Love Annihilated

The Irish writer Sebastian Barry's great subject

- Adam Begley

Five years ago, when Sebastian Barry was appointed laureate for Irish fiction, he delivered a lecture that began with what he confessed was a truism: "All things pass away, our time on Earth is brief, and yet we may feel assailed at great length in this brief time, and yet we may reach moments of great happiness." The whiplash repetition of "and yet" is typical Barry, and so is the stoic resolve behind the truism, a long, bleak perspective that accedes to the inevitable, with misery and joy cozying up to each other. Reading his novels is like braving Irish weather: You're chilled and drenched and dazzled and baked in buffeting succession.

His new novel, Old God's Time, his ninth, is a beautiful, tragic book about an "old policeman with a buckled heart" who's assailed at great length and yet enjoys streaks of jubilance, even after repeated assaults. I find the book powerful enough to want to bang the drum and say as loudly and clearly as I can that Barry ought to be widely read and revered-he ought to be a laureate for fiction everywhere.