“The Impossible Exile” by George Prochnik – A world in which Stefan Zweig cannot live

This is my review of The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World by George Prochnik.

The subject of a recent revival of interest, for instance as author of the short story on which the Oscar-winning novel, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” was based (“Beware of Pity” or “The Post Office Girl” give a better idea of his talent), Stefan Zweig was for decades a phenomenally prolific and popular writer, mainly of novellas and biographies: he preferred to write about “the defeated” rather than successful people – “it is the task of the artist to picture those…who resisted the trend of their time and fell victim to their convictions”. For him, literature was not an end in itself, but, to quote George Prochnik, “a bridge to some hazy higher mission on humanity’s behalf”.

This kaleidoscopic take on Zweig’s life which often reads more like a novel than a biography, focuses mainly on the experience of exile, when the rise of Hitler forced him to leave the cultural hothouse of Vienna in search of a refuge which he always hoped might be temporary but which, whatever its advantages, never quite met his needs. In Bath he found the society too cliquey and suspected that British calmness denoted a lack of imagination- he was not confident that the UK could defeat Hitler. In New York, he deplored the commercialisation which pressed everyone to look and behave the same, the education system which emphasised learning facts rather than understanding them. At first, he loved Brazil for its racial tolerance (ironically overlooking some of its overt anti-semitism) and open attitudes to sex compared with his uptight Viennese upbringing before he became jaded by the monotony and isolation of his days, waiting for the mail to arrive. He was horrified by events in Europe, felt guilty over having survived, old at sixty with nothing more to give future generations. Zweig ended up improbably in the Brazilian tropical mountain winter resort of Petrópolis where he committed suicide with his much younger first wife Lotte who was devoted to him and his writing. Zweig’s “work orginated in friendships.. and it was lack of personal contact with friends, homesickness for human companionship.. that brought him to his end.”

His inability to cope with exile was continually evident in his writing: “We are just ghosts – or memories…..The abyss of despair in which, half-blinded, we grope about with distorted and broken souls…. .The predicaments of exile which aren’t resolved when freedom is gained”. This seems at odds with his view that the Jewish Diaspora was preferable to founding a Jewish homeland, and that Judaism had given him “the absolute freedom to choose among nations, to feel a guest everywhere, to be both participant mediator” – a highly rose-tinted view of what was the reality for the majority of the less privileged Jews.

Prochnik suggests that despite his privileged background, great success and outward urbane confidence, Zweig did not really know how to be himself. He was a product of the Viennese gaiety “always mistaken as the self-expression of a vivacious, life-loving people, while, in fact, it was but a mask behind which people were hiding in their Schwermut – hopelessness , despair, and a feeling of insecurity and abandonment – the true Austrian philosophy of fatalism.”

An innate tendency to depression must have added to his problems. Lotte came to understand that “writers, owing to their imagination and on account of the fact that they are free to indulge in pessimism instead of their work, are more liable to be affected by these depressions than others.” Yet she too was also eventually worn down by illness, isolation and his influence, although one can never know how much he might be blamed for this.

The author’s own family history of enforced flight to the United States – his grandfather adapted well, but not his grandmother – has stimulated in him a strong interest in the nature and effects of exile. This book reminds me a great deal of Sebald’s “The Emigrants”, even down to the small, often amateurish black-and-white photos inserted into the text, which do not need captions, although a list of these is supplied at the end.

I admit that the lack of a chronological approach or an index may make it hard to grasp the sequence of events in Zweig’s life, but the well-chosen quotations, often amusing anecdotes, sharp insights and sense of past time and place make this book far more informative than many traditional biographies which attempt a more systematic and comprehensive coverage.

On a positive note, the shock of Zweig’s suicide “provoked a surge of life-affirming unity” amongst many of his friends in exile, whilst his philosophical biography “The World of Yesterday” on “what it meant to be alive between 1881 and 1942” was one of the few books about the past which slipped into the post-war Austrian school curriculum, ironically in a literature rather than a history class.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars


The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World

World of smoke and mirrors

This is my review of Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson.

Reminiscent at times of "The Quiet American", "Catch-22", or "Life and Fate", but hard to pin down, by turns brilliant and flawed, it is easy to understand both how this sprawling and vastly ambitious epic won The National Book Award, and why some critics and general readers have slated it.

