Naming The City
Naming the city
Towards the end of Claire Kilroy’s 2009 novel All Names Have Been Changed, set in the mid 1980s, the narrator prepares for emigration with the damning speech: ‘There’s nothing for us in this country. It’s never going to change. It’s never going to get better.’ As Kilroy has said herself: ‘When I wrote that, we were still in the full throttle of the boom…There was no sense we were going back there.’
In a way it’s good that the novel’s prescience is accidental, since self-conscious ‘boom-to-bust’ novels are painful to read. I was drawn to the novel not so much for its subject matter (a group of mature students and their incestuous relationship with the famous novelist who teaches them creative writing in Trinity) but for its historical and geographical setting – Dublin in the 80s. By all accounts it was a pretty depressing place, though Kilroy’s narrator Declan lays on the misery a bit thick in places. Still, overall the city is beautifully, even lovingly evoked, with burnt-out corporation flats described as keenly as the rarified campus of Trinity.
Wisely, Kilroy avoids a too-broad geographical sweep, instead focusing in on a few key areas – Trinity and its surrounding nexus of College Green, Dame Street and Westmoreland Street, Mountjoy Square and its decayinge environs, and a brief excursion to the southside suburbs. The Trinity campus is a haven for characters seeking to escape the sudden violence and unpredictability of the city, particularly the alcoholic novelist Glynn, but no-one can escape reality for too long, no matter how much they may try to through writing.
A wonderful set-piece follows Glynn, storming out of a pub on Westmoreland Street in a rage and heading back to Trinity. This is a walk of no more than five minutes, but it becomes an Odyssean journey of danger and wonder, as Glynn boosts his spirits by taking in the city he thinks he knows, before being attacked by a gang of youths and fleeing for safety into the protective arms of Trinity campus, where he still rebels against the college’s incongruous ownership of acres of valuable city land by kicking up the grass of its rugby pitch. Much is said about Ireland’s contradictions in that chapter, and said more effectively than in a later chapter in which Declan rages against the excesses of St Patrick’s Day.
Drink is a curse in the novel, as it is in so many Irish novels, but the other curse of working-class Dublin is brought to life by Declan’s accidental friendship with stoner-turned-junkie Giz who occupies the bottom floor of his building. It would be easy for this character to feel tacked-on, but Giz comes to life and in some ways seems more real than the main characters. It would also be easy to make him more sympathetic by adding a tragic backstory or imbuing him with a fake ‘salt-of-the-earth’ dependability, but Kilroy avoids the clichés. Giz is violent, aggressive and untrustworthy; a real friendship between him and Declan is impossible due to their insurmountable differences in background, yet somehow he elicits sympathy. His decline mirrors that of the city, but he is not just a symbol. It can be very difficult for a writer who has not grown up poor to successfully evoke inner-city characters – descriptions tend to fall prey to dehumanising hatred or pity – but Kilroy’s observant eye sees the realness of the ‘scumbag’ without glossing over his unpleasantness.
It is these, almost peripheral aspects of the novel that interested me most. The main plot offers much of interest, but the opaqueness of the characters as seen through Declan’s eyes meant they took a while to come alive. Glynn himself is despicable, yet like Giz, is oddly engaging and realised, but the four women who make up the rest of the class are hard to fathom. Kilroy has said: ’At all times I know what the women are thinking in the novel and from there I had to guess at what he [Declan] was thinking.’ As the novel progresses it’s clear that there is a whole, untold aspect of the story that’s hidden from the male characters. Declan for the most part is well-drawn, except for a few brief instances where he thinks or behaves in a self-consciously ‘male’ way – the trap that female authors writing in a male voice must constantly try and avoid falling into, and vice versa. He’s not particularly sympathetic, yet he’s worth following nonetheless. Of the female characters, only Aisling the mentally unstable goth and Antonia the brittle, sharp-tongued divorcee convince. The pliant Guinevere appears to have no other function in the plot other than to be beautiful, which is perhaps the point, and the mumsy Faye barely registers. As seen from the point of view of Declan (and, vicariously, Glynn) this is perhaps an entirely accurate depiction of the group.
Unfortunately the group’s worship of Glynn in the first half of the novel is hard to fathom – his legacy is well-described, but they all seem so helpless and cringing before him as to be unbelievable. I read a comment somewhere that the friendship between the group seemed unconvincing because none of the epic conversations engaged in during their marathon drinking sessions with Glynn are described in any detail. Also, for a crowd who spend so much time drinking, they rarely seem to laugh or have any fun. Maybe that’s literary types for you! Or maybe Kilroy is making another point here – that a lot of the conversations we have while drunk are so much pointless nonsense. She’s an intelligent writer; I’d be inclined to think that the seeming flaws in the novel are intentional.
All Names Have Been Changed is worth reading once you get past the first few, somewhat turgid, chapters; though its occasional self-consciousness and elaborate language will not appeal to some. It certainly deserves a place among works of art that bring to life the psychogeography of Dublin, a city that continues to inspire, even at its bleakest.
