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World Hotels - Troubles (New York Review Books Classics)
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List Price: $16.95
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Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781590170182
ISBN: 1590170180
Label: NYRB Classics
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2002-10-31
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Release Date: 2002-10-31
Studio: NYRB Classics
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Editorial Reviews:
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1919: After surviving the Great War, Major Brendan Archer makes his way to Ireland, hoping to discover whether he is indeed betrothed to Angela Spencer, whose Anglo-Irish family owns the once-aptly-named Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough. But his fiancée is strangely altered and her family's fortunes have suffered a spectacular decline. The hotel's hundreds of rooms are disintegrating on a grand scale; its few remaining guests thrive on rumors and games of whist; herds of cats have taken over the Imperial Bar and the upper stories; bamboo shoots threaten the foundations; and piglets frolic in the squash court. Meanwhile, the Major is captivated by the beautiful and bitter Sarah Devlin. As housekeeping disasters force him from room to room, outside the order of the British Empire also totters: there is unrest in the East, and in Ireland itself the mounting violence of "the troubles."
Troubles is a hilarious and heartbreaking work by a modern master of the historical novel.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: A shadow of a majesty
Comment: The giant decaying Victorian Majestic Hotel in County Wicklow overrun by cats and plants in J. G. Farrell's 1970 historical novel TROUBLES is of course an obvious metaphor for the British Empire itself, falling down upon itself yet still affording its benefactors the appearance of gentility and luxury. Clearly inspired by Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Castle (even down to the army of cats), it's a superb setting for the first in Farrell's "Enmpire" trilogy, and is the setting for all kinds of eccentric characters who seem to be walking in a trance as Ireland shifts towards Independence and republicanism. Unfortunately the machine of the plot causes Farrell much greater difficulty here than in his later book in the trilogy, the Booker Prize-winning THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR: while it's hard to buy from the beginning why his central character Major Brendan Archer would make his way to the Majestic to see his fiancée, it even becomes harder to understand why he stays when he plans to break up with her and then keeps returning after she dies. There are phenomenal set pieces in the book, and the splendidly creepy Gothic setting makes the reading of it worthwhile, but it is perhaps not quite as compelling as it might have been given the weakness of the plot.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Better for Brits
Comment: There's a character type in some English novels that baffles me. This is the socially prominent and clueless male who misses the dynamic of his own life. For an English novelist, Guy Clinch in London Fields or Felix Carbury (among many others) in The Way We Live Now (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) may offer rich satiric possibilities. But for this Yank, such characters are obtuse and ineffectual and, really, just blurs on the page.
In TROUBLES, Liverpool-born J.G. Farrell creates a novel of manners focusing on two such characters: Major Bernard Archer, a shell-shocked veteran of World War I; and Edward Spencer, a John Bull Protestant and proprietor of a once magnificent hotel in Ireland, who we would now recognize as depressed by the death of his wife and daughter. Set in the years 1919 through 1921, Farrell follows these men as they reside or preside at the disintegrating Majestic Hotel. Meanwhile, their class, which then dominated the world, is losing its grip in India, Mesopotamia, South Africa, and especially Ireland.
The title TROUBLES obviously refers to the war between Sinn Fein and the English army of occupation in this period. But this historical Troubles is actually a backdrop to the personal troubles of the Major and Edward, who are both looking for love and locked in psychological combat with their enemies. These personal troubles are the true subject of this book. Thus, to enjoy TROUBLES, a reader has to engage as the Major lives in passive pursuit of Sarah Devlin or Edward lets his property deteriorate. For me, neither of these story lines was persuasive. And, neither was an especially clever and illuminating parallel to the politics of the day. As a result, I read TROUBLES as the story of odd Englishmen who make unbelievable choices.
Further, I think the book was needlessly long, with Farrell actually losing his "troubles focus" for a time and instead exploring the subjects of cross-dressing, sexual ambivalence, and, perhaps, latent homosexuality. This is a feature in the narrative that arises suddenly, when Edward holds a ball at the Majestic. This ball is the great event in the book and Farrell's writing has its greatest fluidity and humor as we follow the Spencer twins and their friend Padraig as they strike a pose. But these are subjects that Farrell wanted to explore. Their relation to the Major or Edward or cat pee or the decline of the Empire is marginal at best. If it weren't so well done, I'd call this long section self-indulgence or padding.
