Shade

“I know exactly when I died,â€? says Nina Hardy, and she is not speaking metaphorically. Decapitated by her gardener, and shoved into a septic tank, she is emphatically deceased.

Luckily for her, she has had a rich life. And fortunately for the reader, Neil Jordan has decided to tell her haunting tale.

Jordan, the acclaimed film director, is no slouch as a writer, having won Ireland’s Guardian Fiction Prize for his story collection Night in Tunisia in 1979. After a ten-year break from publication, concentrating on a film career highlighted by his Oscar-winning movie The Crying Game, among others, he has returned to the page with Shade, an altogether exceptional novel swollen with dreamlike mystery and dread.

Nina is the show more shade of the title, “a shade of what I was . . . A rumour, a shade within a shadow, a remembrance of a memory, my own.â€? A ghost without purpose other than observation, she traipses back and forth through time, watching her life unfold from childhood, filtering even the most minor of occurrences through the spectre of tragedy.

Rural turn-of-the-century Ireland sets the stage, as Nina and her friends Janie and the hapless George pass the time, playing themselves as characters from Great Expectations, and later, from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Nina’s ghost plays a part, a mournful presence seen only by Nina’s younger self but adopted by them all as “the symbol, the embodiment of their uniqueness, their fraternity and sorority, their secret language.â€?

Life intrudes, as it must, as George and Nina’s half-brother Gregory find relentless terror on the battlefields of WWI, and Nina begins her adulthood through the sorts of horrors only women can ever experience.

As Shade progresses, travelling from the bloody trenches at Dardanelles to the theatrical stages of England and back again, there are echoes of Canadian author Robert Hilles’ wonderful recent novel A Gradual Ruin. But where Hilles finds a prospect of redemption after senseless brutality, Jordan finds only sadness that infects the soul and alters the consciousness in irreversible ways.

Unlike Alice Sebold’s best-selling, thematically similar novel The Lovely Bones, Jordan has little time for the considerations of an afterlife from the deceased’s point of view. Instead, like his most personal films, Jordan uses the awareness of Nina’s imminent death to examine the undercurrent of conflict that permeates his characters’ lives, the constant possibility of violence that accompanies every gesture.

Justly praised for his sterling cinematic dialogue, it is a joy to discover Jordan wields a poet’s ear for literary description and atmosphere as well. Shade’s lyrical storytelling, with its references to “endless mackerel skyâ€? and rivers of “alluvial flow,â€? is suffused in brooding melancholy; the pages themselves seem submerged in deep shadow.

When the shadow is finally lifted, Jordan’s tale reveals itself to be an exquisitely crafted drama, a flowing Irish ode to impossible loves and the destructive conditions of adulthood. Tragic, moving, surprising, and unforgettable, Shade is a masterful lament to the fragility, and strength, of the self. show less

Nina Hardy is a 50s movie actress who has returned to her childhood home. Taking pity on a childhood friend, George, who lost his mind after returning from the war, she offers him a position as her gardener. Within the first pages of the book, George murders Nina. The remainder of the book is narrated by Nina's ghost, who begins at her childhood to explain how this tragedy came about.

Beautifully written, evocative and haunting.

The story itself is in many ways lacking. It's hard to enjoy at the beginning, hard to get a grasp for who is speaking. Hard to differentiate between Nina before and Nina after. The writing is lovely. The descriptions are at times heart breaking. It's the outside view of a life, told by the ones who lived it, both during and removed from, and that which will destroy it. It's a doomed path from the beginning and you almost ache to want to change things, even a little. But very true to reality in that one cannot change the past, change the choices that lead them to where they end up. You can only let it happen and hope for the best.

Within the first few pages of this book, Nina Hardy is murdered by her childhood friend, George. The method and circumstances of her death are given in detail. The story goes on to explore Nina's life from childhood on and to examine the nature of her relationship with George, his sister Janie, and her own half-brother. The reveal of George's motive for murdering the woman he had loved throughout his life provides the denouement of the story.

Jordan's use of the language is compellilng, poetic and sometimes almost entrancing. The tone of the story is so languid and detached, however, that it is very hard to care about the characters, even as their lives take extraordinary twists and turns and are subject to tragedies which, in another show more context, would be very affecting. This is one of those books that seems to cry out to be a film, and I realized after I had finished it that much of Jordan's work is in that media. show less

I found the premise of this book very intriguing. However, as I started to read the book I was a little disappointed. The dialogue throughout most of the book is unbelievable, most adults don't talk like that let alone children. I found it hard to identify with the characters, and throughout most of the book just wished the story would end already. About three quarters of the way through the book I found it enjoyable again. Though the story didn't live up to my expectations Jordan's prose t...moreI found the premise of this book very intriguing. However, as I started to read the book I was a little disappointed. The dialogue throughout most of the book is unbelievable, most adults don't talk like that let alone children. I found it hard show more to identify with the characters, and throughout most of the book just wished the story would end already. About three quarters of the way through the book I found it enjoyable again. Though the story didn't live up to my expectations Jordan's prose though the whole book is beautiful show less

4149 Shade A Novel, by Neil Jordan (read 7 Apr 2006) This is a 2004 novel by an author who lives in Dublin, Ireland. It tells the story of Nina Hardy, who in the opening pages is murdered by her childhood companion, George. Nina is the daughter of rich Irish people, living in a big house near the Boyne, while George and his sister Janie are poor neighbors. George is in love with Nina but the difference in class makes marriage unimaginable. The story seems rather pretentious--much high-flown dramatic woefulness, and not really very meaningful that I can see, though it holds itself out as very portentous. The flashbacks often alternate between the characters, with at times it being an effort to know who "she" and "he" refer to. The male show more characters go to the Dardanelles in 1915, and of course only evil befalls them there. A well-written book, but I could not feel it told a momentous story. show less

Na haar dood blikt een Ierse vrouw samen met haar vriendin en haar halfbroer terug op haar leven