Benton vs. the Truth

and-the-Colonel romance. He is named at last. A false name, of course: nonetheless, at some distance, with some objectivity, he has authored himself. Under, in both senses, a pseudonym.

Yet redemption is implicit: in the robust, clean imagery that P (and McGahern) find congenial. Style is optimistic: precise, modest: even chaste. His wonderful and nameless uncle has “the rude health of a tree full of crows.” That metaphor is natural and pure: it would seem to derive straight from Irish idiom rather than from studied effort. “A car with a school of motoring sign went slowly past, a young woman tensely upright at the wheel, the instructor slumped by her side.” Just circumstantial evidence, you might think. Yet a trenchant emblem for the emotional state of Josephine and P. McGahern writes with healing grace: he is easy and brilliant. A rare example of salvation by prose style.

and-the-Colonel romance. He is named at last. A false name, of course: nonetheless, at some distance, with some objectivity, he has authored himself. Under, in both senses, a pseudonym.

Yet redemption is implicit: in the robust, clean imagery that P (and McGahern) find congenial. Style is optimistic: precise, modest: even chaste. His wonderful and nameless uncle has “the rude health of a tree full of crows.” That metaphor is natural and pure: it would seem to derive straight from Irish idiom rather than from studied effort. “A car with a school of motoring sign went slowly past, a young woman tensely upright at the wheel, the instructor slumped by her side.” Just circumstantial evidence, you might think. Yet a trenchant emblem for the emotional state of Josephine and P. McGahern writes with healing grace: he is easy and brilliant. A rare example of salvation by prose style.