Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (Patrick Keefe, 2019)

(464 pages)

Book club selection (via POC; session held (via Zoom) November 22, 2020).

specific discussion about a common situation - boundaries are determined by conquest, power

within the boundaries are groups that may or may not get along well.  active favoritism of group in power over another.  throughout history - restrictions on Jews in Christian countries; restrictions on Christians in Islamic countries.  many examples.  Blacks in U.S.

not feasible to unmix the populations, though tried very hard to do this following WWI and WWII.  but property ownership, tradition, where to go anyway.

then how does disadvantaged group react?  at some point negotiation seems insufficient, and violence starts.  and hunger strikes.  it's a power relationship.  

and it leads to progress, right?  (despite the awfulness)  this only applies in democracies with a free press - good luck trying this elsewhere

~20-year cycle - a generation forgets the horrors, then a subsequent generation repeats it

endless and unhelpful tendency to glamorize those coming from the left.  Che, Castro - bigots, totalitarians in their own right - still on T-shirts and posters, somehow!

IRA in the same light.  the sisters.

outright criminal acts in service of the cause - somehow considered excusable by way too many

at outset I worried about author's tendency to use language like today - anyone from the right is a reactionary, those on the left are sympathetic if not cool.  but ended up very well balanced

really helpful look at the toll from a macro level, and on the individual level

Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury, 1957)

(239 pp)

Didn't know Bradbury wrote this kind of thing; suggested by (borrowed from) Paul Jr; another book that I wouldn't necessarily seek out, but much enjoyed.

Bradbury is building stories out of his Ohio childhood.

A reason for the recommendation - and it turns out to be correct - is that Bradbury had an ear for a life very much like mine as I grew up in the 50s and 60s.  There are some differences - he's a decade or two earlier, and lives in the town proper - but there were many-many times while reading that I would have a memory, typically quite pleasant, of something long-forgotten.

As usual - I liked some stories more than others - that's not a problem.  A little dramatic with the "ravine" angle.  Perhaps a little overly hero-worship-ish with the grandparents - but that's kind of how we felt, too. Ideas about getting older; about kids getting wiser (and perhaps correspondingly sadder).

Kids sitting around listening to the grown-ups converse in the evenings - Bradbury describes it as the "soundtrack" of childhood in those days - I thought that was very observant.  (And find myself using the phrase.)