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The Hindu
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Review of International Booker Prize-shortlisted Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix
What is it like to live under tyranny? Why do so many people flee their homes? Who is responsible? Distraught at the descent into chaos in several countries and the West's indifference to the plight of migrants, Irish novelist Paul Lynch imagined a country (in the West) teetering on the brink, thanks to a totalitarian government, and the choices his protagonists are forced to make in his 2023 Booker Prize-winning book, Prophet Song. Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr traced the impact of 72 men arriving in the small town of Sicily in The Silence of the Choir (2017). They are 'immigrants', 'refugees', 'migrants' or 'exiles', but everyone in the Sicilian town calls them 'ragazzi' or 'the guys', and this encounter with 'The Other' forces some reflection from the local people: to shun or welcome them? Now, French philosopher and writer Vincent Delecroix has turned fact into fiction in his thought-provoking lean novel, Small Boat, translated by Helen Stevenson and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. Moved by a true story of a drowning in the English Channel in November 2021 — an inflatable dinghy carrying at least 29 migrants, including children, capsized, leading to the deaths of all but two — Delecroix raises uneasy questions about who is to blame for the tragedy. In our darkest hour Divided in three parts, the novel begins with a call for help to a radio operator with the French Coast Guard on a cold winter night, and her decision to not do anything about it. After most of the migrants drown — the second part of the novel has the harrowing details — the operator, who narrates the novel, is questioned by a policewoman. As the recording of the night is played back, five words she spoke to the migrants come back to haunt the operator: 'You will not be saved.' In his Introduction to the novel, British journalist Jeremy Harding writes that 'this may have been the narrator's darkest transgression: to have denied the comforting assurance of rescue... so that 'humanity need not doubt its humanity''. A debate about guilt ensues in the mind of the narrator. Several questions bother her; such as, for instance, why do men, women and children drown every night in the English Channel or the Mediterranean? When did the sinking start? To her, the migrants were sunk long before they sank. 'Their sinking didn't start in the Channel, it started the moment they left their homes.' Who is to blame? As her interrogation continues, the narrator wonders about its cyclical nature and why their deaths are pinned on her. 'Back we came to the idea that the cause of their death was — me. In other words, not the sea, not migration policy, not the trafficking mafia, not the war in Syria or the famine in Sudan — me.' Delecroix hits harder with the 'banality of evil' argument, with the narrator pointing out that the voice on the tape is not that of a monster or a criminal — 'it's the voice of all of us'. All of us who are blind to the suffering of others, whether at sea or on land. In the end, the narrator concludes that whether they drowned or not didn't matter; 'what mattered were my words. What mattered was not that they were saved; it was that I should be saved, and the whole world with me, through these words. Saved by my own words, not condemned by them'. In an interview to Delecroix says he found it easy to penetrate the narrator's mind: '...I progressively realised that I could really be her — and act and speak like she did.' As Harding contends, Delecroix's compelling novel raises the unsettling possibility that each of us is complicit in the suffering of migrants. Small Boat Vincent Delecroix, trs Helen Stevenson Small Axes/Simon and Schuster ₹399
Telegraph
28-02-2025
- General
- Telegraph
I pride myself on being a miserable-middle aged man
Men often take a bashing when it comes to emotions, and feelings. We are grumpy, irritable and emotionally repressed, apparently. The latest pseudo-diagnosis being offered for this is ' miserable man syndrome ', typified by the male propensity to pessimism. According to some, this can be a slow growing cancer in relationships, a corrosive drip-drip that eventually gives out. Everything is seemingly fine until one day you forget to put the bins out and an emotional sinkhole appears. Hell ensues. 'But it was only the bins,' you bleat weakly through the yells, knowing full well it wasn't just the bins, it was the pent-up response to all those years of the eye-rolling and huffing you did each time you were asked to do the bins. But is it really so bad to get narked at each other's foibles in a relationship? Of course not. It's okay to lose your composure occasionally when the dishwasher isn't loaded properly, because honestly, how hard can it be? Embrace gentle melancholy Miserable man syndrome should really be middle-aged man syndrome, and in some cases, simply man, because it's not a syndrome at all, it's who we are, particularly as we age. Some outliers might remain jauntily optimistic and emotionally intelligent in the face of hair loss and erectile dysfunction, but in my experience most men of a certain age delight in gentle melancholy. I certainly do and have learnt to embrace this facet of my personality and celebrate it. In many ways I'm proud of it. I feed it