This is happiness.
This is happiness.
This is happiness.
So says Christy, one of the characters in Niall Williams’
novel, “This Is Happiness.” Christy rides his bicycle with our protagonist and
narrator Noel (Noe) Crowe in Faha in County Clare, Ireland. It’s the spring of
1958. Christy is an electric man, sent to the village to sign up people for
“the electric,” the miracle of electricity finally coming to rural Ireland. It
takes a while for Williams to reveal the man’s true purpose, to apologize to a
local widow, Annie Mooney, for leaving her at the altar 50 years before.
Christy finds shelter with Noe and his grandparents, Doady and Ganga.
Noe, 17, learns of the man’s mission and vows to help and
therein lies the heartache and happiness of the tale. Noe fled to his
grandparents’ house after his mother died, he quit the seminary and found
himself at loose ends with his father in Dublin. For Noe: “All that had
stitched me into this life came undone and I couldn’t escape the feeling that
folded against my back were wings that had failed to open.” I don’t know of a
better description of being 17 in Dublin or Faha or Daytona Beach, Florida. Anywhere.
This is my first Williams’ novel and I was entranced by its
first lines, “It had stopped raining.” The reader finds that Faha is a soggy,
boggy place, not accustomed to sunny days that stretch on forever and make life
intriguing. It stops raining the Wednesday of Holy Week and the sun stays, as
if the Good Lord himself willed it on the most sacred time of the Catholic
year.
The writer’s style is beguiling, filled with his Irish voice
and there is no stopping the reading once you’ve begun. You even begin speaking
like the characters after awhile. You’re hooked. The ending can’t be predicted.
You’re along for a joyful, sometimes heart-rending, ride.
Ann Patchett promoted the novel on one of her “New Book
Friday” sessions from Parnassus Books in Nashville. I love her books so
anything she suggests gets my attention. I am Irish-American, my grandfather
came as a lad from County Roscommon with his own sad story that took him all
the way to his 90th birthday. He was a serious man yet kind, the man
who always brought ice cream to our house. When I lost my college scholarship,
he sent me a 20-dollar bill every month. That was happiness!
There is an Irish voice in literature. You know it when you
hear it. Filled with words and humor and sadness. You could say that about
writers from other traditions. Jewish writers, for instance, know a bit about
dark humor. But literature has a strong Irish voice and that’s what you hear in
Williams. He lives with his wife Christine Breen and their pets in a renovated cottage in west
Clare abandoned in 1910 when Chris's grandfather left for the U.S.
This Is happiness. Keep saying it while pedaling your
beat-up bicycle through the heather in County Clare or wherever you may be.
This Is Happiness.
Postscript: Checking out Williams' web site, I entered his world and his wife's. Listening to a snippet of their book, "In Kiltumper: A Year in an Irish Garden," I decided to buy the audiobook. I don't listen to many audiobooks but this one combines the voices of the writers with gardening and a view of rural Ireland in 2021. How could I resist?
