Star of the Sea

This was a very quick read due to O’Connor’s engaging and eclectic writing style and ability to construct some very strong characters and bring them together in creative ways.

Star of the Sea leaves Ireland for New York weighed down with a cargo of impoverished emigrants fleeing the Irish famine. Floating atop the seething masses bedding down with enormous vermin, cholera and typhus below deck is a small group of the wealthy elite who comprise, among others, the journalist who relates the tale that we read.

After the voyage begins, the narrator uses various devices to bring us up to speed on who each of the key characters are and the figurative baggage they have embarked with. As your awareness grows, you realise that the ship is the show more backdrop for a growing crisis which must come to a climax before the ship reaches its destination. O’Connor maintains this pace as well as he maintains your interest in the characters.

What O’Connor also skilfully does is to enlarge your understanding of the issues of the day, particularly those associated with the abominable and probably preventable Irish famine of the mid-19th century. This is something I didn’t have much awareness of, despite ancestors on my grandmother’s side coming from the counties of Roscommon and Connemara. He’s piqued my interest and has reminded me how the novel is a perfect medium for delivering non-fiction in the medium of fiction.

The ending disappointed me a little. The twist was predictable because O’Connor did his best to conceal that there wasn’t going to be a twist by building up a facade to distract you from it. This shows the difference between a good read and crafted literature where the writing itself is as much (or even more) a part of the joy of the novel than the plot. I’m not sure O’Connor is bothered though; it’s clear that his agenda is to communicate the plight of the Irish in history. I’m not sure he’s achieved it fully here but it’s definitely a good attempt and one which engaged me and caused me to want to know more. show less

Forget that this was published in 2004 – this is a Dickensian novel, full of complex characters, vivid storytelling, biting social commentary, Victorian literary experimentation, and bitter wit, all overlaid by a seemingly infinite empathy and compassion for humanity – even those whose bitter lives shape them into monsters. Though the events of the novel are claustrophobically confined to the decks of Star of the Sea, a rotting hulk making one final transatlantic run from Ireland to the U.S. bearing a cargo of tainted coal, toxic mercury, a scattering of first class passengers, and a seething stew of steerage passengers, character backstories drag us across fragrant green Irish fields littered with heather, through cruel workhouses, show more sordid brothels and corrupt jails, inside bleak British boarding schools, down roads lined with emaciated Irish dead, then back again through the villages poor in wealth but rich in love and generosity. All the things that Dickens did so heart-breakingly well.

This is also a very Irish novel, bleak and beautiful, couched in lyric language and imagery, full of characters who might have just stepped out of Irish ballads – hard drinking laborers, cruel landlords, wily thieves, wastrel balladeers, doomed lovers, wronged servant girls – and set in 1847, the great potato famine. Except that, in O’Connor’s adept hands, these archetypes gain flesh (so that we feel their pain), hearts (so that we experience their sorrows) and souls (making it impossible for us to deny their humanity).

Reading these past two paragraphs, I realize there’s a risk of scaring people away with all the sorrow and despair stuff. While I can’t pretend anyone actually ends up living happily ever after at the culmination of this tale, I can reassure potential readers that if you enjoy Dickens, you’ll enjoy this for many of the same reasons. Aside from memorably multi-faceted characters, period ambiance, and bracing satire, a significant enticement is the choice O’Connor has made to let the story unfold through a variety of different literary forms – captain’s logs, newspaper articles, bits of letters and diary entries, police interviews, etc. This literary device not only allows the story to be told through multiple perspectives, but provides ample range to for the author to showcase his formidable narrative creativity and dexterous storytelling.

For this is, above all, a story about stories, and especially storytelling. This is O’Connor reminding us that two million Irish dead of famine isn’t a statistic – it’s two million separate stories, each one tragic in its own unique way. And it’s about the power that all of us possess to shape our own narratives, especially the decisions we make about how we to cast ourselves in the stories we tell to ourselves and others: whether we see ourselves (or wish to be seen by others) as protagonists or antagonists, dissemblers or truth-tellers, victims or villains. Just in case we as a society begin to forget that what we think of as “reality” will always be relative, as long as history continues to be fashioned by the narratives of the survivors, and the narratives of those who do not survive fade gradually away. show less

(28) This was an unsolicited lend from a friend that caught my eye - there is something about long perilous ocean voyages that make for great reading. This is set during the mid 1800's during the worst of the potato famine in Ireland. A novel within a novel frame - the author, Grantley, is an American writer on board the ship who is incensed by the outrages of the famine and also harbors secrets of his own. The ship contains desperately poor Irish in steerage attempting to save their lives by immigrating to America. In first class, Lord David Meredith and his family are also immigrating - an English protestant noble born and raised in Ireland and much maligned in the current political climate, he is marked for death. An Pius Mulvey, a show more mysterious man who walks the deck all night long dragging an injured leg behind him - he is often referred to by Grantley as 'The Monster.'

So the plot is intriguing and thickens as the novel progresses. It has almost a gothic feel to it as recollections about each character are mysterious, melancholy, and filled with dreadful secrets. The writing is quite good and feels authentically of the times. In addition to questions about the veracity of the narration, there is a lot to think about. I very much enjoyed at least 3/4 of this novel but thought it ended a bit weak aesthetically. I do not want to spoil but I think O'Connor over explained. Let your writing speak for itself - it was quite good! Lord Kingscourt was ready to welcome what was coming for him and he got it - but maybe was surprised at the identity of his executioner...

