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A review by tominlondon
Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
5.0
A tour-de-force of poetic description, covering every detail of the (I think) 8 years of peace living in a remote rundown house somewhere between a mountain and the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Nothing happens, except, that is, for everything that happens that we never notice in the ordinary run of things. These things are all systematically described, in paragraph-sized chunks that can be read in isolation or as a narrative - although the only real narrative is the seasons as they morph one into another, or the lives of the two dogs as they age.
Masterful writing from one of Ireland's real talents (as opposed to the artificially constructed talentless talents who can't write but who get their books turned into TV series), and a surprise as her previous books were surprises. Sara Baume writes about the small things, the way the wind blows or a tin can lying in a puddle. She draws our attention to what's there, through this seven (or is it eight)-year non-saga of a young man and a young woman stepping off the treadmill, deciding never to move their clock forward or back ("house time") and keeping nothing in order. Letting everything go as it will. Dirt accumulates, rubbish piles up, clothes wear out. Let it all happen. Let it decay.
SB's writing is a pleasure to read because it's unpretentious yet highly sophisticated, displaying great expertise in the naming of plants and the lives of birds. In this book and in Adrian Duncan's "The Geometer Lobachevsky" I see a method at work that consists of systematically working through everything that is observable, and giving a fully detailed account of it, somewhat along the lines of the Oulipo School, founded by Raymond Queneau. As in the Oulipian Georges Perec's "Life: A User's Manual" there's no story as such; there's a system of writing that imposes a strict discipline on the Author, requiring (in this case) her to work her way through a number of years and during those years to give a full account of everything that (doesn't) happen. Filling in all the shading and details, to give a complete picture. For the reading that's in it. Let Sara Baume bring your restless mind to a stop in a novel that has no plot and where nothing "big" happens.
Masterful writing from one of Ireland's real talents (as opposed to the artificially constructed talentless talents who can't write but who get their books turned into TV series), and a surprise as her previous books were surprises. Sara Baume writes about the small things, the way the wind blows or a tin can lying in a puddle. She draws our attention to what's there, through this seven (or is it eight)-year non-saga of a young man and a young woman stepping off the treadmill, deciding never to move their clock forward or back ("house time") and keeping nothing in order. Letting everything go as it will. Dirt accumulates, rubbish piles up, clothes wear out. Let it all happen. Let it decay.
SB's writing is a pleasure to read because it's unpretentious yet highly sophisticated, displaying great expertise in the naming of plants and the lives of birds. In this book and in Adrian Duncan's "The Geometer Lobachevsky" I see a method at work that consists of systematically working through everything that is observable, and giving a fully detailed account of it, somewhat along the lines of the Oulipo School, founded by Raymond Queneau. As in the Oulipian Georges Perec's "Life: A User's Manual" there's no story as such; there's a system of writing that imposes a strict discipline on the Author, requiring (in this case) her to work her way through a number of years and during those years to give a full account of everything that (doesn't) happen. Filling in all the shading and details, to give a complete picture. For the reading that's in it. Let Sara Baume bring your restless mind to a stop in a novel that has no plot and where nothing "big" happens.