and nurture it. When my wife is away on work trips, for example, I sneak to the theatre alone to watch tragedies. This week it was Elektra, a plodding production about parental murder and bitter vengeance. I enjoyed telling anyone who would listen the next morning how bad it was. Last summer on holiday I skipped the latest Lee Child and read Cormac McCarthy's gruelling The Road instead, followed by the grimly bleak Prophet Song. They ensured a cloud hung over me, despite sitting under a clear blue Corsican sky. Generation X gloom Perhaps it's a generational thing. I am 55 and Generation X. I became culturally aware in the early Eighties under the shadow of the threat of nuclear annihilation and listened to the gloomy shoegazing music of The Cure, The Smiths and New Order. The following decade Victor Meldrew seeped into my subconsciousness. My wife tells me that while I'm not necessarily grumpy, I do tend to focus on 'the pessimistic side', which I correct as being 'the realistic side'. She, on the other hand, is the opposite and wildly optimistic. She even runs a company called Laughology. On paper we shouldn't work, but we do because we complement each other. She is the bright yang to my black yin. She acts as a brake to my gloom and surprisingly we laugh a lot, because we share the same warped sense of humour. Mine is just a little more fatalistic. 'It's your detailed and slow brain. You think things through too much and get stuck in what you can't do rather than what you can do,' she counsels when I moan about one of the regular gripes, like not having enough money, or time. Or not understanding some of the house rules, which make me miserable. Observe the towel protocol My slow brain doesn't compute the towel, bedding or crockery protocols, for example. As far as I can ascertain there are three levels, and each level depends on who is using them. There are ones for everyday use, then a guest level and finally the mystical level three, or Defcon 1 as I call it, which is, as far as I can gather, reserved for visiting heads of state and minor deities. When I'm pulled up for some minor infraction of the rules, or for not folding the bedding properly, or storing it in the right drawer, I sulk, then pettily get my own back by telling guests what level they have achieved, and that they are not deemed worthy of the top level. In truth, the towel thing is not a biggie. But that's not the point. I look for things like this to wind me up. Men do; it's our hobby. I enjoy getting angry at other road users, hurling abuse when I'm safely out of eyeline and earshot. It helps me let off steam. And maybe I am a tad too obsessional about the parking in the access road behind my house, often sitting at the desk in my home office, monitoring both the Ring doorbells I've set up to police the area, drunk on omniscience. Often, you can hear me over the Ring equipped with a loudspeaker. 'You can't park there. It's a private road,' I yell at people, who look around confused, trying to find the source of the disembodied voice, before they clamber back inside their vehicles and pootle off to find some other place to obstruct. Delightful. Revel in the misery You could argue that now, more than ever, the grumpy man is in ascendance, because the world is currently a dark place. What a time to be alive! I often revel in the misery of it all, doom scrolling at regular intervals through the day, chasing a fix of misery. My best friend is even more miserable than me and we meet monthly to drink beer and dissect the world and all its gloom. Our glasses are neither metaphorically half-full nor half-empty. They're all empty. And chipped. It is in our nature, so cut us some slack. Celebrate it with us. Gives us a little sympathy. Midlife generally is tough enough for all of us. While men don't go through anything like the profound changes that women have to cope with in the menopause, we do naturally weaken and slow. Hair spouts from our nostrils and ears. It takes a monumental effort to stay fit and healthy so many don't bother. We develop expanding midriffs that spread no matter how many miles we pedal on our expensive bikes, tucked into Lycra that mocks our silhouettes, collecting injuries like trophies. Happy ever after Indeed, one of the worst things you can do to feed the male mindset of misery is to pathologise it and label it a syndrome. Because we love to bang on about our ailments and injuries, even though we never go to the doctor. Walk into any gym changing room and I guarantee the first thing you'll hear from any of the older gentlemen will be a moan about a niggle. We wear ripped ligaments and tennis elbows with pride. Meanwhile we have David Beckham in his budgie smugglers and Hugh Jackman's ripped torso as impossible role models to measure up to. And as for relationships? In mine, we accept each other and our failings. We laugh at ourselves. This, I think, is the key. And while I'm not a psychologist, if you find yourself stuck with a grumpy man, know that relationships like yours generally follow an arc similar to the Kübler-Ross model of grief. Stage one is denial. 'He can't be that miserable for no reason. Is it something I'm doing?' Then comes anger: 'Why is he so bloody miserable all the time?' Next, bargaining: 'If we watch the Hungarian Grand Prix, will you cheer up?' Then depression: 'This is making me miserable.' Finally, acceptance: 'I tolerate his misery.' Get to that stage and you've got a decent chance of living happily ever after.
