Customer Reviews

Tarry Flynn

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In this novel, Kavanagh manages to recreate Monaghan life superbly. And for me, now living away from Monaghan, it has often provided a welcome return. A fantastic insight into a lifestyle only recently gone by.

Despite its disappointing ending and despite its flawed, episodic structure, Kavanagh's novel is enjoyable reading for someone who is looking for a prose equivalent of his poem "The Great Hunger." This comedy of country manners points its satiric barbs both inward at Tarry Flynn and outward at his family and his country neighbors. The novel makes of country life matter worth considering--as Kavanagh argues in his poem "Epic"--and matter worth ridiculing. This ambivalence may be a flaw for one seeking unity of tone, but for me the ambivalence became charming ambiguity.

Not much really happens in the novel, and for a young American reader like myself a lot of work has to be done to recapture the moments in the story. That being said, I think the novel a resounding success for its humor and its style, and its capturing of the struggle of the poet to be born. It's sort of a poor man's Portrait of the Artist (Kavanagh himself was a big fan of Ulysses), but with more heart and less of a savage wit (contrast Tarry's mother with Dedalus' mother).

The poem at the end and the awkward interactions between Tarry and the women in the book are alone worth the price of admission.