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History of the Rain
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story...
Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, in the margin between this world and the next, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him, enfolded in the mystery of ancestors, Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to grandfather Abraham, to her father, Virgil - via pole-vaulting, leaping salmon, poetry and the three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight books piled high beneath the two skylights in her room, beneath the rain.
The stories -- of her golden twin brother Aeney, their closeness even as he slips away; of their dogged pursuit of the Swains' Impossible Standard and forever falling just short; of the wild, rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland -- pour forth in Ruthie's still, small, strong, hopeful voice.
Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, in the margin between this world and the next, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him, enfolded in the mystery of ancestors, Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to grandfather Abraham, to her father, Virgil - via pole-vaulting, leaping salmon, poetry and the three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight books piled high beneath the two skylights in her room, beneath the rain.
The stories -- of her golden twin brother Aeney, their closeness even as he slips away; of their dogged pursuit of the Swains' Impossible Standard and forever falling just short; of the wild, rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland -- pour forth in Ruthie's still, small, strong, hopeful voice.
358 pages, Hardcover
First published April 10, 2014
About the author
Niall Williams
22 books985 followersNiall Williams studied English and French Literature at University College Dublin and graduated with a MA in Modern American Literature. He moved to New York in 1980 where he married Christine Breen. His first job in New York was opening boxes of books in Fox and Sutherland's Bookshop in Mount Kisco. He later worked as a copywriter for Avon Books in New York City before leaving America with Chris in 1985 to attempt to make a life as a writer in Ireland. They moved on April 1st to the cottage in west Clare that Chris's grandfather had left eighty years before to find his life in America.
His first four books were co-written with Chris and tell of their life together in Co Clare.
In 1991 Niall's first play THE MURPHY INITIATIVE was staged at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. His second play, A LITTLE LIKE PARADISE was produced on the Peacock stage of The Abbey Theatre in 1995. His third play, THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT, was produced by Galway's Druid Theatre Company in 1999.
Niall's first novel was FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE. Published in 1997, it went on to become an international bestseller and has been published in over twenty countries. His second novel, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN was published in 1999 and short-listed for the Irish Times Literature Prize. Further novels include THE FALL OF LIGHT, ONLY SAY THE WORD, BOY IN THE WORLD and its sequel, BOY AND MAN.
In 2008 Bloomsbury published Niall's fictional account of the last year in the life of the apostle, JOHN.
His new novel, HISTORY OF THE RAIN, will be published by Bloomsbury in the UK/Ireland and in the USA Spring 2014. (Spanish and Turkish rights have also been sold.)
Niall has recently written several screenplays. Two have been optioned by film companies.
His first four books were co-written with Chris and tell of their life together in Co Clare.
In 1991 Niall's first play THE MURPHY INITIATIVE was staged at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. His second play, A LITTLE LIKE PARADISE was produced on the Peacock stage of The Abbey Theatre in 1995. His third play, THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT, was produced by Galway's Druid Theatre Company in 1999.
Niall's first novel was FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE. Published in 1997, it went on to become an international bestseller and has been published in over twenty countries. His second novel, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN was published in 1999 and short-listed for the Irish Times Literature Prize. Further novels include THE FALL OF LIGHT, ONLY SAY THE WORD, BOY IN THE WORLD and its sequel, BOY AND MAN.
In 2008 Bloomsbury published Niall's fictional account of the last year in the life of the apostle, JOHN.
His new novel, HISTORY OF THE RAIN, will be published by Bloomsbury in the UK/Ireland and in the USA Spring 2014. (Spanish and Turkish rights have also been sold.)
Niall has recently written several screenplays. Two have been optioned by film companies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,128 reviews
April 16, 2017
"As It Is in Heaven", was so enjoyable, I wanted to return to another Niall Williams novel - sooner - rather than later.
"History of the Rain", is extraordinary-phenomenal-brilliant!!! WOW!! - just WOW!!!
A young girl name Ruth Swain, an Irish girl, lies in bed sick....( we never know what she has), but is surrounded by books - around 3,000 books - which she inherited by her father. Throughout the story, books are dropped like rain. I was marking books I haven't read and looking up books to familiarize myself with.
At one point during a break from reading ---
I became curious.....Have MANY of my friends inherited books from their parents? I asked one friend on Goodreads - [an author and an artist today] - if his parents were 'book people'. They were: readers, not writers.
For 30 years, I saved boxes of children's books that I wanted ALMOST DESPERATELY
to pass down to my grandchildren. ( approx. 30 boxes worth).
Given how much fun reading was with my daughters growing up -- ( writing little luv messages in the books that had special meaning: theater productions, etc.).... I had a vision of passing them down.
However after 30 years of 'waiting' and no grandkids - we felt it was time to donate them. I saved a few special favorites.
I'd really love to know - from my friends - what it feels like to be reading books that were once your parents. How do those books feel for YOU now? I never had that experience-- and it was so wonderful in 'this book'!!!
I COULD NEVER DO THIS BOOK JUSTICE with my measly review.
In my opinion -- it's as close to a masterpiece as any book is called one. We are pulled into this family... RUTH is struggling to find her way through distress and her illness.
ITS THE WRITING AND STORYTELLING....including learning about books .....that is soooo awesome-- so well done!
We learn about Ruth's father- and his father - seen through literature. We also get invited to feel - for a short time anyway to be part of this Irish community....in a small village in Ireland. I loved it!!
Visually-- I felt like I was was living in Ireland!!
"You head along and you know the river is somewhere down here. You'll feel your descending towards it, river in a green underworld. And the drizzle kind of sticks to the windows so the wipers don't really take it and the fields seem lumpish and bunched together the way you imagine green dancers might if they fell under the spell and lay down. That's how I think of it, the slopes and slants, the green dips and hills on either side of you.
Many characters to laugh at and laugh with --many to love!
There is history - tragedy - humanity -beauty - and BOOKS!!!
Niall Williams writing is wonderful!!!! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!
"History of the Rain", is extraordinary-phenomenal-brilliant!!! WOW!! - just WOW!!!
A young girl name Ruth Swain, an Irish girl, lies in bed sick....( we never know what she has), but is surrounded by books - around 3,000 books - which she inherited by her father. Throughout the story, books are dropped like rain. I was marking books I haven't read and looking up books to familiarize myself with.
At one point during a break from reading ---
I became curious.....Have MANY of my friends inherited books from their parents? I asked one friend on Goodreads - [an author and an artist today] - if his parents were 'book people'. They were: readers, not writers.
For 30 years, I saved boxes of children's books that I wanted ALMOST DESPERATELY
to pass down to my grandchildren. ( approx. 30 boxes worth).
Given how much fun reading was with my daughters growing up -- ( writing little luv messages in the books that had special meaning: theater productions, etc.).... I had a vision of passing them down.
However after 30 years of 'waiting' and no grandkids - we felt it was time to donate them. I saved a few special favorites.
I'd really love to know - from my friends - what it feels like to be reading books that were once your parents. How do those books feel for YOU now? I never had that experience-- and it was so wonderful in 'this book'!!!
I COULD NEVER DO THIS BOOK JUSTICE with my measly review.
In my opinion -- it's as close to a masterpiece as any book is called one. We are pulled into this family... RUTH is struggling to find her way through distress and her illness.
ITS THE WRITING AND STORYTELLING....including learning about books .....that is soooo awesome-- so well done!
We learn about Ruth's father- and his father - seen through literature. We also get invited to feel - for a short time anyway to be part of this Irish community....in a small village in Ireland. I loved it!!
Visually-- I felt like I was was living in Ireland!!
"You head along and you know the river is somewhere down here. You'll feel your descending towards it, river in a green underworld. And the drizzle kind of sticks to the windows so the wipers don't really take it and the fields seem lumpish and bunched together the way you imagine green dancers might if they fell under the spell and lay down. That's how I think of it, the slopes and slants, the green dips and hills on either side of you.
Many characters to laugh at and laugh with --many to love!
There is history - tragedy - humanity -beauty - and BOOKS!!!
Niall Williams writing is wonderful!!!! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!
July 25, 2020
“I will know somehow we can come through, and our story is of enduring and aspiring and that it is enough to keep hoping and to keep telling stories, for each other and about each other…”
Ruth Swain has taught me a lesson here and for that I am forever indebted to her. I have a tendency to be harder on myself than I am on anyone else. The shadow that has fallen over the country and the world in recent times has caused me to examine myself and my goals more sharply than ever before. Furthermore, now that my children are less reliant on me than in previous years, I have had the time to think about what I’ve done with my life and what is yet to come. I’ll admit I’ve been clobbering myself a few good ones as a result. Where I imagined I’d be and where I am in actuality are two different things entirely. Is that reason enough for such self reproach? I’m going to move on to History of the Rain and Ruth’s story before I answer that question.
“My father bore a burden of impossible ambition. He wanted all things to be better than they were, beginning with himself and ending with this world. Maybe this was because he was a poet. Maybe all poets are doomed to disappointment. Maybe it comes from too much dazzlement.”
Nineteen year old Ruth Swain, booklover and storyteller extraordinaire, lies in bed beneath the skylight, weakened by illness, while the incessant rain strums overhead. Her mission is to read all the books (three thousand nine hundred and fifty eight of them to be exact!) her father has left behind, to find her father’s soul in the pages of those books, and to compose her own story to share with the rest of the world. Her way of accomplishing this is not a straight, clear path, however. She warns her readers of this fact right away.
“This, Dear Reader, is a river narrative. My chosen style is The Meander.”
The first section of the book was a bit more winding than the rest. Ruth takes us in and out of the various twists and turns of her ancestors’ lives, beginning with her grandfather and his relationship with his own father. In between we meet the people of Faha, Ireland who are drawn so lovingly. The Swains have always been the most exacting judges of their own successes and failures. This passes down through the generations and becomes a burden to Ruth’s father Virgil as he negotiates his bumpy course in life.
“The basis of the Philosophy of Impossible Standard is that no matter how hard you try you can’t ever be good enough. The Standard raises as you do.”
How can one possibly succeed with such a burden? It’s a harsh legacy and one that is difficult to throw down. I came to see eye to eye with Virgil very clearly. Insomuch as this is a load we perceive others to have lain upon us, we are very much to blame ourselves, aren’t we? We alone bear the consequences.
“The Philosophy allows for only one result: we fail the Standard. We suck small hard-boiled stones of disappointment in everything.”
I adore Niall Williams’ writing. I fell in love with his prose a few months ago when I read This is Happiness. His stories are melancholic but laced with warmth and humor. Ruth Swain has not allowed illness to sap her spirit or her acerbic wit. At times I forgot she was a nineteen year old girl; she comes across as a much older, male version of herself. Even a former high school teacher who drops by a couple days a week points out to Ruth that she “writes like a man and I’m a bit Extreme.” Williams makes use of the river as a significant metaphor in this novel, and it works perfectly. It put me in mind of one of my favorite books, Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. The river is used as a parallel to the circuitous course of our lives.
“Beside the river there are two things you never forget, that the moment you look at a river that moment has already passed, and that everything is on its way somewhere else.”
Readers, writers and books soar in History of the Rain as well. Ruth will often use an example from one of her father’s books to illustrate a point. She will further specify the title, author and edition of the book to which she refers which was quite fun for me! This book is a testament to the power of words to link us together, to heal our wounds and to set us free. I gobbled down so many morsels of wisdom related to reading. My highlighting finger got a workout! So much of what Ruth tells us resonated with me on a very personal level, and it will likely do so with many of my intimate reader friends here as well. The way this online platform for sharing books has enriched my life and forged valuable connections becomes even more evident when I contemplate Ruth’s observations.
“When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of the writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds; these were the literal original Facebooks, the books where faces had been, and I just loved it, the whole strange sense of being aboard a readership.”
As Ruth writes this story in order to unlock the mysteries in her father’s heart, I too came to an understanding of myself. This is why this book, which I was initially inclined to rate four stars, has made such an impact and is worthy of all five stars. Books can entertain and they can also make you think. They don’t always make a huge difference, but when they do it is a true gift. This is one of those books. I’m on a journey and I wish I could have Ruth dig around my bookshelves and my history so she could tell my story and enlighten me a little bit more. It’s hard to see for yourself what is right in front of you. She has the knack for making it clear. You’ll have to read this for yourself to find out the rest of the story. I hope she will make a difference in your life, too.
“Some people make you feel better about living. Some people you meet and you feel this little lift in your heart, this Ah, because there’s something in them that’s brighter or lighter, something beautiful or better than you, and here’s the magic: instead of feeling worse, instead of feeling why am I so ordinary?, you feel just the opposite, you feel glad. In a weird way you feel better, because before this you hadn’t realised or you’d forgotten human beings could shine so.”
I read this book with fellow buddy reader Laysee, who shares a love for Irish literature and contemplative writing. I can’t think of a book better suited for reading with a dear friend and believer of the power of stories to connect people than History of the Rain. Thank you, Laysee, for accompanying me on this journey. Please take another moment to read her beautiful, insightful review here: Laysee's Review
“I’ve learned that you can never see yourself as another person does. You can never really know who you are for them, at least not until much later. That’s what I think now.”
Ruth Swain has taught me a lesson here and for that I am forever indebted to her. I have a tendency to be harder on myself than I am on anyone else. The shadow that has fallen over the country and the world in recent times has caused me to examine myself and my goals more sharply than ever before. Furthermore, now that my children are less reliant on me than in previous years, I have had the time to think about what I’ve done with my life and what is yet to come. I’ll admit I’ve been clobbering myself a few good ones as a result. Where I imagined I’d be and where I am in actuality are two different things entirely. Is that reason enough for such self reproach? I’m going to move on to History of the Rain and Ruth’s story before I answer that question.
“My father bore a burden of impossible ambition. He wanted all things to be better than they were, beginning with himself and ending with this world. Maybe this was because he was a poet. Maybe all poets are doomed to disappointment. Maybe it comes from too much dazzlement.”
Nineteen year old Ruth Swain, booklover and storyteller extraordinaire, lies in bed beneath the skylight, weakened by illness, while the incessant rain strums overhead. Her mission is to read all the books (three thousand nine hundred and fifty eight of them to be exact!) her father has left behind, to find her father’s soul in the pages of those books, and to compose her own story to share with the rest of the world. Her way of accomplishing this is not a straight, clear path, however. She warns her readers of this fact right away.
“This, Dear Reader, is a river narrative. My chosen style is The Meander.”
The first section of the book was a bit more winding than the rest. Ruth takes us in and out of the various twists and turns of her ancestors’ lives, beginning with her grandfather and his relationship with his own father. In between we meet the people of Faha, Ireland who are drawn so lovingly. The Swains have always been the most exacting judges of their own successes and failures. This passes down through the generations and becomes a burden to Ruth’s father Virgil as he negotiates his bumpy course in life.
