Eureka Street - Robert McLiam Wilson

*** I liked only half of it 

It is undoubted that McLiam Robert Wilson knows how to write well. He manages to engage you fully in the reading. Unfortunately this has the effect of transmitting you both positive and negative aspects of what you read. The identification is such that, when you are told in great detail what happens to the bodies of the victims of an attack, this bothers you a lot. Similarly, you cannot disregard certain parts of the story that are not credible, because the suspension of disbelief does not always work when you have the impression of being there as well.

All this cannot but affect the final judgment of a work.

I liked it a lot the first half of the novel, because I found it fun and light, although in a tragic background, as if to emphasise the fact that despite the “war” life, with its small and big problems, continues. I’ve also found amusing the characterization of Northern Ireland people, who, as the author says, Protestants or Catholics in the end are all the same and do not realise it.

Then halfway in the novel there was a real trauma. The detail of the violence reminded me of scenes from “The Final Destination 3D,” which is not exactly a merit. This disturbed me a lot and at other times I would probably put the book aside, because the desire to read had passed.

I continued, however, and the story is partly returned to the previous tone, but at the same time increasing the distance between the two main characters: Chuckie in an incredible escalation goes from loser to famous and on the other hand Jake that instead follows a more plausible path, but decidedly less interesting. 

The two sides clash dramatically. In the end, because I read for fun, I liked the most heartening story of Chuckie, despite its total improbability and despite the fact that the author left it slyly open at the end, because he had exceeded the limit and going on would lead to no good.

That of Jake is instead a story marked from the outset with an absolutely obvious and banal ending, disguised as a twist.

I also appreciated the stylistic choice to use two points of view in the narrative, although the fact of physically separate from one chapter to another, without adequately specifying it, is a bit confusing, especially in the beginning.

In any case it was an interesting read, especially for those like me who have been to Belfast, but long after the end of the Troubles and therefore find it difficult to compare their own memory with what told in the book.

A good soundtrack of this story would be the song “Take Back the City” by Snow Patrol, dedicated to Belfast.

Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other on Amazon.com.