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So I've been sleeping on this book
It's midnight on the first day of December and I've just read the first 16 pages of this book. It's consuming me and I want to document my experience reading it
It's a text that "sculpts essay and auto fiction" about Ní Gríofa's experiences translating an epic poem, about a woman grieving for her husband, from Irish to English
In February? March? of this year I went to the Tramp Press launch where they showcased their brilliant 2020 books. The second they started talking about Ghost I was hooked. Doireann read this extract and I haven't stopped thinking about it since
(I won't be sharing long extracts like this throughout but I wanted to give a reference of where I started with this book)
This first chapter is titled "A Female Text" and it breathes these words on every page. It feels inspired, written, nurtured by passionate, smart women and I feel like Tramp was the only publisher able to provide the support this text deserves.
The writing sings. God it sings. I've been lucky to be reading more lyrical prose (loving it) this year than usual but this is a different level. Familiar, comforting, challenging, it feels like she is singing this story to us the way Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill sang for her husband
My favourite snippets so far. The story of a lifetime admitted in a line. The hint of the title is teased beautifully, haunting us, testing our commitment to the text.
I'm already obsessed with this book. I don't know why I waited so long to read it: I had heard the praise, I liked it when I first heard it. But this is a December book for me, I can just feel it, and I'm glad I waited.
Updates to follow
Updates to follow
So I'm working on 3 hours sleep because I was reading it until 4am and it was worth every second. More coherant thoughts to follow when I have caffeine in my veins.
My understanding of motherhood is almost exclusively through women writers in Ireland. It's an honour to be allowed insight into this part of someone's life.
I'm sorry can you IMAGINE being able to put words together like this? I am the lady gaga meme right now, the one where she's all like "brilliant, amazing, spectacular" that's how I feel reading this rn. Art. Goddamn.
This book has better cliffhangers than any mystery or adventure novel you'll read. The gliding between the past and present is seamless.
I think a lot about legacy. I also feel very separate to my body. The idea that there is legacy - "generosity" - to be found in the body is a foreign concept to me. But isn't that how any legacy is passed? From mouth to ear to hand to eyes.
Ní Gríofa talks about being unwilling to imagine moments of Eibhlín's life without just evidence. Moments of intimacy are left ambiguous. I can't help but think that in this omission, female readers of this book must sketch in traces of their own lives, a need to share their own.
Ní Gríofa asks herself "what's all this for" - the research, the obsession, the commitment. I'm sure this will be addressed later in the book, but I can't help but feel that there doesn't need to be a reason. I really relate to the feeling of needing to justify the work done...
... It's hard to accept that our, women's, work is valid. We can create so that it can exist, take up space, without explaining ourselves. But it's important to just let ourselves, and our work, be.
I wonder, how do we know the horse is female? Is there a document claiming it to be official somewhere? Was it a detail decided, purposefully or otherwise, during one of the many iterations of this story? If the latter, I'd love to know why it mattered to know then as it does now
There is so much respect and admiration in this text for Eibhlín's. Ní Gríofa, the text, refuses to abandon her - but the way she is conscious and concerned of invading another woman's space is a sweetness I think you'd only see in female texts.
