The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty

Published 4 years before "Annie Dunne", "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty" first appears to be a very different novel. And yet, as you keep reading it, you slowly realize that they are not so different. The structure is different (Annie Dunne relies on flashbacks and filling in of backstories, this novel goes through time linearly) but the story and the characters are similar. It is not a coincidence - just like Annie, Eneas was born with the century in Ireland and lived through two wars, the fight for independence and all the tumult of the changing Ireland. That is the thread that connects almost all of Barry's novels and plays I had read so far - they are his way to tell the history of Ireland by showing us the lives of the people who show more lived it.

Eneas McNulty never meant anyone any harm. He enrolled in the British Merchant Navy because he was too young to be in the regular one during WWI and in any other time in history, that would have helped him secure his future. But it was not any other time - by the time he came home, Ireland was in the middle of its independence struggle and serving in the British Navy (Merchant or not) did not make Eneas the most popular guy in Sligo. His only choice seemed to be to join the police - and that ended up being the worst possible job for an Irish boy. When the rebels (revolutionaries, independence council - call them what you want) decided to allow him to redeem himself, Eneas refuses their offer - killing a man is not something he is willing to do even if that means a death sentence for himself. So he leaves his family, the woman he loves and Sligo to find his way away from home - from being a soldier to Africa to finding a friend and spending a lifetime alone. The end comes almost unexpectedly and when it does, you want it to be different - because hate seems to always win, even when time should have mellowed it down.

The story of a boy who just wanted to live his life and was forced to seek his luck away from home is heart-breaking. Behind it is the tragedy of a country - the separatism and hate in Ireland during most of the 20th century was not invented and imagined by Barry even if most of the characters in the novel were. Some of its early days are almost forgotten by most people - WWI overshadows these early struggles. Barry tells the story of a man but in a way it becomes a story of a country - and that makes the novel even better.

This is not the first novel by Barry but it is the first that is still in print. It ties to earlier plays and to later plays and novels and becomes a part of the Irish tapestry that Barry weaves through his work. show less

Sebastian Barry is a conjurer, and he conjures up Ireland, the chaos of the Irish question and the impossibility of living an unpolitical life while suspended between the English and the IRA. Into this maelstrom he tosses Eneas McNulty, a quiet man who would like to live a simple life in Sligo, but who finds himself under the sentence of death by the rebel faction. Eneas lives his life in the shadow of this sentence, haunted by his memories and by nostalgic ties to a place he is barred from forever.

I am in awe of what Barry can do with the complex language that the rest of us sometimes struggle with. He is so fluid and supple, easy and graceful, that I felt I was swimming in a river of words that were pulling me along effortlessly. As show more in the case of this first kiss,

She takes his face in her hands like a farmer's wife lifting a swede in pride from the earth and plants her mouth on his and in the same moment sucks the life out of him and forces the life into him.

Or this passage that explains the passage of time in a way that I could easily relate to but felt I had never encountered before:

But by the grace of mere time itself or, sometimes, he thinks, the peculiar clock of God, whose divisions seem both unending and brief in the same span, he spends a decade and more at that work, in which to catch the cold fish and douse his brain with the solemn rainwater of stars. It is true that such work repeated and repeated, with its circles of journeys and seasons, weaves a pattern as simple as a country bedspread that gives the years the sensation of brevity.

Eneas McNulty is a very minor, passing, character in Barry’s [b:The Secret Scripture|3419808|The Secret Scripture|Sebastian Barry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1325714117s/3419808.jpg|3460278], and when I realized there was a book featuring Eneas himself, I knew I wanted to read it. I did not actually expect it to meet the level of [b:The Secret Scripture|3419808|The Secret Scripture|Sebastian Barry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1325714117s/3419808.jpg|3460278]; I certainly never imagined it might exceed it. This book is among the most affecting books I have read in a long time. I felt the same outrage over the careless ruining of Eneas’ life as I had felt over the unfair incarceration of Roseanne. I drank the words on the page as if I had been served the finest wine, but in a homely coffee mug rather than a crystal goblet.

The story is wistful, plaintive and wholly memorable. It is about wide-ranging, societal questions, but it is also about the individual needs of the ordinary man. What does it mean to have a friend? How quickly does life pass us by and what is its worth if you are just one of the great unwashed?

How quick they come, how quick they go. Friendship. Oh, well. God sails his boats on the pond of the world and at fall of darkness goes off through the rubbed-out roses with the boats under his arms like a fabulous boy. The clock is the terrible high clouds fleeting to some unknown meeting. In the city encircling the park of the world lives are lived quickly, the admired baby soon the dreaming old bastard in the narrow suntrap under the less of the church. Quickly quickly everything goes.