"The Colonel knew how to lead but he couldn't follow…. Won over by the power of myth, he became one himself. He stood out grandly ……against the background of his own imaginings." A central figure is Colonel Francis Sands, maverick CIA officer whose panache enables him to get away for years with his unofficial activities, such as the possibly hypothetical exercise in "Psy Ops" (psychological operations), biblically entitled, "The Tree of Smoke". His fatherless nephew "Skip" hero-worships him, accepts without question his uncle's mission to eradicate communism in the Far East, and is desperate to work as a linguist for intelligence operations in 1960s Vietnam. Frustrated by the ludicrous, tedious tasks he has been allocated, shocked into hysterical laughter when faced with a casual atrocity, will Skip eventually grasp the truth about the Colonel and the war and how will he live out the rest of his days?

A parallel thread is provided by the Houston brothers, in particular James, who enlist in the military for excitement or money, and provide the poor white cannon fodder on which the US depends.

Those old enough to remember the Vietnam War, who were stunned by the spate of epic films including "The Deer Hunter", "Apocalypse Now", "Platoon" and "Good Morning Vietnam" may wonder if this rambling novel, not published until 2007, can have anything to add. Many (including me) will find the book hard to follow for Denis Johnson makes no concessions: he expects us to battle with American slang, military acronyms, a grasp of the stages of the war and general knowledge which extends to the history of the search for a yellow fever vaccine in Cuba. The novel is essentially a series of disjointed episodes requiring us to work out what is going on as well as what has happened between the scenes. All this lack of clarity seems to be part of Johnson's intention to convey a sense of the confusion bordering on lunacy that was part of the experience of being plunged into an alien eastern culture corrupted by western influence.

The author's freewheeling approach creates an uneven coverage. For instance, it is made tragically clear what has shaped the Houston brothers but James's descent into traumatised violence in Vietnam is too condensed. The surprising change in Skip Sands' life revealed towards the end is glossed over in comparison to the detailed portrayal of his character and life in much of the novel. Storm's at times surreal trek to find the man he believes to be still alive is described in great detail, but his role as the Colonel's side-kick remains sketchy to the end. Too many passages or dialogues read like notes for a novel, rather than the work itself.

On the other hand, with his capacity for striking, often poetic prose, Johnson is skilful in creating characters when he feels like it, together with a vivid sense of place. The strong play-like dialogues are suffused with the author's quirky humour which also alleviates the book's inevitable bleakness. One is held by a sense of anticipation, for at any moment a mundane scene may be transformed by farce, beauty, a danger averted or an act of brutality, as is the case in war. My main criticisms are that the book never quite delivers what it promises, it seems to lose its way in a disappointing ending, and is too long, by perhaps two hundred pages. Yet, it stays in one's mind and provokes thought and discussion.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Tree of Smoke

Whose side do you take?

This is my review of Force Majeure DVD.

Tomas and Ebba, a Swedish couple whose marriage may already be under pressure, take their two young children on a ski trip to the Alps. When a controlled avalanche exercise goes awry and seems to pose a serious threat, Tomas thinks only of saving himself. Ebba is shocked by the incident, but even more so by her husband's inability to admit to his action. By turns humorous, moving or cringe-making, the ensuing chain of events dissects human relationships – marriage, family, gender roles and friendships. The film may also intend to explore Swedish inhibitions over expressing emotions, which were apparent to me forty odd years ago, although times may have changed, but this aspect may not be clear to a non-Swedish audience.

"Force majeure" is a common clause in contracts that essentially frees both parties from liability when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond their control prevents one side or the other from fulfilling their obligations. The film's title is therefore ambiguous. Does it refer to Tomas's failure to act as expected of a husband and father? Or, does it relate to Ebba's extreme reaction to her husband's behaviour?

I enjoyed the brilliant beauty of the mountains under snow, the discussions which rang true, and the relevant, thought-provoking ideas raised. A few scenes did not quite work for me, such as the events of the last "Day 5" of the ski trip, but the ending is unpredictable, interesting and open to different interpretations.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Force Majeure DVD

The Siberian who preferred olives

This is my review of Le Testament Francais (Fiction, poetry & drama) by MAKINE.