“The basis of the Philosophy of Impossible Standard is that no matter how hard you try you can’t ever be good enough. The Standard raises as you do.”
How can one possibly succeed with such a burden? It’s a harsh legacy and one that is difficult to throw down. I came to see eye to eye with Virgil very clearly. Insomuch as this is a load we perceive others to have lain upon us, we are very much to blame ourselves, aren’t we? We alone bear the consequences.
“The Philosophy allows for only one result: we fail the Standard. We suck small hard-boiled stones of disappointment in everything.”
I adore Niall Williams’ writing. I fell in love with his prose a few months ago when I read This is Happiness. His stories are melancholic but laced with warmth and humor. Ruth Swain has not allowed illness to sap her spirit or her acerbic wit. At times I forgot she was a nineteen year old girl; she comes across as a much older, male version of herself. Even a former high school teacher who drops by a couple days a week points out to Ruth that she “writes like a man and I’m a bit Extreme.” Williams makes use of the river as a significant metaphor in this novel, and it works perfectly. It put me in mind of one of my favorite books, Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. The river is used as a parallel to the circuitous course of our lives.
“Beside the river there are two things you never forget, that the moment you look at a river that moment has already passed, and that everything is on its way somewhere else.”
Readers, writers and books soar in History of the Rain as well. Ruth will often use an example from one of her father’s books to illustrate a point. She will further specify the title, author and edition of the book to which she refers which was quite fun for me! This book is a testament to the power of words to link us together, to heal our wounds and to set us free. I gobbled down so many morsels of wisdom related to reading. My highlighting finger got a workout! So much of what Ruth tells us resonated with me on a very personal level, and it will likely do so with many of my intimate reader friends here as well. The way this online platform for sharing books has enriched my life and forged valuable connections becomes even more evident when I contemplate Ruth’s observations.
“When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of the writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds; these were the literal original Facebooks, the books where faces had been, and I just loved it, the whole strange sense of being aboard a readership.”
As Ruth writes this story in order to unlock the mysteries in her father’s heart, I too came to an understanding of myself. This is why this book, which I was initially inclined to rate four stars, has made such an impact and is worthy of all five stars. Books can entertain and they can also make you think. They don’t always make a huge difference, but when they do it is a true gift. This is one of those books. I’m on a journey and I wish I could have Ruth dig around my bookshelves and my history so she could tell my story and enlighten me a little bit more. It’s hard to see for yourself what is right in front of you. She has the knack for making it clear. You’ll have to read this for yourself to find out the rest of the story. I hope she will make a difference in your life, too.
“Some people make you feel better about living. Some people you meet and you feel this little lift in your heart, this Ah, because there’s something in them that’s brighter or lighter, something beautiful or better than you, and here’s the magic: instead of feeling worse, instead of feeling why am I so ordinary?, you feel just the opposite, you feel glad. In a weird way you feel better, because before this you hadn’t realised or you’d forgotten human beings could shine so.”
I read this book with fellow buddy reader Laysee, who shares a love for Irish literature and contemplative writing. I can’t think of a book better suited for reading with a dear friend and believer of the power of stories to connect people than History of the Rain. Thank you, Laysee, for accompanying me on this journey. Please take another moment to read her beautiful, insightful review here: Laysee's Review
“I’ve learned that you can never see yourself as another person does. You can never really know who you are for them, at least not until much later. That’s what I think now.”
April 28, 2017
“We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.”
In prose that sings the songs of falling rain, of ancestors, of family hovering in that place “in between” this life and the next, of the beauty of the land that is Ireland, of the salmon that swim the Shannon, and of poetry, surrounded by her father’s thousands of books inside, the beauty of words on every page.
”We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That’s how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told.”
And so Ruth tells her story, the story of how she and her twin brother Ainey came to be blessed to live in this house filled with nearly 4,000 books, and the stories that follow their arrival, and the stories of those whose feet no longer trod this earthly soil.
”I am plain Ruth Swain, bedbound, here, attic room beneath the rain, in the margin, where the narrator should be, between this world and the next.”
There is an other-worldliness to this story, to the rhythm of the language, you feel and hear it all as you are reading, the waves lapping, the birds, the rain… always the rain, as though tears from heaven falling all around Ruth and her family, feeling her pain.
"The library that grew in our house contained all my father's idiosyncrasies, contained the man he was at thirty-five, and at forty, at forty-five. He did not edit himself. He did not look back at the books of ten years ago and pluck out the ones whose taste was no longer his."
The relationship of this father and his only daughter is a primary focus, which felt so natural and true to me, a combination of a man who shares of himself not only through his library of books, his love for the written word, but also in bits and pieces of his time, as life and dreams occupy the remainder.
”There’s a book inside you. There’s a library inside me.”
And now, there’s a new book inside me, firmly planted in my heart by this enchanted story. One to cherish forever.
Recommended
In prose that sings the songs of falling rain, of ancestors, of family hovering in that place “in between” this life and the next, of the beauty of the land that is Ireland, of the salmon that swim the Shannon, and of poetry, surrounded by her father’s thousands of books inside, the beauty of words on every page.
”We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That’s how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told.”
And so Ruth tells her story, the story of how she and her twin brother Ainey came to be blessed to live in this house filled with nearly 4,000 books, and the stories that follow their arrival, and the stories of those whose feet no longer trod this earthly soil.
”I am plain Ruth Swain, bedbound, here, attic room beneath the rain, in the margin, where the narrator should be, between this world and the next.”
There is an other-worldliness to this story, to the rhythm of the language, you feel and hear it all as you are reading, the waves lapping, the birds, the rain… always the rain, as though tears from heaven falling all around Ruth and her family, feeling her pain.
"The library that grew in our house contained all my father's idiosyncrasies, contained the man he was at thirty-five, and at forty, at forty-five. He did not edit himself. He did not look back at the books of ten years ago and pluck out the ones whose taste was no longer his."
The relationship of this father and his only daughter is a primary focus, which felt so natural and true to me, a combination of a man who shares of himself not only through his library of books, his love for the written word, but also in bits and pieces of his time, as life and dreams occupy the remainder.
”There’s a book inside you. There’s a library inside me.”
And now, there’s a new book inside me, firmly planted in my heart by this enchanted story. One to cherish forever.
Recommended
April 27, 2020
I was in this small town Faha, in Ireland, in this attic room filled with so many books, in the mind and heart of Ruth Swain, an unforgettable character who made me laugh, cry, think and want to read all of those classics I never read. Nineteen and bedridden in her attic room, with an illness that is never fully divulged, Ruth Swain reads and writes and tells us stories, her story and the story of her family. In an utterly stunning way, we the readers are addressed by Ruth and we become part of her story. The novel is not told in a consecutive way. It moves around in time from the present to Ruth’s childhood, to her father’s and grandfather’s earlier lives, how her mother and father met, and the time she shared with her twin brother Aeney. It’s a family saga, but so much more. It’s about a reading life, a writing life, about creativity, about wanting to know one’s history and it is just beautifully told . Literary references are abundant as Ruth sets her mind on reading the nearly four thousand books left to her by her father. The water images, the call of the River Shannon, the salmon, the sound of it flowing, the rain - the power of story telling bringing beauty, solace, loss and yet hope. Williams has convinced me that I should read every one of his books.
September 27, 2020
.
Hide and seek - and salve
This is a novel for those who love to lose themselves and find others between pages whose scent whispers as much as the words. Who want to understand those they’ve loved and lost - through their stories and the ones they tell about them. Who want the company of a bibliophile with a poetic turn of phrase and dash of sharp wit.
“We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling.”
This is akin to the recurring theme of words as “rescue teams” in one of my favourite books, Stefansson’s Heaven and Hell (see my review HERE).
Image: Sole:Soul (book as mirror) by Kasper Lorene (Source.)
Narrator and subject
The book tells of three generations of a family in rural west Ireland.
“This, Dear Reader, is a river narrative. My chosen style is The Meander.”
It’s steeped in literature, poetry, water, salmon fishing, mortality, mythology, and empty hope. 19-year old Ruth Swain is trying to understand her father, Virgil, through his personal library of 3,958 books (“burned and drowned but undestroyed”), just as he had tried to understand his own father through a shared love of the river. She constantly likens people in her family or village to characters from the classics, and specifies the exact edition her father has, and often, what it smells of. Most of the aromas are literal (“fire and rain”), but some are metaphorical (“with a faint sulphuric whiff of nationalism trapped within the pages”).
It reveals at least as much about Ruth, “the teller and the told”, as those she writes about.
I immediately thought of Cassandra Mortmain, the narrator of I Capture the Castle, though this is a more literary and adult novel. Both are excitable bookish teens, with an eccentric family (including a father who’s a writer), struggling in greatly reduced circumstances. But Ruth is bedbound with an unspecified blood disorder, like a character from, or author of, one of her favourite 19th century novels. When you tune out her penchant for initial caps to indicate Important Things, she's fun, gossipy, insightful, and has a knowledge of literature far exceeding mine. There’s also a smattering of local history, geography, meteorology, and plenty about the mythology and biology of salmon.
There is an old-fashioned other-worldliness to Ruth, so her occasional mentions of things like the Euro, internet, and Aldi jar a little.
Image: Fishing for salmon in the River Shannon (Source.)
Confluence
“I am the child of two languages and two religions, and the most male female and oldest young person to boot.”
Ruth’s mother is a MacCarroll, a family who’ve lived in Faha, County Clare for generations. On her father’s side, her great grandfather was an English vicar whose son came to Ireland to escape the “Impossible Standard” of the Swains, which so often leads to “caustic disappointment”.
“MacCarrolls were always into the stories. But first the stories were inside them.”
“The Swain are the written, the MacCarroll the oral. Ours is a history of tongue marrying paper.”
Water
Ireland is renowned for its elegiac mist and mesmeric rain, and like many Irish authors, Williams emotes via dampness and drenching:
“The rain that pretends it’s not rain, the rain that crosses the Atlantic and comes for its holidays, rain that laughs at the word summer… hoots at what pours, streams, teems, lashes, pelts and buckets down.”
The book’s title (from a poem Ruth’s father writes) is specific. But although rain sets the mood and feeds the river, it’s the river which is far more significant: both giver and thief. And its destination marked and moulded Virgil in his years as a sailor, for which he took, of course, Moby Dick.
Image: Two rivers meet (the Drava and Danube, Croatia) (Source.)
Death and/of hope
“You think you won’t survive it… Why is the world continuing?”
“Grief doesn’t know we invented time. Grief has its own tide and comes and goes in waves.”
There are several tragic and premature deaths, and Ruth’s condition makes her very conscious of her own mortality. Her narration is invariably jaunty, with an occasional dash of satire or cynicism. But in 300+ pages, she lets slip some very negative thoughts about hope - that I tend to agree with:
“It’s hard to live on hope.”
“The more you hope the more you hurt.”
“Hope, you see, takes a long time to die.”
“Hope may or may not be a Thing with Feathers. But it’s definitely a Thing with Claws.”
Quotes
Weather and salmon quotes
• “I am up in the rain here and watching it weep down the skylight.”
• “The fields are wrapped in soft grey tissues of weather.”
• “The sky is huge and jellyfish-grey and there’s no light in it at all. There’s just this watery expanse leaking drops.”
• “It was one of those perfectly still mist-laid mornings, the fields wearing that silver drapery in imitation of Heaven.”
“It’s this warm pink insinuation into the air. It’s lovely and gentle and penetrating and smells of the supernatural.” [Cooked salmon]
Books and reading quotes
• “I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing… The books were worn in a way they can only get work by hands and eyes and minds; these were the literal original Facebooks.”
• “Pages are thinned down to a fineness that feels holy somehow so that even turning them is kind of sanctifying.” [Bibles]
• “It gets fatter with reading, which it should, because in a way the more you read it the bigger your own experience of the world gets, the fatter your soul.”
• “It’s like there was a current or a pulse on the page and when his eyes connected to it he just made this low thrum.”
• “I didn’t want to be a writer, I wanted to be a reader, which is more rare.”
Family narrative quotes
• “In families it’s hard to see the story. If you’re in it the Plot Points aren’t clearly marked.”
• “We wanted the world to have a plot… Things were consequent only in the sense that they followed… We were becoming a story… But where was the meaning?”
• “Nothing in your own family is unusual.” [Not even your father reading William Blake to the cattle.]
• “Dad moved in [to his new wife and her mother’s home] with the baffled shyness of a character just arriving in a story already underway.”
Poetry quotes
• “A poem is the most impossible thing… its own guarantee of failure.”
• “Poetry is basically where seeing meets sound.”
• “Transcendence is the business of poets.”
Hardship quotes
• “What Time sometimes does to hardship, turn it into fairy tale.”
• “Three muck fields where our cows paddle in the memory of actual grass.”
“Our cattle were unique in being able to eat grass and get thinner. They added to this a propensity for drowning.”
• “I was feeling that kind of weakness you feel where you imagine there must be a valve open somewhere inside you. Somewhere you’re leaking away.”
• “Our house, home to too many metaphors.”
Read, read, read
Ruth’s strongest exhortation is to read. Her favourites include Dickens, RL Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, and especially WB Yeats. She suggests picking a Yeats poem at random. My choice isn’t random; it’s well-known, but it speaks to me and ties in with the idea that hope is a risk:
And if you’ve not read Stefansson’s stunning three-parter (NOT a trilogy), that I mentioned at the start, my exhortation to you is to rectify that (no spoilers):
• Overview
• Part 1, Heaven and Hell
• Part 2, The Sorrow of Angels
• Part 3, The Heart of Man
Hide and seek - and salve
This is a novel for those who love to lose themselves and find others between pages whose scent whispers as much as the words. Who want to understand those they’ve loved and lost - through their stories and the ones they tell about them. Who want the company of a bibliophile with a poetic turn of phrase and dash of sharp wit.
“We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling.”
This is akin to the recurring theme of words as “rescue teams” in one of my favourite books, Stefansson’s Heaven and Hell (see my review HERE).
Image: Sole:Soul (book as mirror) by Kasper Lorene (Source.)
Narrator and subject
The book tells of three generations of a family in rural west Ireland.
“This, Dear Reader, is a river narrative. My chosen style is The Meander.”
It’s steeped in literature, poetry, water, salmon fishing, mortality, mythology, and empty hope. 19-year old Ruth Swain is trying to understand her father, Virgil, through his personal library of 3,958 books (“burned and drowned but undestroyed”), just as he had tried to understand his own father through a shared love of the river. She constantly likens people in her family or village to characters from the classics, and specifies the exact edition her father has, and often, what it smells of. Most of the aromas are literal (“fire and rain”), but some are metaphorical (“with a faint sulphuric whiff of nationalism trapped within the pages”).