I will read this author again (In part because there are more books by him in the stack given to me by my friend) He is a great story-teller and builds an authentic sense of place and time. If you like Victorian sensationalist yarns like Dickens and Wilkie Collins, then you should read this, old thing. show less

This brought home to me more than any dry history could the extent of and devastating effects of the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s. Through this novel I felt keenly the suffering of the Irish and the devastating effects of the Potato Famine. For many, thrown off their small plots of land by their heartless landlords, the way to escape their poverty and privation was to emigrate to America.

This is the story of the 1847 voyage of a ship filled with emigrants: the "Star of the Sea" and her captain and crew. One man from Connemara, Pius Mulvey, is forced to undertake the murder of impoverished Lord Kingscourt--David Merridith, an Englishman. Those who order him are members of a clandestine group of agitators, the "Hibernian Defenders" show more who hate how cruelly the landowners have treated their tenant-farmers. They say if Mulvey doesn't do the job, he himself will be killed. The story consists of the captain's log for each day at sea [28] and its events. As the journey progresses it becomes bleaker and more grim. Then various chapters give the backgrounds of Mulvey, Mary Duane whom he seduces, Mirridith and family, and many others. An American newspaperman, Dixon, is on board and writes from his point of view continuing after the ship reaches America, its difficulties with the authorities, until concluding on Easter 1916. Upon rereading, I noticed the significance of the date: the Easter Uprising against British Rule.

The writing was gorgeous and amazing. The author waxed poetic on occasion, sometimes excessively so. Sometimes the writing was strong and clipped. The story twisted and turned interweaving all these lives.

A strong, vivid image taken from the description of when the Hibernian Defenders threaten Mulvey:

"He remembered their eyes, so frightened and convinced. The black stained sackcloth of the hooded masks they wore. The slashed out holes where their mouths appeared. They were wielding the tools of their livelihood, but as weapons -- scythes, mattocks, loys, billhooks. Now they had no livelihood left. Centuries stolen in one stunning moment. Their fathers' labour; their sons' inheritances. At the stroke of a pen, they were gone.
Black and green fields. The green of the banner draped across the table, spattered with ribbons of Mulvey's blood. The glint of the weapon they had made him take, the fisherman's knife pressed to his chest, while they raged at him about freedom and land and thievery. The words SHEFFIELD STEEL etched into the blade. He could feel it now, in the pocket of his greatcoat, nestled to his lacerated thigh. He remembered the things they said they would do with that knife if he didn't stop whingeing about murder being too heavy to put on him. When they held him down and started to cut him, Mulvey screamed to be allowed to kill."

A poetic description of the ocean:

"Maritime wreckage. Bone and driftwood. Darker now: the wind blasting and stopping, like exchanges on a battlefield when ammunition is low. Everything had a blue and shadowy look."

Sometimes we "heard" voices of some of the passengers; each was distinct. The plot presented some as interviews, letters [even to misspellings and Irish dialect], an excerpt from a novel of the newspaperman, as songs or prayers. One chapter was a litany to the Virgin Mary; I could hear the frightened steerage passengers reciting the words. I could feel the captain was a compassionate Quaker through his writing. I really empathized with the characters and their conditions. I felt the stench and squalor of steerage conditions. I appreciated the long and detailed "Notes & Acknowledgements" at the end; I feel the reality and truth of the novel.

Highly recommended. show less

A handful of larger-than-life characters embroiled in a twisting, all but incestuous plot. The story's great but the best bit is that O'Connor manages to incorporate into that a respectable knowledge and understanding of Anglo-Irish politics, and he does it in a way that enhances the story. I liked this a lot.

Picked for my reading group and I really didn't think I'd like it. But I did. The writing is very dense and certainly at first I was needing a dictionary at times to look up words. But I was never bored or wanting to stop reading. It's done in a dense Dickens imitation style. I usually dislike "literary" fiction but occasionally it can work. But no wonder the Irish hate the British! Ironically the person who selected the book disliked it on his reread. Most of the rest of the group also disliked it or couldn't finish it. One even suggested it was a "piss take" based on the author foreword - which I didn't read until the end (he does have a point actually).

This novel has made it onto my rather slim list of favourite reads this year; it has certainly raised the bar of my expectations of historical fiction. The quality of writing, the rich soup of firmly believable characters all intertwined and seemingly doomed by their connections, the choice of narrative styles, the feeling of low tragedy told as high adventure, the ravaging journey which is somehow preferable to the shuffling starvation that has overwhelmed Ireland, the murder mystery told almost backwards, building a quite astonishing tension… I am firmly smitten with O’Connor’s style, which grants a rapport between the reader and the meanest, lowest character within the pages – whoever you might deem that person to be.

The show more Star of the Sea sets sail for America bearing its handful of first-class passengers and its steerage section crowded with destitute, starving Irish men and women; some bearing a murderous resentment for Lord Meredith, fleeing bankruptcy with his wife and their two sons, for his perceived role of evicting landlord. The family’s maid, Mary Duane sails with them, her cargo a personal history that embroils Meredith (no saint, but a strangely sympathetic sinner) with Pius Mulvey, a prison escapee who, despite his back-story of abhorrent misdeeds, is also more compelling to the reader than repellent; such is O’Connor’s gift for character. Also aboard is the book’s ‘author’, American journalist (and aspiring novelist), Grantley Dixon, lover of Laura Meredith, whose presence torments Lord Meredith equally for the man’s relentlessly touted social conscience, and relationship with the Earl’s wife.

Entwined with the unfolding drama, like another character, is the atmosphere of a famished Ireland and her people, and the conditions those lucky enough to be fleeing to a new life must survive or perish more miserably, perhaps, than if they had remained on shore, and the way the one tragedy colours the story, motives, and drama of the other is O’Connor’s primary accomplishment here. show less