Boston Globe
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
The Emerald Isle is producing an entertainment renaissance — and we're here for it
Been to the movies recently? Irish actors are everywhere, from Cillian Murphy (' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Found a new favorite musical act? For some of you, maybe that's Dublin's Fontaines D.C., who won NME's 'Best Band in the World' award in 2022, or the neo-traditional folk group Mary Wallopers, whom Advertisement Read a good book lately? Odds are pretty good that it was written by an Irishman or woman: Paul Lynch (who wrote the 2023 Booker Prize winner 'Prophet Song'), perhaps, or Tana French (the 'First Lady of Irish Crime'), or maybe Sally Rooney, author most recently of 'Intermezzo' (2024), whose 2018 novel, 'Normal People,' has been made into the popular Hulu series of the same name, which stars Mescal. Irish band Fontaines D.C. Simon Wheatley Also on your TV screen, 'There's a lot of skilled people here, a lot of talent,' the Dublin-based documentary filmmaker Ciaran Cassidy recently told the Globe. He's the director, most recently, of ' Advertisement From left: Sarah Greene, Eve Hewson, Sharon Horgan, and Eva Birthistle in "Bad Sisters." Apple TV+ 'There's kind of a lot of confidence in the generation,' Cassidy said. 'These are singular stories, but they actually translate internationally if they're executed well.' The filmmaker noted the success of ' Another Irish-language film that has enjoyed some success in the United States is last year's 'Kneecap,' a madcap rendering of the origin story 'We knew obviously that storytelling was important in Irish culture,' said the rapper called Mo Chara (Liam Ó Hannaidh) in a recent interview with the Globe. 'And we thought the best way in modern times to tell stories is hip-hop.' The three band members first bonded over the human rights campaign to Other policy matters have helped to shape Ireland's cultural awakening in recent years, including the Advertisement Declan Crowley is the cultural programming manager of the 'Let's start with the fact that the Irish pub model is what the entire world sees as a pub,' Crowley said. 'You say 'a pub,' it's Irish by nature. That travels globally. Wherever you are on planet Earth, there's going to be an Irish pub.' Crowley, who is from upstate New York — he's third-generation Irish — also points to the working-class history of Irish culture as a key reason why the country's influence has traveled so well in recent years. 'We often say that high-caliber art is not born out of abundance — it's born out of nothing,' he said. Like Cassidy, Crowley suggests that Irish storytelling about ordinary people can be especially relatable across ethnic and national lines: 'There's cross-cultural reference in that.' To be sure, this is not the first time Irish culture has made its mark around the globe. From James Joyce and Daniel Day-Lewis (who holds dual Irish and British citizenship) to U2 and Sinead O'Connor, Ireland's creative talents have been well-documented. But there's been a particular abundance of late. Murphy won the Oscar for best actor last year for his starring role in 'Oppenheimer.' The previous year saw 14 Oscar nominations for Irish films, actors, and others behind-the-scenes, including Keoghan, Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Kerry Condon, all for 'Banshees,' and Mescal for 'Aftersun.' Advertisement Last year, 'Growing up in Ireland,' he has said, 'there are a lot of aspects of God that hang in the air. And my music reflects that.' 'It's not the song, it is the singin',' as he put it in his 2018 soul anthem 'Nina Cried Power.' 'It's the heaven of the human spirit ringin'.' James Sullivan can be reached at .