It reveals at least as much about Ruth, “the teller and the told”, as those she writes about.
I immediately thought of Cassandra Mortmain, the narrator of I Capture the Castle, though this is a more literary and adult novel. Both are excitable bookish teens, with an eccentric family (including a father who’s a writer), struggling in greatly reduced circumstances. But Ruth is bedbound with an unspecified blood disorder, like a character from, or author of, one of her favourite 19th century novels. When you tune out her penchant for initial caps to indicate Important Things, she's fun, gossipy, insightful, and has a knowledge of literature far exceeding mine. There’s also a smattering of local history, geography, meteorology, and plenty about the mythology and biology of salmon.
There is an old-fashioned other-worldliness to Ruth, so her occasional mentions of things like the Euro, internet, and Aldi jar a little.
Image: Fishing for salmon in the River Shannon (Source.)
Confluence
“I am the child of two languages and two religions, and the most male female and oldest young person to boot.”
Ruth’s mother is a MacCarroll, a family who’ve lived in Faha, County Clare for generations. On her father’s side, her great grandfather was an English vicar whose son came to Ireland to escape the “Impossible Standard” of the Swains, which so often leads to “caustic disappointment”.
“MacCarrolls were always into the stories. But first the stories were inside them.”
“The Swain are the written, the MacCarroll the oral. Ours is a history of tongue marrying paper.”
Water
Ireland is renowned for its elegiac mist and mesmeric rain, and like many Irish authors, Williams emotes via dampness and drenching:
“The rain that pretends it’s not rain, the rain that crosses the Atlantic and comes for its holidays, rain that laughs at the word summer… hoots at what pours, streams, teems, lashes, pelts and buckets down.”
The book’s title (from a poem Ruth’s father writes) is specific. But although rain sets the mood and feeds the river, it’s the river which is far more significant: both giver and thief. And its destination marked and moulded Virgil in his years as a sailor, for which he took, of course, Moby Dick.
Image: Two rivers meet (the Drava and Danube, Croatia) (Source.)
Death and/of hope
“You think you won’t survive it… Why is the world continuing?”
“Grief doesn’t know we invented time. Grief has its own tide and comes and goes in waves.”
There are several tragic and premature deaths, and Ruth’s condition makes her very conscious of her own mortality. Her narration is invariably jaunty, with an occasional dash of satire or cynicism. But in 300+ pages, she lets slip some very negative thoughts about hope - that I tend to agree with:
“It’s hard to live on hope.”
“The more you hope the more you hurt.”
“Hope, you see, takes a long time to die.”
“Hope may or may not be a Thing with Feathers. But it’s definitely a Thing with Claws.”
Quotes
Weather and salmon quotes
• “I am up in the rain here and watching it weep down the skylight.”
• “The fields are wrapped in soft grey tissues of weather.”
• “The sky is huge and jellyfish-grey and there’s no light in it at all. There’s just this watery expanse leaking drops.”
• “It was one of those perfectly still mist-laid mornings, the fields wearing that silver drapery in imitation of Heaven.”
“It’s this warm pink insinuation into the air. It’s lovely and gentle and penetrating and smells of the supernatural.” [Cooked salmon]
Books and reading quotes
• “I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing… The books were worn in a way they can only get work by hands and eyes and minds; these were the literal original Facebooks.”
• “Pages are thinned down to a fineness that feels holy somehow so that even turning them is kind of sanctifying.” [Bibles]
• “It gets fatter with reading, which it should, because in a way the more you read it the bigger your own experience of the world gets, the fatter your soul.”
• “It’s like there was a current or a pulse on the page and when his eyes connected to it he just made this low thrum.”
• “I didn’t want to be a writer, I wanted to be a reader, which is more rare.”
Family narrative quotes
• “In families it’s hard to see the story. If you’re in it the Plot Points aren’t clearly marked.”
• “We wanted the world to have a plot… Things were consequent only in the sense that they followed… We were becoming a story… But where was the meaning?”
• “Nothing in your own family is unusual.” [Not even your father reading William Blake to the cattle.]
• “Dad moved in [to his new wife and her mother’s home] with the baffled shyness of a character just arriving in a story already underway.”
Poetry quotes
• “A poem is the most impossible thing… its own guarantee of failure.”
• “Poetry is basically where seeing meets sound.”
• “Transcendence is the business of poets.”
Hardship quotes
• “What Time sometimes does to hardship, turn it into fairy tale.”
• “Three muck fields where our cows paddle in the memory of actual grass.”
“Our cattle were unique in being able to eat grass and get thinner. They added to this a propensity for drowning.”
• “I was feeling that kind of weakness you feel where you imagine there must be a valve open somewhere inside you. Somewhere you’re leaking away.”
• “Our house, home to too many metaphors.”
Read, read, read
Ruth’s strongest exhortation is to read. Her favourites include Dickens, RL Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, and especially WB Yeats. She suggests picking a Yeats poem at random. My choice isn’t random; it’s well-known, but it speaks to me and ties in with the idea that hope is a risk:
Aede Wishes for The Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- WB Yeats
And if you’ve not read Stefansson’s stunning three-parter (NOT a trilogy), that I mentioned at the start, my exhortation to you is to rectify that (no spoilers):
• Overview
• Part 1, Heaven and Hell
• Part 2, The Sorrow of Angels
• Part 3, The Heart of Man
July 23, 2020
‘We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.’ – Niall Williams, History of The Rain
History of The Rain is an elegiac story set in Faha, rural Ireland, where it rains and rains and rains. Not surprisingly, the characters are rained upon and their fate swallowed up by the perpetual deluge. The story is told by nineteen-year-old Ruth Swain, who is bed-bound on account of a life-threatening illness. In an attic room with the rain streaming down the skylight, Ruth, a voracious reader, soothes herself by reading, companionably comforted by the 3,958 books she inherited from her poet father. In between trips to Dublin for treatment, Ruth reads and writes this story, which we now read.
At its core, this book is about the transforming power of stories. According to Ruth, ”We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That’s how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told. In Faha, everyone is a long story.” Stories allow us to discover meaning in our lives and come to terms with our experiences; they keep memories of loved ones alive.
Ruth traces the history of her father’s side of the family, queer fish Swains who, in her estimation, suffer from the Philosophy of Impossible Standard. It is a foregone conclusion that the relentless quest to be ’beyond excellent’ comes at a price. Three generations of men strain to meet the Impossible Standard: Great-grandfather, the Reverend Absalom Swain who 'wants his son to aspire'; Grandfather Alexander Swain, the Oxford graduate turned salmon fisherman when his dreams were shattered by WWI; Virgil Swain, Ruth’s father, a Latin scholar turned ineffectual farmer and aspiring poet. All are ostensibly able men who bear ‘a burden of impossible ambition’ and struggle to find their own happiness. Ruth, in her turn, is not spared the same burden of promise as evident in her self-introduction, I am plain Ruth Swain... sufferer of Smart Girl Syndrome, possessor of opinions and good marks, student of pure English, Fresher, Trinity College Dublin, the poet’s daughter.’ It does not help that she has a twin brother, Aeney, the golden boy, fastest runner in school with a winning smile and charm, beloved and adored by everyone, especially her father. Ruth loves Aeney and one hopes for Ruth’s sake, that they can navigate the Impossible Standard together.
For me, Virgil’s story carries the strongest emotional charge for the hardship and losses he suffered despite his determination to find the happiness that eluded his forebears. An unlikely farmer, his crops are smitten by the scourges of nature. Yet, Virgil perseveres. In him, Ruth observed, ”Somehow the worm ruined potatoes had become this happiness, somehow the years-ago hurt had transformed, and I think maybe I had a first sense then of the power of story, and realised that time had done what time sometimes does to hardship, turn it into fairy tale." Virgil learns how to re-write the narrative of his hardship that teaches him to hope. But a life lived by the banks of a river is as unpredictable as the river itself. You have to read Virgil’s story for yourself and I dare you not to cry.
Thankfully, Ruth tells this heartbreaking story with humorous detours into the life of the rural community and cheeky asides and comments on the diverse individuals in Faha. A memorable character is Mr. Noellie, an elderly man who lives on his own, goes to bed every night dressed in his funeral best, and leaves a window open for a kindly neighbor to look in on him every morning. Concurrently comic and sad. This typifies the tone of this novel.
Humor aside, this is a book for readers and writers (poets in particular). I love the plentiful tributes and references to books and writers. Ruth’s admiration for Charles Dickens whom I revere endeared her to me. She has this to say of the world’s greatest novelist: ‘... but Dickens is like this different country where the people are brighter, more vivid, more comic, more tragic, and in their company you feel the world is richer, more fantastic than you imagined.’ Of her English teacher who comes to tutor her at home, Ruth said, “She did the most generous and implausible thing, she gave me poetry.” Take a bow, Mrs. Quinty. Writers may empathize with Ruth’s observation as she watches her father labor over his poems, ’The thing is, writing is a sickness only cured by writing. That’s the impossible part.’
History of The Rain is a book that begs the reader to give it full attention. Part I can be frustrating as several ancestors and characters were introduced and it required effort to track Ruth in her meandering style of narration that seemed to imitate the free-wheeling flow of the River Shannon. Interestingly, rain and the river in Faha are characters in their own right. They are ever present, linking the fate of the characters to them. Virgil can testify to the fact that while the river offers comfort and solace, it is disarmingly treacherous.
I am immensely thankful that I buddy-read History of The Rain with Candi, my GR friend who similarly loved Williams’ This Is Happiness and like me, wanted to visit Faha again and enjoy Williams’ gorgeous prose. While Ruth claims ”My blood aches,” I can claim my heart aches. For this, I am glad to have Candi share the sorrows and beauty of this deeply moving book. Thank you, Candi.
Candi's insightful review can be read here: Candi's review
PS. July 22, 2020. I re-read the last few pages a few times and it dawned on me how coherently and intelligently Williams had utilized the metaphor of the rain and river in elucidating the perpetual life-giving nature of books and story-telling. Even the Impossible Standard is encapsulated in the leaping of the salmon in the river. Wowza! I decided to up my rating to five stars.
History of The Rain is an elegiac story set in Faha, rural Ireland, where it rains and rains and rains. Not surprisingly, the characters are rained upon and their fate swallowed up by the perpetual deluge. The story is told by nineteen-year-old Ruth Swain, who is bed-bound on account of a life-threatening illness. In an attic room with the rain streaming down the skylight, Ruth, a voracious reader, soothes herself by reading, companionably comforted by the 3,958 books she inherited from her poet father. In between trips to Dublin for treatment, Ruth reads and writes this story, which we now read.
At its core, this book is about the transforming power of stories. According to Ruth, ”We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That’s how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told. In Faha, everyone is a long story.” Stories allow us to discover meaning in our lives and come to terms with our experiences; they keep memories of loved ones alive.
Ruth traces the history of her father’s side of the family, queer fish Swains who, in her estimation, suffer from the Philosophy of Impossible Standard. It is a foregone conclusion that the relentless quest to be ’beyond excellent’ comes at a price. Three generations of men strain to meet the Impossible Standard: Great-grandfather, the Reverend Absalom Swain who 'wants his son to aspire'; Grandfather Alexander Swain, the Oxford graduate turned salmon fisherman when his dreams were shattered by WWI; Virgil Swain, Ruth’s father, a Latin scholar turned ineffectual farmer and aspiring poet. All are ostensibly able men who bear ‘a burden of impossible ambition’ and struggle to find their own happiness. Ruth, in her turn, is not spared the same burden of promise as evident in her self-introduction, I am plain Ruth Swain... sufferer of Smart Girl Syndrome, possessor of opinions and good marks, student of pure English, Fresher, Trinity College Dublin, the poet’s daughter.’ It does not help that she has a twin brother, Aeney, the golden boy, fastest runner in school with a winning smile and charm, beloved and adored by everyone, especially her father. Ruth loves Aeney and one hopes for Ruth’s sake, that they can navigate the Impossible Standard together.
For me, Virgil’s story carries the strongest emotional charge for the hardship and losses he suffered despite his determination to find the happiness that eluded his forebears. An unlikely farmer, his crops are smitten by the scourges of nature. Yet, Virgil perseveres. In him, Ruth observed, ”Somehow the worm ruined potatoes had become this happiness, somehow the years-ago hurt had transformed, and I think maybe I had a first sense then of the power of story, and realised that time had done what time sometimes does to hardship, turn it into fairy tale." Virgil learns how to re-write the narrative of his hardship that teaches him to hope. But a life lived by the banks of a river is as unpredictable as the river itself. You have to read Virgil’s story for yourself and I dare you not to cry.
Thankfully, Ruth tells this heartbreaking story with humorous detours into the life of the rural community and cheeky asides and comments on the diverse individuals in Faha. A memorable character is Mr. Noellie, an elderly man who lives on his own, goes to bed every night dressed in his funeral best, and leaves a window open for a kindly neighbor to look in on him every morning. Concurrently comic and sad. This typifies the tone of this novel.
Humor aside, this is a book for readers and writers (poets in particular). I love the plentiful tributes and references to books and writers. Ruth’s admiration for Charles Dickens whom I revere endeared her to me. She has this to say of the world’s greatest novelist: ‘... but Dickens is like this different country where the people are brighter, more vivid, more comic, more tragic, and in their company you feel the world is richer, more fantastic than you imagined.’ Of her English teacher who comes to tutor her at home, Ruth said, “She did the most generous and implausible thing, she gave me poetry.” Take a bow, Mrs. Quinty. Writers may empathize with Ruth’s observation as she watches her father labor over his poems, ’The thing is, writing is a sickness only cured by writing. That’s the impossible part.’
History of The Rain is a book that begs the reader to give it full attention. Part I can be frustrating as several ancestors and characters were introduced and it required effort to track Ruth in her meandering style of narration that seemed to imitate the free-wheeling flow of the River Shannon. Interestingly, rain and the river in Faha are characters in their own right. They are ever present, linking the fate of the characters to them. Virgil can testify to the fact that while the river offers comfort and solace, it is disarmingly treacherous.
I am immensely thankful that I buddy-read History of The Rain with Candi, my GR friend who similarly loved Williams’ This Is Happiness and like me, wanted to visit Faha again and enjoy Williams’ gorgeous prose. While Ruth claims ”My blood aches,” I can claim my heart aches. For this, I am glad to have Candi share the sorrows and beauty of this deeply moving book. Thank you, Candi.