Admiration for Makine's short novel "La Musique d'un vie" in English translation inspired me to embark on the much longer multiple prize-winning "Testament français" in French.

It describes a sensitive Russian boy who spends summers in Siberia with the half-French grandmother Charlotte who regales him with anecdotes of Paris in the years leading up to the First World War. She backs them up with memorabilia from a battered trunk which hold the allure of an Aladdin's Cave for the boy. Unsurprisingly, he grows up with a sense of being split between two cultures, the harsh "reality" of Communist Russia holding less appeal than nostalgic memories of a past France. As a teenager, tired of his peers' mockery of his eccentricity, the boy makes a brief effort to break free from Charlotte's influence, but comes to realise how much he values it. It is a moot point to what extent Charlotte is responsible for nourishing his artistic sense as a writer, or aggravating a degree of mental imbalance.

This novel has a clearly autobiographical basis: following the disappearance of Russian parents, presumed to have been deported, Makine was brought up in Siberia by his half-French grandmother, who filled him with the language and culture of France absorbed from her childhood visits to Paris. After seeking asylum in Paris in his thirties and living on the breadline as a struggling writer, Makine resorted to the pretence that his early novels had been translated from Russian, since publishers would not believe that he could have written with such fluency and feeling in French.

A great admirer of Proust, Makine has imitated his style in "Testament français", which is short on plot, more a series of impressions, feelings and incidents. Particularly in the early chapters, I found the prose pretentious, with a cloying sentimentality. It was hard to believe that a boy of nine or so would be so enthralled by state dinners to welcome the Tsar and his wife to Paris in the 1890s, events about which Charlotte herself must have learned second-hand. And would the boy really have been so entranced by the sycophantic verse of José Maria de Heredia of which eight stanzas are included in the text? I was by turns irritated and bored by the repetition and exaggeration of ordinary images – a faded photo on the back of a newspaper cutting from the early 1900s of three demure young ladies in dark discreet dresses, over which the now teenage boy almost faints with emotion from the experience of mentally insinuating himself into their world, captured by click of the camera's shutter.

The writing seems most real to me when the narrator focuses on his own direct experience without any attempt at imitative artifice. For instance, there is a striking description of a sudden but fleeting storm bursting over the Russian steppe, to be replaced quickly by calm sunshine. He is probably very accurate in describing male obsession with female physical sexuality, although in the process the narrator appears very male chauvinist, to add to his intense self-absorption. The passages describing the sense of wanting to be both Russian and French are often quite powerful, and there are flashes of wry humour and insight. Although most characters apart from Charlotte and the narrator are thinly drawn, there are some vivid portraits, as of his tough, coarse, pragmatic aunt, a typical product and survivor of the Stalin era, unchanged even twenty years after the dictator's death.

Makine is a talented writer, and I shall probably read more of his work, but found this one too much of a chore. There is an English translation entitled "Dreams of my Russian Summers" which loses the point of the original title as revealed at the end.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Le Testament Francais (Fiction, poetry & drama)

A Siberian who prefers olives

This is my review of Dreams of My Russian Summers: A Novel by Andreï Makine.

Admiration for Makine's short novel "La Musique d'un vie" in English translation inspired me to embark on the much longer multiple prize-winning "Testament français" in French. I hope that this review of the original French novel may hold some points of interest for those reading the English translation.

It describes a sensitive Russian boy who spends summers in Siberia with the half-French grandmother Charlotte who regales him with anecdotes of Paris in the years leading up to the First World War. She backs them up with memorabilia from a battered trunk which hold the allure of an Aladdin's Cave for the boy. Unsurprisingly, he grows up with a sense of being split between two cultures, the harsh "reality" of Communist Russia holding less appeal than nostalgic memories of a past France. As a teenager, tired of his peers' mockery of his eccentricity, the boy makes a brief effort to break free from Charlotte's influence, but comes to realise how much he values it. It is a moot point to what extent Charlotte is responsible for nourishing his artistic sense as a writer, or aggravating a degree of mental imbalance.

This novel has a clearly autobiographical basis: following the disappearance of Russian parents, presumed to have been deported, Makine was brought up in Siberia by his half-French grandmother, who filled him with the language and culture of France absorbed from her childhood visits to Paris. After seeking asylum in Paris in his thirties and living on the breadline as a struggling writer, Makine resorted to the pretence that his early novels had been translated from Russian, since publishers would not believe that he could have written with such fluency and feeling in French.

