\u201cRambling Jack\u2014what\u2019s that?\u201d
\n\u201cA novel. Novella, I guess.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, it looks short. What is it, a hundred pages?\u201d
\n\u201cSorta. It\u2019s a duel language book, so really, only about… 50 pages total.\u201d
\n\u201c50 pages?\u201d
\n\u201cIncluding illustrations.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd this\u2014what is it\u2026 Dalkey Archive\u2014they want 14 bucks for a 50 page book?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s pretty short.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is, but the book is good. What does it matter how long it is if it\u2019s a good read?\u201d
\n\u201cI guess. So is it?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d
\n\u201cA good read?\u201d
\n\u201cIt is. Oh yeah.\u201d
\n\u201cRambling, eh? Sounds like fun.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not rambling like a romantic wayward hobo boxcar type of rambling, though.\u201d
\n\u201cNo? Too bad.\u201d
\n\u201cBut it\u2019s good. Rambling, in this case, means rambling imagination.\u201d
\n\u201cHuh?\u201d
\n\u201cThe protagonist. He\u2019s an old guy and his mind rambles and we get to read about it.\u201d
\n\u201cSounds confusing.\u201d
\n\u201cNo, no, the prose is really crisp and clear.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s this other language?\u201d
\n\u201cIrish.\u201d
\n\u201cYou mean Gaelic?\u201d
\n\u201cNo, Irish. It\u2019s 2015 for Christ\u2019s sake.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd this Irish, that\u2019s what it\u2019s written in?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, but the translator, Katherine Duffy, she does a great job.\u201d
\n\u201cAlright, so this is an old Irish guy, this Rambling Jack.\u201d
\n\u201cYes. Jack. He\u2019s Irish. A gifted signer. Knows his old songs and all that.\u201d
\n\u201cWait\u2014there\u2019s songs?\u201d
\n\u201cA few, but it\u2019s mainly a story about an aisling.\u201d
\n\u201cA what?\u201d
\n\u201cAisling. An Irish genre; a poetic technique from, like, the 17th century.\u201d
\n\u201c17th century\u2026 oh god.\u201d
\n\u201cNo, it\u2019s pretty amazing stuff. An aisling is a like a dream, a vision, usually of a girl.\u201d
\n\u201cInteresting.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd, in many cases, a young, beautiful girl.\u201d
\n\u201cGetting more interesting.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s what happens to Jack.\u201d
\n\u201cHe meets a young girl?\u201d
\n\u201cSort of\u2014he has memories of a girl, but it might also be a woman he used to love.\u201d
\n\u201cWait\u2014this is a romance?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s pretty sappy at times. Jack loved a woman and it didn\u2019t end well.\u201d
\n\u201cDrama?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re supposed to know the whole story.\u201d
\n\u201cDamn writers with their games.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, isn\u2019t that better? I like not being spoon fed details. Makes me work a bit.\u201d
\n\u201cI guess.\u201d
\n\u201cAnyway, the young aisling could be the granddaughter of Jack\u2019s old love.\u201d
\n\u201cNice.\u201d
\n\u201cOr maybe she\u2019s a dream of the woman he loved appearing as a young girl.\u201d
\n\u201cSo it\u2019s all a dream, like in a soap opera?\u201d
\n\u201cSorta. It\u2019s a dream and it\u2019s strange and nothing seems concrete, but it works.\u201d
\n\u201cSo this Jack\u2026 does he\u2026 you know. With the young girl?\u201d
\n\u201cLet\u2019s not get into that\u2014the book is really bigger than that.\u201d
\n\u201cBigger? It\u2019s all of 50 pages.\u201d
\n\u201cIncluding illustrations.\u201d
\n\u201cDoesn\u2019t sound big.\u201d
\n\u201cNot long, but big. And strange. And, well, kinda beautiful.\u201d
\n\u201cI dunno\u2026 There\u2019s a new Franzen book. That\u2019s, like, 500 pages.\u201d
\n\u201cSure, but there\u2019s a lot to be said about a writer who can evoke something interesting in a small space as opposed to a large, bombastic novel with a lot of fat on it.\u201d
\n\u201cI guess. Still, sounds a little odd.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah well\u2014life\u2019s too short to not read odd books.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cRambling Jack\u2014what\u2019s that?\u201d \u201cA novel. Novella, I guess.\u201d \u201cYeah, it looks short. What is it, a hundred pages?\u201d \u201cSorta. It\u2019s a duel language book, so really, only about… 50 pages total.\u201d \u201c50 pages?\u201d \u201cIncluding illustrations.\u201d \u201cAnd this\u2014what is it\u2026 Dalkey Archive\u2014they want 14 bucks for a 50 page book?\u201d \u201cYeah.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s pretty short.\u201d \u201cIt is, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[17496,63016,62996,62986,63006,22356],"class_list":["post-302936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-dalkey-archive-press","tag-irish-literature","tag-katherine-duffy","tag-micheal-o-conghaile","tag-rambling-jack","tag-vincent-francone"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335396,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302936\/revisions\/335396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}