The focus of this essay picks up on a related point that McGahern makes in the same interview. While it’s a common trait of most good fiction, in tackling Amongst Women again, a recurring realisation I experienced was the extreme depth of thinking about these characters that had so clearly taken place off the page. In a 1993 interview with the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society ( very niche but also very on YouTube), McGahern talks about how only 5% of what he writes for a novel ends up in the finished product. Every sentence is golden, each stuffed with meaning without being weighed down by it. That last one might have a hint of hyperbole, but that’s how excited I feel about this book having read it again to prepare this piece. What about this: “the best novel ever written in the English language.” Try that one on for size and let me know when you’re done in the changing room. Some might say “best novel of the 1990s.” Dropping the Irish tag but narrowing the pool to just one decade of writing? Fair enough. Amongst Women - it’s up there isn’t it? The most popular way of framing it is probably “best Irish novel of the second half of the 20th century.” Everyone who sits on that fence avoids the indecency of stirring the shit in the Joyce/Beckett/Bowen/O’Brien (Flann)/O’Brien (Kate) cauldron of masterpieces.
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