- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books (Feb 22 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0345427130
- ISBN-13: 978-0345427137
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #692,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Romantic Ireland is definitely dead and gone. With the exhilarating Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson cheerfully and obscenely sends it to its grave. Jake Jackson, his thoughtful anti-hero, finds Belfast's tragedies are built on comedy: Catholics and Protestants so intent on declaring their differences "resembled no one now as much as they resembled each other…. That was what I liked about Belfast hatred. It was a lumbering hatred that could survive completely on the memories of things that never existed in the first place." He spends a certain amount of time worrying about seeming too Catholic and an equal amount worrying about not seeming sufficiently Catholic. Sometimes, after several drinks, Jake forgets that he's not a Protestant. Each position is as dangerous, and absurd, as the other. His best friend is less torn up. Chuckie Lurgan is a chubby Methodist whose only accomplishments so far have been shaking Reagan's hand, appearing in the same photo as the Pope, and having "an intense and troubling relationship with mail-order catalogues." But Chuckie suddenly surprises Jake with his first entrepreneurial scheme. Though he's placed an ad for an enormous sex toy in Northern Ireland's "only mucky paper," he hasn't any intention of ever fulfilling an order. Instead, he follows legal protocol and sends each disappointed customer a refund check, in the proper amount, stamped GIANT DILDO REFUND. The gamble is that most people will be too embarrassed to cash them. "Chuckie smiled the smile of the just-published poet." And soon he has more than 40,000 pounds in the bank and a lust for big money. He also has a rich, new girlfriend: "He hoped his dreams wouldn't suffer from all this reality."
Jake is more preoccupied with the day-to-day. His construction site job gives him ample opportunity to consider his romantic failures and the ever-present symbols of war. There's also a new graffito that has sprouted among the various deadly acronyms. IRA, UVF, and UDA make no more sense than OTG, but at least everyone knows what they stand for. OTG becomes a puzzle to all of Belfast--is it, the authorities wonder, a new terrorist group? (Jake also notes several other phrases, FTP, FTQ, and FTNP--the "T" stands for the and "P" and "Q" for Pope and Queen. The "N" is for Next.) Despite his love for Belfast, Jake loses heart with its zealots and fanatics and, halfway through, Eureka Street threatens to slide into windy bathos. It's only a momentary lapse amid energetic, colloquial poetry and comic realism. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
McLiam Wilson's interesting but uneven novel is set in modern-day Belfast and presents the day-to-day lives of Jake Jackson, a Catholic, and his longtime friend Chuckie Lurgan, a Protestant. The story focuses on expected Northern Ireland issues and on Chuckie's ludicrous yet successful get-rich-quick schemes. He seems continually amazed (as the reader will be) that his outrageous ideas actually work. McLiam Wilson writes in a comedic style with spare, realistic dialog and rich descriptions of Belfast and environs. Unfortunately, the story lines never fully develop, and the characters remain flat, especially the women, who are disturbingly one-dimensional. Moreover, the subplots seem disconnected from the main story. Still, the current wave of successful Irish writers may create demand for this title. Recommended for larger fiction collections.?Dianna Moeller, Saint Martin's Coll. Lib., Lacey, Wash.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Understated Look at Belfast,
By Vince R. (St Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (Paperback)
Wilson's "Eureka Street" is a look at Belfast that is not redily available in the U.S. The character's are not. They are people with definative characteristics. The interwoven tale using different narration techniques lets the story unfold and does not overload the reader with unending minutia that is, unfortunately, all too common in fiction today.A great book that would be five stars, but I'm waiting for his next book, which I'm sure will not dissapoint.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Would have been five stars if not for the big words.........,
By Joel Munyon "Joel Munyon" (Joliet, Illinois - the poohole of America.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (Hardcover)
Robert McLiam Wilson attended Cambridge so I should cut the obvious intellectual some slack; however, I can't get past his usage of enormous words every few pages in this book. The book, overall, is hilarious, well-crafted, witty, and extremely entertaining. It is introspective and thought-arousing. The theme is based on a peculiar friendship set in extremely peculiar times in northen Ireland. The two men in the friendship - one a Catholic, one a Protestant - find themselves looking out at the nightmarish battle plagued streets where they desperately try to find meaning and purpose in their everyday lives. I loved the plot and you will too, but be warned, you will find such words as(get ready): elocutionary, incongruous, aggregate, bourgeois, desultory, wintry, lissom, quandry, protozoic, copiously, opprobrium, ecumencial, lexical, coquetry, litany, cuckolded, cerebrospinal, pallid, suffused, goaded, pugilistic, volubly, galvanized, reticent, ominously, osculate, and many, many more. Also take note: all of these words can be found in the first one-hundred pages of the book! Now, before you Cambridge grads barbeque me too bad, please understand that most of us - your everyday bums from your everyday places - don't use words like litany, mannish, proletarian, incongruous, or ecumenicalism in our everyday vocabulary. Most people I know - and there are many - would be hard-pressed to use a word like "mundane, nonchalance, or imperative." Something tells me that Mr. Wilson doesn't use all these words either - although he just might. A very good read, with our without the huge words. Enjoy!
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Troubles from an unromaticized point of view...,
By
This review is from: Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (Paperback)
Jake and Chucky, one Catholic and one Protestant, are best friends. They've both been effected by Belfast's violence but each avoids taking sides, Jake by actively hating both sides and their sectarian BS, and Chucky by enveloping himself in bizarre get-rich-quick capers.Much of Wilson's writing is wonderful: his description of Belfast's gritty beauty; the horror of a store bombing and its aftermath. But I must object to his unoriginal female characters, esp. Chuckie's American girlfriend, Max. Women who mask adolescent trauma with drug use and shallow sex just are not interesting anymore.
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