My advice: Read something else.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel
Comment: Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole."
"A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford". Derek Mahon.
Irish poet Derek Mahon dedicated the haunting poem quoted above to J.G. Farrell, author of "Troubles". It is a marvelous poem that pays tribute to an absolutely marvelous book; one of the finest books I have read in recent memory.
Farrell, born in Liverpool in 1935 is best-remembered for three books. "Troubles", "The Siege of Krishnapur" (which won Farrell the U.K.'s 1973 Booker Prize), and "The Singapore Grip". Shortly after publication of "The Singapore Grip" Farrell moved to Ireland. He died a few months later when, apparently while fishing, he was swept out to sea and drowned, at age 44. Each of these three books, known collectively as the "Empire Trilogy, is set during a time of crisis in what was once the British Empire. "The Siege of Krishnapur" is set in India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and "The Singapore Grip" is set in Singapore at the beginning of World War II at the time of the Japanese attack and occupation of Singapore.
"Troubles" takes place in the Irish countryside in 1920, at the height of the turbulence that resulted in the creation of the Irish Republic and the eventual partition of Ireland. The protagonist, the English Major Brendan Archer, is a survivor of the Great War. Upon his demobilization Archer decides to travel from his home in London to Ireland in order to finalize his relationship with Angela Spencer, a young lady he met and perhaps became engaged to, while on leave during the war. Angela's father runs what was once a grand hotel, The Majestic, and Archer finds himself immediately swept up in the collapse of what was once a thriving Anglo-Irish community in Ireland. The Majestic is a mess; it is rotting from within in much the same way that English dominion in Ireland is rotting from without. "Troubles" looks both at the isolated, and fairly bizarre world of the inhabitants of the Majestic while the Irish rebellion creeps closer and closer to intruding on their world.
"Troubles" is an admirable and sometimes uncomfortable mixture of drama and comedy. Some have compared the comedic elements of "Troubles" to the best of Evelyn Waugh and the comparison is certainly apt. I'd only add that Farrell's dark humor is tinted with an element of semi-tragic slapstick such that, given its hotel setting, I could not help but be reminded of John Cleese's "Fawlty Towers". Yet, at the same time, there is an ineffable sadness that permeates the story. Major Archer, whose wartime experiences are only hinted at, is portrayed as a well-intentioned but singularly ineffectual protagonist. He sees the physical rot that surrounds him but is powerless to stop it. He falls in love but his pining and puppy dog-like attempts at courting are rebuffed with so much condescension that I could only wonder why he continued to bother.
I echo the two previous reviewers who have warned readers to save John Banville's brief, but powerful, Introduction to "Troubles" until after they have read the book. Banville reveals a critical spoiler that once read is impossible to forget. By the time I was halfway through the book I was sure that my advance knowledge of a critical event at the conclusion would detract from the pleasure I would have had if I hadn't seen it coming. I urge readers to save the Introduction until after they have actually read the book.
J.G. Farrell's "Troubles" is a wonderful book and I can say nothing more but urge anyone interested in `discovering' a wonderful writer to start with this book. I also suggest that once you've read the book you look up Mahon's poem (cited above) that was dedicated to Farrell. In many respects that poem serves as both a great tribute and a wonderfully crafted review of a book and the meaning one can glean from it. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig
Customer Rating:
Summary: "...people are insubstantial. They really do not ever last...They never last. A doctor should know."
