{"id":2265,"date":"2014-07-16T06:35:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T10:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2019-03-10T13:24:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T17:24:26","slug":"mapping-the-literary-irish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2265","title":{"rendered":"Mapping the Literary Irish"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ireland\"<\/a>

(photo: wikimedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

A clever new infographic<\/a> from BuyBooks appeals to both the literary impulse and the traveler\u2019s grail\u2014both central to this website\u2014and maps a notable clutch of Irish literary icons. It\u2019s tough to quarrel with any list of Emerald Isle literary figures that includes Cecil Day-Lewis, father of the incomparable Daniel, but where are G. B. Shaw (\u201cIf you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance\u201d) and Oscar Fingal O\u2019Flahertie Wills Wilde? I waited in vain to find Beckett on the list and progenitor of today\u2019s vampire obsession, Bram Stoker.<\/p>\n

More currently<\/a>, the McCorts, Malachy and Frank? Man Booker winner Roddy Doyle? Where\u2019s Thomas Flanagan and The Year of the French\u2014<\/em>\u201ca masterwork of historical fiction,\u201d said The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>? (Despite its merits, this book did not survive a run through the washing machine that I cannot explain.) For more modern history, where\u2019s Adrian McKinty and his cop\u2019s dilemmas during the Maze prison hunger strikes? Where, or where, is Gerry Conlon?<\/p>\n

Wandering a bit into the peat fields here, for riveting Netflix picks, the movie based on Conlon\u2019s book, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Emma Thompson, In the Name of the Father<\/em> (trailer<\/a>), is super, as is the biopic, Michael Collins<\/em> (trailer<\/a>), with Liam Neeson and an amazing cast\u2014Stephen Rea, Alan Rickman, et al. My weakness for political thrillers is showing.<\/p>\n

Possibly Ireland is too full of literary masters to include them all on one map, but BuyBooks could have been braver and more contemporary in its picks. Which favorite authors\/books of yours were left out? And here’s a more complete map<\/a>.<\/p>\n