.......and may be sometime." were the casual last words of the young 'Titus'
Oates as he left his tent in the Antarctic to go to his certain death during
Scott's famous South Pole expedition. A quintessential Englishman with Irish
connections through his army service and horse-racing, Oates, apart from
those oft-quoted words, was a, hitherto little-chronicled, complex,
introverted man, whose character and lifestyle were protected by his Mother
for many years after his death, and they are now brought to light in
Michael Smith's biography of him.

Bios are aplenty in this week's collection from Read Ireland and they run
through such people, dead and alive, as Georgie Hyde-Lees, better known as
Mrs W. B. Yeats, Columban missionary, James Kennedy, Jack Lynch, Robert
Emmet and James Larkin.

One book on my own Christmas wish list which found its way into my stocking
already has that 'well-thumbed-through' look, because I just can't stop
dipping into it, is Paddy Sammon's Greenspeak: Ireland in her own Words! Not
a dictionary, not an encyclopaedia, not an anthology, I can only describe it
as a fascinating random collection (excellently indexed and
cross-referenced) of many words and phrases, some common and many forgotten,
used in Ireland. Each short explanation comes with sources, literary
references, urls, dates etc. as appropriate. My copy is open now at pages
178-179 and, to give you a flavour of the variety of words and expressions
found on every page, they run through Ringfort, Risen People, Riverdance,
Roaratorio (a circus), Rooster (a potato), Rossiner (a drink) and that's
just a few:-) I recommend it highly and it's available through the Read
Ireland website.

All the details of this week's books are in the C C Yahoo files at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CelticCafe/files/New%20Irish%20Books/Read%20Ir
eland%20Book%20Reviews%20-%20Issue%20221.htm


Aideen


Read Ireland: Issue 221
--------------------------------------------------

I Am Just Going Outside: Captain Oates - Antarctic Tragedy by Michael Smith
(Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 40.00 USD / 23.50 UK; Collins Press, 300 pages, with
black and white photographs throughout)

On 17 March 1912, Lawrence 'Titus' Oates crawled bootless from a tent to his
death in blizzard conditions on -10 Celsius. Oates, always an outsider on
Scott's polar expedition, died on his thirty-second birthday. His parting
words were: 'I am just going outside and may be sometime.' Oates was the
epitome of the Victorian English gentleman, a public schoolboy who became a
dashing cavalry officer and hero in the Boer War. Stationed in Ireland from
1902-06, his passion became horseracing and he won numerous victories at
racecourses throughout Ireland. In 1910 he paid 1,000 pounds to join
Scott's South Pole expedition.

Oates was dominated by his austere mother and constantly struggled with
dyslexia. He clashed with Scott on the expedition and his diary and letters
offer a very different perspective from the traditional myth of Scott's
heroic failure. Even the motives behind Oates' sacrifice can now be
challenged! Oates' mother blamed Scott for her son's death and she was
among the first to challenge the accepted version of events. She continued
to control his memory long after his death, keeping his diary and letters
hidden, even ordering their destruction from her deathbed.

Oates always had difficulty forming lasting relationships with women. He
died without knowing that he was a father. The story of how Oates died,
unaware of his daughter, has been a closely guarded secret until now. This
book is a compelling and heart-rending story of endurance, bravery and
folly. The author's previous book, An Unsung Hero - Tom Crean, Antarctic
Explorer, was a bestseller in Ireland.

--------------------------------------------------

Becoming George: The Life of Mrs. W.B. Yeats by Ann Saddlemyer
(Hardback; 40.00 Euro / 47.50 USD / 30.00 UK; Oxford, 808 pages)

'I, the poet William Yeats, . Restored this tower for my wife George' claims
the lovely six-line poem in which Yeats dedicates the renovation of Thoor
Ballylee. But the poem's truth conceals another, and different truth - that
they worked together at the restoration, and it was largely her vision and
hands that created a dwelling from the former ruins. Just how symbolic this
is, of the close but largely hidden collaborations between them, is revealed
by this deeply researched life of George Yeats - the first full
scale-biography of a woman of remarkable gifts and generous
self-concealment.

Raised in the decades before the First War, in London literary salons where
the arts and occult met, Georgie Hyde-Lees became an art student,
accomplished linguist, and serious scholar of medieval arcana,
anthroposophy, and astrology. She was a lifelong friend of Ezra Pound and
his wife Dorothy Shakespeare, in whose social circle Yeats also moved; he
sponsored her initiation to the Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1917 they
married (she was 25, he was 52), and on their honeymoon Georgie began the
automatic writing which formed the substance of 'A Vision', and from which
sprang the ideas that occupied Yeats for the rest of his life. Her
extrasensory perceptions fed his poetic imagery as her practicality and
warmth supplied the environment for his writing. As with the restoration of
Ballylee, they were intimate collaborations - but her instinct was always
for self-effacement. Though valued by numerous writer friends as a
perceptive critic - and known to have written two plays and a novel, which
she suppressed - she deliberately hid her talents from public view. Her
choice was to appear as Yeats's wife, helpmate, and secretary, the mother of
his children - and for over thirty years after his death the tireless
overseer of his literary legacy and a knowledgeable adviser to generations
of young critics and writers.

For the first time this intelligent and creative woman is allowed to take
centre stage. Drawing on memoirs and a wealth of unknown and unpublished
sources, this biography reveals someone much more significant than just
'Mrs. W. B. Yeats' - a personality at once visionary and practical, and an
important figure in twentieth-century literary history.

----------------------------------------------------

Fat God, Thin God by James Kennedy
(Paperback; 12.95 Euro / 15.00 USD / 9.99 UK; Mercier Press, 284 pages)

This book is a true story of cultures colliding and the tender love affair
that led to one priest to choose a different path. In the 1970s, in an
isolated, rural parish in northwest Philippines, James Kennedy began to
question the beliefs that had sustained him through almost twenty years as a
Columban priest. With wit and sensitivity, the book describes the
uncertainties, conflicts, and good-humored comradeship of the missionary
life, as well as the author's personal struggle to reconcile religious
training with natural compassion. Against a backdrop of revolution, martial
law, the war in Vietnam and upheavals throughout the Catholic Church, the
author tells the dramatic story of how he fell in love and left the
priesthood.

--------------------------------------------------------

It's A Long Way From Penny Apples by Bill Cullen
(Paperback; 9.95 Euro / 12.50 USD / 6.99 UK; Mercier; 484 pages)

------------------------------------------
Robert Emmet: A Life by Patrick M. Geoghegan
(Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 40.00 USD / 23.50 UK; Gill & Macmillan, 348 pages)

-------------------------------------------------------

James Larkin by Emmet O'Connor
(Paperback; 16.50 Euro / 20.00 USD / 12.50 UK; Cork University Press, 148
pages)

---------------------------------------------------

Fishamble Pigsback: First Plays edited by Jim Culleton
(Paperback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; New Island, 568 pages)

---------------------------------------------------

New in Paperback:
----------------

Nice Fellow: A Biography of Jack Lynch by T. Ryle Dwyer
(Large Paperback; 12.95 Euro / 17.50 USD / 8.99 UK; Mercier; 416 pages)

------------------------------------------
http://www.readireland.ie