The Port Wine Stain

by Patrick Boyle, Benedict Kiely (Introduction)

Introduced by Benedict Kiely

Twelve of Patrick Doyle's best stories which draws equally on his three collections. Includes a recognised masterpiece, Leles Vulgaris, in which the badger's fight assumes epic proportions, and presents other memorable accounts of people living with and in spite of forces at work in an elemental world.

Genres: Short Stories

236 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1983

About the author

Boyle was born in 1905 in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim. He worked for the Ulster Bank in Donegal and Wexford. He began writing when he was in his forties. His first collection of short stories, At Night All Cats are Grey, was published in 1966. He also wrote a novel, Like Any Other Man, published in the same year. These two books were followed by two more collections of stories, All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye (1969), and A View from Calvary (1976). He was a member of the Irish Academy of Letters. He died in 1982.

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently learnt that the Irish writers who, in my youth, were respected and admired like Edna O'Brien and John Broderick, are out fashion with critics it is not surprising to find that Patrick Boyle has completely slipped off the radar. But he is an amazing writer of short stories, before he was published he entered a new writers competition in Ireland and, under different names, won the first, second, third and fifth prizes, and this collection issued after his death in 1982 contains a selection of his best stories (though I would argue that there are plenty of excellent stories not in this collection).

Boyle's current obscurity may be fashion or it may be do to altered circumstances - Ireland has changed immensely since his death and, most importantly, it is now open to outside cultural influences in a way unimaginably when Boyle was writing (and I was at school) in Ireland. TV came late to Ireland and even in the 1970's there was only one channel which began at 6pm with the Angelus. In such circumstances the vagaries of insular thought and attitudes flourished as did a richly distinct idiomatic Irish-English. When I reviewed Boyle's collection of stories 'All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye' I included a list of wonderfully unique words from various stories and much as I am tempted to do so again I offer only the follow, to me, wonderful example:

"He shouldn't be collogueing with the kitchen staff."

and I assure you my spelling of 'collegueing' is correct. I have no doubt that using such words is no longer the norm in Ireland and this may create barriers between current readers and Boyle and other writers of his generation. There is nothing more unfashionable then the immediate past.

This particular phrase comes from one of Boyle's finest stories 'The Betrayers' which, although different in almost every way, is as brilliant and devastatingly brilliant as Graham Greene's 'The Fallen Idol' in portraying the betrayal and destruction of a child's love and hero worship. It also, like other stories, deals with the terrible isolation and desperation of those left behind on small isolated farms. These stories call to mind William Trevor's 'The Hill Bachelors'. This again may be a stumbling block - that is another vanished world, but maybe all too recent for comfort.

I highly recommend this collection or any of Boyle's others. He did write one novel, which I haven't read yet, but I don't believe it was of the same standard as his stories. I definitely recommend reading them first.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patrick Boyle was a friend of the poet Francis Harvey. (He wrote a poem in his memory.) William Trevor selected Pastorale for inclusion in The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories. Two good recommendations. Gabriel Byrne talked about Patrick Boyle when interviewed on Books for Breakfast and said that he remembered being told that William Trevor had said that he owed a debt to Patrick Boyle. Anne Enright included Meles Vulgaris in The Granta book of the Irish short story.

From Meles Vulgaris
For all the years it had resounded in his memory with the urgency of a trumpet call - the wild defiant shout of an animal ringed about with enemies. He had thought to cast himself in this heroic mould. To be a maverick. Forever in the ranks of the embattled minority. Instead there had been a slow erosion of ideals, a cowardly retreat from one decent belief after another until at last he found himself in the ranks of the majority. The ring of the craven curs that hemmed in and crushed the unruly, those few who dared cry: 'Non serviam!'

The voice of the dying badger refused to be silenced.

He was unable to match its 'Courage. Tenacity. Fortitude.'

A feeling of loneliness swept over him. A bitter, hopeless loneliness that he knew to be surrender.

This is a great story showing how witnessing or being party to cruelty to animals leaves an indelible impression on those concerned. It reminds me of William Trevor’s Folie à Deux.

From Interlude :
Groups formed and dissolved as people with a weighty message to deliver found themselves forced to act as an audience. Patriots held forth, politicians explained, newsmongers enlightened.

The stories are all so original and descriptive. 'Idyllicism gets short shrift' as Benedict Kiely says in the introduction. Wildlife features regularly with characters’ movements and mannerisms being likened to those of animals. The farmer in 'Go Away, Old Man, Go Away' is likened to a 'terrier rooting frantically in a burrow'. Note the contrast to the description of the badger invested with qualities to be admired. Man's relationship with animals is often used as an unflattering metaphor for human relationships. The sea, too, has a lot to say in the stories. The quoted stories together with Rise Up, My Love, Come Away were my favourites. Rise up, My Love, Come Away is possibly the most original short story that I’ve ever read.