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| Cover of my Folio Society edition of Woodbrook |
I love an angry
memoir as much as the next angry person, but sometimes you just want to be enveloped by love and kindness.
Woodbrook came to me at a good time. Thanks, David Streitfeld,
for the recommendation. An elegy to a country, a family and a girl
he loved, the thing that struck me most about Woodbrook was
author David Thomson's warmth and generosity, how he found the goodness and
strength of each person he met in his ten years as tutor to the
children of Charlie and Ivy Kirkwood, and as an extra hand around
their farm and estate in County Roscommon, called Woodbrook. The book is full of great,
eccentric characters, fascinating diversions into Irish history and,
in passages, a kind of erotic infatuation. Whenever the object of
Thomson's obsession, the Kirkwood's daughter, Phoebe, enters the picture, everything seems to
stop and go dark but for a spotlight on her, her clothing, her
shoulders, hair, facial expressions, scent.
In a way, this
memoir represents the other side of William Trevor and John McGahern,
to me the twin towers of late 20th Century Irish fiction, particularly the
short story. Their stories and characters can be beautiful and
full of love and lust, but there tends to be a spirit of lamentation more than
elegy. Fine with me. But Thomson is different. He lacks bitterness, utterly, even about this story's sad
end. (Okay, there is a certain bitterness toward England for its
historic treatment of the Irish, but of course that is unavoidable.)
(See also: Thomson's Woodbrook and the poetry of Kavanagh.)
(See also: Thomson's Woodbrook and the poetry of Kavanagh.)
To pick an excerpt
is difficult. Should I pick one that shows Thomson's love for Phoebe? Or
his admiration for her parents? Or his insight into the relationship
between Protestants and Catholics in the Ireland of the 1930s?
This is about Phoebe's
mother, Ivy Kirkwood, and the difference between her and a family aunt
who lived on the estate, but who longed for more of a social life:
Ivy liked being with other people and was full of curiosity about them and their furniture and houses; she had a distinctive kind of beauty and enough reserve to make her seem mysterious. Everyone wanted to get to know her better and her engagement book, like her card at every ball, was filled too quickly for her liking, but she was less dependent on all that than Topsy had ever been. She had had a better education, her musical talents had been fostered, she could read with enjoyment and knew how to choose books that were not boring or stupid. Her loneliness in childhood and the unhappiness that grew between her and her father had uncovered resources within her which did not need stimulations from outside. The dances, games and rushing about that Topsy always longed for were to Ivy, who had too much of them, a tempting distraction from activities she valued more.
- from Woodbrook by David Thomson
Further reading/listening:
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