The Shortest Day

Archeologist and Professor Professor O'Kelly plans to spend the days leading up to Christmas trying to decipher the mystery of the the burial chamber at Newgrange in Ireland.It is older than the Pyramids, older than Stonehedge and once a year on the winter solstice, the sun's beam shines through to illuminate the chamber within. But inside the chamber reside spirits who are revived by that yearly light and they are not happy that the professor may disturb their peace:

He is a man alive in the world. He is capable of anything.

The Shortest Day is a lovely and atmospheric short story by author Colm Tobin. It has the feel of an old Irish folk tale as magic and tension are engendered by the possibility that a man of reason and ancient spirits show more may be brought together by a single ray of light. The ending surprised me and some may find it too abrupt but, to me, it felt like the right ending rather than the expected one.

Thanks to Netgalley and Amazon Original Stories for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review show less

‘’Thus, it was the strangeness of the night sky and the seasons that they loved and missed, the strangeness of fire and water, the strangeness they noted in each other.’’

It is Christmas and there is magic in the air for children and adults. For the professor of our story, this is the time to discover the answer to a riddle that has been haunting him for far too long. The burial chamber of Newgrange, a site older than Stonehedge, older than the Pyramids, a secret place that fiercely protects its hidden treasures and its valuable ray of light. Guarding Newgrange, the spirits of the age of old are willing to catch a glimpse of the mortal world but they won’t give up their secrets.

‘’We are spirits. We do not want to associate show more with the visible world.’’
‘’He is a man alive in the world. He is capable of anything.’’

Colm Tóibín creates a beautiful, atmospheric story about the shortest day, the longest night and the unbreakable bond between the present and the past, the world of the living and the land of the dead. The influence of History on our lives, the wisdom of our ancestors who were once ignorant mortals. In the burial chamber, mythical Ireland is given a vivid voice as the spirits of the past (dating back to the days of the legendary Cuchulain) are waiting for the light of the shortest day of the year.

The ceremonies and rituals of the pagan past that fascinates and mystifies us and the risk caused by today’s need to know everything, refusing to understand that, sometimes, we all need to stay silent and listen carefully are perfectly joined in this wondrous story where respect and reverence open a small window to the past.

‘’The rays of sunshine that beamed into the chamber on the shortest day nourished them through the darkness of the year to come. The light appeared precisely on the winter solstice, as they had planned. It shone in the morning. Within a short time, all trace of it was gone. It made them feel that they still belonged to the world they had lost as the darkness folded around them once more’’

Many thanks to Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Confession: I’m not a big fan of short stories. It’s not that I’ve never read a short story I’ve enjoyed, but I haven’t taken the time to determine which qualities the stories I like have in common. I think it might be that they have a clear ironic twist, or that they are short, or both, but I’m not sure. I recently read [b:The Overstory|40180098|The Overstory|Richard Powers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562786502l/40180098._SY75_.jpg|57662223] which begins with nine segments that read as short stories. I thoroughly enjoyed those, but I think that may have been because they were all clearly linked and moving toward a common destination.

[b:The Shortest Day|55203166|The Shortest show more Day|Colm Tóibín|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1598965505l/55203166._SY75_.jpg|86062416] has been described as a novella, but at 31 pages, an hour on audio, I consider it more of an atmospheric short story, one that for me stopped short of being anything more than just ok. The story felt as if it was just drifting along and never really grabbed me, although the writing was lovely. My guess is that short story enthusiasts, or Colm Toibin followers, would get more from it than I did. show less

An archaeology professor in Ireland takes a trip to a cave he's been studying for years, the site of ancient burials. It's just days before Christmas, which makes it a perfect time for him to go alone and see if he finds anything new without a whole crew around. But the ancient souls in the cave are aware of the professor's intentions and dread him finding out their secret, and the professor's arrival also stirs fear in some local villagers who have been tasked with keeping the secret.
A short story so I'm not counting it. Available on Kindle as an Amazon Original. I thought the story would build to a murder, but it turned out to be rather gentle.

Practically perfect atmospheric tale of a professor spending the Winter Solstice at Newgrange and discovering* that the sunlight makes its way deep into the chamber by design. I love the way Colm Tóibín writes.

*The locals know already, as do the spirits still making their home in Newgrange.

So everything leading up to what exactly will happen when someone sees a secret tomb on the shortest day of the year was more exciting than what happened post that. I will give Toibin points for how he sets up the atmosphere of this short story. The world always feels more....just more during the holidays. It's in the air you breathe. But this story seems to just be taking the long way to get to some type of meaning that we don't get spelled out for us in a clear way by the end of the story.

"The Shortest Day" follows archaeologist Professor O'Kelly from Cork. He is part of a dig that is studying and exploring a passage tomb near Newgrange. What O'Kelly does not realize is that something still stirs there and is worried that O'Kelly may show more find out the secrets that still linger if he views the tomb on the shortest day in the year in December. The story follows as locals and others do their best to keep him away from the tomb.

Don't know what else to say except I did like O'Kelly. He seems like a nice man who loves his wife and children. He seems a bit scattered, but not in a bad way. I was honestly worried some horrible fate was about to befall him the whole reading.

Apparently this is tied to Irish folktales, but I will have to do some more research about that on my own. show less

Archaeologist Michael O’Kelly (1915 – 1982), known to his friends as “Brian”, will remain best known for leading the excavation and restoration of the Late Stone Age passage tomb of Newgrange in the Boyne Valley, County Meath in Ireland. It was O’Kelly who, on December 21, 1967 – the day of the winter solstice and, therefore, the “shortest day of the year” – discovered that the rays of the sun on the midwinter sunrise pass through a small opening above the tomb’s doorway, lighting up the passage up to the centre of the chamber. This finding confirmed legends in the area which alluded to this phenomenon. It let O’Kelly to comment that “the people who built Newgrange built not just a tomb but a house of the dead, a show more house in which the spirits of special people were going to live for a long time”.

Colm Tóibín’s short story The Shortest Day is, essentially, a fictionalised account of O’Kelly’s discovery. It alternates between descriptions of the archaeologist’s preparations for his midwinter trip to Newgrange, and dialogues between the spirits inhabiting the tomb who are worried about the potential consequences should their “secret” be discovered. It is a concern which is shared by the locals, who do their best to thwart O’Kelly’s plans through ruses which border on the cartoonish.

I was drawn to this story because its blurb had a folk-horrorish vibe to it, and I am always intrigued when the horror genre is approached by a writer not typically associated with it. The work, however, turned out to be quite different from my expectations: a poetic meditation about life, death and collective memory and about what remains of us, both as individuals and as a community, after we pass on. The story is well-written, and I would not expect less from an author of Tóibín’s calibre. However, I must confess I did not find it particularly memorable.

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