Twenty Years A-Growing [Paperback]

Maurice O'Sullivan (Author), E.M. Forster (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 1998

O’Sullivan’s memoir of growing up on the Great Blasket, a sparsely inhabited Gaelic-speaking island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland. “The only book I have ever reviewed which simply had to be praised without reservation.”—Sean O’Fáoláin, The Listener. Introductory Note by E. M. Forster.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

O'Sullivan here tells the story of his growing up in Great Blasket, a sparse island off Ireland's Atlantic coast with a Gaelic-speaking population. Along with an introduction by E.M. Forster from the original 1933 printing, this edition contains new photos and illustrations by the author.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

O'Sullivan here tells the story of his growing up in Great Blasket, a sparse island off Ireland's Atlantic coast with a Gaelic-speaking population. Along with an introduction by E.M. Forster from the original 1933 printing, this edition contains new photos and illustrations by the author. (Library Journal )

It is a summer island of romantic beauty that he shows us, dwelling always on the colour of the scenery and the bright, wild life... (London Times Literary Supplement )

This natural and beautiful book brings a breath of sea air and a strange music....It is as alive and sparkling as the sea on a summer morning. (The Observer )

A book to buy, to beg, or to borrow. To miss it is to miss something which will leave your adventuring among books incomplete. (Irish Independent )

You cannot possibly fail to enjoy this book, the only book I have ever reviewed which simply had to be praised without reservation... (The Listener )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: J.S. Sanders Books (November 18, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879941392
• ISBN-13: 978-1879941397
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #556,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars musha...what a great book!, November 18, 2000

By 

NotATameLion (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twenty Years A-Growing (Paperback)

Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan is one heck of a "coming of age" story. I'd never even heard of it until a friend of mine told me that he was reading it. I'm sure glad he did. This is a great book!

I've actually read several coming of age stories recently. I didn't plan to...it just kind of occurred that way. Some of them were really good (David Copperfield by Dickens being one of them); but none of them, Copperfield included, spoke to my heart like Twenty Years A-Growing.

Twenty Years A-Growing was translated into English from Gaelic. I personally find this astounding. They (whoever "they" might be) say a book always loses something in translation. Yet Twenty Years absolutely sings in English...the translation is so powerful that the original must truly be a thing of beauty.

It is an autobiographical tale of growing up in the Blasket Islands off the coast of Ireland around the time of the first world war. For me at least, it was a thing of wonder to be able to enter into this world which has since moved on. It is a story told in a wonderfully simple yet almost lyrically beautiful way. Each chapter is a story in itself. The story as a whole slowly ingrains itself upon your heart and mind.

I felt an affinity with Maurice and his friend Thomas. The adventures they find themselves in ring true even as they entertain the reader. Likewise, the character of the grandfather in particular now feels like an old friend to me now. I particularly appreciated some of the wisdom he espouses to Maurice.

I dare anyone to read this book and not be charmed by the lives of these wonderful people who lived almost a hundred years ago in a kind of societal setting that seems all at once foreign, yet somehow more sane than today's world of constant "time management" in pursuit of hollow "muchness" and "manyness."

It does not happen often that I do not to want a book to end. I usually approach the end of a book with satisfaction. Rarely am I left wanting more. Yet that was the case with Twenty Years A-Growing. It is a truly special book.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book about a life style gone by, March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Twenty Years A-Growing (Paperback)

Twenty Years A-Growing, or Fiche Bliain ag Fás in its original Irish, is a humorous and well written book about the sometimes hard life at the great western island, An Blascaod Mór, off the cost of Ireland. It tells about the everyday of the islanders in the beginning of the century in a surprisingly modern and lively way. The language of the Island was Irish, and although the Great Blasket is now abandoned, the Irish language still lives on in the mainland parishes in this area. I strongly recommend this book to everyone interested in Ireland, its culture, the Irish language or readerswho just want a fun and good book. I myself have only read the whole of it in its Irish original, but the passes I've read in English shows a well-done translation

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A spectacularly innocent and beautifully written book., July 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Twenty Years A-Growing (Paperback)

I first read this wonderful book when on vacation in County Kerry, Ireland. I was only 13 years old at the time but the book entranced me because of its humour, sensitivity and overwhelming innocence. The author describes the first twenty years of his life growing up on an isolated island (The Great Blasket) off the southwest coast of Ireland .

Life on the island was so very different to that in the rest of Europe. Gaelic (Irish) was the language used by the community with no English used at all. The book was originally published in Irish and then translated into English whilst preserving all the old colloquial expressions (e.g. "your soul to the devil, that's talk in the air, the sun was hot enough to break stones, My love forever Eileen!" etc.). Life on the island was simple in the extreme with the community living on fish they caught themselves and food they grew on their sparse amounts of land. The book is a rich narrative of many stories and events, thoughts and dreams, humor and sadness within the "riotous beauty" that is South Kerry and the Blasket islands.

The writer did not intend for his book to be read by a wider audience than his own people and that is the book's central beauty. Read it if you want to discover a lost world of innocence, ancient tales, fear, bravery, sadness, hilarity and splendid isolation.