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Les Trois Lumières (2010)

by Claire Keegan(Favorite Author)

4.13 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

2848050950 (ISBN13: 9782848050959)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Sabine Wespieser

review 1: I cannot recommend the Irish writer Claire Keegan enough. Foster is a novella that has the heft and satisfaction of a long novel because the writing conveys a felt experience. A child is sent to the home of relatives she doesn't know. It's rural Ireland in the not too distant past, and when I read that on the flyleaf and saw the title, I thought I can't bear another story about child abuse... There's a sub-genre in books written for women called Misery Lit, but this is not about that. Foster is about unexpected love, about family secrets (big subject in Irish and Irish-American families), and the life of a child that isn't about play. She learns through work on a farm with caring adults that she can be happy away from a home where she is overlooked. This book is widely ... morepraised for beautiful language and the descriptions of daily lives, homes, routines, communities that get together to play 45 and attend wakes. In all of Keegan's writing, I have been brought into a world of unusual characters keenly observed, not quirky and dismissible.
review 2: *SPOILER ALERT*This story is simple.Simple language.Simple characters.Simple plot.No graphic horrors.The genius of this short story [ and, though it is in "book form", that is what it is] lies with its surprise ending.I was surprised I did not want the girl to return to her parents.Why?There were no clues that she had been abused or neglected [beyond the "neglect" that comes to any child in a large family] by her biological parents.It is true her family was very poor, but there is no particularevil that comes to a child from growing up temporallyimpoverished---unless there is filth and laziness, and shedid not seem to be lazy. Sure she was a bit grungy, but that comes with the territory of childhood in a rural area.What it came down to was that I felt this girl was notcherished by her own parents.I am sure they did their best, under the circumstances of their life,but even their own young flesh and blood understood, after a shorttime with the precious saintly Kinsellas, the difference of between beingsomeone's "ward" and being someone's "child".While reading this story, I remembered family goes beyond the bonds of genes, blood,and/or matrimony. Our family consists of those who choose to cherish and nourish us: temporally, emotionally, and spiritually.We should make it an important quest in our life to choose our "family" carefully, as they will bethe genesis of many of our joys and sorrows.Children are "stuck", sometimes real victims, of their family-realities, unless there is outside intervention, if they are in danger. This is sometimes their greatest life tragedy. As adults, we can choose our family-connections. We should take advantage of this and become victors of our relational destiny.The stark contrast between the child's parents and the Kinsellas, even with the limited exposure theauthor gave the reader, as to details, made the ending a tragic one.The "present tense" in-the-moment first person narration made the telling more intense. less

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