Days Without End

Some comments from Hythe Remainers Book Group:
Loved the strong Irish voice - lyrical. Loved the writing but perhaps not the brutality although felt it was not gratuitous but necessary. Wonderful descriptions of the scale and magnificence of the American landscape, the hunger, the climate extremes.
Challenged preconceptions and stereotypes about North American Indians .
Loved the portrayal of family - unconventional but still very much family with strong bonds and a genuine love and tenderness between the men despite their being brutalised by war.
Liked the focus on love rather than sex. A sort of Broke Back Mountain in some ways.
Found the level of slaughter unpalatable but did trigger me to read more about the place and time and history of the Indian wars and the US Civil War.
Found I was confused about whether they were Unionists or Confederate soldiers at times/ Irishman fighting Irishman. Visceral. Horrors, massacres, war crimes etc . Major as the moral compass. Brothers in arms - tenderness and love contrasts with the visceral blood shedding and explicit descriptions. Scale of it all - 3000 soldiers!
Cross dressing soldiers and Indians was interesting.
Vivid portrayal of the soldiers- their almost animal like blood lust, their camaraderie, loyalty and love for each other, and how war brutalises men . Victims of circumstance.
Disappointed in the ending but well worth reading the sequel 1000 Moons , as it extends Winona’s story. Found that easier to read as a female voice. We never hear John Cole’s voice.
Having grown up watching TV series and films about The Wild West this was a fascinating insight and a more accurate depiction of the early years of the USA and its foundations. Will definitely read more of author’s books. Interesting listening to the podcast interviews with him.
Didn't find a lack of speech marks a problem. Well researched and a fascinating history particularly giving a different view of the dispossessed Indian tribes.
11 of us had read and scored it . Another high scoring book inspite of several of us finding it hard going at times . Several scores of 9. Total score of 90.5 so an average of 8.22.

St Just Monday Morning Reading Group 25th October 2021.

Days without end. Sebastian Barry.

This was a book which seriously divided the readers in this group, for a number of reasons.

Some loved it, thought it was ‘a wonderful book’; ‘a brilliant read’; vivid and well-written and with unforgettable characters; and ‘a reminder that American history was much more complicated and diverse than we are often led to suppose’. An ‘utterly convincing and beautiful’ voice for Thomas, the narrator; and ‘the descriptions of the beauty of the American wilderness and the tender relationship between John Cole,Thomas McNulty and their love and care for Winona was so heartwarming.’ Comparisons were made with Huckleberry Finn and True Grit, as celebrating how human feeling can triumph over hatred and cruelty. It was also put forward that the book is about the American Dream – the hope that keeps people going, and the importance of family.

At the same time, very troubling features were obvious: there was a general atmosphere of brutality from the outset. The descriptions of the treatment of the Indians were probably the worst element of this, but also there were issues with the Irish emigrants - several readers also noted the ironies of Irish soldiers fighting on both sides of the American Civil War, and also of Irish emigrants, who occupied a place at the bottom of the social hierarchy, being employed to kill the Indians, who were even further down the social scale. The fact that the narrator was himself a person from such a background was also mentioned.

Several people drew attention to the beauty of the relationship of Thomas and John Cole with Winona and the desire for them to be a family with her. One also said that “Thomas’s narrative is bursting throughout with his love for the handsome John Cole”.

Almost everyone who read this book agreed that the descriptions of the landscape were highly evocative and very beautifully written, powerfully drawing the reader into the places pictured.

However, the violence in this book did seem to form a significant barrier. Everyone thought that it was at times very difficult to read about all this horror, pain and injustice. And while some readers thought that the accounts of savagery and of attempted dehumanisation of the Indians and of the Irish were balanced by Thomas’s narrative and the triumph of the human spirit, others were unable to read the book at all, entirely put off by the mindset of the brutality in it; they also said they could not identify with the characters, and in one case had a problem with the page layout of the book.

An interesting ‘reading group book’, then, as there were so many differing views!

This book was read during October 2021 and the continuing restrictions due to the Covid-19 virus, and so the discussion was not 'live' as usual, but took place via a Facebook group, email and telephone conversations.

Read with Gloucester Book Club. Sebastian Barry writes so beautifully, in this heart wrenching novel about a young Irish emigrant struggling to survive in America in the Native Indian Wars and the Civil War. Tom is gay, and Barry tells the story with Tom as the narrator leading us through about thirty years of his life and relationships.

I loved it, I loved the style of Barry’s writing, his descriptions were rich and emotive. I’ve wondered whether this book would appeal to men more than women, and I’ve decided both would be equally drawn into it. There is a fair amount of explicit description of battle scenes which may not appeal to some, which is my only slight reservation. It wasn’t an issue for me, but might. E for others. It’s hard to see how Barry could have written a novel about such subjects without being true to what happened. Great book. Thoroughly recommend.

As ever with Barry the novel is carried along by his ability to capture a voice, a time and a place. At once beautiful and horrifying, it's yet another story which approaches big historical issues through the particular prism of characters you grow to love.