Rating: 
Summary: An Insight Into The Irish Soul
Review: "The Aran Islands" is a delightful rendition of the experiences of J. M. Synge during his visits to the Aran Islands just over a century ago. Synge's journey had been encouraged by William Butler Yeats. "Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression." Here Synge gained an insight into the Irish character which would enrich his later works.The Aran Islands are a chain of islands off the coasts of Connemara and Clare. Isolated by the sea, the Arans, like the Galapagos in the natural world, preserve the language and customs of traditional Ireland. The book is a narrative of what Synge saw and the stories he heard during his stays in the Arans, told by a master storyteller in the finest Irish tradition. The language is delightful, the stories are entertaining and the insight into the Irish soul is profound. A must read for any lover of the Irish.
Rating:
Summary: An Insight Into The Irish Soul
Review: "The Aran Islands" is a delightful rendition of the experiences of J. M. Synge during his visits to the Aran Islands just over a century ago. Synge's journey had been encouraged by William Butler Yeats. "Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression." Here Synge gained an insight into the Irish character which would enrich his later works. The Aran Islands are a chain of islands off the coasts of Connemara and Clare. Isolated by the sea, the Arans, like the Galapagos in the natural world, preserve the language and customs of traditional Ireland. The book is a narrative of what Synge saw and the stories he heard during his stays in the Arans, told by a master storyteller in the finest Irish tradition. The language is delightful, the stories are entertaining and the insight into the Irish soul is profound. A must read for any lover of the Irish.
Rating: 
Summary: The times are a-changing . . .
Review: . . . on Aran as everywhere else. I have had the privilege of spending two weeks on Inish Mor, one 4 years ago and one in the summer of 2001. The difference between the two visits was enormous . . . where on the first visit I saw perhaps 5-6 cars a day on the little roads, now there are minibuses beetling along everywhere. The pony carts are strictly for the tourists. I missed the women setting up kiosks on the road, selling their beautifully made sweaters. At the same time, throughout the summer, the young people put on a nightly concert featuring traditional Irish music and dance -- and it is fantastic! So wonderful to see the beauty of the old traditions taking hold in the hearts of the young men and women. BUT ... what is quaint to the tourist translates into abject poverty for the native. Reading Synge gives one a sense of what WAS, and how hard it has been (and still is) for families to make a go of it on Aran. Read it with respect, and remember . . . all things are changing.
Rating:
Summary: The times are a-changing . . .
Review: . . . on Aran as everywhere else. I have had the privilege of spending two weeks on Inish Mor, one 4 years ago and one in the summer of 2001. The difference between the two visits was enormous . . . where on the first visit I saw perhaps 5-6 cars a day on the little roads, now there are minibuses beetling along everywhere. The pony carts are strictly for the tourists. I missed the women setting up kiosks on the road, selling their beautifully made sweaters. At the same time, throughout the summer, the young people put on a nightly concert featuring traditional Irish music and dance -- and it is fantastic! So wonderful to see the beauty of the old traditions taking hold in the hearts of the young men and women. BUT ... what is quaint to the tourist translates into abject poverty for the native. Reading Synge gives one a sense of what WAS, and how hard it has been (and still is) for families to make a go of it on Aran. Read it with respect, and remember . . . all things are changing.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly interesting, but a bit boring
Review: J.M. Synge might have been one of the best Irish writers in history, but despite that fact and the fact that his subject, the life on the desolate Aran Islands, is a very interesting one, I cannot help but be bored by this book. The Aran Islands is a group of islands outside the west coast of Ireland, and the life there is very harsh. The sea, the wind, the lack of good soil... all this worked to make life here very hard and shaped the culture and the attitude of the individuals. Furthermore, the islands were almost totally cut off from the mainland at the time this book was written (now it's a popular tourist spot where you can visit "Synge's cottage"). Synge went to the Aran Islands five or six times during as many years, and wrote this book to "express a life that never found expression before" (Yeat's words). The life on these islands, far from the modern civilization that takes place only a few hours away on the Irish mainland, is indeed of interest. But nothing happens. In the whole book. It starts with Synge being on the Island, his first day there. It ends with Synge leaving the Islands for the last time. In between, all there is is the interesting description of the islanders' life, which could have been described better in another way, and Synge's mixed emotions of them. As a reader you get the visitor's view of the island, a visitor that wants so badly to be accepted at one time, the next minute, he thinks of them as primitive. It is worth reading because of the informative contains, however. And if you plan on visiting the islands, it's a must-read.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting peek into the past
Review: J.M. Synge's book about life on the desolate Aran Islands is a very well written look into a society that could only exist until that time, and in that place. The Aran Islands, a group of islands off the west coast of Ireland, were at the time almost completely cut off from the mainland, except via the 'hooker' and the skin covered 'curagh' that plays such a critical part both in life on the islands, and in the book. Life there was very hard and made the character of the prople very unique. The islands were, and are, one of the strongest 'Irish' speaking cultures, and the ability to find life in the midst of it all is profoundly apparent throughout the book, as is Synge's obvious appreciation of the simple life and simple beliefs found there (note the comparison he makes to the 'busy' and 'lost' world in Galway, merely across the bay). It is a book of it's time, and shound be read in the context of the beginning of the 'Irish Revival' then beginning.
Rating:
Summary: I was named after the island
Review: My dad was born there in the 1950's and i was named after it. not a bad place, not much to do but nice to visit. the book is informal but informative.
Rating:
Summary: I was named after the island
Review: My dad was born there in the 1950's and i was named after it. not a bad place, not much to do but nice to visit. the book is informal but informative.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting turn of the century look at the culture
Review: People have often said to me that they find Synge's account of his time spent honing his Irish and collecting folklore on the Aran Islands to be one of the slowest and most boring reads they've ever encountered. I must heartily disagree. While the work doesn't exactly "swing like the pendulum do", the rhythms of his narration are very much like that of the changing tide and the rolling of the waves to which the islanders have grown accustomed. Synge's narration-- like time on Inishmaan-- moves slowly and steadily, washing over the reader if one will let it. Remember above all that this work is essentially a series of journal entries, meant to document the people Synge met, the conversations he had, the stories he heard, etc. Perhaps the book's greatest contribution to the world is as a document of a way of life no longer in existence. This book is also a document of the the Irish Literary Renaissance, and-- for its occassional pretensions-- should be ! considered as such. This text might also help to give greater understanding to any reading of Synge's plays, as he alleged that the story for such works as "Playboy of the Western World" were derived from tales he heard in the Arans.
Rating:
Summary: Lively Reading
Review: The search for authentic experiences is regarded as an important theme in postmodernism. John Millington Synge's book demonstrates that this quest for authenticity has been an important part of cultural inquiry for a long time. This wonderful book was written almost one hundred years ago, but it reads like a contemporary ethnographic inquiry. He provides vivid descriptions of daily life and wonderful presentations of the folklore of the Aran Islands. The book is primarily descriptive, but there are interesting textures and conclusions throughout Synge's writing. I would recommend reading this book and then watching Flaherty's film "Man of Aran." Follow up that visual feast with Stoney's "The Making of the Myth." To complete your excursion, top things off with a reading of Synge's "Playboy of the Western World" and "Riders to the Sea," two fine plays that he set on the Aran Islands. The stories, descriptions, and textures within Synge's book will become very clear when you're finished.
| 