Comment: Historical fiction is written to encapsulate a time that perhaps has been forgotten or distorted through a fog of fading memories. JG Farrell has used the art of fiction and the brilliance of his imagination to bring us through the fog and into the dining hall of the Majestic, an oversized 300-room collapsing and pathetic monster of a hotel that is an obvious metaphor for the British Empire itself in the early 1920s. Farrell carefully constructs a unique pocket of society in Ireland, which is living within the fantastically dying hotel. This society consists of old men and women who are relics of a golden age; Edward Spencer, the hotel's blustering British owner and manic-depressive loyal British subject; and the vaguely depressed Major Brendan Archer, a shell-shocked English WW I veteran through whose sensitive, dazed, overwhelmed, properly British, and love-struck eyes the action is seen. The Major has come to the Majestic after the war to marry (or not) Edward's daughter, Angela, with whom he's been conducting a long and somewhat strained correspondence through the war years. This hilarious and absurd imitation of a romance becomes almost surreal, as the Major can barely even locate Angela within the labyrinthine maze of decaying hotel rooms no less carry on any kind of coherent conversation with her about marriage. As time moves forward in this sprawling work, situations and circumstances for the hotel residents and the Major become more and more pronouncedly frustrating, ridiculous, and dangerous, but obliquely seen from the hotel's crumbling window frames is the outside world, and it is a sobering sight. Take this scene, for instance, which takes place by an abandoned potato field near the Majestic: "By a gate leading into one of these fields a man wearing a ragged coat stood, motionless as a rock, his eyes on the ground. As they passed he did not even raise his eyes. What was the fellow doing standing motionless in an empty field, staring at the ground? the Major wondered." The "Irish Times" manages to float into the Majestic every day and brings with it a world up in arms, where murder is frequent, violence is the norm, and the British Empire is holding on for dear life to its treasures around the globe.
Yet this novel is not entirely political. Human beings live within its covers, complete with their loves, their follies, their prejudices, and their madnesses. It's a rich, imaginative, and funny work, even as its atmosphere is morbid and gothic. Although I think "The Siege of Krishnapur," written three years after this, is an even more engaging and brilliant work, taking in a broad sweep of history, that does not detract from this monumental novel, which I highly recommend.
By the way, I completely agree with the reviewer who strongly suggested that John Banville's introduction not be read first. Banville seems to have no hesitancy in spoiling the plot for the reader by revealing crucial details upfront, but his comments are well worth reading. They should be moved to the back of the book, however, and be renamed "Afterword." Fortunately for me, I read them after reading the novel and not before.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Irish tragicomedy
Comment: Other reviewers on this site have praised the historical and political qualities of this fine novel, but few have emphasized how funny it is. On its surface, it is a leisurely and consistently amusing social comedy in which very little actually happens. Major Brendan Archer, recovering from the trauma of the trenches, comes to a large hotel in the South of Ireland owned by the fierce Anglo-Irish patriarch Edward Spencer, to whose daughter Angela the Major had somehow become engaged some years before. But Angela remains elusive and the Major finds himself in limbo, staying on at the decaying hotel filled with cats and old ladies. People here see only what they want to see; despite domestic disasters, life must be carried on as usual, culminating in one final grand ball held amid the rubble -- a set piece worthy of a comic Tolstoy. While also serving as acute social commentary, Farrell's vision of a world prolonged by wilful blindness is essentially a comic one that could be told in no other way.
Two persistent tensions underlie the comedy: one erotic, the other political. The Major, who is emotionally naive, finds himself dealing with cross-currents of sexual attraction that he is ill-equipped to handle. And this crumbling bastion of Empire finds itself isolated in the tide of Irish nationalism, amid an increasing cycle of terrorism and reprisals. Slowly but inexorably, the comedy of manners metamorphoses into something else. But whether sexual or political (the two seem closely connected), almost all the events in this gathering crisis happen offstage. In this, Farrell shows his debt to Elizabeth Bowen, whose novel THE LAST SEPTEMBER deals with the same period in a similarly oblique way. Bowen's wit may be more refined, but Farrell's range is wider, from dry understatement to outright farce. And he loses nothing for casting his powerful story as a comedy.
A word of warning. John Banville's introduction to the New York Review of Books paperback edition is excellent and a great help to the reader for three of its five pages. But there is a **serious spoiler** on the fourth page (page x as printed) which I now realize colored my reading of the entire book. For readers needing to know more of the political background in advance, my advice would be to look up the Irish War of Independence on Wikipedia (not "Troubles" which returns an article on the later strife in Northern Ireland) and save the Banville essay for reading as an afterword.
TROUBLES in the first novel in Farrell's "Empire Trilogy." The other two books, which are arguably even stronger, are THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR, set in 19th-century India at the time of the Sepoy Rebellion, and THE SINGAPORE GRIP, in Malaya just before the 1942 Japanese invasion.
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