Ivy Day in the Committee Room by Eimear Mc Bride
I was really looking forward to this one, because of the recent hype around Eimear Mc Bride and her writing and because I wanted to see what she did with my least loved Dubliners’ story.
The story still remains my least favourite of the Dubliners collection. Eimear Mc Bride has been lauded much recently and I have not read A Girl is a half formed thing either though have picked it up in bookshops and read the first few pages and put back again for another time. Eimear Mc Bride writes in an “experimental” way. Joyce did too, in Ulysses.
I don’t quite understand why Mc Bride chose to write this story in this style as none of the Dubliners’ stories that Joyce wrote did. In fact, they were written in a plain, direct manner. Mc Bride seems to write this type of way. I wonder what she will do next? I’d like to see something fresh and unique especially in a short story collection that gave the writers a free reign. Experimental writing is not my bag, baby so in fairness to Eimear, it would be hard to please me! Her story has been dubbed the best of the collection by the critics whereas I would pick another one but it is down to personal reading taste.
Ivy Day in the Committee Room by Eimear Mc Bride is available in Dubliners 100 by Tramp Press.
This is the only story I have read so far in Dubliners 100, and if it’s the ‘best’, dear god….. I shall not go on!
Hi, John. Yep, I was disappointed with it but it is a hard task to follow the original, I think and perhaps a bit pointless? Some of them were strong though, still worth reading but even more worthwhile is to go back and read the original. Especially “The Dead” and especially if it snows in Ireland.