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me looking at the two english actors in this lineup
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This line is so funny. Soccer mom that just gave herself a pelvic injury by doing crescent lunge pose too enthusiastically.
The Beatles – “Hey Bulldog” (1968)
Pete Best at his home in Hymans Green in Liverpool, England | 25 April 1965
‘We want Pete, we want Pete.’ The fans began to stamp their feet. ‘Pete forever, Ringo never,’ they continued. More fans joined in, until the noise had built up into a crescendo. Paul McCartney glanced at George and John, he looked concerned. It was obvious that they weren’t very happy about the commotion that was taking place right in front of their eyes and, little by little, it was beginning to dawn on them that we were not going to make the transition easy, either for them or Ringo Starr. George tried his best to ignore what was going on by keeping his back to the audience. He plugged his guitar in and messed about with the switches on the amplifiers, but the noise behind him was far too loud to ignore, as more and more people added their voice to the throng. Ringo fidgeted about in his seat trying to look cool and unconcerned by the racket. The Beatles didn’t have a clue what was going to happen next. John, Paul and George started to tune in their guitars and did a quick test of the microphones. Paul turned to face the crowd and smiled, but I could see that he wasn’t his usual happy go lucky self. He had never been very good at hiding his feelings, and he was looking a bit nervous. So much so, that we could already see the strain beginning to show on his face.
Paul was ready to go into his first song, 'Long Tall Sally.’ Most of the fans at the front had bought a copy of the Mersey Beat earlier on in the evening. We had kept our copies well hidden underneath our seats, and then each of us bent down and took them from their hiding place. Just as Paul began to sing we opened them up and held them high in front of our faces, so that all the group would see from the stage was a mass of newspapers. We wanted to blank The Beatles out of our view. Paul carried on singing, but there were no screams or shouts of appreciation from us after he had finished. Some of the fans gave the group a slow hand clap, while the rest of us couldn’t even be bothered to do that. Instead we chattered amongst ourselves or sat reading the Mersey Beat. As far as I am aware, none of the regulars had given The Beatles any requests. There was nothing other than the chanting from the fans who were determined to let the group know just how angry they were for what had happened to Pete Best.
The Beatles tried hard to put a brave face on the situation by carrying on with their next song. But, once again, we held up our copies of the paper and completely ignored them. I sneaked a look over the top of my paper at Paul McCartney. His face said it all; he was a very unhappy man. The boys were now beginning to get the message loud and clear. John had kept his eyes firmly fixed on his guitar. He had hardly moved from where he was standing, and made no attempt to joke with the audience or jump about acting the clown. George looked equally fed up. He tried to catch the attention of a couple of the girls on the front row who he knew were fans of his, but they didn’t want to know. This carried on the whole time The Beatles were up on the stage.
We had achieved what we had set out to do, and that was to make the group think twice about what they had done to Pete Best. The Beatles certainly didn’t waste any time getting off the stage at the end of the evening, and we didn’t hang around in the club either. We had done our bit for Pete and had left The Beatles in no doubt as to how we all felt. It may not have been much, and we knew it wouldn’t change the line-up, but at least we had done something.
As we walked up Matthew Street Carol and I had mixed emotions, sad that we wouldn’t see Pete Best with The Beatles ever again, but then pleased by the way all the regular fans had stuck together. 'Do you think they will be bothered by what’s happened?’ Carol asked. 'Too right they will. Did you see the look on their faces? They know exactly how we all feel about them; I know I’ll never accept Ringo Starr as one of The Beatles’. 'Me neither,’ Carol replied defiantly.
The group were obviously shocked by what had taken place that night. But, Ringo Starr was in and Pete Best was out of the group for good. I continued to stay away from the band room because I still couldn’t face talking to any of them, especially John.
Yesterday: Memories Of A Beatles Fan - Margaret Hunt
Hate that sneaky spotify tag bro I did not tag you
"He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity"
On Instagram
At the Chelsea Flower Show, 1999. Photo by Richard Chambury.
“bluejeanbaby42001 asks: George, you have quite a reputation as a gardener…What are some of your ‘pride & joy’ plants? Love, Dianne george_harrison_live: Well, for the cooler climates (as in England) george_harrison_live: The current trend is definitely toward Miscanthus george_harrison_live: You’ll find many lovely varieties george_harrison_live: try the Zebrensis and also the Malepartis george_harrison_live: However, george_harrison_live: if you’re gardening in the tropics george_harrison_live: I think you’ll find a lovely little ginger called Kahili :P” - Yahoo web chat, February 15, 2001 “One day, for example, we looked out of the window and decided everything in the garden was too green, so we went on a color binge, buying lots of brightly colored flowers. In terms of landscape design, he liked the idea of Capability Brown, so we started calling him Capability George. He thought that everyone, as a matter of course, should have themselves regularly overwhelmed by nature. He used to say that all unused buildings should be knocked down and gardens put in their place.” - Olivia Harrison, Evening Standard, May 12, 2008
Some writing and Beatlemania. The phrase 'slender fire' is a translation of a line in Fragment 31, the remains of a poem by the ancient Greek poet Sappho
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