I can attest that life goes more quickly than you can imagine in your youth. I believe it is the most human of all traits to look back at your life and wonder if it has had any impact upon the world or if you will be forgotten in the moment of your passing. And, I believe that one of the strongest pulls on any human being is the pull toward home.

Sebastian Barry has written a literary masterpiece. show less

I can think of no better review for this book than Bruce Springsteen's Something In The Night for it is, truly, Eneas McNulty's life, from beginning to end.
....
You're born with nothing,
and better off that way,
Soon as you've got something they send
someone to try and take it away,
You can ride this road 'till dawn,
without another human being in sight,
Just kids wasted on
something in the night.

Nothing is forgotten or forgiven,
when it's your last time around,
I got stuff running 'round my head
That I just can't live down.

When we found the things we loved,
They were crushed and dying in the dirt.
We tried to pick up the pieces,
And get away without getting hurt,
But they caught us at the state line,
And burned our cars in one last show more fight,
And left us running burned and blind,
Chasing something in the night.

This novel devastates me in the same way this song always has: to ever be a wanderer in this world, by nature of birth, of accident, of fate. And to know that every mistake, no matter how small or insignificant will always count against you, even to yourself. Not only does the world not forgive, but you can't begin to forgive yourself.

... nothing is forgotten or forgiven, when it's your last time around ...

Even if you're not a Springsteen fan, do yourself a favour and listen to this version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oaGsxfGoVY show less

After reading Sebastian Barry’s new novel (The Secret Scripture), I wanted to read more. More about the people he created, feel more of his words wash over me. And while I found this ten year old novel maybe a little less….call it accessible than his latest, still…. There are those many passages that you have to reread immediately. Not because there was anything you may have missed. Any nuance not gathered. But just because you want to re-experience the pleasure of the prose. Many times the second reading just had to be out loud. In what passes for my Irish brogue. A brogue not of heritage but of mimic out of appreciation for the poetry of the sound itself.

Eneas McNulty is a character who makes but a brief appearance in Barry’s show more latest novel - brief but impactful. His presence always in the background. Here, on his way back from twenty years of self exile, and the survival of Dunkirk and its aftermath, Eneas stops off at the convent where his sister Teasy has removed herself from the world. The nuns have prepared a special welcoming of tea and cakes for him, It’s “an unfamiliar feeling.”

It all puzzles him. He thinks Teasy has landed on her feet, in the right place for her maybe. He hopes so.

‘You’re all right for things?’ she asks him with the deference of a younger sibling. ‘You seem grand now, Eneas.’

‘Sure, terrific - that’s an English expression,’ he says laughing. ‘It’s a nice ould place, isn’t it? Is the work hard?’

‘It’s not so bad.’ she says. ‘We have the poor orphans, you know, and they’re good lads in the main. They’re rogues, but it’s like a family. I always wanted a family, of my own, like, you know?’

‘Did you, Teasy?’ he says, surprised enough. Teasy.

‘It’s the ould husband I wasn’t keen on, you know,’ and Teasy gives her howl of laughter. ‘Not at all keen!’

‘Why would you be , sure, they’re all animals!’

‘They are, by all accounts. Excepting the Da.’

‘Pappy. Ah, yeh. Well, you can’t call him a husband.’

Teasy laughs again though neither of them knows what he means.

‘Was it hard getting you a place here, Teasy?’ he asks.

‘It was. Mam had to move heaven and earth.’

‘Literally, says you, I see,’ he says. ‘Well, just so long as you’re happy, girl. You’re happy enough set here?’

Finding the right place in the world is one of the difficult tasks for each of us in Barry’s heaven and earth. Carving out that little space, that safe harbor of happiness, is achieved it seems, only by accident, circumstance, not necessarily perseverance. Then there’s friendship.

Time passes. Friendship flees. Surely. Or changes at least, but never severs its iron grip from the soul.

How quick they come, how quick they go. Friendship. Oh, well. God sails his boats on the pond of the world and at fall of darkness goes off through the rubbed-out roses with the boats under his arms like a fabulous boy. The clock is the terrible high clouds fleeting to some unknown meeting. In the city encircling the park of the world lives are lived quickly, the admired baby soon the dreaming old bastard in the narrow suntrap under the lee of the church. Quickly quickly everything goes.

God as fabulous boy.That’s just about as perfect as any description I’ve ever heard.

