The Star Factory by Ciarán Carson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Beautifully written, this memoir (fiction/prose-poem?) of a city and one of the greatest writers that city has ever produced, is both a study in the obsessive cataloguing of facts, images, memories and a powerful exploration of the ways in which we write and are written by our environment. Carson writes Belfast just as Belfast writes Carson. A wonderful, stunning, powerful read.

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Shamrock Tea by Ciarán Carson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Perhaps one of the best, most interesting books I've read in a really long while. The language is, of course, perfect as one would expect from a poet of his caliber. The story is both whimsical and deeply though-provoking. I began re-reading it as soon as I finished it. This is a book I want to own and re-read many, many times.

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12.25.11

today I finished reading Ciaran Carson's stunning novel, "Shamrock Tea" and immediately began reading it again. while looking for something else on Carson, I stumbled across this small piece on him in Guardian about his "writing room" - it's an amazing looking room and one I would love to have to write in myself. Of course, I don't live in Belfast, I'll probably never own (or even rent) a house and will most decidedly never be a writer/poet/scholar of Carson's caliber but all the same, it's a wonderful room...