Speckled People [Paperback]

Hugo Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2003

The childhood world of Hugo Hamilton is a confused place. His father, a brutal Irish nationalist, demands his children speak Gaelic at home whilst his mother, a softly spoken German emigrant who escaped Nazi Germany at the beginning of the war, encourages them to speak German. All Hugo wants to do is speak English. English is, after all, what the other children in Dublin speak. English is what they use when they hunt down Hugo (or "Eichmann" as they dub him) in the streets of Dublin, and English is what they use when they bring him to trial and execute him at a mock seaside court. Out of this fear and confusion Hugo tries to build a balanced view of the world, to turn the twisted logic of what he is told into truth. It is a journey that ends in liberation but not before this little boy has uncovered the dark and long-buried secrets that lie at the bottom of his parents' wardrobe.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The son of a German mother and an Irish father, Hugo Hamilton grew up in Dublin in the 1950s wearing "lederhosen and Aran sweaters, smelling of rough wool and new leather, Irish on top and German below." His family spoke both German and Irish, but English was strictly forbidden--even uttering a few words of the cursed language was enough to earn an often brutal punishment from their father, a staunch Irish nationalist. His father maintained that "your home is your language" and insisted that they be a model Irish family and an example for others to follow. Hamilton and his siblings were not even permitted to play with children who did not speak Irish exclusively--a particular problem in a country where English is the primary language. Ironically, he was taunted mercilessly for his German heritage and children jeered him with cries of "Eichmann" and "Heil Hitler." He was even put on "trial" once by a gang of kids who sentenced him death by snowball firing squad. This confusing quest to discover his identity and to gain an understanding of his family history is at the heart of The Speckled People, a profoundly touching and beautifully written memoir.

His parents' secrecy concerning their own pasts only exacerbated his frustration, forcing Hamilton to cling to fragments of information gleaned secretly from hidden photographs and buried family relics. Written from the perspective of a child, Hamilton captures his feelings of confusion, guilt, and fear convincingly and with much humor and insight. Full of poetic passages, sharp observations, and the kind of subtle epiphanies that are best expressed by a child, the book is a joy to read. "When you're small you know nothing and when you grow up there are things you don't want to know," he writes. This memoir is Hamilton's attempt to reconcile the two. --Shawn Carkonen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

"I know what it's like to lose, because I'm Irish and I'm German," explains Hamilton in this beautiful memoir of a mixed childhood in the years after WWII. Hamilton's father says they are speckled, breac in Gaelic: spotted like a trout. With an Irish father and a German mother, Hamilton comes to Ireland as a boy in the 1950s and finds a homeland that will never fully accept him. Other children call him "Kraut" and "Nazi" and taunt him with "Sieg Heil!" salutes. Yet Hamilton is in many ways more Irish than they. His father never allows him to speak English and insists the family use the Gaelic form of their last name (O hUrmoltaigh), which many of their neighbors can't even pronounce. Despite these efforts, Hamilton knows, "we'll never be Irish enough." There is much in this Irish memoir that's familiar to the genre: the dark, overwhelming father; the tragic mother; the odd mix of patriotism and self-loathing ("the hunger strike and Irish coffee" are the country's greatest inventions, Hamilton's father says). But the book is never cliched, thanks largely to Hamilton's frankly poetic language and masterful portrait of childhood. This is really a book about how children see the world: the silent otherworld at the bottom of a swimming pool, the terror of a swarm of bees, the strangeness of a city transformed by snow. By turns lyrical and elegiac, this memoir is an absorbing record of a unique childhood and a vanishing heritage.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins Pb (October 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007148119
• ISBN-13: 978-0007148110
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #771,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Between languages, October 1, 2004

By 

Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood (Paperback)

I found The Speckled People after encountering a fascinating article by Hugo Hamilton on the "Loneliness of Being German". Similar to the article, the book immediately struck a chord with me. Those living within and without their own language will find a special connection to this book. Language as the identification of "home" and "country" and "language wars" are explored here in a rather exceptional way - through the voice and outlook of a growing child. Like a patchwork quilt the vignette chapters of the book come together for the reader to form an exquisitely drawn portrait. Hamilton's family is pictured against the backdrop of their Irish reality of poverty and want in the fifties and sixties. Complexities are accentuated by his dual identity as a child of an Irish nationalist father and a German mother who left Germany after the war.

While The Speckled People is an intimately personal chronicle of his youth, Hamilton's story has significance far beyond the autobiography genre. There are advantages and challenges in using the language of a child. On the one hand, experiences can be conveyed in a direct and innocent way. Johannes (Hugo) has not yet learned to query all he observes: "When you're small you know nothing". He is a sensitive and perceptive child who intuits that there are more untold dramas in the family. "You can inherit a secret without even knowing what it is." On the other hand, it may be difficult to maintain the language as the boy's capacity to analyze and reflect becomes more pronounced with age. Hamilton succeeds admirably in keeping his style consistent even where he integrates numerous events from the wider world as they become relevant to the young boy. As you settle into his style, the narrative becomes deeply absorbing.