A great admirer of Proust, Makine has imitated his style in "Testament français", which is short on plot, more a series of impressions, feelings and incidents. Particularly in the early chapters, I found the prose pretentious, with a cloying sentimentality. It was hard to believe that a boy of nine or so would be so enthralled by state dinners to welcome the Tsar and his wife to Paris in the 1890s, events about which Charlotte herself must have learned second-hand. And would the boy really have been so entranced by the sycophantic verse of José Maria de Heredia of which eight stanzas are included in the text? I was by turns irritated and bored by the repetition and exaggeration of ordinary images – a faded photo on the back of a newspaper cutting from the early 1900s of three demure young ladies in dark discreet dresses, over which the now teenage boy almost faints with emotion from the experience of mentally insinuating himself into their world, captured by click of the camera's shutter.

The writing seems most real to me when the narrator focuses on his own direct experience without any attempt at imitative artifice. For instance, there is a striking description of a sudden but fleeting storm bursting over the Russian steppe, to be replaced quickly by calm sunshine. He is probably very accurate in describing male obsession with female physical sexuality, although in the process the narrator appears very male chauvinist, to add to his intense self-absorption. The passages describing the sense of wanting to be both Russian and French are often quite powerful, and there are flashes of wry humour and insight. Although most characters apart from Charlotte and the narrator are thinly drawn, there are some vivid portraits, as of his tough, coarse, pragmatic aunt, a typical product and survivor of the Stalin era, unchanged even twenty years after the dictator's death.

Makine is a talented writer, and I shall probably read more of his work, but found this one too much of a chore. There is an English translation entitled "Dreams of my Russian Summers" which loses the point of the original title as revealed at the end.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Dreams of My Russian Summers: A Novel

Sowing dragons’ teeth

This is my review of Syria: A Recent History by John McHugo.

Drawing on firsthand experience of living in Syria, John McHugo has produced an informative analysis of the facts leading up to its tragic civil war. His detailed focus starts in the early twentieth century, just beyond the reach of living memory. When the Ottoman Empire crumbled after the First World War, a critical opportunity was missed to create, under King Faisal who had shown himself to be reasonably competent, an Arab state with the logical boundaries of Greater Syria, now divided between modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and parts of southern Turkey. Instead, France and Britain were allowed to play imperial politics and carve up the territory along the notorious Sykes-Picot line, agreed in secret and, like too many other Middle Eastern borders, running across territories with no regard for ethnic groupings or geography.

Although McHugo accepts that an independent Arab state established in the 1920s might well have lapsed into tribal and religious conflict, and acknowledges the corruption which has fed unrest, he makes clear the West's part in inadvertently bringing about the current crisis. The disproportionate support for the Israeli cause without ensuring justice for the Palestinians has had complex consequences, such as the provocation of Israel's occupation of Syria's Golan heights, and the influx of Arab refugees into partly Christian Lebanon. This set up explosive tensions which Syria sought to resolve at the cost of antagonising the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rather than accept the Achilles heel of a weakened Lebanon through which Israel could attack Syria.

Instead of seeking a comprehensive and statesmanlike approach, the West confined itself to a somewhat blinkered preoccupation during the Cold War with attempts to gain the upper hand over the Soviet Union in the Middle East. "Once America had both Egypt and Israel as its allies as well as friendly relations with numerous other Arab governments….it did not need Syria" – which reacted by obtaining vital arms from Russia.

The author explains Ba'athism as an originally idealistic movement based on the three goals of unity, freedom and socialism – which of course must have been perceived as a threat by some Western powers. Yet when the Ba'ath party overrode elected politicians to gain power, it consolidated its position with nepotism and cronyism, thus undermining its founding ideals and reputation.

McHugh devotes two chapters to Hafez al-Assad, one of the pragmatic, ruthless secular Arab leaders who kept tribal and religious differences in check in the final decades of the C20. His son Bashir al-Assad seems to have attempted a more democratic approach on gaining office, but been driven by the pressure of events to adopt a more brutal and authoritarian approach, with less skill than his father.

