Borrisokane Adult Book Club Review

March 4th, 2010 · No Comments

McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy

Pete McCarthy was born in England to an English father and an Irish mother. His childhood summers were spent in Cork with his mother’s family and this gave him a sense of belonging in Ireland. In “McCarthy’s Bar” he recounts his travels from Cork Donegal via Lough Derg. He has many travelling “rules” the most often mentioned one being never to pass a pub with his name over the door. Pete sets off on his journey in a rickety old car and discovers a sense of belonging in a country that he’s adopted as his own.

“McCarthy’s Bar” is a funny and light-hearted book. It is an easy read with many “laugh-out-loud” moments. It is also a reflective and sometimes nostalgic book as he recalls the Ireland he experienced on his holidays as a child and compares it with the bungalow besieged Ireland of the 1990’s. This book is very funny and very easy to read.

Labryrinth by Kate Mosse is a grail quest tale which starts out in present day with Alice on an archaeolgical dig on the side of a mountain in Carcassonne in France where she discovers a cave filled with secrets. The story then turns to 13th centruy France where we’re introduced to Alais who is living through the Fourth Crusade which was launched against the Cathars who were charged with heresy. The Cathars are used in this novel to represent a kindly, antiracist, tolerant force and it not unitl three quarters of the way through the book that we are told that their heresy is based around the belief that the world was created by the devil and we are in fact living in hell. This is one of the only annnoying things about the book as the heresy is referred to throughout the text and the explaination comes quite late in the story.

The novel alternates between the past and present, telling the stories of Alais and Alice with one life recalling and echoing the other.

For Alice, the adventure starts when she falls into a mountain cave and finds two skeletons alongside a ring with a labyrinth symbol, which it turns out that many people want to obtain. For Alaïs, it begins when her father entrusts her with one of the three books that are needed to summon the true grail.

Labyrinth is a bit of a girl power story with both of the central characters being very capable and independent women. The villains, in both eras, are also women.

True to it’s title, labyrinth is a tale with many layers, twists and turns, It includes all the classic themes such as love, hatred, revenge, reconciliation mixed in with the less usual search for eternal life. It’s a grand read, not too demanding but interesting enough to keep your attention through it’s length.
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