Name: Troubles
ISBN: 1590170180

J.G. Farrell

Troubles

Andrew John Kinney

This is the second book I've read in J.G. Farrell's Empire Trilogy, and as with The Singapore Grip it follows the misadventures of a hapless but well-meaning upper middle-class Englishman through one of the key moments in the gradual undoing of the British Empire, in this case, the end of British rule in Ireland.

"The Major", as he is known to the reader from start to finish, is a recently demobilized officer who spent WW1 in the trenches in France, and is still recovering psychologically from the experience. Because of what appears to be a misunderstanding, he is thought to have proposed to the daughter of a British land-owner in Ireland (Edward), who is also the proprietor of a formerly magnificent hotel, the Majestic, now in dire need of attention. The Major makes his way to Ireland and quickly discovers that neither his supposed fiancee' nor the fortunes of her family are quite as he remembered from his brief, shell-shocked two week leave from duty at the Majestic in 1916. The gradual disintegration of the hotel provides the lion's share of the humor, combined with Edward's progressively more tenuous attachment to reality, and The Major's agitation at the overall situation, in which he attempts, mostly unsuccessfully, to be helpful. All this is an allegory, of course, for the fading of British hegemony in Ireland, and more generally. 

I found this book to be at least as engaging as The Singapore Grip, if not more so, and I look forward this year to reading the third - The Siege of Krishnapur. Farrell was of Irish descent, and he writes with understanding of the events of 1919-21. In no other country which ultimately achieved Dominion status did the British rule with a heavier hand, and all the rest, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were granted Dominion status before Ireland. This book has made me curious about the events which form the backdrop of Troubles, so I'm sure Irish Independence books will find their way onto my TBR list this year. Troubles was a winner on the Lost Man Booker prize of 1970.

Troubles

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