Customer Reviews

Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show: A Novel of Ireland

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The voice. It's a most remarkable voice, magical, mesmerizing drawing one in. Through countless audiobooks never has a reader (in this case, of course, also the author) so captured me. I dislike cliches but this fellow could read a city census and there would be applause. Frank Delaney's voice is modulated, low, strong with merely a hint of the Irish. His words can tumble, spring forth to cast a spell or somberly intone. His narration is rich with understanding, and ripe with experience: I've been there, I've seen it, I know it. How can a voice convey all of this? Listen to VENETIA KELLY'S TRAVELING SHOW.

To tell us of the momentous events that changed not only his life but that of his country, Ireland, Ben McCarthy remembers. Now an older man he looks back to the winter of 1932, a time of turmoil in his home and throughout the land. He lived with his father and mother, Harry and Louise, on a small farm. Harry is stolid, hard working, a family man. Ben sometimes worries that his parents work too hard, and "dug for gold on the farm so he could buy his parents gifts." Quite obviously he is a good youth, one who only wants to do what is right. Theirs is a quiet life with entertainment sometimes being a traveling circus.

Harry goes to Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show starring Venetia, a young, beautiful woman who we are told "... sprang from the womb and waved to the crowd. Then she smiled and took a bow. " It's a shock when always reliable Harry falls passionately, head-over-heels, crazy in love with Venetia and decides to follow the circus. Louise is distraught and sends Ben off with directions to "Find him and bring him back."

Thus begins Ben's odyssey, a journey studded with intrigue, larceny, murder and other heinous acts. In addition to unforgettable characters Delaney peoples his story with real people (Yeats) and, yes, a ventriloquist's dummy, Blarney, whose utterances are less than comedic. Woven throughout are references to myth. An ever astonishing author Delaney is difficult to capture - he's inventive, surprising, witty, erudite. But, why try to capture him? Simply listen and enjoy.

- Gail Cooke

Another one where my review is in the minority!

I really struggled with this one. I made it well over half way through the book. I just couldn't finish it. I think that Frank Delaney is probably a terrific storyteller, and I love a great story. His prose is certainly lyrical and definitely Irish, which is normally something I enjoy reading. But, ultimately here, I didn't care for the characters. The set up for this story took too long and there were lots of characters to keep track of and way too many politics. All of his digressions, which many people loved, I found annoying. I wanted to find out what happened next, but unfortunately the rambling, circuitous route it took to get there was just a bit too windy for me.

There are certainly many glowing reviews out there for this book, and if you've enjoyed Frank Delaney in the past, I'm sure you'll enjoy this one too. I had great expectations for this one, but unfortunately it didn't move me enough to warrant finishing it.

The book opens with the announcement of the birth of the title character Venetia Kelly, as told by the narrator, Ben McCarthy. It is clear from the first paragraph, if not from the novel's title, that Venetia Kelly will play a pivotal role in this story. It is almost as if she is ordained with mythical power even from birth. But rather than immediately dive into Venetia's story, Delaney carefully weaves a tapestry of characters which surround or are connected to Venetia in some way. At first, it was difficult to see how all the threads were going to come together - the story moved from NYC to Ireland and between members of the Kelly and McCarthy families in the first 100 pages. But those 100 pages served their purpose - I found myself completely drawn into the story at that point. I knew the characters well and was driven to read on and see how the story would unfold and how they would influence each other's stories.

The use of Ben McCarthy as the narrator is an interesting device. Ben is telling this story as a man in his 50's reflecting on events that took place when he was an 18 year old on the verge of manhood. He acknowledges that here:

As you read, please know that I am a man of mature years telling the story of himself when young, so forgive me if at times I make the young me seem and sound older than eighteen.

By having the narrator speak so directly to the reader, Delaney makes the reader feel almost as if they are listening to a story being told by a friend as he reminisces about his childhood. The many "digressions" taken by narrator enhances the sense of the story being told to you - Ben speaks to the reader in the way you would imagine any good Irish storyteller would - by taking a circuitous route with lots of color thrown in for good measure. Interestingly enough, there is a link on Frank Delaney's website to lectures he has given on the tradition of Irish oral storytelling. That tradition is perpetuated in his narrator Ben McCarthy.

