Monday, May 28, 2012

A Clockwork Greenery?


Kevin Barry (the namesake of an Irish lad who was and is revered by many who have a sense of history) is the author of The City of Bohane, a novel which has been compared to the classic, A Clockwork Orange. While there are macrosimilarities: the futuristic language changes, the wanton violence, the overall dystopian feel to the books, the geographical proximity and nexus of the lands and cultures, I would prefer to compare Barry's writing more to Coleridge than Burgess. It is all that poetical, and about as meaningful as "Kubla Khan". That is, the writing is a work of art whose beauty and meaning will have to be found in and behind the eyes of the book's beholders. I, for one, was not disappointed.

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