Candi's insightful review can be read here: Candi's review
PS. July 22, 2020. I re-read the last few pages a few times and it dawned on me how coherently and intelligently Williams had utilized the metaphor of the rain and river in elucidating the perpetual life-giving nature of books and story-telling. Even the Impossible Standard is encapsulated in the leaping of the salmon in the river. Wowza! I decided to up my rating to five stars.
June 16, 2014
A novel of beauty and grace, showing again that Niall Williams is more than a writer, he is a composer who elicits music from the magical combination of letters we know as words.
Young Ruth Swain has returned home from university to convalesce in her attic bedroom, where the rain of Co. Clare pours ceaselessly on the two windows above her head, and three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight volumes of classic prose and poetry surround her in teetering stacks. Her father is gone and Ruth seeks him, his history, and his truth, in the vast library he left behind. Her clear, funny, and poignant voice guides us through misty decades of Swain and MacCarroll family lore to illuminate how her father, Virgil, and her mother, Mary, came to farm the worst fourteen acres of land in Ireland.
The reminders of present-day Ireland—references to the Crash, the internet, Marty in the Morning on RTE's Lyric FM—jolted me out of the dreamlike meanderings in a timeless world, casting a surreal glow over this rain-sodden ode to Ireland, literature, and love. But the anachronisms make the story more bewitching; Williams shows us that even in this hyper-connected world, it is possible to escape. And the greatest escape is found in the pages of a book.
This is a book to savor, slowly and delicately. It pokes gentle, meta, self-mocking fun at the conventions of novel structure. If you are a reader who expects tidy packages of chronological storytelling, plot points, and story arcs, give this a try. You might be surprised what beauty can be woven outside the confines of the Fiction 101 blogosphere. And read with a notebook by your side, because you'll want to make note of each volume Ruth references in her vast library—it's a primer on Western literature's greatest works of poetry and prose. Tissues would be good, too. I reckon you won't make it through this with dry eyes.
Tied up in my delight with History of the Rain is my love for Ireland, particularly the west. Williams, as he always does, captures this incomparable spirit, the particular state of longing that I feel when I am in Ireland, or just thinking about being there:
Let this river of words take you away. But be forewarned: you won't want to return.
Young Ruth Swain has returned home from university to convalesce in her attic bedroom, where the rain of Co. Clare pours ceaselessly on the two windows above her head, and three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight volumes of classic prose and poetry surround her in teetering stacks. Her father is gone and Ruth seeks him, his history, and his truth, in the vast library he left behind. Her clear, funny, and poignant voice guides us through misty decades of Swain and MacCarroll family lore to illuminate how her father, Virgil, and her mother, Mary, came to farm the worst fourteen acres of land in Ireland.
The reminders of present-day Ireland—references to the Crash, the internet, Marty in the Morning on RTE's Lyric FM—jolted me out of the dreamlike meanderings in a timeless world, casting a surreal glow over this rain-sodden ode to Ireland, literature, and love. But the anachronisms make the story more bewitching; Williams shows us that even in this hyper-connected world, it is possible to escape. And the greatest escape is found in the pages of a book.
This is a book to savor, slowly and delicately. It pokes gentle, meta, self-mocking fun at the conventions of novel structure. If you are a reader who expects tidy packages of chronological storytelling, plot points, and story arcs, give this a try. You might be surprised what beauty can be woven outside the confines of the Fiction 101 blogosphere. And read with a notebook by your side, because you'll want to make note of each volume Ruth references in her vast library—it's a primer on Western literature's greatest works of poetry and prose. Tissues would be good, too. I reckon you won't make it through this with dry eyes.
Tied up in my delight with History of the Rain is my love for Ireland, particularly the west. Williams, as he always does, captures this incomparable spirit, the particular state of longing that I feel when I am in Ireland, or just thinking about being there:
We're a race of elsewhere people. That's what makes us the best saints and the best poets and the best musicians and the world's worst bankers. ...It's in the eyes. The idea of a better home. Some of us have it worse than others. My father had it running in the rivers of him.
Let this river of words take you away. But be forewarned: you won't want to return.
April 10, 2020
I picked up History of the Rain after reading the review by my good GR friend Terri. I am indebted to her for bringing the novel to my attention.
Plain Ruth Swain is one of the most appealing characters I have met in a long time. There is nothing plain about Ruth, in my opinion, as she writes in her “still, small, strong, hopeful voice.” Confined to her bed and with her golden twin already slipped away from her, she is a reader. Like many of the infirm, she views the world from a different viewpoint than the rest of us and her voice is unsubtle, insightful and delightfully extraordinary. From her bed, Ruth is searching for her father, Virgil Swain and, as she puts it, “she’s writing a river”. Her story simply flows.
Beginning with the incredibly obstinate Swains, her great grandfather the Reverend, grandfather Abraham, she also tells you snippets of her mother’s family history. There’s the Shannon River, rain, fishing, pole-vaulting, poetry, Ireland and there’s Ruth. Woven with her own tale and references to her 3958 books, she imparts her father’s story: “This is my father’s story. I am writing it to find him. But to get where you’re going, you have to first go backwards. That’s directions in Ireland, it’s also T.S. Eliot.”
“We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or to keep alive those who only live now in the telling”
“He had the kind of brain where strange is just normal in a bit of a storm.”
“All time was the same to Nan, she had that most remarkable of skills, the habit of living, and has it so perfected that death has given up and gone away.”
If you don’t fall for Plain Ruth Swain, there just may be something amiss with your humanity. The Times’ summation of History of the Rain is perfect: “Williams’ prose is bathed in poetry and moonlight.” Ruth Swain is a narrator who tells a story unlike any other storyteller. Her voice and her story are indelible and captivating. Mr Williams, I applaud you!
This is one of the best reads I have had this year. The blurb says this novel is exquisite – believe me, it is. Most Highly Recommended. 5★
Plain Ruth Swain is one of the most appealing characters I have met in a long time. There is nothing plain about Ruth, in my opinion, as she writes in her “still, small, strong, hopeful voice.” Confined to her bed and with her golden twin already slipped away from her, she is a reader. Like many of the infirm, she views the world from a different viewpoint than the rest of us and her voice is unsubtle, insightful and delightfully extraordinary. From her bed, Ruth is searching for her father, Virgil Swain and, as she puts it, “she’s writing a river”. Her story simply flows.
Beginning with the incredibly obstinate Swains, her great grandfather the Reverend, grandfather Abraham, she also tells you snippets of her mother’s family history. There’s the Shannon River, rain, fishing, pole-vaulting, poetry, Ireland and there’s Ruth. Woven with her own tale and references to her 3958 books, she imparts her father’s story: “This is my father’s story. I am writing it to find him. But to get where you’re going, you have to first go backwards. That’s directions in Ireland, it’s also T.S. Eliot.”
“We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or to keep alive those who only live now in the telling”
“He had the kind of brain where strange is just normal in a bit of a storm.”
“All time was the same to Nan, she had that most remarkable of skills, the habit of living, and has it so perfected that death has given up and gone away.”
If you don’t fall for Plain Ruth Swain, there just may be something amiss with your humanity. The Times’ summation of History of the Rain is perfect: “Williams’ prose is bathed in poetry and moonlight.” Ruth Swain is a narrator who tells a story unlike any other storyteller. Her voice and her story are indelible and captivating. Mr Williams, I applaud you!
This is one of the best reads I have had this year. The blurb says this novel is exquisite – believe me, it is. Most Highly Recommended. 5★
May 13, 2020
This to me is a 5-star book. I think I knew it about 100 pages into the 358-page novel. The writing was extremely clever…in the acknowledgments Niall Williams said it took 5 years to write and at one point thought of abandoning it. Good God! Thank God he did not do that, but persisted on. I read his last work, This is Happiness, about 3 months ago and gave that 5 stars (my first introduction to Niall Williams) and I marveled at his writing style and was writing down passages in the book that were just stunning. I had a number of bookmarks in this novel so that I could go back to the passages later on that just really hit me as stunning (oops, I’m repeating myself). There were times I was caught unawares by Ruthie’s sardonic wit and laughed out loud.
The story is told from Ruthie’s perspective. At the time of the writing she is 19, has for a large part of the book some disease that has her bedridden in her upstairs bedroom (in the attic) for the last 3 years or so, surrounded by 3,958 books. How those books came to be there…well I shan’t tell you. 😊 She has a twin brother Aeney and her Mam, Mary (nee MacCarroll) and her father, and her grandmother Nan. And someone mooning after her since she was a little girl, Vincent Cunningham. And interesting characters in the town she lives in, Faha. Ruthie tells us some about her father’s grandfather (the Reverend Swain) and a little bit more about his father (Abraham Swain) and a lot about her father (Virgil Swain) and mother. I don’t think I’ll say anything more about the plot.
Niall Williams did a clever thing in the book. Ruthie throughout was alluding to books to prove a point and she would include the edition of the book, who the publisher was, and the number of the book her father gave it. It was a joy to come upon Ruthie recalling William Trevor (The Collected Stories, Penguin, London), Elizabeth Bowen (The Last September & The Death of the Heart, Anchor, New York) and Anne Enright (The Gathering). Charles Dickens was frequently recalled as was Keats and Shakespeare.
In the last book I read by Niall Williams, ‘Four Letters of Love’, he had a final sentence in the book which was stunning and relayed a lot of information to the reader (3rd time I have used that…me bad) and was 13 lines in length. In this novel he had a final sentence that was stunning and was 25 lines in length, and once again tied up some important loose ends in the novel….that if he had not tied up I would have had some lingering concerns (well what happened to So-and-So?). I would still have probably given this novel 5 stars…but given the 25-line sentence to close the book, I definitively give this novel 5 stars (me giving 5 stars is getting to be a rare things nowadays 😊).
There were 10 blurbs on the first page of the novel praising it chiefly from literary periodicals and newspapers, and more such blurbs on the front and back cover. The book was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014.
At least in the Bloomsbury issue of the novel, you could tilt the book in a certain way and make out a whole page of small print on the front cover, apparently from one or more pages from the novel…that was really cool. In the Bloomsbury edition there was a jumping salmon on the front cover which reminded me of another novel I had read, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, by another fave UK author of mine, Paul Torday (1946-2013).
I have not read the reviews of this book yet (I don’t want reviews to affect the review that I give) but have a suspicion this was well received judging by the number of blurbs, the uniformity in what they say in the blurbs — sad and funny and uplifting and engrossing, all at the same time (Sydney Morning Herald) — and that I was reading a Bloomsbury edition that was in its 8th printing.
One of my notes I made while reading when I got to the bottom of p. 223: “Man, this dude knows how to write.” He wrote: “She had to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling. She had that falling-off-the-world feeling she often got around him, a feeling that came swift and light and was so unlike the weight of the responsible that had come into the house after her father had died that it felt like wings inside her.” I think what enthralled me about this sentence and what set it apart from others was his using the word “responsible” rather than the more grammatically correct “responsibility”...It caught my attention and my brain realized that this was a markedly beautiful sentence.
Reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/...
a review from a blog site, The Book Lover’s Sanctuary: https://bookloverssanctuary.com/2014/...
The story is told from Ruthie’s perspective. At the time of the writing she is 19, has for a large part of the book some disease that has her bedridden in her upstairs bedroom (in the attic) for the last 3 years or so, surrounded by 3,958 books. How those books came to be there…well I shan’t tell you. 😊 She has a twin brother Aeney and her Mam, Mary (nee MacCarroll) and her father, and her grandmother Nan. And someone mooning after her since she was a little girl, Vincent Cunningham. And interesting characters in the town she lives in, Faha. Ruthie tells us some about her father’s grandfather (the Reverend Swain) and a little bit more about his father (Abraham Swain) and a lot about her father (Virgil Swain) and mother. I don’t think I’ll say anything more about the plot.
Niall Williams did a clever thing in the book. Ruthie throughout was alluding to books to prove a point and she would include the edition of the book, who the publisher was, and the number of the book her father gave it. It was a joy to come upon Ruthie recalling William Trevor (The Collected Stories, Penguin, London), Elizabeth Bowen (The Last September & The Death of the Heart, Anchor, New York) and Anne Enright (The Gathering). Charles Dickens was frequently recalled as was Keats and Shakespeare.
In the last book I read by Niall Williams, ‘Four Letters of Love’, he had a final sentence in the book which was stunning and relayed a lot of information to the reader (3rd time I have used that…me bad) and was 13 lines in length. In this novel he had a final sentence that was stunning and was 25 lines in length, and once again tied up some important loose ends in the novel….that if he had not tied up I would have had some lingering concerns (well what happened to So-and-So?). I would still have probably given this novel 5 stars…but given the 25-line sentence to close the book, I definitively give this novel 5 stars (me giving 5 stars is getting to be a rare things nowadays 😊).
There were 10 blurbs on the first page of the novel praising it chiefly from literary periodicals and newspapers, and more such blurbs on the front and back cover. The book was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014.
At least in the Bloomsbury issue of the novel, you could tilt the book in a certain way and make out a whole page of small print on the front cover, apparently from one or more pages from the novel…that was really cool. In the Bloomsbury edition there was a jumping salmon on the front cover which reminded me of another novel I had read, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, by another fave UK author of mine, Paul Torday (1946-2013).
I have not read the reviews of this book yet (I don’t want reviews to affect the review that I give) but have a suspicion this was well received judging by the number of blurbs, the uniformity in what they say in the blurbs — sad and funny and uplifting and engrossing, all at the same time (Sydney Morning Herald) — and that I was reading a Bloomsbury edition that was in its 8th printing.
One of my notes I made while reading when I got to the bottom of p. 223: “Man, this dude knows how to write.” He wrote: “She had to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling. She had that falling-off-the-world feeling she often got around him, a feeling that came swift and light and was so unlike the weight of the responsible that had come into the house after her father had died that it felt like wings inside her.” I think what enthralled me about this sentence and what set it apart from others was his using the word “responsible” rather than the more grammatically correct “responsibility”...It caught my attention and my brain realized that this was a markedly beautiful sentence.
Reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/...
a review from a blog site, The Book Lover’s Sanctuary: https://bookloverssanctuary.com/2014/...
June 24, 2020
A rambling, eccentric contemporary fiction novel that made my head spin for all the wrong reasons. A long list Booker Prize nominee, a guide book to Ireland and a list of “ you need to read books thrown in for good measure.
I actually purchased a hard copy and an audible edition of this one as I had such high hopes for it.
This was a case of Irish information overload with this story and the drowning of the shamrock comes to mind. I started out listening to this novel and the narration sounded like a Primary School teacher reading a story aloud to a bunch of kids sitting around in a circle and I had to switch to the hard copy quite early on.