The experiences of life under Nazi rule as part of an anti-Nazi family, continue to haunt his mother. Her painful memories are conveyed to the son in small doses, like selected scenes from a black and white movie in which she had a part. Nonetheless, she is homesick for her native country and all things German. Books, souvenirs and toys arrive regularly resulting in outbursts of happy laughter. Johannes records his mother's mood swings expressed through either laughter or primarily mental withdrawal and silence.

His father feels more Irish than anybody around them. He insists on preserving Irish culture and on "freeing" the Irish people from British influences. His children become "his weapon" against the enemy. He forbids the family to speak English. The children tend to "live" in German as their mother has difficulties speaking Irish. The Irish language has to be protected even if it means losing business. This can mean that cheques are not accepted from people who cannot spell Ó hUrmoltaigh - Hamilton in Irish. The language is your home, "your country is your language", he insists - it identifies who you are. The pressure on the children to speak German and Irish at home sets them apart from people in Dublin at the time. There, English was the preferred language. The children suffer from this enforced isolation. The neighbourhood bullies, responding to their otherness and German identity call them "Nazi", "Hitler" or "Eichmann". They attack them whenever the opportunity arises. While Johannes repeats to himself and to his mother "I am not a Nazi", he does not defend himself against the assaults. One of the rules of the house is to adopt a form of pacifist resistance, the "silent negative " and not to become part of the "fist people". As Johannes grows up, he understandably rebels increasingly against these strictures. In the end, he discovers his own way out of all the identify confusion, his anger and pain.

The Speckled People is a memoir like no other. Any comparison with other Irish memoirs would seem inappropriate to me. While Hamilton chronicles his childhood and growing up, themes and issues beyond the personal play a fundamental role. In particular his exploration of the complexities of "language" as "home" and "country" gives this book added richness and depth. [Friederike Knabe, Ottawa Canada]

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Speckled Like A Trout, October 5, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Speckled People (Hardcover)

Some reviewers tell the whole story in a paragraph like this, which I will refrain from doing. That would take away the entertainment value of reading the book. Suffice it to say that, of the 50+ books I read a year, this one is one of the top 5 of the year. It has a very interesting voice (a child's perspective), and story (one Irish parent, one German parent, and their children who live in Ireland after WWII) that certainly makes you think about one's place in the world and also one's perspective of history. I highly recommend reading this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A non sentimental view of Ireland, August 21, 2008

By 

John "Notes of a bookdreamer" (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Speckled People (Paperback)

Hamilton is a journalist, and a writer of short stories and novels. His first three novels were set in Central Europe. Then came Headbanger (1996), a darkly comic crime novel set in Dublin and featuring detective Pat Coyne. A sequel, Sad Bastard, followed in 1998. The Speckled People came out in 2003 to critical acclaim It is an intensely personal memoir about very a political and public issue; what does language mean for national identity in democracies. His was a childhood of "lederhosen and Aran sweaters, smelling of rough wool and new leather, Irish on top and German below" so uniquely lived through two separate struggles represented by his parents. It is also about homesickness; for a dream Ireland, a lost Germany and a homeland of one's own.

Hugo's father wanted an Irish speaking self-sufficient Catholic Ireland. English if spoken by the children resulted in punishments including beating with sticks. He adapted an Irish name that no one could spell and pronounce and refused to answer even his work letters if they failed to write using his English name. Yet he also made toys, read stories and took his family on holiday to West Ireland (much to the amusement of the locals who were tired of the Dublin Intellectuals telling them they were the future when all they wanted was a decent inside toilets and jobs. His nationalism was driven by the shame of a father who had served and died in the British Navy leaving a service pension that funded his university education. He was always on the look out for the next big business deal to make Ireland economically free. But from crosses, toy wagons and tragic Honey they are failures, his only success is the size of his family as it grows year by year. They are the secret weapon to challenge the legacy of Empire.

His mother was a German Catholic, whose father was a conservative opponent of Hitler and whose family were passive resisters throughout the war although one sister was more active in being part of a network of safe houses hiding Jews. She herself as being "people of the head rather then the fist" so eventually rebels against her husband and destroys the canes but otherwise goes along with her husbands dreams and teaches her children German so they becomes fluent in three languages. She also has secrets that unravel as the biography unfolds.

The memoir is not a sentimental Irish story of hope crushed by poverty driven by the drink. The children have a comfortable and warm upbringing drawing on the richness of three culture's music and literature. But being German meant that the children were bullied and taunted as Nazis and they were at a lost to say where they belonged. What drives the story is the voice of the narrator that uses simple sentences and childlike observations, gradually turning to what he knows and understands, as he grows older and so creating a quiet humorous yet honest account of two flawed humans struggling to make a better life for their children in the very different 50s and 60's. An sequel called The Sailor in the Wardrobe was published in 2006.