Water Carry Me (Nova Audio Books)

Rating:
Summary: Simply told, beautifully written and tragic as the Devil
Review: "Water, Carry Me" allows one to experience vicariously what life must be like in Ireland. Much what happens to Una seems as commonplace as life anywhere else yet the threat of violence hangs over the story like a pall. The sense of menace is always there, usually simmering in the background but sometimes bursting forth with brutal ferocity.

This is a story that you won't want to put down and that you will be sorry to see end.

Rating:
Summary: Not your average love story
Review: "Water, Carry Me" is a touching but unsettling look at life in the violent blood-soaked and fear-shrouded land of Ireland.

Una Moss is orphaned and reared by a crochety old grandfather with IRA leanings. Una is able to avoid the political insanity that rocks her country. She matures into a sensible, intelligent medical student, who, though sitting on a large trust fund, lives humbly and seriously.

The bookish and plain Una is swept off her feet by a handsome and charming draughtsman, Aidan Ferrel. Una is cautious, but Aidan's persistent pursuit dissolves all her doubts and insecurities. She glories in his attention and quickly begins to plan a future with "her Aidan", her "best boy."

Of course, there are problems. Una weathers the ups and downs of her girlfriends and their love lives. She slowly unfolds the truth surrounding her grandfather, Rawney, and his friends, Mick and Des. Una even witnesses the shocking execution of Des by the IRA. She gradually gets to the truth of her parents' deaths. The details of all of these troubling threads of her life she willingly feeds to Aidan, the Aidan she trusts implicitly.

This is a bittersweet love story. The author's note at the end of the book indicates that some of the events were actual occurances, manipulated for fictional purposes. Some of the events are disturbing -- the assassination scene, the police brutality, the love betrayed. As Americans, I'm doubtful that we can understand the violence of Northern Ireland.

The story began slowly for me, but built rapidly into an unexpected ending. I rated this book at four stars because of the slow beginning, but would have given it five stars if the beginning had been more interesting. Stick with this one. The ending is worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: Thomas Moran is a Literary Chameleon
Review: A fabulous review in the Washington Post Book World proclaimed Una Moss the 22-year-old Irish narrator of WATER CARRY ME to be "one of the most remarkable characters to grace fiction's pages".

I have a two-year-old demanding boy and I need to be enthralled with every little bit of reading I squeeze in at night. So I bought the book. I loved it and I totally believed the novel's beautiful and sad world. And for a short while each night it was also 'my world'- because a part of me always becomes the protagonist, male or female when I am truly seduced by a good writer. This book does that!

Una's voice is so genuine I could hear her accent, and the Irish sea town so real that I heard the sounds of everyday life as I read. I heard the violence and the terror, the shouts and the guns of Irish politics. I also heard Una's grandfather Rawney spin his tales. He is so unique I felt I must have met him once. I heard the young lovers in their most intimate moments, I understood their torments and inner secrets. It was real and I was enthralled. I don't normally care about Ireland's 'Troubles' but with this novel I found my precious free time put to good use and my money gladly spent. Thomas Moran is a true great writer.

Rating:
Summary: A hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking story
Review: Although the title may indicate "Water, Carry Me" is a love story, it is, in fact, so much more. Set against the backdrop of a divided Ireland, the novel tracks a few years in the life of Una Moss, the book's fascinating narrator, as she rides the turbulent waves of her early 20's.

Orphaned at eight and raised by her grandfather Rawney in Cobh, County Cork, Una is perhaps one of the most interesting and compelling characters in recent fiction. Cynical yet naive, insightful yet oblivious, she is a wholly real person and draws us into her world and her experiences as she comes of age as an adult. As she enters university, she watches her longtime friends Fallon, Collie, and Gaynor drawing away from her, changing and developing tastes and interests completely different from her own, and finds her best friends are not who she thought they were. And when "the Troubles" violently hit home for Una, she slowly discovers the truth behind the long-held secrets in her family, and her life suddenly becomes enmeshed in that conflict.

But all of these changes become secondary when she meets Aidan Ferrel, a draughtsman from the North, who sweeps her off her feet with his self-depricating charm and adoration of her. Una believes she has found true love and begins to plan her future with the man who, in her eyes, is perfection. Of course, Una then finds out she doesn't quite know everything she thought she did about Aidan.

Moran's deft writing moves the book along at a swift pace, and the interest never sags. This is a thoroughly engrossing, enjoyable, and ultimately heartbreaking read.