McHugh ends on the bleak note that the most likely alternative to a victory by the regime is a descent into warlordism. The recent rise of Isis which has gained influence since the author went to press makes the effects of this anarchic outcome all the more grim. This book may sound like a depressing read at a time when Europe seems to be turning a blind eye to the political and economic chaos on its borders, but it has a positive effect in raising one's understanding of the complex chain of events, and increasing one's respect and sympathy for the Syrian people.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Syria: A Recent History

A lot of formality

This is my review of A Little Chaos [DVD] [2014] [2015].

This period drama romance develops a fictitious episode in the life of André le Nôtre, famous landscape gardener employed by the capricious "Sun King", Louis X1V. Le Nôtre (played by Matthias Schoenaerts, at the time of writing a favourite choice for the role of handsome heartthrob) hires Sabine De Barra to add a little artistic chaos to his own formal style, which he senses is not quite enough to guarantee the king's approval for the designs of the gardens at Versailles. Since De Barra's rock garden with fountains ends up looking pretty formal to our eyes, the "chaos" seems to apply mostly to the characters' personal lives.

The course of events is predictable in this film which also seems too long in view of the essential thinness of the plot: 90 minutes might have been better than 117. Apart from the visual beauty of the scenes, the main interest lies in the portrayal of court life, an artificial bubble of luxurious excess, in which the courtiers at times literally dancing attendance on the king seem like pampered children in ludicrously ornate fancy dress, trapped in their privilege since they are free neither to leave the court, nor to express their true emotions, although overt flirtation seems permitted. The main point of suspense is over how De Barra became a widow and lost the young daughter, over whose memory she is obsessed.

I agree with the "professional" reviewers that although Kate Winslet plays De Barra with emotional honesty, the talents of a strong cast of actors are not shown to full effect by the script, pacing and plot. The Hollywood Reporter sums it up well for me by: "This decently acted film is agreeable entertainment, even if it works better on a scene by scene basis than in terms of overall flow."

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

A Little Chaos [DVD] [2014] [2015]

Consoled by the certainty of inner liberty

This is my review of Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

The recent film version prompted me to reread “Suite Française”, in which Part 1, “Tempête en juin” comprises vivid accounts of various Parisians escaping by car or on foot from the feared imminent German invasion of 1940, only to find themselves strafed from the air by enemy fire, or struggling to find adequate bed and board. Irene Nemirovsky’s characters are often stereotypes: the rich are mostly concerned to protect their possessions and status, and rapidly regress under pressure. A wealthy connoisseur of art, his car loaded with carefully packed porcelain, callously steals cans of petrol from a gullible young couple when he runs out of fuel. A pious mother who has encouraged her children to share their sweets with others descends to scolding them for this when she finds there is no food left to buy in the shops en route. The poor with little to lose are often more generous.

Part 2, “Dolce”, the core of the recent film, is much less fragmented, focusing on the effects of the military occupation on the small provincial town of Bussy. While the sight of German soldiers arouses bitter thoughts in the wives and mothers whose men are dead or missing at the Front, the young single girls are rapidly attracted to the soldiers, like moths to a flame, as are the swarms of local children. A complex relationship develops in which the locals resent having to hand over their firearms and horses, but the shopkeepers enjoy the chance to sell goods at inflated prices. The “heroine”, Lucille has led a quiet life, dominated by her wealthy but embittered mother-in-law, Madame Angellier, obsessed by the loss of her son emprisoned in Germany. Lucille has rather more ambivalent feelings about the husband she was pressurised into marrying who has turned out to be unfaithful, openly expressing disappointment that she has proved much less well off than he was led to believe. When Mme Angellier is obliged to billet Lieutenant Bruno Von Falk, Lucille finds herself drawn to an "enemy" she has been instructed to cold shoulder, yet feels drawn to as an individual.

A continual insight in this novel is the way people in war suffer because they are forced to “follow the herd”, losing their individuality in the process. The characters with “finer feelings” share the sense of being consoled by what the put-upon bank clerk Maruice Michaud describes to his wife as “the certainty of my inner liberty….this precious and inalterable gift, which it rests only with me to lose or to conserve..The first thing is to live. From day to day. Endure, wait, hope”.

