Small Things Like These: The Irish Times readers' choice for best Irish book of the century
小さな町に暮らす人々の生活を通して、良心と共同体の沈黙を描く中篇作品。過去の秘密や社会構造が個人に与える影響を繊細な筆致で浮かび上がらせる。
作品情報
小さな町に暮らす人々の生活を通して、良心と共同体の沈黙を描く中篇作品。過去の秘密…
小さな町に暮らす人々の生活を通して、良心と共同体の沈黙を描く中篇作品。過去の秘密や社会構造が個人に与える影響を繊細な筆致で浮かび上がらせる。
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Faber & Faber
- 発売日
- 2021-10-21
- ページ数
- 128ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 12.9 x 0.9 x 19.8 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780571368686
- ISBN-10
- 0571368689
- 価格
- 2500 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Historical
** A SUNDAY TIMES AND IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER ** ** Chosen as a Spectator, Irish Times and Irish Independent Book of the Year ** FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FOSTER , SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE IS AN UNFORGETTABLE STORY OF HOPE, QUIET HEROISM, AND TENDERNESS. WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION AND THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR. SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE AND THE IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE DALKEY LITERARY AWARDS 'A single one of Keegan's grounded, powerful sentences can contain volumes of social history. Every word is the right word in the right place, and the effect is resonant and deeply moving.' Hilary Mantel (Winner of the Booker Prize 2009 and 2012) 'This is a tale of courage and compassion, of good sons and vulnerable young mothers. Absolutely beautiful.' Douglas Stuart (Winner of the Booker Prize 2020) 'Marvellous-exact and icy and loving all at once.' Sarah Moss 'A haunting, hopeful masterpiece.' Sinéad Gleeson ** A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK** **CHOSEN AS A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME** It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. 'Astonishing. Claire Keegan makes her moments real - and then she makes them matter.' Colm Tóibín 'A true gift of a book. a sublime Chekhovian shock.' Andrew O'Hagan 'A moral tale that is unsentimental and deeply affecting, because true and right.' David Hayden Claire Keegan's book Small Things Like These was a Sunday Times Bestseller w/c 05-11-2022
Claire Keegan's works of fiction are critically acclaimed international bestsellers - and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award - the world's richest prize for a short story. Small Things Like These , a New York Times Best Book of the 21st Century, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize and won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award. So Late in the Day was published in the New Yorker and shortlisted for the British Book Awards. Keegan was awarded Woman of the Year for Literature in Ireland in 2022, Author of the Year 2023, the Seamus Heaney Award for Arts and Letters 2024 and most recently the Siegfried Lenz Prize.
レビュー
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社会のあり様がリアルに描かれている。
短い作品。実際にあったというカトリック教会の施設での状況をもとに、社会における権威が、権力が、いかに社会を縛り付け、弱いものを見殺しにさせるよう働きかけるのか、人はいかに簡単に保身、恐怖によりものを見ないことを選んでいくのか、という力学を内側からありありと描きあっという間に読み切った。人として生きること、人間性の回復を成し遂げた主人公のカタルシスと覚悟を描く切れ味鋭い終わりまでの運びが強く心に残った。善きものへの信頼、という意味で甘さやファンタジーのないとても辛口なオーヘンリー、という感じもする。Billの妻のあり様がとてもリアルで、身につまされ、それを見つめるBillの思いにも共感する。あなたはどうするのか、と突きつけられるような。読み終わってしばらくしてからじわじわと効いてくる読書体験だった。
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現代の作品なのに古典の雰囲気が漂うブッカー賞ショートリスト
クリスマスが近づく1985年。カトリックの教会がすべてをコントロールしているアイルランドの小さな町で炭の商人をしているBill Furlongは、休む暇どころか食べる暇もないほど忙しい。婚外子として生まれたBillは、結婚して子宝に恵まれ、小さいながらも商売をしている現在の自分の幸運さを知っている。 ある朝、女子修道院に炭を配達したBillは、そこで思いがけぬ状況に遭遇した。Billだが、その状況が頭から離れない。この町では教会を敵にまわすと暮らしが辛くなることがわかっているから誰も教会には背かない。Billは自分の生い立ちを振り返り、人としての自分の行動を考える…。 2022年ブッカー賞ショートリストに残ったこの作品は、キリスト教徒にとって特別な意味を持つ「クリスマス」にからめて、宗教の偽善、宗教を隠れ蓑にして自分の偽善から目をそらす人間の性、本当に勇敢であるということはどういうことなのかを静かに語っている。21世紀の現在に刊行された作品とは思えない古典の雰囲気が漂っていて、じわじわと胸にこたえてくる。短編に近い短い小説だが、ずっしりとした存在感があり、読後に長く余韻が残る。
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This little book was just devastating in it's slow and thoughtful simplicity. a quiet, ordinary (but is he?) man who thinks and ponders and asks himself questions the way most people don't or don't have the courage to act on. Completely unexpected The title mentions small things, small compromises, look the other way, don't talk, don't even see things. All this allows organised and systemic cruelty because it's just easier to look the other way. Bill, our protagonist, is different because he has the weight of his past on his shoulders and knows that but for the courage and love of one brave woman, his life would have been horribly different. indifference was never really a choice for him, and this was obvious from the many little things he did for a lot of needy people. The style and atmosphere were pure poetry. His descriptions of horses, Irish must, Christmas preparations, the mechanical nearly theatrical mass .. beautiful. One of the many stories of the Magdalene laundries, shocking, hopeful because the courage of that one man changes many lives. A jewel and the true Christmas book I needed.
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Verybinterestingreading
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An exceptional book. The writing is excellent, and she sort of magically takes you along with this man's journey. I couldn't put the book down until I'd read it to the end. I had to find out what happened next and at the end. Beautifully written and very moving. A perfect antidote for the times. It should be required reading in all of our schools!
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This is a beautiful book, a very easy quick read..the Subject matter is very sad and based on true events.. It made me feel very grateful for my life and reminded me that sadness happens and can be very cruel..love this author
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A poignant story about choosing what is right and kind even if it goes against society and religion. A social comment that is still as important and true as when it was written.
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