By the Lake

Rating:
Summary: pleasant but dull
Review: I'm not an action junkie, so I thought I could certainly appreciate the portrait of an area, its inhabitants and their lifestyles, as in one of my absolute favorites: That Old Ace in the Hole. I forced myself to finish this one, though. I was just never invested in any of the characters, didn't care about the outcome. Makes me wonder how I differ from all those rave reviewers on the jacket.

Rating:
Summary: New Friends
Review: If the point of reading novels for you is to enter a world different from your own, peopled by new friends you have yet to meet--then John McGahern's By The Lake is a novel for you. In all truth, nothing much happens--at least nothing sensational or bizarre. What does happen, however, is a piece of life so real that you can add it to the " meaningless" affairs of your own daily life with great ease. McGahern could have easily slipped into Irish stereotype making these characters into "wee people." But he avoids that flaw and avoids it well. It was a comfort each morning to read a section or two of this novel--since there are no conventional chapters at all--have my breakfast and go off to work. My life had already been enriched and yet my official day had not begun. Read and enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Not as advertised
Review: If this book was more like the jacket & these reviews I might have enjoyed it. Instead I at first found it tedious & then too foul to endure for so little benefit (a guy inexplicably murders his dogs instead of letting them stay with his relatives who love them, another guy repeatedly rapes his wife in front of her parents). The sadism bothered me but the way it was glossed over made it seem even sicker.

Rating:
Summary: Charming and Sweet
Review: John McGahern's By the Lake is wonderful, charming novel about a year in the life of the people living around an Irish lake. Nothing groundbreaking happens in the novel and there is not much of a plot, just the stories of the people around the lake. You come to know their quirks, their foibles, their strengths as you read the novel. The focal point of the novel is the house of Kate and Ruttledge, a couple who have relocated from London for a simpler life. People stop by for a drink, or some tea and they hear all about the local gossip, they farm and raise livestock. An ordinary story told in extraordinary fashion. McGahern writes beautifully, with each sentence wonderfully evocative. By the Lake is a lovely novel, to be slowly savoured.

Rating:
Summary: A quiet, happy, gem
Review: This is a quiet, happy, gem of novel by a proven literary master. Set in recent time in a small rural community in northwest Ireland, the story follows a year in the lives of several lakeside residents of small neighboring farms. The very common place events of their lives are described in episodic fashion. The central figures are a childless Anglo/Irish couple who left their successful professional careers in London to reside on a farm by the lake. A theme throughout the narrative is about Irish people who leave for England and later return. But the primary theme is the almost seamless and repetitive lives of the people of this almost idyllic community. This is a place where the accidental death of a lamb or the sudden appearance of a new telephone pole are major events. These lives and relationships are told in prose that is so poetically descriptive that, without being at all cloying, almost glistens on the page. The vision of a heron that rises in the mist everytime someone walks by the lakeshore is palpable. There are no chapters in the book. The various episodes are strung together one after another, but this seems fitting where there are no large, climactic events. The people and their speech are quaintly Irish, and it is easy to love and admire each of them in spite of a host of personality quirks and ritualistic behavior. The story resolves itself with the death and funeral of one of the leading characters, replete with the traditional laying out of the corpse, the wake and the digging of the grave in the family plot (many Irish graves contain the remains of several generations of individuals). This episode is described in such detail and matter-of-fact forthrightness that one feels intimately involved. The original title of the book when published in Ireland was "That They May Face The Rising Sun". This more appropriate title comes from a conversation among the grave diggers where one of them explains that people are always buried with their heads toward the west so that when they are eventually resurrected from the grave, they will rise from the ground facing the rising sun. It is an image, both morbid and uplifting, that sticks long after the book is finished.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging, Colorful, Rich
Review: This is the first work I've read of McGahern's and I was deeply moved by the lyrical writing, the poetic descriptions of the countryside and its wildlife, the lake, which looms like a living character around the lives of the village in northwest Ireland, and the precise character descriptions that bring subtle, nuanced portraits of the inhabitants to life. The work centers on a childless married couple who have escaped London to live in their cosy cottage by the lake, their farming routines, and the lives of their neighbors and an uncle named the Shah, who is the richest man in the area. All these characters are portrayed sympathetically and with great empathy. They speak richly and colorfully, and the rhythms of their speech ceaselessly entertain throughout the novel.
I have to admit, however, that I did grow restless with the structure of the work, and the impressionistic techniques of the narrative that repeated a bit too much for me, which is why I've withheld the fifth star in my rating. However, this work is well worth reading, and I'm very happy that I did.

Rating:
Summary: The most Fabulous book I've read in years
Review: This was a really wonderful pastoral book of country life in Ireland. A year in the country, where you get to know a number of characters living near each other, and observe both the change of season and seasonal activities, as well as the slow growth of perspective in people's lives as things change, the rhythms of life and death. The most wonderful thing about the book is how real the characters feel, as if they were friends that you've been getting to know over the year. I didn't want the book to end.

Rating:
Summary: Same book, different title
Review: This wonderful book is the same as "That They May Face The Rising Sun". I suppose different titles for different markets (US/UK).

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful portrayal of rural Irish life
Review: What a wonderful, peaceful, flowing book. It is written so poetically and seamlessly you think nothing much is happening in this bucolic Irish village by the lake. And as time goes on, you fall into the ebb and flow of life and the questions raised are the very same ones throughout the world and just as poignant. It is the most beautiful, peaceful book I have read in years. A gem and a keeper. I hope he writes many more.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful portrayal of rural Irish life
Review: What a wonderful, peaceful, flowing book. It is written so poetically and seamlessly you think nothing much is happening in this bucolic Irish village by the lake. And as time goes on, you fall into the ebb and flow of life and the questions raised are the very same ones throughout the world and just as poignant. It is the most beautiful, peaceful book I have read in years. A gem and a keeper. I hope he writes many more.