J.G.Farrell (1935–1979) was born with a caul, long
considered a sign of good fortune. Academically and athletically
gifted, Farrell grew up in England and Ireland. In 1956, during his
first term at Oxford, he suffered what seemed a minor injury on the
rugby pitch. Within days, however, he was diagnosed with polio,
which nearly killed him and left him permanently weakened.
Farrell’s early novels, which include The Lung and A
Girl in the Head,have been overshadowed by his Empire
Trilogy—Troubles, the Booker Prize–winning Siege of
Krishnapur, and The Singapore Grip (all three are
published by NYRB Classics). In early 1979, Farrell
bought a farmhouse in Bantry Bay on the Irish coast. “I’ve been
trying to write,” he admitted, “but there are so many competing
interests–?the prime one at the moment is fishing off the rocks… .
Then a colony of bees has come to live above my back door and I’m
thinking of turning them into my feudal retainers.” On August 11,
Farrell was hit by a wave while fishing and was washed out to sea.
His body was found a month later. A biography
of J.G. Farrell, J.G. Farrell: The Making of a Writerby
Lavinia Greacen, was published by Bloomsbury in 1999.
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is
the author of many novels, including The Book of
Evidence, The Untouchable, and Eclipse. Banville’s
novel The Sea was awarded the 2005 Man Booker Prize. His
most recent book is Mrs. Osmond. On occasion he writes under the
pen name Benjamin Black.
We find in Farrell’s novels links between the depicted colonial
past and the postcolonial present that yield an abundance of
ironies and ambiguous parallels.
—Ivan Kreilkamp, Public Books
Remarkable … Mr. Farrell deserves high praise for this novel. It is
subtly modulated, richly textured, sad, funny, and altogether
memorable.
—Times Literary Supplement
A tour de force … sad, tragic, also very funny.
—The Guardian
Farrell wrote superbly; all his books had a quality that hallmarks
great literary talent—he could “do” texture. This album—which is
what Troubles feels like—records the same Anglo-Irish as Elizabeth
Bowen knew and belonged to. As with Bowen, this feels like the real
thing (which is all a novel has to do). Always judge a writer by
his grasp of what he doesn’t know: Farrell died young yet his old
people are almost his best creations.
—Frank Delaney, The Guardian
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