ANGELINE KING
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Writing
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Writing
  • About
"...stories birling ..."

A weekend with Shuggie Bain

1/12/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
It’s fitting that I read Shuggie Bain like an addict. The world went on around me as I crouched down and supped on words, allowing myself to be slightly less fastidious about the care of the children. At around the three-quarters mark, the novel was complete in my mind. I was satiated, but grateful for the last quarter to allow me time to recover and digest.

Author Douglas Stuart has a keen eye for humanity and he has created one of the most memorable characters ever to grace the pages of a book — not Shuggie Bain, the boy whose life-story had me ready to volunteer at the local food bank and write to my local MP about giving free school meals to all children — but his mother, Agnes Bain, a complex, tortured soul reliant on drink. I picture her now in my mind walking down a bleak highway in her fur coat and high heels, head held high, her remaining inner and outer beauty a metaphor for what might have been. I doubt I will ever create a character as compelling as Agnes Bain. 

My childhood differed from Shuggie Bain’s, but much of the novel still resonated with me. Like Shuggie Bain, I was born in the mid-1970s when parts of Northern Ireland were as grim as parts of Glasgow, but I’ve never really taken the time to be angry about the social deprivation I saw in school, on the brae on the way home or at the wee park where the bonfire was lit each summer. We had good parks nearby, we could walk to the town centre, we had the seaside on our doorstep, we ran the streets. Yes, we lived in fear that our daddies might be shot or bombed, but there was always hot water and holidays to Butlins. When reading Shuggie Bain, I found myself experiencing real anger about Glasgow’s past, the dismantling of industry, the too-quick economic decline — the way people didn’t matter. Was Belfast dismantled more slowly or did we not notice because of the bombs?


​

Read More
0 Comments

    Prose

    Scene from Snugville Street
    ​The Wedding Wisp 

    82 Waterloo Road
    Ballysnod
    The Teacher Voice
    ​The Children of Latharna
    The Band Stick

    The Bully up the Brae

    History & folklore

    Language Blog I
    Language Blog II
    Language Blog III
    Language Blog IV
    ​The linguist behind Ulster Scots.
    ​Kailyard & Dusty Bluebells
    Jean Park of Ballygally 
    Fiddles and Melodeons
    Martha Taylor's diary
    Jean McCullagh at 104
    Ballymena & the McConnells
    Arms in Irish Dancing
    Catholics & Protestants in Irish dancing

    Essays

    Irish Times:
    Irish Dancing: The Festival Story
    ​The Protestant in Irish Fiction.
    ​The Protestant in Irish fiction II
    ​Ulster-Scots in Irish Fiction
    ​An author in Wonderland


    Belfast Telegraph:
    Irish Dancing
    ​

    ​Miscellaneous
    The Kailyard
    Dancing in Victorian Ulster

    Learning the Irish Language.
    John Hewitt Summer School

    Book reviews

    Shuggie Bain
    Wigtown Ploughman

    Jo Zebedee
    Lesley Allen & Helen Nicholl
    ​
    Orla McAlinden
    Du Maurier
    Anne Doughty

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    July 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015


    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly