Customer Reviews

The Mangan Inheritance

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In the Mangan Inheritance Brian Moore employs a gothic and erotic sensibility while delineating a man's search for his unadulterated self. It bears the stamp of much of James Hogg's 'The Private Memoirs of a Justified Sinner' - without the cynicism but in a similar gothic vein. In a nutshell the book could be described as James Clarence Mangan releasing his inner self. Through his wanderings and probing amid the Irish hamlet of Drishane, Mangan realizes that his search for an ancestor of the self-same name happens to be none other than his very own doppelganger, the splitting image both of his features and of the damned literary hopes he nurses. Here he finds lurking within him, a poet maudit whose narrative has been told and retold through alternate generations, and whose same fate awaits him would he choose to pursue the inevitable. The penchant for erotic scenes (at which none are better than Moore) and the references to incest may stress the reader and come across as overtly lewd, but the fold of the story incorporates these into a veritable skeleton key that defines, describes and explains many mysterious emotional troubles that stir within the depths of the protagonists - primarily James Mangan and Kathleen - and in an indirect way most all the characters we encounter in the book. The narrative here supports a mythology of the self that when faced with his fate succeeds, by the grace of circumstances, in amassing enough strength to choose otherwise and better... If only one agrees with my assumption that the suspension, and its suspiscions, is given its full run by the closing of the tale.
Without giving too many details, nor outlining the plot further, I will entrust the reader with a recommendation that brings me much joy, for the writing is deliriously gorgeous and the narrative pitch consuming and enthralling. Brian Moore is a writer that at times tries too hard to manage the economy of the nuances proferred in the story, however this fault is here easily translated into a prized rarity, namely the ability to enlighten the more the confusion unfolds. The psychology of the story limns each character to define their worldly features with enough clarity to support their every unexpected turn. Brian Moore suceeds at making the madness of truth a disturbance of proportions one might best not look at lest it demand the last remaining sliver of humanity an overdetermined self tries to dispel. A brilliant book.

Though "The Magician's Wife" was not especially memorable, I have not yet read a dud by this sadly neglected writer. "Cold Heaven" is a masterpiece, and this one runs a close second. Beautifully written, exciting, thoughtful; wonderfully rich in Irish ambience, with a dandy climax that is satisfying in terms of both narrative and theme. More Moore is on my horizon, for sure.

In this novel the wife of Canadian poet Jamie Mangan has just walked out on him and he feels totally abandoned and lost. He decides to go back to his homeland, Ireland, and to look into his family origins, especially that of his look-alike poet grandfather. What he discovers is not so encouraging: he meets relatives who are pretty low in character; but he also meets the 18-year-old Kathleen, with whom he becomes totally smitten. He is not too sure what to make of this Mangan inheritance, some of it rather motley, but he also comes to realize that it's what he does in his life that will ultimately define who he is. Moore has often been concerned with characters and their search for identity in his fiction, and Jamie's search is made quite fascinating and enlightening by the author.