This book for me was all over the place, so much going on, and and yet not enough substance to hold my interest. Yes, the writing is flowery and descriptive but I wanted more plot and character development. I just couldn’t connect with this novel and it became too whimsical and contrived. I began to despair of another chapter where more and more mundane irish references and the list of must read classics get thrown in to pad out the novel.
So many of my friends have loved this one but unfortunately it didn’t work for me and again a case of how “ books fit readers differently” . The Audible Book I returned ( thank you audible) but the hard copy will hopefully find a bookclub Buddy who will appreciative this novel much more than me and History of the Rain may find it’s place on some other readers real life book shelf.
I actually purchased a hard copy and an audible edition of this one as I had such high hopes for it.
This was a case of Irish information overload with this story and the drowning of the shamrock comes to mind. I started out listening to this novel and the narration sounded like a Primary School teacher reading a story aloud to a bunch of kids sitting around in a circle and I had to switch to the hard copy quite early on.
This book for me was all over the place, so much going on, and and yet not enough substance to hold my interest. Yes, the writing is flowery and descriptive but I wanted more plot and character development. I just couldn’t connect with this novel and it became too whimsical and contrived. I began to despair of another chapter where more and more mundane irish references and the list of must read classics get thrown in to pad out the novel.
So many of my friends have loved this one but unfortunately it didn’t work for me and again a case of how “ books fit readers differently” . The Audible Book I returned ( thank you audible) but the hard copy will hopefully find a bookclub Buddy who will appreciative this novel much more than me and History of the Rain may find it’s place on some other readers real life book shelf.
November 5, 2023
I chose to read this book, History of the Rain, as we were anticipating a trip to Dublin, Ireland as our ship steamed its way down the Atlantic Ocean with rain and turbulent seas from Iceland looking forward to docking in Dublin. However, with a front just hovering over Ireland, the port of Dublin was passed as we steamed across the stormy Irish Sea toward Liverpool, England. Actually it was a beautiful book to be reading as the history of rain in Faha, County Clare is explored as the stormy Irish Sea was viewed from our ship. I loved the epigraph opening the book by Ted Hughes: "Everything is on its way to the river." It is in this context that Ruth Swain talks about how the people of Faha are their stories.
This was a quiet and gentle book as I have come to embrace the simplicity and lovely prose with Niall Williams' beautiful writing portraying life in Faha. But Ireland has long been noted, not only for the delightful stories, but its literary scholars. The tie-in with literature was my favorite part of History of the Rain as Ruth Swain explored and expanded upon her father's enviable library.
This is a beautiful book of the celebration of life as told in our stories and the great healing power of the imagination as well as the influence of books. Thank you once again, Mr. Williams. I will forever associate this book with my time sailing the turbulent waters of the Irish Sea and that alone makes the experience magical.
"We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That's how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told. In Faha everyone is a long story. We are our stories. The River Shannon passes below our house on its journey to the sea."
"We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living."
This was a quiet and gentle book as I have come to embrace the simplicity and lovely prose with Niall Williams' beautiful writing portraying life in Faha. But Ireland has long been noted, not only for the delightful stories, but its literary scholars. The tie-in with literature was my favorite part of History of the Rain as Ruth Swain explored and expanded upon her father's enviable library.
"Perhaps because my father had discovered that, despite the weather, there was some profound affinity between the Deep South, Latin America, and the County Clare, on his shelves in various editions are almost all of what Professor Martin called the dangerously hypnotic novels of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Dickens is the only other whose work is so present."
"I lay in his lap and he read and we sailed off elsewhere. Dad and I went up the Mississippi, to Yoknapatawpha County, through the thick yellow fog that hung over the Thames or in through those dense steamy banana plantations all the way to Macondo. We went in the large lumpy blanket-covered Sugan boat-chair that was placed in by the Stanley range where our cribs were put to keep us warm and where Aeney slept like the Pope Nan said but I cried and was lifted, swaddled in West Clare Tropic, sucked my tiny thumb and was ready for departure."
This is a beautiful book of the celebration of life as told in our stories and the great healing power of the imagination as well as the influence of books. Thank you once again, Mr. Williams. I will forever associate this book with my time sailing the turbulent waters of the Irish Sea and that alone makes the experience magical.
June 21, 2015
I would give that six stars if I could. It was perfect. I loved the watery theme, the rain , the rivers, the salmon, even the mud and the floods. The descriptions of Ireland were spot on and some of the observations of the people were laugh aloud funny. I found Ruth to be an endearing heroine and loved all the other main characters as well. At times it was a sad book, at other times it was hopeful and uplifting. It was full to the brim with literary references as well as current day politics and events. And the history of the Irish people dating back to their beginnings as frozen sea weed was delightful. I have not read anything by Niall Williams before but his writing here was superb. I will certainly look out for more of his work.
October 2, 2022
Niall Williams writes like an angel - if angels were writers - and he has created a narrator, Ruth Swain, who narrates like an angel - if angels were narrators.
History of the Rain is an ode to the imagination, and to storytelling, and to books, and to reading, and to Ireland, and to what it means to live. That's a lot of to's, but they're all in there.
"Dad wasn't a carpenter, but because of the Swain philosophy he believed it shouldn't be beyond him to make beds, and so he sawed and banged and sawed and banged for three days above our heads, letting little snows of sawdust down through the floorboards into our tea below. ... from the noise of the effort you could imagine that up there Dad was in mortal combat with his own limitations"
"Unfortunately the Censor cut the love scene, At that time there were no love scenes in Ireland. Most people thought kissing was sex. Tongues were penises. Only allowed out for communion. Which, unsurprisingly, proved very popular."
" She was what in those days they called a handsome woman, in that gaunt angular long-necked Anglo-Irish way. I think it means you could see breeding. Like horses, you could see the teeth, the jaw. ... (among) Margaret's other features of note (was) the small perfect Kittering nose....
Teeth, ears, and nose, what more could a man want?"
'The piano-playing Aunts come to visit us after Aunt Esther dies.
... They are tall and big-boned and look like men playing women's parts in a play by Oscar Wilde."
" 'Well? How was it?'
'Fine,' Aeney said.
That's the thing about boys. Maybe just Irish boys. Boys have No Go areas, they have an entire geography of places where you can't go because if you do they'll crack open, they'll fall apart and you won't be able to put them back together, not ever. Girls know this. We know. Even love can't reach some places."
"Dear reader, time is short, we can't even open up The Book of Talty, because if we did we'd get sucked out in that tide. We'd be gone for Some Time and away into the stories of Jeremiah Talty who was a doctor only without a degree, Tobias Talty who kept a horse in his house, lived on apples and grew the longest beard in the County Clare, his sister Josephine who conversed with fairies, & brother Cornelius who went to the American Civil War and fought on both sides. We might never get back."
"My father never really told us where he had been. Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go if would find out the heart of a man, old Herman Melville says in my father's copy of Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (Book 1,997, E.P. Dutton, New York), a book that has the smell of a basement and on page 167 a tea-stain in the shape of Greenland."
"That night he's with her in her bed.
Not in that way.
She's lying in her bed with the curtains drawn and the window open because the April air is softer than tissue and because she can't get enough air. ... She can't sleep. He won't let her. What was he doing there? Why did he not turn? She's angry with him, which marks a deepening and keeps him there, as if already their relationship is a living thing and he is already someone with whom she can get angry."
"Aeney had no jealousy in him. I think at first he didn't know he was a twin. It is different for boys. Boys are born as masters of the universe, until a bigger master knocks them down."
"Each family functions in their own way, by rules reinvented daily. The strangeness of each of us is somehow accommodated so that there can be such a thing as a family and we can all live for some time at least in the same house. Normal is what you know.
... Nothing in your own family is unusual."
"We can't help but admire a bit of madness. Even Tommy McGinley was quietly admired despite the kind hit-on-the-head mouth-open expression he got from eating cork, after hearing on RTE that it was the main ingredient in Viagra, and not what they actually said, that the main ingredient was made in Cork."
" I did not hit him. Let me put that to bed.
I did not grab his ear and pull him to me and say, 'How do you know?'
Maybe my expression did. I am not responsible for my face."
My apologies for all of the quotations. This novel is filled with so many wonderful passages that I couldn't resist.
History of the Rain is an ode to the imagination, and to storytelling, and to books, and to reading, and to Ireland, and to what it means to live. That's a lot of to's, but they're all in there.
"Dad wasn't a carpenter, but because of the Swain philosophy he believed it shouldn't be beyond him to make beds, and so he sawed and banged and sawed and banged for three days above our heads, letting little snows of sawdust down through the floorboards into our tea below. ... from the noise of the effort you could imagine that up there Dad was in mortal combat with his own limitations"
"Unfortunately the Censor cut the love scene, At that time there were no love scenes in Ireland. Most people thought kissing was sex. Tongues were penises. Only allowed out for communion. Which, unsurprisingly, proved very popular."
" She was what in those days they called a handsome woman, in that gaunt angular long-necked Anglo-Irish way. I think it means you could see breeding. Like horses, you could see the teeth, the jaw. ... (among) Margaret's other features of note (was) the small perfect Kittering nose....
Teeth, ears, and nose, what more could a man want?"
'The piano-playing Aunts come to visit us after Aunt Esther dies.
... They are tall and big-boned and look like men playing women's parts in a play by Oscar Wilde."
" 'Well? How was it?'
'Fine,' Aeney said.
That's the thing about boys. Maybe just Irish boys. Boys have No Go areas, they have an entire geography of places where you can't go because if you do they'll crack open, they'll fall apart and you won't be able to put them back together, not ever. Girls know this. We know. Even love can't reach some places."
"Dear reader, time is short, we can't even open up The Book of Talty, because if we did we'd get sucked out in that tide. We'd be gone for Some Time and away into the stories of Jeremiah Talty who was a doctor only without a degree, Tobias Talty who kept a horse in his house, lived on apples and grew the longest beard in the County Clare, his sister Josephine who conversed with fairies, & brother Cornelius who went to the American Civil War and fought on both sides. We might never get back."
"My father never really told us where he had been. Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go if would find out the heart of a man, old Herman Melville says in my father's copy of Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (Book 1,997, E.P. Dutton, New York), a book that has the smell of a basement and on page 167 a tea-stain in the shape of Greenland."
"That night he's with her in her bed.
Not in that way.
She's lying in her bed with the curtains drawn and the window open because the April air is softer than tissue and because she can't get enough air. ... She can't sleep. He won't let her. What was he doing there? Why did he not turn? She's angry with him, which marks a deepening and keeps him there, as if already their relationship is a living thing and he is already someone with whom she can get angry."
"Aeney had no jealousy in him. I think at first he didn't know he was a twin. It is different for boys. Boys are born as masters of the universe, until a bigger master knocks them down."
"Each family functions in their own way, by rules reinvented daily. The strangeness of each of us is somehow accommodated so that there can be such a thing as a family and we can all live for some time at least in the same house. Normal is what you know.
... Nothing in your own family is unusual."
"We can't help but admire a bit of madness. Even Tommy McGinley was quietly admired despite the kind hit-on-the-head mouth-open expression he got from eating cork, after hearing on RTE that it was the main ingredient in Viagra, and not what they actually said, that the main ingredient was made in Cork."
" I did not hit him. Let me put that to bed.
I did not grab his ear and pull him to me and say, 'How do you know?'
Maybe my expression did. I am not responsible for my face."
My apologies for all of the quotations. This novel is filled with so many wonderful passages that I couldn't resist.
August 8, 2014
"There's a book inside you. There's a library inside me."
I woke up thinking about this novel, and I almost regret dedicating my morning to finishing it. But sometimes a story begs to be devoured.
Sometimes, you can tell an author is a devout reader through their writing. Niall Williams clearly is one of these types, based on History of the Rain. So, of course, I love him the more for it. This is a story of family, history, love, tragedy, Ireland, and books. And it's probably my favorite Man Booker 2014 longlisted novel so far.
Ruth lives in her room due to a vague illness and a fear of the outdoors. She's inherited her father's extensive library, where she attempts to find him, one book at a time. Throughout the story, books are dropped like rain, and I was personally reminded of how many I need to experience. Though I'm very familiar with one of the most important writers frequently mentioned: Yeats. For how could you not include him in an Irish novel about writing and poetry? So, he's there. History of the Rain will surely strike a chord in people who appreciate not just the story inside the books, but the history and physicality of them as well. I'm firmly in the camp of books being a necessary part of my home's ecosystem. But as I've gotten older I've come to relish certain stories not just for the meaning of their content but for the fact that they were purchased and read by my father. A few he's given to me, and reading them is something personally spectacular. Though I'm not searching for my father in the way Ruth must, I find through his books how he came to be who he is now, before I ever existed. A moment like this I could particularly see in my own father (and perhaps a quality in myself):
"The library that grew in our house contained all my father's idiosyncrasies, contained the man he was at thirty-five, and at forty, at forty-five. He did not edit himself. He did not look back at the books of ten years ago and pluck out the ones whose taste was no longer his."I can relate to this as my Father's only daughter (and child), and the importance it's had on my own life. Williams writes of a father/daughter relationship not often seen in literature, though these are generally portrayed much less than father/son relationships in the first place.
Niall Williams writes with beautiful clarity and apparent ease. Hardly a chapter or page went by without a pause to take note of something profound. The imagery evoked in this sleepy community celebrates the Irish qualities that only such an account as this can excite. I wanted to fly to Ireland immediately while reading, but perhaps I should explore my own history first.
If themes like this are of any interest, I encourage a thorough reading of this chronicle of one family. Though you don't need to be a Swain, or Irish for that matter, you may find pieces of your own history in this account, like I did. In fact, it kept popping up in my thoughts throughout the day when I wasn't reading, and made it's way into my work notes as a little doodle:
I was probably being a bit optimistic though. As I probably didn't accurately convey, you're going to want some tissues with this one.
Highly recommended.
February 10, 2024
There was much for me to love and to connect with in this book. Nineteen year old Ruth Swain is bedridden with an undisclosed blood disease. Lying in her room, surrounded by her late father’s 3,958 books, she channels the constant rain on the skylight to tell the story of her family and her County Clare community, Faha.
This is a long tale, and as Ruth acknowledges, it Meanders and pays no attention to chronology. She touches on primordial events that led to the creation of Ireland (not what you’d find in any textbook) and periodically mentions the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on the lives of individuals in Faha.
Ruth, like so many members of her family, has always been something of an outsider, a condition that has left her with a well developed interior life and an acerbic wit. The steady stream of tragedies that constitute her family’s history contributes to her wry attitude toward life, as does the rain that takes many forms but never stops.
This quote from Ruth illustrates her temperament, and also the way Williams scatters literary references throughout the book:
“Goodness provokes bitchiness. It's mathematical. It's somewhere in the human genes. Any number of lovely poeple are married to horrible ones. Read Middlemarch (Book 989, George Eliot, Penguin Classics, London) if you don't believe me. There's something in me that just can't let it be. Goodness is a tidy bow you just can't help wanting to pull loose.”
