John B KeaneDurango

What's not to like about John b keane ? Sad exciting funny.

If you like "The Bodhran Makers" you'll enjoy this. Full of colourful characters from Ireland's past. A good read if you want a flavour of recent Irish history.

Fantastic story, highly recommend

As good as it gets. Thanks. RK

I loved the expressive descriptions of the author’s home places, the people of Kerry and what they got up to. These expressive descriptions also extended to their animals and in some instances bestowing on them very human characteristics, both good and bad.The author, at heart, is a story teller even though some times the stories took on a fantastical twist and great adventure as the cattle drive’s planning, execution and eventual conclusion came to fruition.Many aware of the author as an esteemed playwright are sometimes unaware of the novels he has written. Durango, written & published in the nineties, was actually set in the period, 1938-39, just before WW2.The author was not afraid to send up various elements of society in 1930s Ireland either by the ‘tongue in cheek’ descriptions of various practices in play at the time such as the ‘arse patterer’, the names given to various characters such as Monsignor Binge and local businessmen such as publicans particularly as the author and his family also ran a pub themselves in Kerry!Some have considered the book overly long and in dire need of a good editor however once you get into the story this becomes less of a factor and it's hard to put it down. However, I do accept that the book took a while to get going but when it did I was glued to the pages.Some people reckon that only Irish people should read this book as only they can fully understand all it's nuances. I don't agree. A good story is a good story so I would have no qualms in recommending it to anyone. People you may think wouldn’t enjoy it may do so and vice versa.

Not a literary work, even somewhat unpolished, but powerful in the authenticity of its setting and the archetypal nature of the story. Very funny much of the time too.The time is 1939 and the place is Kerry, a remote world of mountain and damp grassland given over to small family farms devoted to raising cattle. No tractors, and transport is by horse and cart. Annual income is crucially dependent on the prices cattle will fetch at the markets you have to walk them to.Keane invests this world with epic qualities. A disparate band of adventurers overcome many hazards to lead a collection of cattle over mountain trails to a faraway market in search of better prices and a better life for their backward community. Despite the echoes of the Cattle Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúailnge), the hero is probably more Odysseus than Cúchulainn, more a subtle and wily leader than a ferocious and flawed warrior.As in Homer, he and his men have also to navigate the wiles of various nymphs and enchantresses. The two gorgeous sisters who own Durango, the inn of final refuge and celebration, are surely pagan goddesses. In the end they give up their life of glorious liberty and, old age imminent, surrender to the omnipotent Christian god.There is much giving up at the close. Characters who have pursued false gods, or not served well enough the true god, find reconciliation, some in death and others in new life. The world is sinking into war and many things will be different when it ends.

Very funny novel based in mid 1900s Kerry.