Featured Reading Guide
Seamus Deane
A haunted childhood, lived out in two dimensions. One is legendary: the Sun-fort of Grianan, home of the warrior Fianna; the Field of the Disappeared, over which no gulls fly; the house in Donegal where children are stolen away by demonic forces. The other is actual: the city of Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 40s and 50s; a place that is also haunted by political enmities, family secrets, lethal intrigue. The boy narrator of READING IN THE DARK grows up enclosed in these two worlds, sensing that they are intertwined in some mysterious ways that he both wants and does not want to discover…
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topAbout the Book
A haunted childhood, lived out in two dimensions. One is legendary: the Sun-fort of Grianan, home of the warrior Fianna; the Field of the Disappeared, over which no gulls fly; the house in Donegal where children are stolen away by demonic forces. The other is actual: the city of Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 40s and 50s; a place that is also haunted by political enmities, family secrets, lethal intrigue. The boy narrator of READING IN THE DARK grows up enclosed in these two worlds, sensing that they are intertwined in some mysterious ways that he both wants and does not want to discover. Through the silence that surrounds him, he feels the truth spreading like a stain until it engulfs him and his family. Claustrophobic but lyrically charged, breathtakingly sad but vibrant and unforgettable, READING IN THE DARK is one of the finest books about growing up – in Ireland or anywhere – that has every been written.
topSeamus Deane interview/review
weeklywire June 1998
- How much of Reading in the Dark is fact-based? Is any of it autobiographical?
A lot of it. I wouldn’t want to give a percentage, but in effect it’s an interpretation of my own family’s history. However, the novel in some ways is not just about one particular family, but also about Northern Ireland and what the Northern Irish state was like from the 1920s to the 1970s. It’s the history of the Northern Irish, of minority experience, as well as the history of the family.
It’s really a novel about politics penetrating the personal life, and I think that part comes from Northern Ireland’s peculiar history. It’s also a function of its size; its smallness ensures that everything within it is fitting intensely. The border between the private and the public is narrower there than it would be in a larger society or a less oppressed one.
One of the things that is central to the story is secrets. I think the problem of a society where so much is forbidden, so much has to be kept secret for political reasons, is that when a secret is revealed it has this strange ability to alter the world. It makes the real world seem phantasmal. Where the real and the phantasmal coincide with one another, that’s a mark of a colonized society.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Four significant deaths occur during the narrator’s childhood. In what ways do they each change his world view in relation to his parents, his peers, the church and police?
- The narrator has a fascination with words. How does his telling of the story reflect this awareness of languages? How does he use his power over words to discover the truth?
- The police station is only a few hundred yards from the family home and the families’ secrets are closely entwined with the police. What effect does this have on how the family is seen by both its neighbours and the police?
- Eddie is the focus of the family secret, yet we are given very little information about him. How important is Eddie’s character to the discovery of the past? Does the focus shift as the story unfolds?
- The novel’s six chapters are divided into sections as short as two pages. These sections are names and dated. What is the effect of this subdivision on your reading? Does it help or hinder your understanding?
- A folktale is the longest section in the book. Why do you think this is? What is the significance of the story and how does it relates to the main themes of the novel?
Suggested Further Reading
- Anatomy School ~ Bernard MacLaverty
- The Barrytown Trilogy ~ Roddy Doyle
- Turlough ~ Brian Keenan
- The Butcher Boy ~ Patrick McCabe
- Angela’s Ashes ~ Frank McCourt
- At Swim, Two Boys ~ Jamie O’Neill
- The Last September ~ Elizabeth Bowen