Irene Nemirovsky, does not flinch from allowing the violent hand of fate to strike down some characters on a fairly arbitrary basis, as was the case for the author herself. Already obliged to wear the yellow star, she was deported to Auchswitz only to be gassed shortly after completion of the second part of her novel. So, the intended five-section, one thousand page French equivalent of “War and Peace” was sketched out but tragically never completed.

Read in French, “Suite Française” has a particularly powerful impact. When writing about the weather, scenery, the rural way of life, animals – especially cats – the author’s lyrical style reminds me of Colette’s. She had the ability to capture and explore people’s internal thoughts, their shifting perceptions and the development of their relationships, often expressed with a wry sense of humour.

Since she cannot have had time to edit it, the work is remarkably coherent and well-developed. The poignancy of her fate casts a shadow over the book as one reads.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Suite Francaise

“If you do not love me I shall not be loved If I do not love you I shall not love.” Samuel Beckett

This is my review of My Old Lady [DVD] [2014].

Penniless American Mathias Gold, whose baggage is largely that of understandable neuroses, travels to the upmarket Parisian apartment left to him by his estranged father. He is shocked to find that the flat was purchased cheaply on a “viager” or life annuity basis, which means that he has inherited the obligation to pay the previous owner and long-term resident Mathilde a substantial monthly fee for the rest of her natural life. Although aged ninety-two, she seems robust enough to live for quite a few more years. Mathias’s attempts to find the money for the payments in the short run and solve the problem in the long-term, obstructed by Mathilde’s spiky daughter Chloé, form the theme of this bitter-sweet comedy, which turns quite dark at times as Mathias discovers more about his past.

Although this is not a great film, and I was left at the end confused over some aspects of the chronology of past events, it is well acted as one would expect from such luminaries as Maggie Smith, Kristen Scott-Thomas and Kevin Kline. There are some amusing scenes, poignant moments and picturesque shots conveying the ambience of the district of Le Marais au bord de la Seine. For me, this was sufficient to compensate for some of the corny aspects.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

My Old Lady [DVD] [2014]

The day’s deep indifference to what is said

This is my review of The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín.

In this novella, Mary the mother of Jesus – although he is never referred to by name – recalls aspects of her son's life, the preaching, miracles and his crucifixion. Her take on events is original, and may offend some believers. It does not trouble me that Tóibín may have altered the order of events and inserted some "inaccuracies" in what is anyway a controversial reality.

According to Mary, the disciples were misfits and her son used his talents to lead them into trouble. She implies that he raised Lazarus from the dead with reluctance, as if he knew it to be a misuse of his powers. Certainly, Lazarus's sister Martha was "afraid that what she had asked for was being granted" and it is clear that Lazarus is unnerved and bewildered by his experience of death, and no one feels at ease with him afterwards, wanting but not daring to ask questions.

Mary perceives her son's talk in public as "high flown" and "riddles, using strange proud terms to describe himself and his task in the world", a kind of manic grandiosity when he describes himself as the Son of God.

Mary describes how, to her abiding shame, she ran from the scene of the crucifixion before her son was dead, to avoid the risk of being captured herself. Afterwards, she is dogged by earnest men, I assume the gospel writers, who wish to extract every word of her first hand testament for posterity. One of them is delighted by her dream of seeing her son raised from the dead, which implies that her memories will be twisted to suit the facts of a new religion, or discarded if they do not fit. Hiding in Ephesus from the authorities who killed her son, Mary is drawn to the goddess Artemis who gives her a sense of release. When her minders assure her that her son has redeemed the world through his death she responds that "It was not worth it".

The prose style is striking, eloquent, often poetical – not the first person "voice" of a simple, illiterate woman living in the middle east two thousand years ago, but rather that of the writer. This had the effect of distancing me somewhat from Mary's grief, although I found the work gripping. It seemed to lose its way a little after the crucifixion, but comes to a clear conclusion.

In my attempt to confirm what the Irish Catholic, at least by upbringing, author meant to convey, I discovered that this book was first produced as a stage monologue, in the Broadway production of which, "Mary is seen smoking what appear to be joints of marijuana and swigging from a commercially labelled liquor bottle". This concerns me as so much of the strength of the piece seems to lie in the quality of prose writing to be read and reflected upon individually, rather than declaimed with dramatic effects. I appreciate that the lyrical style lends itself to being spoken aloud, which may appeal more to some people.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Testament of Mary