McGahern, John (Vol. 9) - McGahern, John 1935–
McGahern, John 1935–
McGahern is an Irish novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Like Joyce, McGahern is exacting in his portraits of the Irish experience and his use of the language, and, like Joyce, his countrymen have both honored and banned his work. He is concerned with individual action in society, and he places his protagonists in conflict with their Irish backgrounds. (See also CLC, Vol. 5, and Contemporary Authors, Vols. 17-20, rev. ed.)
There is such a strong family likeness between Joyce and John McGahern that it is almost too obvious to be worth remarking on. To wander from McGahern's new novel, The Leavetaking, into Portrait of the Artist, Exiles, and the first hundred or so pages of Ulysses is like listening to four movements of a single symphony. There are changes of pace and emphasis and key, but the theme, whatever variations are played upon it, remains essentially the same; and McGahern's and...
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