Representing the Troubles in Irish Short Fiction (review)

In studying Irish short stories and connecting them to the Irish political conflicts (known here as the Troubles of the 1920s, and the "Troubles" of more recent times), Michael L. Storey brings together scholarship of an art form much revered in Ireland with the ways in which the whole of modern Irish culture has dealt with these conflicts. In analyzing Irish short stories that engage this political issue, Storey provides an historical context that associates the stories and their authors with specific political agendas that operate in conjunction with literary agendas.

An historical emphasis leads Storey to organize the book chronologically, matching up definitive periods of the Troubles with characteristics that help to form the short stories written in those periods. Significant dates—including the 1916 Easter Rising, the Anglo-Irish War between 1919 and 1921, and the 1969 riots in Belfast and Derry—help distinguish differences in "a variety of literary modes and techniques, from romanticism and naturalism, to comedy, satire, realism, and irony." Styles in Irish short fiction inevitably overlap, and the chronological progression cannot always be stressed; still, Storey imposes well defined categories on groups of texts too complex to fit completely within narrow boundaries, and both thematic and stylistic restrictions become more noticeable further into the study. This is most clear in the final chapter, where the portrayal of women is separated from the book's chronological organization and thus has the feel of an addendum to the study. Readers (even women) may forgive this slight, however, in deference to the easy manner in which the argument's structure propels Storey's developmental connections between the Irish short story and Irish life in the twentieth century.

Storey's clear style conforms concisely to the argument he outlines in his introduction. In Chapter One, he introduces Daniel Corkery, Frank O'Connor, and Sean O'Faolain as representative short fiction writers of the early Troubles, and situates biographical details of these writers with a summary of the Easter Rising and the Anglo-Irish War. Storey labels the style of this period a "Romantic Nationalism," which he claims aided the formation of Irish identity. Storey defines this by first making specific connections to Romantic literature including structure, language, and imagery, and then associating postcolonial themes and stylistic features with nationalism. This categorization implicates the authors as active participants in revolution. In Chapter Two, he analyzes stories of a Naturalistic mode, where the experience of violence and brutality during the civil war creates disillusionment and pessimism. Here, too, Storey considers the works of Corkery, O'Connor, and O'Faolain, and shows their evolutions as products of historical context. The lives of the Irish characters at this time were highly determined, a product of a bleak environment. Storey's focus on Corkery, O'Connor, and O'Faolain throughout the first half of the book seems convenient for generating a clear historical argument. Later chapters lose these clear definitions. The third chapter further describes a response to the violence through the use of humor and satire, again, drawing on the works of these three "canonical" writers; a reader may start to wonder if anyone else of note was writing short stories in Ireland at the time.

Storey introduces other authors in the second half of his book. These later chapters, however, lose much of the clear association between literary modes and historical context. This seems inevitable due to the political complexity created by sectarianism. Storey maintains his focus by using sectarian factors as a causal relationship to different styles that further different perspectives and agendas. The stories lose an ideological perspective and concentrate instead on individual tragedies, portraying victims of sectarian hostilities. In a sense, the "Troubles" themselves become a character in the setting that is Ireland. Chapter Five, titled "Sectarian Violence," effectively contextualizes terrorism—a topic closely identified with the recent "Troubles," and one that clearly holds current global interest as a cultural phenomenon.

The reader does not need any special grounding...