Customer Reviews

By the Lake

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a quiet, happy, gem of novel by a proven literary master. Set in recent time in a small rural community in northwest Ireland, the story follows a year in the lives of several lakeside residents of small neighboring farms. The very common place events of their lives are described in episodic fashion. The central figures are a childless Anglo/Irish couple who left their successful professional careers in London to reside on a farm by the lake. A theme throughout the narrative is about Irish people who leave for England and later return. But the primary theme is the almost seamless and repetitive lives of the people of this almost idyllic community. This is a place where the accidental death of a lamb or the sudden appearance of a new telephone pole are major events. These lives and relationships are told in prose that is so poetically descriptive that, without being at all cloying, almost glistens on the page. The vision of a heron that rises in the mist everytime someone walks by the lakeshore is palpable. There are no chapters in the book. The various episodes are strung together one after another, but this seems fitting where there are no large, climactic events. The people and their speech are quaintly Irish, and it is easy to love and admire each of them in spite of a host of personality quirks and ritualistic behavior. The story resolves itself with the death and funeral of one of the leading characters, replete with the traditional laying out of the corpse, the wake and the digging of the grave in the family plot (many Irish graves contain the remains of several generations of individuals). This episode is described in such detail and matter-of-fact forthrightness that one feels intimately involved. The original title of the book when published in Ireland was "That They May Face The Rising Sun". This more appropriate title comes from a conversation among the grave diggers where one of them explains that people are always buried with their heads toward the west so that when they are eventually resurrected from the grave, they will rise from the ground facing the rising sun. It is an image, both morbid and uplifting, that sticks long after the book is finished.

I truly loved this book. But first, I had to slow way, way down. This is a quiet book -- a loving portrait of a year in the life of a small enclave in rural Ireland. Nothing happens, yet everything happens. Ultimately, this book is "about" the nature of life itself -- love of land, the rhythms of the natural world, human connections -- the simple universals. It's beautifully written and well worth pondering.

A gentleness and warmth infuse this paean to small town Irish life and the usually loving connections among the residents. Almost plotless in the traditional sense, the book achieves surprising power through its sensitive and sometimes humorous portrayals of "everyday" characters as they work their land, respond to the needs of their neighbors, celebrate milestones, and observe the lyrically described changes in flora and fauna around the lake during one year. It's a magnificent novel, a testament (and, unfortunately, perhaps also a memorial) to a vanishing way of life and the enduring connections, both among men and with the land, which have shaped the Irish character and spawned its traditions.

The Ruttledges have returned to Ireland after advertising careers in London, renewing connections with their kin and settling "by the lake," where they are greeted first by Jamesie Murphy and his wife Mary, who bring food, and then by the unforgettable roue of the village, John Quinn, who wants them to find him a wife from out of town, as he's already too well known to be successful in his own village. Other characters, each unique, give color and a sense of reality to life by the lake: Jimmy Joe McKiernan, the local Provo leader who led the breakout from Long Kesh; the pathetic Bill Evans, an orphan brought up by the nuns, then farmed out to an unfeeling family to work when he was 14; Cecil Pierce, the local Protestant; Johnny Murphy, Jamesie's brother, who visits each summer from London, where he lives in relative exile after being dumped by the woman he loved; the Shah, a Ruttledge relative who became hugely successful in the junk business; Patrick Ryan, who never seems to finish the building projects he's doing for his neighbors; and many others who illustrate the charms and frustrations of small town life and the forces which have shaped it. Significantly, all the main characters are middle-aged or older, the young having been lured already to big cities. As one character says, "After us there'll be nothing but the water hen and swan."

As the reader shares the passage of the year with the residents, observing the celebrations of birth, the rites of death, and the homely activities which give meaning to life by the lake, it's impossible not to feel a sense of profound melancholy and to mourn the loss of this rapidly disappearing life. As McGahern himself says, "[The days] did not feel particularly quiet or happy, but through them ran the sense...that there would come a time when these days would be looked back on as happiness, all that life could give of contentment and peace." With its profound openness to the sensations of the moment, its constant awareness of even the subtlest changes in nature, and its joy in human connections, it's a life which few harried city dwellers ever know. Mary Whipple

I had been told about this book at separate times by two older women who are avid readers, and both talked enthusiastically about its quiet charms. It took me nearly a year to finally pick it up, and after turning the last page, I was sorry to see it end. A wonderful virtually plotless novel that follows the simple lives of Joe and Kate Rutledge, a couple who have left their busy lives in London to lead simpler ones in the Irish countryside. What propels the book through a year is their relationships with various "characters" who live near and around them. The book is lyrical in its simplicity with restrained but honest emotion pulsing through its veins. I loved the way these people interacted with one another, and by the end felt I was leaving a group of old friends. In a way it reminded me somewhat of Wallace Stegner's,"Crossing to Safety" and like that book left me totally satisfied upon finishing.