Rating:
Summary: What a sad story
Review: God, this was a pathetic read. I was keen at first because I had been recommended Moran's work by a (usually) reliable friend. This is just full of cliche after cliche. Starting with the oh so blarney names and the oh so bleak Irish settings, the "craic", the povery stricken and drinking uncle, the poor little rich girl who doesn't realise that she is beautiful but nonetheless is described endlessly in almost masturbatory detail. Anyone not seeing the end coming a mile away needs glasses. Give me an authentic Irish voice over a loft ridden New Yorker anyday. Is this really how yanks see Ireland?

Rating:
Summary: You will love Derdriu Ring's voice!
Review: I knew from the beginning as I read this book that it was going to be tragic, but the flavor in the reading was reading how it was going to achieve it. I was not disappointed. Una, the protaganist, seems doomed from the beginning of the story--from the secret way her parents died, to her grandfather, Rawney, and his dubious friends who are somehow (or are they?) connected to the I.R.A. In fact, all of Una's life is somehow always connected to the I.R.A. and not because she chose that way.

The crux of the book was when she met Aiden, who seemed the perfect man - but then was he the perfect man? Even to the end, she still could not grasp any other image of him. This was her tragic flaw.

I recommend the book to all even though there were some "Irish" stereotypes.

Rating:
Summary: worthwhile read
Review: It's an engrossing story, and definitely signals Moran's maturation as a writer. Yet, it's kind of disturbing. There are these wonderfully rich female protagonists in Moran's books, and then they end up getting the proverbial shaft. "Water..." is a much better book than his previous ones, with substantial improvements in writing, but you may be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful emotional ride
Review: Owning an Irish American newspaper, and reviewing over one hundred books with Irish themes the last three years, I now have to revise my list of top ten favorite books, having just completed "Water, Carry Me" last night. As other reviewers have hinted, it's a book that stays with you. I woke up in the middle of the night still agonizing over the lovers, Uma and Aidan.
I would love to see a sequel, with Aidan redeeming himself, writing to substain Uma's spirits, but I suppose he is beyond redemption and would have to live with his guilt, as he has all the years since the Remembrance Day Celebration.
I have been in Northern Ireland, have visited the IRA prisoners in Long Kesh, questioning their choices and commitment. It is almost beyond understanding, though they've often tried to explain it to me. As an American, perhaps we can never understand.
I also write novels about the Troubles, but in "Water,Carry Me", Moran has definitely raised the bar. I never wanted it to end, and while I knew in time Aidan's secrets would be revealed, I never foresaw the consequences to Uma.
Since I work part-time in a bookstore, I've had my eye on this book for awhile. After reading "The World I Made For Her" I was pretty sure I'd love it, but had no idea it would be so powerful.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful emotional ride
Review: Owning an Irish American newspaper, and reviewing over one hundred books with Irish themes the last three years, I now have to revise my list of top ten favorite books, having just completed "Water, Carry Me" last night. As other reviewers have hinted, it's a book that stays with you. I woke up in the middle of the night still agonizing over the lovers, Uma and Aidan.
I would love to see a sequel, with Aidan redeeming himself, writing to substain Uma's spirits, but I suppose he is beyond redemption and would have to live with his guilt, as he has all the years since the Remembrance Day Celebration.
I have been in Northern Ireland, have visited the IRA prisoners in Long Kesh, questioning their choices and commitment. It is almost beyond understanding, though they've often tried to explain it to me. As an American, perhaps we can never understand.
I also write novels about the Troubles, but in "Water,Carry Me", Moran has definitely raised the bar. I never wanted it to end, and while I knew in time Aidan's secrets would be revealed, I never foresaw the consequences to Uma.
Since I work part-time in a bookstore, I've had my eye on this book for awhile. After reading "The World I Made For Her" I was pretty sure I'd love it, but had no idea it would be so powerful.

Rating:
Summary: A poem, an elegy
Review: The story and the words of this haunting and beautifully written story were the water that carried me through. It has been a few weeks since I finished the book. I am a prolific reader, and this this book stands out and stands tall. I was surprised and touched by its brilliant prose that read like poetry and more by the fate of the character, but I don't think one would have been possible without the other. At the end, one does feel very close to grief, the kind that makes you double over and scream silently. The tragedy of Una is heightened by the depth of her love and innocence, by the beauty of the landscape and the language, next to the incomprehension of cruelty and being caught in a political struggle that one has not sought. I feel that I have to immediately read "Man in the Box" and everything else that Moran has written and will write.