A Guest at the Feast
Published on 6. July 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-0-241-97061-4 (ISBN)
Description
A Guest at the Feast uncovers the places where politics and poetics meet, where life and fiction overlap, where one can be inside writing and also outside of it.
From the melancholy and amusement within the work of the writer John McGahern to an extraordinary essay on his own cancer diagnosis, Toibin delineates the bleakness and strangeness of life and also its richness and its complexity. As he reveals the shades of light and dark in a Venice without tourists and the streets of Buenos Aires riddled with disappearances, we find ourselves considering law and religion in Ireland as well as the intricacies of Marilynne Robinson's fiction.
The imprint of the written word on the private self, as Toibin himself remarks, is extraordinarily powerful. In this collection, that power is gloriously alive, illuminating history and literature, politics and power, family and the self.
From the melancholy and amusement within the work of the writer John McGahern to an extraordinary essay on his own cancer diagnosis, Toibin delineates the bleakness and strangeness of life and also its richness and its complexity. As he reveals the shades of light and dark in a Venice without tourists and the streets of Buenos Aires riddled with disappearances, we find ourselves considering law and religion in Ireland as well as the intricacies of Marilynne Robinson's fiction.
The imprint of the written word on the private self, as Toibin himself remarks, is extraordinarily powerful. In this collection, that power is gloriously alive, illuminating history and literature, politics and power, family and the self.
Reviews / Votes
Droll, careful reflections on Ireland, illness and religion in a welcome collection of essays . . . [the] melancholy elegance of the prose guarantees the reader's enjoyment * Guardian * Erudite, forensic, moving and wry . . . the breadth of the collection is impressive: a snapshot of Irish society over decades; Buenos Aires, in the wake of thousands of 'disappeared' people; Covid-era Venice . . . a lesson in how the right words in the right order can get to the truth of the matter * Irish Times * [These essays] are always interesting and intelligent, written in an admirably clear prose free of academic jargon . . . journalism at its best. I learned a lot from them and am grateful for that. It's a collection to which I will surely return, just as I do to Orwell's, Ian Jack's, Ferdinand Mount's and Patrick Marnham's * Scotsman * A feast for the reader . . . the novelist applies his inquisitive and empathetic mind in wide-ranging series of essays, from the political to the poignant . . . [Toibin] seeks no lessons; he tries only to be good company on the page. (He succeeds.) * Irish Independent * Erudite essays from one of the world's finest writers . . . Throughout, the poetry of Toibin's prose is as impressive as always. In [the] title piece, he writes that his mother was 'what most of us still write for: the ordinary reader, curious and intelligent and demanding, ready to be moved and changed.' Readers like her will savor every page of this book * Kirkus Reviews, starred * The clarity of the novelist's descriptive ability shines through essays on topics ranging from his treatment for cancer to the joys of an empty Venice . . . On every subject, Toibin's writing is what people these days inevitably describe as nuanced, a word that has become a kind of shorthand for expressing a person's rare ability to understand . . . the foibles of others -- Rachel Cooke * Observer, Book of the Day * I love everything Colm Toibin has written -- Nicola Sturgeon * New Statesman * I wanted to read out loud, to fully savour writing that is so careful and so lyrical -- Laura Hackett * Sunday Times * Reading Irish novelist, playwright and poet Colm Toibin is always a delight * Independent * Both epic and intimate . . . a moving portrait of three generations of sprawling, loving, fractious family life . . . a triumph * Financial Times on The Magician *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
226 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-97061-4 (9780241970614)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Colm Toibin was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of nine novels including The Master, Brooklyn, The Testament of Mary and Nora Webster and, most recently, House of Names. His work has been shortlisted for the Booker three times, won the Costa Novel Award and the Impac Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. He lives in Dublin.