Customer Reviews

West Belfast

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

 

 

Danny Morrison's first novel, West Belfast, is significant for its honest portrayal of a conflict which has been written on extensively by outsiders but rarely by the people involved. A Republican of some standing, his writings have been criticized by many who feel that the Irish Republican voice should not be heard. This is perhaps the first time that a modern Irish Republican has attempted to show in novel form what his community has gone through under British oppression. The writing is at times slightly awkward--it is a first novel as I said--but it is refreshing honest and sincere. A good examination of politics and general human concerns.

...as apparently many others are not able to do. I would like to offer my opinion of Danny Morrison's first effort at writing a novel. Mr. Morrison makes a good effort with this, his first novel. It is a very honest portrayal, which stems from his own biased foundation. No attempt is made to hide his personal, political leanings or to disguise his emotional involvement in this book.

I found this biased foundation quite refreshing. I appreciated the honest opinion, of a man who lived one side of, "The Troubles." This is a book field that is flooded with outsiders writing what they refer to as their "unbiased view," when actually they are simply well disguised yet still highly biased in their foundation.

The writing is not the greatest I've ever seen, but it is far from the worst. You have to take this book at its face value, a personal account - in novel form - of a life in Belfast. I give it 3 stars because it was a compelling read but the writing trips you up on many occasions, breaking up the flow and almost forcing you to re-read sentences with a "what was that??" effect.

West Belfast is a book of the rise of a young man from street-fighting to full-scale terrorism. If you are interested in a very, very biased Republican (i.e. Sinn Fein) view of the beginning of the troubles, buy this book from a well-known, once convicted Sinn Fein spokesperson. For a much better novel with a similar scope (but less republican, more catholic) buy Maddens One by One in the Darkness. If you want to read the ultimate novel on Northern Ireland, read McLiam Wilsons Eureka Street.

As a novel this is certainly a commendable attempt at writing a gritty novel of the struggle of those in a downtrodden community, in the truly romanticised style of those writing about liberation movements and their host communities. To some extent knowing Danny in his 'activist' role I can see an attempt to re-write his own involvement in the social conflict in Northern Ireland in a more sanitized style and if thats the purpose of this as a novel (fiction) I can't really fault it. However its hardly a template for reality as some of the reviewers here might suggest. The conflict was a social conflict where a majority and a minority sought to impose their dogma on each other. From the viewpoint of a person who has suffered the effects of republican violence I caa assure you that this book completly blanks out the compelling reality that west Belfast nationalism was not engaged in a liberation struggle but was effectively a self-styled ghetto from which some of the most poignant atrocities were launched against innocent communities which were not nationalist in outlook. Not one of the housing estates in nationalist west Belfast ever endured the premeditated bombing atrocities of the Shankill, Belvoir, Rathcoole and La Mon communities.
This book is certainly a novel, and a good attempt at a first one, but its barely able to evoke in me any sentiment of parallels with reality, which it clearly tries to do.