(Watching Gone With The Wind as a child, I felt just that way about Melanie.)
Yet, Ruth has an equal part of tenderness and compassion.
“It's because people are so perishable. That's the thing. Because for everyone you meet there is a last moment, there will be a last moment when your hand slips from theirs, and everything ripples outwards from that, the last firmness of a hand in yours that every moment after becomes a little less firm until you look down at your own hand and try to imagine just what it felt like before their hand slipped away. And you cannot. You cannot feel them.”
(Yeah, I had to dish out some immediate hugs after reading that passage. Even re-reading it now I tear up thinking of last moments with family members who died shortly thereafter. )
So the book is gorgeously written, and as a child who never quite fit in and always had her nose in a book, it had a natural appeal for me. The one problem is that after a while it becomes a bit too much. Too clever, too lush, too many insights coming from too many characters, too many literary references. Like a delicious dessert that leaves a funny feeling behind because your serving was too large.
Still, a solid 4 stars - I can understand why it was longlisted for the Booker.
This is a long tale, and as Ruth acknowledges, it Meanders and pays no attention to chronology. She touches on primordial events that led to the creation of Ireland (not what you’d find in any textbook) and periodically mentions the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on the lives of individuals in Faha.
Ruth, like so many members of her family, has always been something of an outsider, a condition that has left her with a well developed interior life and an acerbic wit. The steady stream of tragedies that constitute her family’s history contributes to her wry attitude toward life, as does the rain that takes many forms but never stops.
This quote from Ruth illustrates her temperament, and also the way Williams scatters literary references throughout the book:
“Goodness provokes bitchiness. It's mathematical. It's somewhere in the human genes. Any number of lovely poeple are married to horrible ones. Read Middlemarch (Book 989, George Eliot, Penguin Classics, London) if you don't believe me. There's something in me that just can't let it be. Goodness is a tidy bow you just can't help wanting to pull loose.”
(Watching Gone With The Wind as a child, I felt just that way about Melanie.)
Yet, Ruth has an equal part of tenderness and compassion.
“It's because people are so perishable. That's the thing. Because for everyone you meet there is a last moment, there will be a last moment when your hand slips from theirs, and everything ripples outwards from that, the last firmness of a hand in yours that every moment after becomes a little less firm until you look down at your own hand and try to imagine just what it felt like before their hand slipped away. And you cannot. You cannot feel them.”
(Yeah, I had to dish out some immediate hugs after reading that passage. Even re-reading it now I tear up thinking of last moments with family members who died shortly thereafter. )
So the book is gorgeously written, and as a child who never quite fit in and always had her nose in a book, it had a natural appeal for me. The one problem is that after a while it becomes a bit too much. Too clever, too lush, too many insights coming from too many characters, too many literary references. Like a delicious dessert that leaves a funny feeling behind because your serving was too large.
Still, a solid 4 stars - I can understand why it was longlisted for the Booker.
February 9, 2017
Oh my god, this book makes me so angry because if you just cut out the repetitive, far too long, cloying middle 80 pages or so where he shows his hand over and over so insistently that I can't help but look at it, it's a gorgeous, gorgeous talented thing full of pain and life and love and erudition and things put just so. I'm really pissed off that this author over indulged and threw me out of the narrative by telling me how clever he was again and again and getting maudlin about how Irish people are. I liked Ruth, damnit. If I could give any advice, it would be to skip most of Part Two. You know what's going to happen anyway since the beginning, and Book Three will probably read all the more affectingly because your tolerance/cliche radar wasn't tested by Book Two. That would be a five star, always-remembered classic of a book right there- so read that book instead. I'm jealous of you.
(A slightly longer review included in my review of my fall/winter reading in 2016 here: https://shouldacouldawouldabooks.com/...)
(A slightly longer review included in my review of my fall/winter reading in 2016 here: https://shouldacouldawouldabooks.com/...)
March 30, 2019
From her sickbed under a water-pelted skylight in the attic of a tilted house crammed with newspapers and books, in the unmarked parish of Faha, “down in a hole beside the river” in County Clare, Ireland, where it never stops raining, nineteen-year-old Ruth Swain says she is writing a “river.” I would characterize the output as a torrent: a literary reference-packed history of her family. Reading it is like being awash in flood rapids. Sentences cascade, sweeping and twirling you along so fast you can barely breathe.
The poetry and descriptions, too, are breath-stopping and the humor off-the-wall wonderful. But you have to remember not to drown in order to enjoy the onslaught of words.
I won’t pretend to have followed all the meanings or understood all the references, but there is something so spontaneous and constantly unexpected about the writing, that I just went with the flow which weaves a story about being a reader and a writer and writing itself.
This book will not be for everyone. (I probably would not have read it had I not first been introduced to Niall Williams’s brilliance in a more accessible novel, Four Letters of Love , which covers many of the same themes with similar characters.)
The almost out-of-control genius of the writing brings to mind two other books (with nothing other than the genius spontaneity and the brimming-over genius first-person protagonists in common): The Swallower Swallowed , such a dark, dense, haunting, inscrutable book that I would never it recommend to anybody, and The Sellout which I flat-out adored even though it had some problems in the end. If I owned copies of these three genius books, I would shelve them together, having read them only once—which is plenty, and enjoy the fact that they are together inhabiting my space.
The poetry and descriptions, too, are breath-stopping and the humor off-the-wall wonderful. But you have to remember not to drown in order to enjoy the onslaught of words.
I won’t pretend to have followed all the meanings or understood all the references, but there is something so spontaneous and constantly unexpected about the writing, that I just went with the flow which weaves a story about being a reader and a writer and writing itself.
This book will not be for everyone. (I probably would not have read it had I not first been introduced to Niall Williams’s brilliance in a more accessible novel, Four Letters of Love , which covers many of the same themes with similar characters.)
The almost out-of-control genius of the writing brings to mind two other books (with nothing other than the genius spontaneity and the brimming-over genius first-person protagonists in common): The Swallower Swallowed , such a dark, dense, haunting, inscrutable book that I would never it recommend to anybody, and The Sellout which I flat-out adored even though it had some problems in the end. If I owned copies of these three genius books, I would shelve them together, having read them only once—which is plenty, and enjoy the fact that they are together inhabiting my space.
September 14, 2022
4.5 Stars
Ill and bed bound, nineteen year old Ruth, a voracious reader, begins to write the tale of her family. Her voice is witty, wry and acerbic. Though slow to pull me in, I found myself soon swept up in the tale of the Swains, the Taltys, the MacCarrolls, and the people of the town of FaHa.
Niall Williams' novel History of the Rain pays homage to stories, to family, and to community. He understands grief and hard times and how we can lift each other up, definitely a message we can all use.
There's a lot here to love. These are some of the highlights for me.
"I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit curled in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping."
Most readers know this feeling. I have a favorite seat in the kitchen with a beautiful view of the river. I sip my tea and look at the view when I want to think about a passage or a section.
"It's been well-thumbed, at least triple-read, there's that smell the fat orange-spine Penguins get when their pages have yellowed and the book bulges, basically the smell of complex humanity, sort of sweat and salt and endeavour. Like all the fat orange Penguins, it gets fatter with reading, which it should, because in a way the more you read the bigger your own experience of the world gets, the fatter your soul."
Don't most of us read for this reason? To learn more about ourselves and our lives, and to get perspectives that are different from our own.
"My head is against my father's side. It's warm in a way only your father's body is warm and his shirt smells the way only your own father's can. It's a thing impossible to explain or recapture, because it's more than a smell, it's more than the sum of Castile soap and farm sweat and dreams and endeavour, it's more than Old spice aftershave or Lux shampoo, more than any combination of anything you can find in the press in his bathroom. It's in the heat and living of him. It goes out of his clothes after three days. that's a thing I learned."
Can you remember the first person who died when you were a child? For me it was my great grandmother. She was always permeated by the scents of the kitchen--coffee, herbs, and warm bread in addition to that smell that underlay these that made up her unique perfume. I was only 6 when she died, and I remember taking her sweater home with me to sleep with. And yes, that smell faded way too fast.
"Because here is what I know: the rain becomes the river that goes to the sea and becomes the rain that becomes the river. Each book is the sum of all the others the writer has read. Charles Dickens was a writer because his father had a small library and because solitude was not lonely with Robinson Crusoe and Dox Quixote. Each book a writer writes has all the others in it, so there's a library that's like a river and it keeps on going. My book has in it all the books my father read, and in that way his spirit survives, as mine does, because although impossible there is a communion between readers and writers. . .""
We live on in our shared stories.
These few snippets will give you a taste of Williams' writing style and the substance you will find in this novel. With History of the Rain I am reminded that my life is my story to shape and in which to find meaning and that it is my prerogative to define success in my life. Perhaps, the rain will stop and the sun will begin to shine
Ill and bed bound, nineteen year old Ruth, a voracious reader, begins to write the tale of her family. Her voice is witty, wry and acerbic. Though slow to pull me in, I found myself soon swept up in the tale of the Swains, the Taltys, the MacCarrolls, and the people of the town of FaHa.
Niall Williams' novel History of the Rain pays homage to stories, to family, and to community. He understands grief and hard times and how we can lift each other up, definitely a message we can all use.
There's a lot here to love. These are some of the highlights for me.
"I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit curled in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping."
Most readers know this feeling. I have a favorite seat in the kitchen with a beautiful view of the river. I sip my tea and look at the view when I want to think about a passage or a section.
"It's been well-thumbed, at least triple-read, there's that smell the fat orange-spine Penguins get when their pages have yellowed and the book bulges, basically the smell of complex humanity, sort of sweat and salt and endeavour. Like all the fat orange Penguins, it gets fatter with reading, which it should, because in a way the more you read the bigger your own experience of the world gets, the fatter your soul."
Don't most of us read for this reason? To learn more about ourselves and our lives, and to get perspectives that are different from our own.
"My head is against my father's side. It's warm in a way only your father's body is warm and his shirt smells the way only your own father's can. It's a thing impossible to explain or recapture, because it's more than a smell, it's more than the sum of Castile soap and farm sweat and dreams and endeavour, it's more than Old spice aftershave or Lux shampoo, more than any combination of anything you can find in the press in his bathroom. It's in the heat and living of him. It goes out of his clothes after three days. that's a thing I learned."
Can you remember the first person who died when you were a child? For me it was my great grandmother. She was always permeated by the scents of the kitchen--coffee, herbs, and warm bread in addition to that smell that underlay these that made up her unique perfume. I was only 6 when she died, and I remember taking her sweater home with me to sleep with. And yes, that smell faded way too fast.
"Because here is what I know: the rain becomes the river that goes to the sea and becomes the rain that becomes the river. Each book is the sum of all the others the writer has read. Charles Dickens was a writer because his father had a small library and because solitude was not lonely with Robinson Crusoe and Dox Quixote. Each book a writer writes has all the others in it, so there's a library that's like a river and it keeps on going. My book has in it all the books my father read, and in that way his spirit survives, as mine does, because although impossible there is a communion between readers and writers. . .""
We live on in our shared stories.
These few snippets will give you a taste of Williams' writing style and the substance you will find in this novel. With History of the Rain I am reminded that my life is my story to shape and in which to find meaning and that it is my prerogative to define success in my life. Perhaps, the rain will stop and the sun will begin to shine
January 31, 2021
This book is d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g! Must it be SO depressing? It doesn't help that the end tries to close with a hopeful note.
The book is about death and illness and how some people demand so much of themselves that they are doomed to fail. It is also about the importance of stories, our stories. There lies the wisp of hope embedded in the book.
There are some beautiful lines, lines that perceptively reveal human relationships and some of descriptive beauty. I did feel the drumming of the rain on the skylight above Ruth's bed.
The book is written for bibliophiles....maybe. I love books, and I have read a large number of the many referred to, but still this book was not for me. The central character, Ruth, is a bedridden girl of 19. She has decided to read all her father's books, the point being to discover who her father really was. A person's books do say who you are, don't they? She refers to these books by their number in her father's library. Yep, they are all numbered, and they are in the thousands. Poetry and classics. Mythology and history. Dickens and Edith Wharton and Faulkner. Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy too, of course. I objected to how she refers to characters/events in theses famous books as quick explanations for events and characters in her story. (The book we are reading is Ruth's story.) But you can't do that. The situations are not the same; the details are not the same, and it is the details that make a story. It all becomes superficial and cursory. For me this was a disservice to the original literature. In addition, the numerous references to the books' titles, date and city of publication made the writing disjointed.
I didn't feel engaged in the lives of her father, her mother, her grandparents or great grandparents. All are quickly covered. There is too much in too few pages. Her relationship with her twin brother, yes, there the story came alive. Only here did I feel the love that bound these two.
There is humor. Maybe half of it made me laugh.
The setting is Clare, Ireland, after the bust, but the stories of her ancestors go back to the First World War.
The narration of the audiobook by Jennifer McGrath was lovely. Her Irish dialect is beautiful, lilting.
The book is about death and illness and how some people demand so much of themselves that they are doomed to fail. It is also about the importance of stories, our stories. There lies the wisp of hope embedded in the book.
There are some beautiful lines, lines that perceptively reveal human relationships and some of descriptive beauty. I did feel the drumming of the rain on the skylight above Ruth's bed.
The book is written for bibliophiles....maybe. I love books, and I have read a large number of the many referred to, but still this book was not for me. The central character, Ruth, is a bedridden girl of 19. She has decided to read all her father's books, the point being to discover who her father really was. A person's books do say who you are, don't they? She refers to these books by their number in her father's library. Yep, they are all numbered, and they are in the thousands. Poetry and classics. Mythology and history. Dickens and Edith Wharton and Faulkner. Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy too, of course. I objected to how she refers to characters/events in theses famous books as quick explanations for events and characters in her story. (The book we are reading is Ruth's story.) But you can't do that. The situations are not the same; the details are not the same, and it is the details that make a story. It all becomes superficial and cursory. For me this was a disservice to the original literature. In addition, the numerous references to the books' titles, date and city of publication made the writing disjointed.
I didn't feel engaged in the lives of her father, her mother, her grandparents or great grandparents. All are quickly covered. There is too much in too few pages. Her relationship with her twin brother, yes, there the story came alive. Only here did I feel the love that bound these two.
There is humor. Maybe half of it made me laugh.
The setting is Clare, Ireland, after the bust, but the stories of her ancestors go back to the First World War.
The narration of the audiobook by Jennifer McGrath was lovely. Her Irish dialect is beautiful, lilting.