I actually had the same experience with both Barry novels - the language like a gossamer thing that must be broken through. Initially it’s a barrier between the story and its reader. And a little denser barrier in this one for me. But surely, that dissolves and the story takes ahold. And it’s upon Eneas’ return home that Barry really begins to soar. There’s something about the wanderer returning, the lure of home turf, homesickness, that gets a great writer to the top of his game. And Barry, is lured (as in Scripture) by memory, faulty and intoxicating. Eneas is at once comforted by the familiar, but increasingly wary of what may await him. Home. Sick. Something about butchers, too!!

It’s the town he recognizes as an old friend. This surprises him…He wishes he could cross the river and peer down into the Garravogue again but he’s all the while going away from the water. Perhaps this nostalgia is a treacherous river all of its own, and river enough to be negotiating for the moment. Dangerous love. And he remembers Mr Jackson the master explaining in his batlike voice years ago that nostalgia means something hard and tricky in the Greek, not a pleasing feeling at all, but the sickness of returning home. And how Greek mariners, Homer’s or just mariners of the wide and ordinary world in old epic days, suffered it, feared it, answered it, were led into the vales and isles of death by it, where nothing is as it seems. And yes, he understands it now, that mysterious claptrap of Mr Jackson. How wise he was after all. Here they are, the streets and houses of his boyhood, answering the roaring sickness in his blood. Memories and thoughts flash out of dark lanes, beam down from pub signs and chemist shops, leak from the doors of butchers with the slight stink of blood and sawdust. He thinks he remembers the butcher in John Street right enough, wheeling about all red-faced and rotund in the ship of his shop as Eneas passes. The fact is a butcher never grows old, he is eternal like the boatman at the river of death. This is a cardinal fact of life that he has often noticed. A chemist grows ancient, old and frail like mortal women. As does the grocer and the lady in the post office. Only the butcher goes forth into the centuries like a veritable vampire. It’s all that red-blooded meat he devours in the back parlour.


And 2/3 of the way through the novel, Eneas happens across Roseanne, the later heroine of Scripture. And the strangeness of his old ‘home’ catches him up.

The world of Sligo is a deepening puzzle. Perhaps it always was. Perhaps there was always something deep in the water, pulling at the force of the stream, twisting it, like a drowning, or a trapped branch.

Ah, but when Barry has his characters tell a tale….When Eneas’ mother tells him her true story, left mysterious in Scripture (”That’s the true story of Mary Byrne, and the devil take the story you can do nothing about”), Eneas asks her if the Da knows any of it:

‘No, and he doesn’t, and what good would it do him? He’s as deaf as a plank to rumour, you wouldn’t get an innuendo through to him if you used a crow-bar.”

The buoyancy of the spirit, despite all slings and arrows, is never far from manifesting itself in a bit of humor. They, mother and child, commiserate about their hard lives.

‘Mam,’ he says, as the whiskey thaws his heart, ‘do you know, if it’s a sad life, it’s a bloody mysterious one too.’

‘It is’, she says……

‘Mam, I don’t understand the world, nor think I ever will, our going into it or our getting out of it. I am forty-four and none the wiser. Why is that?’

‘It seems to be the way for both of us, A bit of happiness here and there. Throw out your leg now and then and be dancing. Otherwise, a crooked way…’

Be dancing. Dance? Did you say, dance? show less

Sebastian Barry, with poignant and lyrical writing, tells the story of a "man without a country" who seeks to go "home", who is haunted by a death sentence from the IRA and his best friend in Sligo, whose simple desires for family and friendship are frustrated at every turn. It's enough to understand the passions of people--the blind passion of revolutionaries, the clear passions of parents and sons, siblings, and friends--to be affected by this story. Barry is a consummate wordsmith with a deeply moving story to tell--great passages long to be read aloud, savored like fine wine.

Sebastian Barry's first novel is the account of a long and troubled life. . . and much more. Eneas, from his boyhood to his dreadful death, is described by Barry in lyrical style. As the title indicates Eneas moved frequently. Wherever he went, however, he could not find solace. His final act was a futile gesture of friendship. This is a glorious book: as you read it you "hear" the voices of the characters, and, truly, you know at the end that you should tell others to read it. (I did.) ~~~~ Another reviewer mentioned it helps to know the background history, but that is not necessary since, as you are swept away in the action, you learn enough to empathize with Eneas, and that's quite an experience. [A cleaning woman who overheard me show more reading its finale aloud was certain I'd been reading the bible.] show less

A powerful contrast between almost clichéd jolly lyricism and the horrors it depicts.