The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor, Finalist for The 2002 Booker Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_and_shortlisted_authors_of_the_Booker_Prize and for this reader, better than the winner in that year, Life of Pi, it is on Realini’s Best 250 Novels list at http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world 10 out 10

 The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor, Finalist for The 2002 Booker Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_and_shortlisted_authors_of_the_Booker_Prize and for this reader, better than the winner in that year, Life of Pi, it is on Realini’s Best 250 Novels list at

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world 

10 out 10

 

 

The under signed has already been enthused by Reading Turgenev http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/06/mesmerized-by-reading-turgenev-by.html and therefore expected an intense pleasure from The Story of Lucy Gault, which met the challenge, albeit positive psychologists advise us to lower our expectations to avoid disappointment…there is a sense of loss and chagrin associated with this masterpiece, which had been announced in the introduction, which should have had some spoiler alert.

 

Maybe there would be a need for a spoiler alert here – commenting on the fact that they did not have one in the beginning of the book would be revealing some aspects, if not too much – since I will say that I wish I had not read the foreword, which talked about the sadness and the tragedy in terms that made me think, anticipate that this is not going to end well, which seeing that we are not talking about a Hollywood blockbuster, it would make sense, and one should not expect vain finale, a Pangloss style of sending the protagonist into the sunset, or better still, the sunrise, with eternal mirth assured – however, I like Pangloss and was elated by the notion that ‘we live in the best possible worlds’, though we are clearly far from Eden http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/12/candide-or-optimist-by-voltaire.html

The Story of Lucy Gault takes place during the Troubles – which is the title of another opus magnum, winner of the Booker Prize by JG Farrell http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/02/troubles-by-jg-farrell-11-out-of-10.html -a period of clashes in Ireland, when Loyalist Protestant land owners had their homes burned, and trying to prevent that and defending his family, Captain Everard Gault shoots his rifle and wounds one of three man, his name is Horahan, that had been at their land before, and poisoned their three sheep dogs, and now they have been determined to take violent action, Horahan would later explain how they had talked with an experienced Irish fighter, who had told them what to do, to poison the dogs, explore the land, come at night, break a window and then perpetrate, making sure a light is on upstairs, presumably because they do not want to burn the owners alive…

 

As a coincidence just about one month ago I have finished a chef d’oeuvre by Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-last-september-by-elizabeth-bowen.html where the house of the family is burnt at the end (oops, spoiler would have been needed here, but this is not about that novel) and we have similar tensions, the hostility of those who fight for the Independence of Ireland, bent on killing the English that they see as invaders, occupiers, and some characters are killed.

 

Captain Gault is trying to defuse tensions, keep peace and some tranquility for his family, his wife, Heloise, and their only daughter, Lucy, and he talks with the family of the young man who had been injured by the shot, explaining that he had intended no harm, it was at night and they could not see, but the Irish are very hostile, they refuse the offer for some compensation and say almost nothing, even when the priest is asked to mediate, they do not accept a peace offering and the conclusion is pessimistic.

In discussions with the spouse, they have to consider the clear and present danger, the atmosphere of the time, the fact that most of those they knew had gone and they will have to do the same, albeit they do not want to, they will have to depend on the money that Heloise Gault can get from her inheritance and investment in a railway company, and besides, Lucy is infatuated with the place and has no wish to depart.

 

Lucy Gault is actually determined to remain no matter what, and when she finds her parents had decided, they had bought the suitcases, made all the arrangements, she would make a wild plan to avoid the heartbreaking flight from Lahardane, and she had accumulated some food, collected some clothes in order to flee to a nearby village, to a former servant, and when the parents would see that, they will have second thoughts, only when she would start in the evening, once in the woods, she has her ankle twisted and is unable to move further than an abandoned hut in the forest, while her family is looking for her.

Alas, a dog that had befriended the kind ten year old had taken clothes and a sandal when she had been bathing in the sea, and this is what her father finds when he is looking for his daughter and they all come to the conclusion that she must have drowned, when there is no sign of the missing child, and the mother is sure that, unwilling to leave her beloved Lahardane behind, the girl has committed suicide…

 

Desperate and willing to avoid the gruesome image of her daughter’s cadaver, a skeleton maybe, Heloise Gault wishes to travel away, not hear anything from this part of the world that has brought tragedy, feels guilty for their decision to go away, even when their daughter was so desperate to stay clearly, and they travel to France, then to Italy, and when Mussolini rises to power and starts the war, they find refuge in Switzerland, where her health becomes ever more fragile and eventually, she would die without finding that the girl had been saved in the meantime, found by Henry, the man left in charge of the property with his wife, Bridget, and Lucy is slowly recuperating, she has a limp first, but it is getting better all the time.

Nevertheless, if the child is improving physically, her psychological state would not see the same progress, and she will keep the sense of chagrin and guilt for decades, intertwined also with the feeling that she has been abandoned, not loved enough, sensing a loss and a need for parental affection, and when a young man comes by accident to Lahardane, they fall in love with each other, only Lucy feels somehow that she does not have the right to plunge into a happy life, for she still needs to be pardoned, absolved by her parents and tells Ralph, when he says he wants to marry her that he must live his life…

 

Signed by Revolutionary Realini –

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html


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