Gerald
Griffin
This
is one of two books i wrote a squirt on recently, the essential
information being the guilt that they were generating in me because
of mine inability to make myself
work all the way through to the end. I am now glad to point out
that, obviously, i have finished The
Collegians and, while
it probably will never become one of my favourite books, it is not,
in totality, as bad as i was finding it in the actual reading. Faint
praise, i know, but not intended to be damning. There were, i think,
two things about the book which made it difficult for me to fully
enjoy reading it: I tend to dislike reading works which try to show
accent or dialect through the text, and in particular i dislike the
production of the Irish dialect here (and common elsewhere) which
when pronounced in my mind does not seem to sound like any Irish i
have ever heard; and secondly i had difficulties because the
expectations raised in me by the book and its circumstances were
different from those it was intended to fulfil.
For
the first, perhaps mine exposure simply is not great enough, but i
find an accent (dialect) written such that “-st-” is shown as “-sth-”
and “-ea-” sometimes as “-a-” and sometimes as “-ai-”
unconvincing. While i admit that presenting “-th-” as “-d-”consistently is acceptable, to represent what i hear i would
use “-t-” myself. There are other questions i found based on the orthographic conventions Griffin used, but these are enough to give
a flavour of mine objection. There is also a sprinkling, fairly
heavy at times, to be honest, of Gaelic words thrown in, sometimes
with translation, sometimes not, which also helped in the process of
slowing me down. That, i think, is the heart of this difficulty for
me: I read fast, over five hundred words a minute when last i was
timed, and i dislike having to slow down, be confused, having to
think about the actual words being used rather than the meaning,
concepts, or action they present. Thus, i was not altogether happy
with The Collegians
because it slowed me down rather dramatically ~ at a guess, no more
than two hundred words a minute on average as i read it.
The
second point i mentioned which made it difficult for me to read this
novel i have identified as mine own expectations. I purchased the
book as part of a set of “classic mysteries”, or some such phrase
the use of which raised certain images in my mind as to what i was
going to read. This book does not fit those images. I was expecting
a novel along the lines of, say, A
Study in Scarlet, or
The Mysterious Affair
of Styles, rather than
what i got. The fault here is certainly not Griffin's; he wrote as
he chose, and wrote well, too. If there is any fault other than
mine, it would go to whoever chose to market the novel in this
fashion, setting up parallels in a reader's mind which are not going
to be fulfilled. Though there is a murder, there is scarce any
mystery ~ other than, for a short time, of whether the murder has
been committed. There is no detective; hardly any detecting, to be
honest, simply an investigation by the coroner which comes to no
conclusion. These points are irrelevant, though, to be truthful, as
the book ~ any book ~ should stand or fall on its own merits, and i
believe that this one does stand fairly. I suspect, having read it
now, and able to get my preconceptions in line, i may read it again
at some point in the future, giving it another chance, so to speak,
to present itself to me properly. Should that happen, i anticipate
enjoying it (other than the dialect!) more.
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