I found this novel by John McGahern to be much more satisfying than his collected short stories, which I also read recently - and I can see two reasons for that. Finding no fault at all with his writing - he's amazingly talented - I felt that the characters depicted here were much better developed and fuller, all-around, than the ones in his stories. The `space' of the novel also allowed the author to take his time and delve into the story at it's own pace, rather than his own. The result is a beautiful book that quite literally picks the reader up and places him/her into the setting (rural Ireland, relatively modern, with the time never specified) and amongst a group of most wonderful characters. The novel is peopled with much more likeable - and acceptable - characters than the stories. Even the scalliwags herein are not without their redeeming qualities.

Rather than setting out to tell a story about a specific event or person, McGahern has chosen instead to allow the reader access to the daily lives of his characters, following them gently over the course of a year. We see them deal with their farms, their jobs, their personal relationships, with the changing times, and with life and death. This book enveloped me so entirely and so comfortably that I was very sorry to see it end - all the while knowing that it couldn't go on forever (rather like life itself).

This is a very enjoyable, worthwhile read - I can give it my highest recommendation.

By the Lake follows a year in the lives of various characters living on the edge of a small, rural northwest Ireland village lake. In a clear and simple style that masks his eloquence, John McGahern tells of seemingly commonplace episodes in the lives of his characters. As one is brought into the novel it becomes a revelatory telling of human nature. This falls into the category of "quiet books" that one finds less and less of on bookstore shelves. By the Lake leaves little doubt of why McGahern was one of literature's finest prose stylists.

This is the first work I've read of McGahern's and I was deeply moved by the lyrical writing, the poetic descriptions of the countryside and its wildlife, the lake, which looms like a living character around the lives of the village in northwest Ireland, and the precise character descriptions that bring subtle, nuanced portraits of the inhabitants to life. The work centers on a childless married couple who have escaped London to live in their cosy cottage by the lake, their farming routines, and the lives of their neighbors and an uncle named the Shah, who is the richest man in the area. All these characters are portrayed sympathetically and with great empathy. They speak richly and colorfully, and the rhythms of their speech ceaselessly entertain throughout the novel.
I have to admit, however, that I did grow restless with the structure of the work, and the impressionistic techniques of the narrative that repeated a bit too much for me, which is why I've withheld the fifth star in my rating. However, this work is well worth reading.

This wonderful book is the same as "That They May Face The Rising Sun". I suppose different titles for different markets (US/UK).

I just heard McG read from this novel (the gold watch scene) in Galway, and perhaps I can add a bit of his comments that may help potential or veteran readers. (Amazon deleted my original review from this sentence forward--I can't figure out why.) Briefly, everything in this novel happens twice: thus the circularity and repetition. Also, the fixity of place and time comes from McG's belief that starting in one place and time remains essential for a writer's craft. If you like this novel, read his collected stories and look for his earlier five novels.

He celebrates rural life, while never romanticizing it: a difficult task. While this narrative may lack action, it offers drama to the patient listener to his prose, which demands to be read aloud. McG's attention to his vocation shows in the decade he spent on this latest work. Next, he will provide his memoirs!

This is my first Mcgahern book. I'm hooked.
The descriptions of nature, people, and the pedestrian challenges of life are absolutely fantastic.
But most importantly, there's a wonderful message to be learned from the folks who live by the lake. In a world of gated communities and strip housing, it's important to remember to be good to your neighbors. We forget this easily, because not all of our neighbors are who we want them to be -- they're strange, they're boring, and sometimes they don't know how to act in polite company. But they're still our neighbors -- they're still family. When they show up at our doorstep, we should invite them in for a drink.
It's what the Ruttledges would do.