June 26, 2017
We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. That's how it seems to me, being alive for a little while, the teller and the told.
History of the Rain (Book 3959, Bloomsbury, New York) is a quirky kind of book with lyrical Irishness, circular storytelling, poetic narrative, a wise-cracking protagonist, and my God, the rain. It had me rereading sentences and paragraphs to savour the words (sometimes to decipher the meaning), and in two different places, had me bawling my eyes out. There is tension and mystery, beauty and truth and "that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" (thanks Keats) and I could ask for nothing more from a reading experience.
The narrator introduces herself, I am plain Ruth Swain, bedbound, here, attic roof beneath the rain, in the margin, where the narrator should be, between this world and the next. Stacked in precarious piles to the ceiling are the 3958 books that belonged to her father, and although Ruth has a Terminal Something, she plans to read them all before she dies. I am going to read them all because that is where I will find him. Ruth proceeds to tell the history of her family, dipping back and forth between the generations, and making literary allusions from the stacks of books she has already read (and especially from her favourite author, Dickens). Most of the references were obscure to me (and even though I have read Great Expectations, the only referenced characters I remembered were Miss Havisham and Pip himself), but not getting the references isn't a problem -- they're only there to make a point about books and the readers who love them. The following is as good a case as any against ereaders:
(T)here's that smell the fat orange-spine Penguins get when their pages have yellowed and the book bulges, basically the smell of complex humanity, sort of sweat and salt and endeavor. Like all the fat orange Penguins, it gets fatter with reading, which it should, because in a way the more you read it the bigger your own experience of the world gets, the fatter your soul. Try it, you'll see.
There is a bit of something lost in imagining leaving someone your fully loaded kindle, no? No marginalia, no dog-ears or food stains, no life. I must confess that I felt an extra connection to this book because it is set in County Clare; a rain-soaked corner of Ireland in which I spent three entranced weeks as a fourteen-year-old (in a Shannon River-side village that the author refers to as "the saintly surrounds of Killaloe"). And I must confess that I took pleasure in the minor character of Nurse Dowling because my own grandmother happened to be a Nurse Dowling (although the young tots on the Children's Ward where she worked always called her Darling). And although there was something kind of timeless about the setting, I appreciated that this story was set in the present; after the Celtic Tiger had become, once again, Those Irish; after the Boom and the Bust and the Rationalisation. For many reasons, I may have made more of a connection to History of the Rain than another reader might, but for that I can't apologise; all reading is personal, although I reckon the pull of the following is universal:
I know what the river is like at night. I know how it tongues the dark and swallows the rain and how it never sleeps. I know how it sings in its chains, how steadily it backstrokes into eternity, how if you stand beside it in the deeps of its throat it seems to be saying, saying, saying, only what you cannot tell.
This is the second title I've read from this year's Man Booker Prize longlist and it's ahead by a long shot (by a high jump?). Well, wouldn't Ireland win the World Cup of Writing? At least eleven times?
September 2, 2014
I contemplated leaving this book unfinished, but decided to stick it out. I can't say I'm glad I did, as the whole experience left me feeling a bit ambivalent.
That surprises me because on paper I should like this book quite a bit - the story of a sick/dying girl reconnecting with her dead father through his library. But the story meanders quite a bit, and the author (or we can say narrator) Really Likes To Emphasize Ideas With Extra Capital Letters. This is something that is one of my top pet peeves of all time, right up there with people who try to take my rights away and people who can't follow through. I Really Hate It, and that made it Impossible To Connect with This Book.
(However I am writing down this quotation to use in my storytelling class):
"We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living."
And this one's just for me:
"I didn't want to be a writer, I wanted to be a reader, which is more rare. But one thing led to another."
That surprises me because on paper I should like this book quite a bit - the story of a sick/dying girl reconnecting with her dead father through his library. But the story meanders quite a bit, and the author (or we can say narrator) Really Likes To Emphasize Ideas With Extra Capital Letters. This is something that is one of my top pet peeves of all time, right up there with people who try to take my rights away and people who can't follow through. I Really Hate It, and that made it Impossible To Connect with This Book.
(However I am writing down this quotation to use in my storytelling class):
"We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living."
And this one's just for me:
"I didn't want to be a writer, I wanted to be a reader, which is more rare. But one thing led to another."
July 15, 2024
I can't remember the last time I read a book that had me weeping so much at the end that I couldn't see the pages. This book is simply a love story to books, to family, to a sense of place and to love. The narrator tries to find her father in his books and to tell his story because he couldn't tell his own. It's funny, sardonic, insightful, touching, heartbreaking and immensely satisfying. I'll remember it for a very long time.
I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit curled in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping.
....books are living things, they have spines and smells and length of life, and from living some of them have tears and buckles and some stains.
I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit curled in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping.
....books are living things, they have spines and smells and length of life, and from living some of them have tears and buckles and some stains.
August 22, 2015
"This, Dear Reader, is a river narrative. My chosen style is The Meander."
Ruth Swain, 19 years old is lying ill in her attic bedroom in her big boat bed, hand built by her father, surrounded by the almost 4000 books belonging to her father, Virgil. She is watching the interminable Irish rain through her window and writing a history of her family.
This is a wonderful, lyrical history of a family and their relationship with the river Shannon and the land beside it, 'the worst fourteen acres in Ireland', that her impractical poet father tries to farm in the samll community of Faha, County Clare. The river runs through the novel as a powerful metaphor, telling the past, the present and the future of Ireland itself and the Swains. In summer the river is benign and golden sunny days are spent swimming and fishing the leaping salmon and in winter the incessant rain can cause it to flood destroying the farm and threatening the people living nearby. It is the centre of their lives but is never to be taken for granted and can snatch a life in an instant.
"Here in Faha, of rain we have known All kinds, the rain that pretends it's not rain, the rain that crosses the Atlantic and comes for its holidays, rain that laughs at the word summer, sniggers at the dry day in Ennis twenty kilometres away, hoots at what pours, streams, teems, lashes, pelts, and buckets down. But this was different. It had intent. That's what Mam thought. And the intention was Flood.
As much as she is becoming a writer, Ruth is also a reader and her writing is coloured with what she has absorbed from her fathers great collection of books. She recalls her grandfather, Abraham who wrote and published a book on Salmon fishing in Ireland, and writes of her twin, Aeney a blue eyed, blonde haired golden boy who was taken from them. From her sickbed she is able to view her family history from a distance and seek and find her father and his love for them.
"And my book will be a river and have the Salmon literal and metamorphic leaping inside it and be called History of the Rain, so that his book did not and does not perish, and you will know my books exists because of him and because of his books and his aspiration to leap up, to rise. You will know that I have found him in his books, in the covers his hands held, the pages they turned , in the paper and the print, but also in the worlds those books contained, where now I have been and you have been too. You will know the story goes from past to the present and into the future, and like a river flows."
March 1, 2023
I read ALL 13 of the books from this year's Man Booker Prize Long List, and this is clearly my favorite, and the only one which I can guarantee I will re-read at some point. The book took awhile to grab me; as Williams (or his narrator) notes several times, the structure is nothing if not a meandering river, but what it lacks in narrative drive (at least initially), it more than makes up for with some of the most gorgeous prose ever committed to paper. The storyline is essentially of the last three or four generations of the quirky Swain family, told by invalid Ruth (who seems to be suffering from leukemia), as she contemplates life under the attic skylight, surrounded by the legacy of the nearly 4,000 books bequeathed to her by her late father and the near constant rain. If I say it reminded me somewhat of the terrific old BBC program 'Ballykissangel', that really does not do justice to Williams' glorious writing, which when it comes right down to it, is a celebration of both writing and reading itself.
November 11, 2023
I feel like it took forever to finish this book. I chose to read it at bedtime which could have been a mistake. My brain is fried by that time and I usually choose essays or non-fiction to lull me to sleep. I felt I could take a chance on Niall Williams, since his writing is mesmerizing and beautiful. But this one meandered a little too much to keep track of.
I'll leave the plot summary to GR and to other reviewers. Suffice it to say it was indeed beautiful, but I preferred his "This Is Happiness", another book taking place in the village of Faha, and "In Kiltumper", a memoir of his house and garden in Ireland. I still have his "Four Letters of Love" on my shelf and will get to that eventually.
I'll leave the plot summary to GR and to other reviewers. Suffice it to say it was indeed beautiful, but I preferred his "This Is Happiness", another book taking place in the village of Faha, and "In Kiltumper", a memoir of his house and garden in Ireland. I still have his "Four Letters of Love" on my shelf and will get to that eventually.
March 16, 2016
Just as I was one of the 'right' readers for its fellow Booker longlister The Wake, I'm a wrong 'un for The History of the Rain - a book which is, so far, effusively well-loved on here.
It's very, very Oirish: whimsy and tragedy and tragical whimsy, eccentric villagers and stone-filled fields and potato blight and poets who won't publish. Ireland is pretty enough but these things - or in some cases the manner in which they're written - just don't do it for me. (As with not liking any sort of bestseller or hit, I don't feel too bad about not being fond of Oirishness: there are squillions of fans and it will be just fine without me.) Though what stock-Ireland does very well IMO is jokes about Catholicism: e.g. "a miniature Virgin Mary who, First Miracle of Faha, transformed herself into a plastic bottle with blue cap-crown". (It may be the absence of that sort of cynicism about anything else that explains the failure to connect.)
I'm not heartless and can see why one may be moved by this, young narrator Ruth's potentially terminal illness faced mostly off-screen as she devotes most of her attention to family history, or the magic surrounding her lost poet father and his family's "Impossible Standard". There are a couple of pages about grief and loss in Part 3, Chapter 1, which are absolutely perfect. Perhaps it implicitly indicates, especially near the end, that the romanticisation of failure - whilst an impediment to some - can be helpful when there's truly not much choice, it can be a comfort when you're long term sick and lend the possibility of being interesting rather than merely a degraded mess. (Though I may be reading in this idea which I consider important and too-little stated - merely because Ruth is still naively starry eyed about said romanticisation.) However, ultimately the book still adheres to the idea of publicity / publication as success. But aside from those few bits, my feeling is that it's all been said before and I wasn't keen enough to hear it again. The book seems unnecessary. Though to all those who adore it, it clearly is.
I've heard a similar story, from a similar narrator, very recently. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, also on the 2014 Booker longlist, has likewise a provincial nuclear-family setting with now-absent siblings and father, a chatty, meandering daughter-narrator who, although she's a student at least some of the time during the book pays practically no attention to her contemporary culture, making it claustrophobic - and yes, depressingly provincial, gotta get out of here - for those of us who thrive on references. The authors are in both cases old enough to be the narrators' parents. (And this, like the three other Booker longlisters I've read so far, contains discussion of religious doubt; perhaps it is universal in litfic and I hadn't quite noticed, but it's easy to imagine panel chair and noted atheist A.C. Grayling nodding approvingly towards these paragraphs and books.)
Ruth sounds like she was "born middle-aged" to quote some other book I can't remember, with an air of gossipy, bustling capability although she spends most of the present-day parts of the book in bed or in hospital. She may sound mature and wise-beyond-her-years, but cynically I'd argue that it might just be easier for an author in his later fifties to create that, than to write a nineteen year old who sounds more like one. I am not entirely convinced by her. Although, yes, I have met women who seemed middle aged in their teens - straight into work after school or students living at home... It's odd, actually, that Ruth never mentions her experience of the university she's had to leave or take years out from. And I don't always find Ruth that wise - one hopes she will come to detach more from her family's unrelenting standards and history through having understood them so young, and you want to give her a copy of Pink Brain, Blue Brain to get her to her examine all her gender generalisations. Though countless novelists in their thirties and forties, whom you'd think both old and young enough to know better, still make similar ones.
As the genres list tells you, this is one of those Books About Books. Inevitably beloved on sites like this one, but I am almost always a refusenik. Twee, embarrassingly insular, I tend to think - but then, for all I've read, books aren't really my 'home' form. All the precious stuff that sounds like guff when I hear it said about novels or films makes utter perfect sense when it's said of music. (Which is more ancient, requires greater, more esoteric skill to produce yet demands nothing more than possession of a sense to absorb, and is physical as well as mental. And, for the last century or so, can even be appreciated whilst doing other things.) And I might just buy it re. poetry. Ruth is trying to get to know her lost father more deeply by reading his library. Goodness knows I understand the idea of using someone's favourite things to relate to them and absorb them when they're not there (and I wish I'd been more forgiving towards a couple of people who'd done the same to me when I was younger). But - perhaps because Ruth's young, or perhaps because it's too poetic a book to introduce such doubts - it never acknowledges that without the person there to talk to, you might be ascribing the wrong meanings or picking out the wrong bits, so you have to accept you're doing it as a comfort and daydream for yourself, and you're only going to get your own responses out of them. Nor would it be the sort of novel to say that 3000 mostly water-damaged old books, almost certainly mouldy, are not good companions for someone with what sounds like leukaemia. Many others say they've been inspired to read more via the references in The History of the Rain; like Ruth, I was a "reader of so many nineteenth-century novels before the age of fifteen that I became exactly too clever by half". I'm still pretty content with my intake of English classics, and the only book mentioned in here that I want to read and haven't is Anna Karenina.
Some generally favourable reviews find the references to modern life - the Boom, the Crash, Latvians and Lidl, the internet - jarring. True, a lot of the book does feel like it could have been an Irish village at almost any time in the twentieth century, but I think it blends things quite well. In smaller places, where you don't see adverts everywhere and streets full of people walking around with iPhones, a lot of life honestly doesn't look terribly different even if it is affected by wider economic change, and a lot of the work is of a type that means you couldn't be on the internet all day anyway. Their village doesn't have broadband, they still have a lot of VHS videos in the house, she's never become "an e-Person, an iPerson". The sense of continuity and change rings true even if the voice and cast are a tad cliched.
It's very, very Oirish: whimsy and tragedy and tragical whimsy, eccentric villagers and stone-filled fields and potato blight and poets who won't publish. Ireland is pretty enough but these things - or in some cases the manner in which they're written - just don't do it for me. (As with not liking any sort of bestseller or hit, I don't feel too bad about not being fond of Oirishness: there are squillions of fans and it will be just fine without me.) Though what stock-Ireland does very well IMO is jokes about Catholicism: e.g. "a miniature Virgin Mary who, First Miracle of Faha, transformed herself into a plastic bottle with blue cap-crown". (It may be the absence of that sort of cynicism about anything else that explains the failure to connect.)
