Seen and heard Book

In 'Deirdre of the Sorrows', Synge has the eponymous Deirdre claim that 'It is not a small thing to be rid of grey hairs and the loosening of the teeth'. Clearly, for Synge, it's a huge asset, and I finished reading his collection of plays almost relieved for his sake that he died young. He has an absolutely morbid disgust for ageing, and it's ramped up to eleven for ageing in women.

As pieces of work, I liked Deirdre of the Sorrows best. It's probably not a coincidence that it's the play with the least of the Irish 'cant', because the characters aren't supposed to be peasants. Unlike the (annoyingly) English annotator, I didn't have any difficulty with the rhythm or comprehension of the dialogue, but whoa does he ever overplay his hand with it. 'Do be' is an emphasiser. 'I do be going to Mass' does not mean the same as 'I'm going to Mass' or 'I go to Mass a lot'. Sean O'Casey and Maeve Binchy understand this a lot better. Still, I can appreciate that at the time of writing no one was transcribing Hiberno-English, so fair deuce to him for havin' a go, like.

All through 'The Well of the Saints' I kept being distracted from The Moral by the fact that congenitally blind people would not be able to resolve a face into a face from a wall of colours and shapes, based on modern research, nor would they have any real concept of the 'beauty/ugliness' dichotomy.

I failed to understand The Moral of 'Playboy of the Western World' at ALL. I do, however, remark that Synge is as fond of insta-love as any ha'penny romance writer.

From 'Riders to the Sea':

"There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over. I was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it - it was a dry day, Nora - and leaving a track to the door."

That is good, now.