I truly enjoyed this expansive novel - it is rich and multi-layered and one of the few books I would choose to reread. There is so much woven into the novel - Irish political history, mythology and complex characters- that I feel it is a book that can be read on many levels and you may see different things upon reread. It has been a long time since I have been so absorbed in a novel; this is my first Delaney but most certainly will not be my last - I will definitely be going back to read his earlier novels!

How do legends emerge out of truth, myth from fact? Ben MacCarthy in a Year of Destiny, the election of 1932 as Fascist Blueshirts menace Ireland's uneasy democratic shifts, finds his young life's love. He must also grow up fast, gain revenge, rescue his family, and learn awful lessons. Delaney tells this in a narrative that convinces by its digressions, and teaches by its hard-won insistence not on stoic rejection, but profound understanding.

"I know that, at the end of it all, I did some remarkable things, far beyond the reach of a man of my age." (50) At eighteen, Ben must quickly come to maturity, as a detective of sorts, and as a sudden husband barely off the farm as he wanders Ireland in the company of a group of dramatic players. That his father has run off, preceding him, is only the first in a series of surprises, and shocks. He plunges into the saga of the Kellys, of whose scion King early we find: "His full name, Thomas Aquinas Kelly, was a comic misnomer. The only moral inquirers this man ever made had to do with money-- the inside track, the shortcut, the influence, the bribe, the pull, the means, typically foul, of getting what he wanted. He came out of the womb a criminal." (18)

This passage typifies Delaney's style. He conveys an old man looking way back to seek answers, but he keeps the verve of a young man's hopes leavened by a maturer fellow's rueful, worldly-wiser, philosophy. The book moves in and out of digressions as Ben seeks to puzzle out what happened in '32, and along the way a reader will learn about Irish politics, storytelling, and mores. When Ben makes his big move, the young man from the provinces going off to seek his fortune, or take back his family's small share of such, he admits his boldness and his foolhardiness in equal measure: "I was feeling the safety that's embodied in commitment, no matter how heartbreaking it may be." (268) It's a coming of age story in a time when the young Irish Republic comes of age.

There's far less about the Blueshirts themselves than I had expected, but then, they were a small movement with perhaps not much of an ideology to go on about at length anyhow, as Delaney seems to imply. The funhouse, satirical atmosphere of the traveling show fades as the novel goes on and the show gains some Shakespearean class. Cameos as the man in the leprechaun hat running for office and the ventriloquized Blarney (whose eloquence from the mouth of Venetia to me remains a mystery on one disturbing level which perhaps is as it should be, to keep its power over an audience member such as me) will reward the persevering reader.

Real-life sidles in, in a small detail such as Kalem Studios coming to make silent films in Ireland, or large one as in Eamon de Valera's uncanny hold over his admirers and detractors. Between the famous and the obscure, the nation being a small one, Ben will wander much of it as he tries to follow his own calling, and to figure out his own place in an island where feuds and memories cannot stay buried long. Don't expect an exhaustive travelogue even if Ben roams much of the Republic; it's more of what you'd hear from a man who sees his homeland but may also have been worn out by it, for in his travels he went more out of necessity than choice. Having visited myself many of the places in the Limerick-Tipperary rural stretches where most of this action occurs, this often overlooked terrain does gain its own dignified presence, but it lingers as backdrop, as a native lives with it, not a tourist, so the descriptions ring as more sparing and less rapturous in fitting tone.

The minor characters may stay so, and some of the major ones lurk long offstage after all are brought on in the first seventy pages, but like a dramatic show, the director will have reasons for bringing them off and on as the play goes on. The pace may seem rather unexpected, but as Ben himself strives to put together again what happened in 1932 at a far remove, the scattered elements begin, as best as he can reassemble them, to come together-- to a point, which is the whole novel's point. Free of cliche, and mercifully absent of many stereotypical figures that appear to infest market-town Irish vignettes even today, Delaney intersperses via folklorist James Clare a flavor of richer narratives, drawn from the elusive well at the world's end where ordinary folks enter extraordinary derring-do.