I'm not heartless and can see why one may be moved by this, young narrator Ruth's potentially terminal illness faced mostly off-screen as she devotes most of her attention to family history, or the magic surrounding her lost poet father and his family's "Impossible Standard". There are a couple of pages about grief and loss in Part 3, Chapter 1, which are absolutely perfect. Perhaps it implicitly indicates, especially near the end, that the romanticisation of failure - whilst an impediment to some - can be helpful when there's truly not much choice, it can be a comfort when you're long term sick and lend the possibility of being interesting rather than merely a degraded mess. (Though I may be reading in this idea which I consider important and too-little stated - merely because Ruth is still naively starry eyed about said romanticisation.) However, ultimately the book still adheres to the idea of publicity / publication as success. But aside from those few bits, my feeling is that it's all been said before and I wasn't keen enough to hear it again. The book seems unnecessary. Though to all those who adore it, it clearly is.
I've heard a similar story, from a similar narrator, very recently. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, also on the 2014 Booker longlist, has likewise a provincial nuclear-family setting with now-absent siblings and father, a chatty, meandering daughter-narrator who, although she's a student at least some of the time during the book pays practically no attention to her contemporary culture, making it claustrophobic - and yes, depressingly provincial, gotta get out of here - for those of us who thrive on references. The authors are in both cases old enough to be the narrators' parents. (And this, like the three other Booker longlisters I've read so far, contains discussion of religious doubt; perhaps it is universal in litfic and I hadn't quite noticed, but it's easy to imagine panel chair and noted atheist A.C. Grayling nodding approvingly towards these paragraphs and books.)
Ruth sounds like she was "born middle-aged" to quote some other book I can't remember, with an air of gossipy, bustling capability although she spends most of the present-day parts of the book in bed or in hospital. She may sound mature and wise-beyond-her-years, but cynically I'd argue that it might just be easier for an author in his later fifties to create that, than to write a nineteen year old who sounds more like one. I am not entirely convinced by her. Although, yes, I have met women who seemed middle aged in their teens - straight into work after school or students living at home... It's odd, actually, that Ruth never mentions her experience of the university she's had to leave or take years out from. And I don't always find Ruth that wise - one hopes she will come to detach more from her family's unrelenting standards and history through having understood them so young, and you want to give her a copy of Pink Brain, Blue Brain to get her to her examine all her gender generalisations. Though countless novelists in their thirties and forties, whom you'd think both old and young enough to know better, still make similar ones.
As the genres list tells you, this is one of those Books About Books. Inevitably beloved on sites like this one, but I am almost always a refusenik. Twee, embarrassingly insular, I tend to think - but then, for all I've read, books aren't really my 'home' form. All the precious stuff that sounds like guff when I hear it said about novels or films makes utter perfect sense when it's said of music. (Which is more ancient, requires greater, more esoteric skill to produce yet demands nothing more than possession of a sense to absorb, and is physical as well as mental. And, for the last century or so, can even be appreciated whilst doing other things.) And I might just buy it re. poetry. Ruth is trying to get to know her lost father more deeply by reading his library. Goodness knows I understand the idea of using someone's favourite things to relate to them and absorb them when they're not there (and I wish I'd been more forgiving towards a couple of people who'd done the same to me when I was younger). But - perhaps because Ruth's young, or perhaps because it's too poetic a book to introduce such doubts - it never acknowledges that without the person there to talk to, you might be ascribing the wrong meanings or picking out the wrong bits, so you have to accept you're doing it as a comfort and daydream for yourself, and you're only going to get your own responses out of them. Nor would it be the sort of novel to say that 3000 mostly water-damaged old books, almost certainly mouldy, are not good companions for someone with what sounds like leukaemia. Many others say they've been inspired to read more via the references in The History of the Rain; like Ruth, I was a "reader of so many nineteenth-century novels before the age of fifteen that I became exactly too clever by half". I'm still pretty content with my intake of English classics, and the only book mentioned in here that I want to read and haven't is Anna Karenina.
Some generally favourable reviews find the references to modern life - the Boom, the Crash, Latvians and Lidl, the internet - jarring. True, a lot of the book does feel like it could have been an Irish village at almost any time in the twentieth century, but I think it blends things quite well. In smaller places, where you don't see adverts everywhere and streets full of people walking around with iPhones, a lot of life honestly doesn't look terribly different even if it is affected by wider economic change, and a lot of the work is of a type that means you couldn't be on the internet all day anyway. Their village doesn't have broadband, they still have a lot of VHS videos in the house, she's never become "an e-Person, an iPerson". The sense of continuity and change rings true even if the voice and cast are a tad cliched.
March 10, 2014
I received a copy of this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
Three quarters of the way through this book, I thought I knew what my review would say. I was going to tell you how "History of the Rain" by Niall Williams is one of the best books I've read; how I've never laughed so much during a book; how the characters pop up out of the page and add so much charm to the story; how reading just a few pages in the morning changed my day.
Having now finished, most of the above is still true. The only thing I want to change is to say: "History of the Rain" may just be THE best book I've ever read - despite reading the last chapter with tears rolling down my face.
It's about Ruth Swain. It's about people - with all their quirks and crazinesses. It's about being who we are, and how we get to being that person. It's about life.
Niall Williams' writing can be summed up in one word: REAL.
I am in awe. This book needs to be read.
Three quarters of the way through this book, I thought I knew what my review would say. I was going to tell you how "History of the Rain" by Niall Williams is one of the best books I've read; how I've never laughed so much during a book; how the characters pop up out of the page and add so much charm to the story; how reading just a few pages in the morning changed my day.
Having now finished, most of the above is still true. The only thing I want to change is to say: "History of the Rain" may just be THE best book I've ever read - despite reading the last chapter with tears rolling down my face.
It's about Ruth Swain. It's about people - with all their quirks and crazinesses. It's about being who we are, and how we get to being that person. It's about life.
Niall Williams' writing can be summed up in one word: REAL.
I am in awe. This book needs to be read.
June 30, 2020
4.5 Stars
Who amongst us here on Goodreads doesn’t have a soft spot for books about books? I know I do, and I love it when authors sneak literary references into their own works. If you can relate to this I'm sure you'll get a lot of enjoyment from History of the Rain by Niall Williams. This novel was jam packed with literary references and I thoroughly enjoyed the way Ruthie, his narrator, described people using characters from other books as her terms of reference. In some ways Williams relied on the fact that his readers would be avid readers and would make the connections that Ruthie made. He banked on us recognising his characters and provided added entertainment by playing with words from other well known poems and novels. The good news is, even if you're not an avid reader, or if you didn't make any of the connections he put out there, the book has lots more to recommend it.
Ruthie is nineteen, she's completely house bound thanks to a medical condition and she's not doing so great. Her days are filled with books and memories of lost family members. Her room is filled with some 4000 books left to her by her much loved father. It is through these books she tries to piece together the man he was. Her book, History of the Rain was her tribute to her Dad. As she put it, "... I found him in his books, in the covers his hands held, the pages they turned, in the paper and print, but also in the words those books contained where now I have been and you have too."
I've always loved the Irish accent and am half tempted to go back and listen to the Audiobook. Ruthie had a wonderful way with words and I could just imagine the sound of her voice. She was quirky, witty at times, and self deprecating often. Her story was both heart wrenching - being flushed with great sadness and grief - and overflowing with love. At the end of it all there was also hope.
The writing was a funny mix of rambling dialogue and pure eloquence but it was always touching and kept me entertained from start to finish. You may notice I have referred to Ruthie's words. Technically, of course, they were the authors words but so real did she seems that I attributed them to the narrator.
This was my first novel by Niall Williams but I truly look forward to exploring any other work he may have produced.
FOOTNOTE - because I'm not yet finished with this one.
I called out the themes of grief, love and hope. Here are a few favorite passages to demonstrate each of these themes - some rambling, some eloquent, always touching.
Grief and sadness were covered this way:
"But the fact is grief doesn't know we invented time. Grief has its own tide and comes and goes in waves "
And
"...people are perishable. That's the thing. Because for everyone you meet there is a last moment, there will be a last moment when your hand slips from theirs, and everything ripples outwards from that, the last firmness of a hand in yours that every moment becomes a little less firm until you look down at your own hand and try to remember what it felt like before their hand slipped away."
Of love:
"...she's in the deep waters of realising that if he was gone her life would be over, which in my book is substance, essence and quintessence of Love."
Or this
" When you are born into a great tide of love, you know it. Though you are only minutes old you know. And when you are days and weeks old and can only receive you know that what you are receiving is love. ....when we lay on the blanket in the kitchen and found a huge finger fitted into our tiny hands, and how just by holding tight you made a smile, we knew....."
And of hope
"She's hoping and trying not to hope at the same time.
And that's the saddest thing. Hope may or may not be a thing with feathers. But its definitely a thing with with claws."
Who amongst us here on Goodreads doesn’t have a soft spot for books about books? I know I do, and I love it when authors sneak literary references into their own works. If you can relate to this I'm sure you'll get a lot of enjoyment from History of the Rain by Niall Williams. This novel was jam packed with literary references and I thoroughly enjoyed the way Ruthie, his narrator, described people using characters from other books as her terms of reference. In some ways Williams relied on the fact that his readers would be avid readers and would make the connections that Ruthie made. He banked on us recognising his characters and provided added entertainment by playing with words from other well known poems and novels. The good news is, even if you're not an avid reader, or if you didn't make any of the connections he put out there, the book has lots more to recommend it.
Ruthie is nineteen, she's completely house bound thanks to a medical condition and she's not doing so great. Her days are filled with books and memories of lost family members. Her room is filled with some 4000 books left to her by her much loved father. It is through these books she tries to piece together the man he was. Her book, History of the Rain was her tribute to her Dad. As she put it, "... I found him in his books, in the covers his hands held, the pages they turned, in the paper and print, but also in the words those books contained where now I have been and you have too."
I've always loved the Irish accent and am half tempted to go back and listen to the Audiobook. Ruthie had a wonderful way with words and I could just imagine the sound of her voice. She was quirky, witty at times, and self deprecating often. Her story was both heart wrenching - being flushed with great sadness and grief - and overflowing with love. At the end of it all there was also hope.
The writing was a funny mix of rambling dialogue and pure eloquence but it was always touching and kept me entertained from start to finish. You may notice I have referred to Ruthie's words. Technically, of course, they were the authors words but so real did she seems that I attributed them to the narrator.
This was my first novel by Niall Williams but I truly look forward to exploring any other work he may have produced.
FOOTNOTE - because I'm not yet finished with this one.
I called out the themes of grief, love and hope. Here are a few favorite passages to demonstrate each of these themes - some rambling, some eloquent, always touching.
Grief and sadness were covered this way:
"But the fact is grief doesn't know we invented time. Grief has its own tide and comes and goes in waves "
And
"...people are perishable. That's the thing. Because for everyone you meet there is a last moment, there will be a last moment when your hand slips from theirs, and everything ripples outwards from that, the last firmness of a hand in yours that every moment becomes a little less firm until you look down at your own hand and try to remember what it felt like before their hand slipped away."
Of love:
"...she's in the deep waters of realising that if he was gone her life would be over, which in my book is substance, essence and quintessence of Love."
Or this
" When you are born into a great tide of love, you know it. Though you are only minutes old you know. And when you are days and weeks old and can only receive you know that what you are receiving is love. ....when we lay on the blanket in the kitchen and found a huge finger fitted into our tiny hands, and how just by holding tight you made a smile, we knew....."
And of hope
"She's hoping and trying not to hope at the same time.
And that's the saddest thing. Hope may or may not be a thing with feathers. But its definitely a thing with with claws."
April 22, 2019
Beautiful writing but just not for me. I struggled with it.
September 30, 2016
These words are from writer 'Niall Williams' of the book 'History of the Rain'. Almost two years ago.
Dear Ravi,
Greetings from a deep dark and starry night in County Clare. Thank you for your email about my novel 'History of the Rain.' It is a wonderful thing that a book written here in the wind and rain of the Atlantic coast of Ireland can reach a reader in India. I am greatly touched by your taking the time to let me know that you enjoyed the novel.
Best wishes from Ireland
Niall
Yes without a doubt it was from him. I know I am writing this very late. But I need to write this.
"I love the smell of the pages, sound of the pages","Books are living things, they have smells and length of life,"Sheer pleasure of human condition is levitation". And "Poetry makes human lives more fine".
I read this book when it was nominated for Booker 2014. When I read it, I read it again then re-read, again read and re-read it many a times (I forgot the count of it)... What I will say I am
touched by anything in this world by it. What books meant to me is same as What it meant to Ruth Swain "As they are life". It almost clutched to my heart and cried for the grief of Ruth Swain ... Not only that I couldn't resist at that time so somehow I clicked on the website of the Author and expressed my sentiments and luckily he replied. Today almost 2 years later when I was browsing my mail box I found these enchanting words again.
Yes this book is very close to me. In fact it will always be under best 5 books of my all time list.
I still keep this one at my desk at my office and read some of the section almost million times.
Once my flatmate scolded me for purchasing so many books (I had around 300 plus something at that time not I lost the count but it must be over 1500 + books now).
And I said "I will read all of them Before Dying"... I was quite shocked when Ruth Swain in the book said same sentences in History of the Rain. More than anything it gaped mouth of my flatmate.
“We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling.”
― Niall Williams, History of the Rain.
Dear Ravi,
Greetings from a deep dark and starry night in County Clare. Thank you for your email about my novel 'History of the Rain.' It is a wonderful thing that a book written here in the wind and rain of the Atlantic coast of Ireland can reach a reader in India. I am greatly touched by your taking the time to let me know that you enjoyed the novel.
Best wishes from Ireland
Niall
Yes without a doubt it was from him. I know I am writing this very late. But I need to write this.
"I love the smell of the pages, sound of the pages","Books are living things, they have smells and length of life,"Sheer pleasure of human condition is levitation". And "Poetry makes human lives more fine".
I read this book when it was nominated for Booker 2014. When I read it, I read it again then re-read, again read and re-read it many a times (I forgot the count of it)... What I will say I am
touched by anything in this world by it. What books meant to me is same as What it meant to Ruth Swain "As they are life". It almost clutched to my heart and cried for the grief of Ruth Swain ... Not only that I couldn't resist at that time so somehow I clicked on the website of the Author and expressed my sentiments and luckily he replied. Today almost 2 years later when I was browsing my mail box I found these enchanting words again.
Yes this book is very close to me. In fact it will always be under best 5 books of my all time list.
I still keep this one at my desk at my office and read some of the section almost million times.
Once my flatmate scolded me for purchasing so many books (I had around 300 plus something at that time not I lost the count but it must be over 1500 + books now).
And I said "I will read all of them Before Dying"... I was quite shocked when Ruth Swain in the book said same sentences in History of the Rain. More than anything it gaped mouth of my flatmate.
“We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling.”
― Niall Williams, History of the Rain.
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