Twenty years ago today, the author J.G. Farrell set off to go fishing off the rocks near his cottage by Kilcrohane, in West Cork; and by nightfall he was dead, drowned, taken by a sudden scend of the sea which had probably been born a thousand miles away, sweeping across the Atlantic like a submarine beast before rising up and to claim him. There is a rhythm to these things, and it accorded with some natural rhythm that just the other day, J.G.'s brother Richard lay their mother's ashes in the place where J.G. now lies, the Church of Ireland churchyard in Durrus. She had outlived her son by a score of years. Their remains, fire and water, were mingled in the soft soil of Durrus as a curlew called, rain drizzled down from a low sky, and the small meadows of the Sheep's Head peninsula glowed greenly through the grey of the day.
Fiction and life
As there was synchronicity in J.G.'s life, and in the complex machinery which moved him hither and thither and finally to his appointment with a particular wave at a particular moment 20 years ago this day, so is there in Lavinia Greacen's brilliantly realised blending of his fiction with his life (J.G. Farrell, The Making of a Writer). For she convincingly shows how much he drew from his own day-today experiences in the construction of his novels. One of the guests in the Majestic Hotel in Troubles was a Carol Feldman; the real Carol Feldman, now known by her married name of Carol Drisco and a former girlfriend of the writer's, was present for the recent celebration of J.G.'s life in Bantry.
Another girlfriend, who might have become J.G.'s wife but for a certain wave, was Bridget O'Toole; and a Bridget O'Toole also makes her appearance at the Majestic. So too do the Russells from Maryborough; she who shares J.G.'s grave was born Josephine Russell in Maryborough. A Carruthers at Castle Park school in Dalkey, once a last garrison of Anglo-Irishry, where J.G. briefly taught, also surfaces at the Majestic Ball. And Edward, the arch-unionist proprietor of the Majestic, is drawn from Donald Pringle, the school headmaster, who, it is alleged (though not in Lavinia's account) stalked into assembly at the start of the Anglo-French invasion of Suez in 1956 and announced: "This morning, boys, our troops landed in Suez."
For J.G. was not merely a brilliant writer, but also a resourceful miner, quarrying through his life for the gold nuggets which he laid bare before us in three of the greatest historical novels of our times: Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip. He was, as Lavinia shows us, an outsider wherever he was; half-Irish, not English, yet perversely it was the Farrell side of him which was most English of all. He seems to have been at home nowhere, really, until he found Saltwater Cottage, Kilcrohane, a year before his death.
Unpleasant side
My colleague Angela Long reviewed Lavinia's book recently in this newspaper. She felt disillusioned by what she discovered: that J.G. had an unpleasant side to him. His behaviour towards women certainly seemed calculating, sometimes malicious, occasionally even cruel: but far too many women found him attractive, and retained his friendship when whatever sexual relationship had passed, for him to be seen simply as a misogynist. He had of course been partially disabled by polio; this, no doubt, made him attractive to women (an odd lot at the best of times), but no doubt it made him uncertain too about his own physicality.
Certainly Carol Drisco bore no ill-will towards him; she crossed the Atlantic the other week to be present to celebrate his life and works. Too many other people came at their own expense to be present for the book-launch at Bantry House, and for the talks about his life, and for the celebratory lunch the next day, for J.G. to be reducible to being just a cad.
Not least, he had charisma. People wished to please him. His wit was sly and quick and sometimes cruel. I suspect that in his company sometimes companions might have weighed a wine-bottle with a view to measuring it against his skull. But his charm seems to have deflected anger, his wit and his erudition being welcome at any board and winning his way into many a bed. Perhaps some women may find those qualities disagreeable; many men would not and did not. J.G. Farrell emerges as being as flawed and as fascinating as the characters he created in his novels.
Narrative integrity
After my recent piece about J.G. Farrell, some readers complained that they have unsuccessfully sought copies of his books. Perhaps this is not surprising, for his novels have unfashionable beginnings, middles and ends: they elucidate rather than obfuscate; they entertain rather than bewilder; they are brilliantly funny rather than being introspectively dour; they are peopled by superbly realised individuals rather than mere symbolic cyphers; they have plots rather than self-indulgent thought-streams. Publishers of adult fiction often find this sort of narrative integrity slightly discomfiting.
Perhaps J.G. Farrell's greatest achievement was in the invention of wonderful, living characters. Many if not most of these bear a distinct relationship to the life that he lived. It is Lavinia Greacen's artistic coup and scholarly triumph to have synthesised the works of fiction with the life from which they emanated, which life ended at around five in the evening, 20 years ago today.