My dog-eared copy of his "Legends of the Celts" attests to Delaney's skill at enriching a modern account with mythic undertones without being too obvious or too oblique, and when reading this novel, I was reminded of how events over the years warp and fade. Ben warns early on: "Of the principal characters in this drama, I alone remain alive." He hopes to be proven wrong, however, and as he promises, the rambling and complicated story that he tells, no matter its twists and turns, winds up a rather compact comeuppance tale at its darker heart.

Late in its unfolding, we learn of its titular character her acting ability shines as she can hold back to draw the audience into her performance. Holding back, we come to appreciate as this ambitious novel reaches its climax, pulls the reader into Delaney's evocation of how family greed and young dreams clash and tear apart those caught in this year when "the tension in the country at that time" resembled "those photographs at night, when the camera's flash turns the neon into streaks and colored streamers. No wonder we all went a little mad." (105)

When I asked a favorite boyhood friend, with whom I had not spoken for over 50 years,what he was reading, he enthusiastically answered, "Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show". I ordered it through Amazon as a way of intuiting his current state of mind. I can happily report that I feel instantly connected to him again through our joint appreciation of Frank Delany's absorbing novel. From the first page I was intrigued by the immediateness and inventiveness of his story, filled with quirky, fascinating and beautiful characters whose lives are constructed like a house of cards with ominous foreshadowings of eventual collapse. If you liked Ivan Doig's "The Whistling Season", you'll love this book. It is even broader in its scope and more original in its style. Nearly every page reveals some insight about human nature through the unique perspectives of the individual characters who populated my mind both during and since reading it.

Where to start on this one?! Well, I'll start with I loved this story.

Frank Delaney is a master storyteller. Ben McCarthy, narrator/hero extraordinaire, tells us a story of his youth in a very intimate setting - almost making you feel as if you are sitting down with him listening while he reminisces. Set in mostly 1930's Ireland, you learn how his life forever-changed the day his father abandoned their family to join Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show.

At first it took me a little bit to get into the story only because it starts off with a lot of background information on both Ben and Venetia. So there are two storylines - Venetia's bohemian upbringing and then Ben who's always been protected and pampered by his doting partents - that is, until the day his father up and leaves and his mother begs him to chase down his father and bring him back home. Through Ben's journey with the Traveling Show you get a glimpse of the tumultuous political situation Ireland was in during the 1930's. I think Mr. Delaney was superb in mixing fiction with non-fiction. You really had a grip on the political atmosphere of the 30's and what a role it played on every day lives.

Now, keeping in mind that there is more than one story line at the beginning of the book, once these story lines come together and everything starts to fit together - it all weaved into this fantastic coming-of-age story, with an unexpected romance, mysteries to be solved and a journey through Ireland that introduces you to many a lovely character (each with their own story to tell).

Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show is an all-around perfect novel. There were times where I laughed and others where I cried and even others that I felt awed by it - all in all a very worthwhile read.

I've heard it said that stories should start when the protagonist is in trouble, that background information leading up to that moment is unnecessary and undesirable. Frank Delaney takes this conventional wisdom and turns it on its head.

Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show begins by introducing each of the major characters on an intimate level. You come to know all of them, and they're all shown on the best possible terms. Even the antagonist seems more of a likable scoundrel than the terrible man he turns out to be. Then slowly but surely, details come out, and the depth of humanity is shown in all of them.

The story is at once mythological and grounded in the reality of 1930s Ireland. Delaney often includes digressions to explain a bit of political or mythological material necessary to understand the story, but does so without ever seeming fragmented or lost in the details. The ending appears to be heavily foreshadowed, yet took me completely by surprise.

It's an incredible story and it draws you in. The audio version is well worth the money; Frank Delaney has an excellent reading voice and does the various accents with such nuance that you know which character is speaking before its announced, even if that person hasn't appeared for chapters.

When I saw Mr. Delaney speak at UConn a little while ago, he said that a sequel was in the works. I'll very much be looking forward to it.

