Book of the year for me, so far. Never heard of the author, got it out from the library as no.1015 above.
Set on an island somewhere off the (south?) Irish coast, visited by the Englishman keen to paint what he says are the cliffs. There are few people on the island, mostly Irish speakers. A French Algerian also visits the island, his main concern being the preservation of the Irish language. The narrative is interspersed with brief summaries of sectarian murders in the North.
Lloyd, the painter, has an uneasy relationship with the locals, but encourages/teaches James or Seamus as the Frenchman insists on calling him to paint. James’ widowed mother both sleeps with the Frenchman, who is a regular visitor and allows Lloyd to paint her initially clothed but subsequently naked, Gaugin like. He subsequently produces a huge canvass with her as Eve in the garden of Eden and featuring all the islanders in various roles referring back to Manet’s Dejeuner sur L’Herbe. James believes that Lloyd has stolen his ideas.
Lloyd eventually breaks his promise to take James to London and returns to London with his own art work. Very, very good on the relationship between colonisers and colonists and Anglo/Irish, but also French/Algerian.
Definitely worth a re- read; the prose is quite challenging as well as all of the above, and I will have missed a lot of the subtlety on a first reading.
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