Cormac McCarthy. The Road. 897-0-330-44754-6. Most people seem to enjoy this story about the efforts of a man to protect his son during the final stages of a global extinction caused by a nuclear winter. I found it a curious mixture of sentimentality and pessimism about humanity.
Seamus Murphy. Stone Mad. 1-903464-81-1. Wonderful book. Exposes the vanished world of Irish stone-carvers, in which Murphy trained. Completely changed the way I look at the city. I went out of my way on Sunday, to walk across downtown and examine some of the work he writes about, such as the rivers on the Custom House. He records a great deal about the men who carved what we see about us in this country: who did what, where the stones came from, their characteristics. The discipline, the hardship, the pleasure of working in stone. "Getting to like doing what you don't like doing." I've long thought that "art" is nothing more than "craft". And nothing less. Murphy says: "Art grows out of good work done by men who enjoy it." Much of the book records, or recreates, the conversations and anecdotes of his elders and peers in the stoneworks, quarries, churches and graveyards of the first half of the last century. There are many good lines. For instance: "What are we doing, but making dust for time to rub away?", and "Once you realise that life isn't important anymore, departing from it takes on full significance." It was amusing to learn that Stephen is the patron saint of stone-carvers. This is, no doubt, for the same reason that Lawrence is the patron of cooks.
There is a fine bust of St. Patrick in the cloister in Maynooth, by Murphy. Just inside the President's Arch.
P.D. James. Shroud for a Nightingale. Penguin. f.p. Faber & Faber, 1971. A beautifully-crafted murder mystery.
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