yaşayan, taşranın getirdiklerine tutunmuş insanlar anlatılıyor. Bu insanların hayatına nüfuz eden, yer yer büyülü gerçekçilik tadı veren bir İrlanda mitolojisi de var, İrlanda mitolojisi çok özgün, öyküleri de hâliyle daha lezzetli kılıyor. Çok beğendiğim için bir husustan bahsetmek istiyorum: Bizim taşralılarımıza hem çok benziyor hem de hiç benzemiyor bu insanlar. Aynı biçimde küçük bir yaşantıyı kavrıyorlar fakat farklı biçimde, bununla yetinememe, bundan kaçmak isteyip de kaçamama duygusuyla kaplı değiller. Belki daralıp bunaldıklarında ayaklarını okyanusa sokabildiklerindendir, kim bilir.

[Peter Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walk the Blue Fields consists of six dark, foreboding tales of rural Ireland, and one uncomfortable family reunion set in Texas. First published in 2007, it confirmed Claire Keegan's mastery of the short story and quickly elevated her status among the pantheon of modern Irish writers.

The characters within are hurting, hiding their pain and despair from the rest of the world. The Parting Gift focuses on a young girl during the morning of her emigration to the US, saying goodbye to her family, leaving behind the shameful secret none of them can bear to talk about. The title story is a heart-wrenching account of a priest performing the wedding ceremony of a girl he was once in love with. My favourite of all was The Forester's Daughter - it describes a woman who goes along with a marriage proposal in case she never gets asked again. The couple raise a family but it is an unhappy home, and a simple birthday present ends up leading to a to a tragic series of events.

I did think the American story was out of place here. Not that I didn't like it, just that its inclusion fell jarring. But this is a small complaint. Keegan has an amazing ability to say so much with an economy of words - it's no surprise to see her excel in the short story format. These are meticulously crafted tales of heartbreak and longing.