I do like long books, but this one was tediously and boringly too long. I believe it could have been a great story, the premise is good; however, it went off on too many tangents and way too many trivial details that had absolutely nothing to do with the story. I finished it, only because once I start a book I HAVE to finish it (probably a touch of OC), but it took all I had to finish it and I lost interest long before the book was even halfway read.

"Venetia Kelly...she became a young woman of remarkable talent and passion, and when she was thirty-two years old --- the year I met her --- she was drawn into a terrible intrigue that had a profound effect upon my parents and me."

Ben MacCarthy narrates this story as he looks back to 1932, the year he was 18 and the year that dramatically altered the rest of his life. Until the night he met Venetia Kelly, Ben was a fairly typical Irish teenager for the day. His family owned a nice farm, his father and mother loved each other, and they held a position of respect among their friends and their community. It was an exciting time in young Ireland's history. A struggling government had taken form and Eamon de Valera was about to be elected. Back then, politics were heating up as will happen when a country is struggling to find its footing. As relief, traveling shows were the rage; few automobiles existed, making travel difficult.

So that one fateful night, Ben's father takes him to see the show. As he sits enraptured by the actors, he tells his son to go on home without him; he's joining Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show. Well, that's some news! And, as you can imagine, it's news that Ben's mother does not take well at all. She sends Ben right out to bring back his father, essentially saying, "Don't come home if he's not with you." Ben sets out to fulfill his mother's wishes. While unsure how to accomplish his task, at least he is intrigued by the troupe.

Venetia Kelly is a woman born to entertain. Not only is she extraordinarily beautiful, she also has an almost magical quality about her. Nightly, she mesmerizes her audience, who goes wild over her dummy named Blarney. He sits on her knee as she puts words into his wooden mouth and even goes so far as to enter the upcoming race for election. The crowd loves it. They also enjoy the snippets of scenes from great plays that the company performs, allowing them to escape the travails of their everyday lives and forget for a while the strife facing their new land.

But Venetia is also a woman with a dark past, one that involves a shady politician by the name of "King" Kelly, who happens to be her grandfather. King Kelly likes getting what he wants, and what he wants is to run the country. He has big plans for Ireland. And Ben, along with his family, is part of those plans. But what King Kelly fails to figure in is Ben's stubbornness and tenacity. Who would have thought that a boy could fight back so hard? And fight he does. One might think King Kelly chose the wrong fella to tangle with. But he has his own ways of fighting back --- some very deadly ways.

Throughout Ben's telling of his story, there is a steady undercurrent of foreboding. For a man whose life was so carefree before the traveling show hit town, his life after takes countless treacherous turns, strengthening him, devastating him and ultimately leaving him a desperate and driven man.

VENETIA KELLY'S TRAVELING SHOW is a spectacular mystery, an engaging history, and a tragedy written with sometimes great humor and sometimes great humility. Once picked up, the only reason to put this book down is to keep it from ending. And once it has ended, it's hard to resist starting it all over again, such is its power and its draw. It's true what they say: The Irish are born storytellers, and Frank Delaney is a magnificent one. If he wasn't your favorite author before now, he surely will be after you've read this outstanding novel.

In another life I think I want to be an Irish writer. Several years ago I fell in love with the lyrical writing of Frank McCourt and now I've found another writer to fully explore.

I'd heard of Frank Delaney's other books before but never found the time to pick them up and read them. Then one day, at B&N, I saw this book sitting there and I was fascinated by the cover of it. When I was a young girl I remember watching a movie about a blind horse jumper and the whole idea of a traveling show (not quite a circus) really appealed to me then and still lingers to this day.

What I didn't realize, however, was the depths to which this book would go. Instead of a pleasant story about a fantastic performer this book explored politics, fear, betrayal and mixed in a healthy dose of a coming-of-age story in Benedict (Ben), the main character.

This book was a pleasure to read. The short chapters and constant diversions into learning about other characters and other places made me feel as if I was listening to a master storyteller at work.

However, I was still confused at times and plan on doing some research to find out what exactly was real and what wasn't. In and of itself, it makes for some fantastic reading though and I enjoyed my introduction to Frank Delaney's work.