Ó hAoḋa

The Books I Read in March, April, May, & June 2026

Introduction§

I didn’t get as much reading done in March as I had hoped, as I was laid low with sickness twice: the first time, with a case of strep throat that the doctor described rather bluntly as “very bad” — not exactly hope-inspiring words to hear from a medical professional — and I was prescribed a week of antibiotics; on the final day of this course of antibiotics, I made the delightful discovery that I had developed an allergy to penicillin and swelled up like an obese lobster, and was forced to traipse back into the doctor’s office once more. I tend not to read much when I’m unwell, and so I didn’t do a whole lot of reading for two-ish weeks of the month. However, I don’t want to give the impression that this somehow means that the reading throughput of the month was somehow unusually low: I have it on good authority that life is going to happen to me every month of my life, whether I like it or not!

Then, between one thing and another I didn’t find the time to write this blog post and it languished half-finished in a Git worktree on my laptop, which I then broke, and then sort-of repaired, and now here we are in July. During this time, I reflected on what I was finding so difficult about writing these blog posts and why they were taking me so long, and I realised that it came down to two things primarily:

1. I, despite my better sense, felt some acute sense of pressure to have a meaty list of books to list in my blog post — essentially prioritising quantity over quality, and seeking to impress some imaginary person who certainly would not care even if they did exist. Time has more-or-less cured me of this: I just couldn’t be bothered to care any more after letting this sit for so long.
2. I think I was frankly putting too much effort into my little reviews: short though they may be, I genuinely did put quite a bit of effort into writing these overviews, trying my best to be fair, analytical, and interesting. Going forward I shall make more of an effort to be pithy and opinionated. Take for example, the entry on the Short Stories of Pádraic Pearse below: in my original draft for this post, I intended to write an analysis of each of these short stories in Irish, and then translate it into English as well, while providing accurate and thought-provoking analysis in both languages — who has the time for that sort of thing?

The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky§

A heartbreaking tale of a man Christ-like in his simplicity, in an exploitative and false world with which he is incompatible. The main character, Prince Myshkin, has a saintliness that could be mistaken for idiocy, or a child-like naïvety: I am reminded how Christ is often portrayed as a vulnerable and innocent child or lamb, and draw a parallel to my discussions of Pearse’s short story Íosagán below. The book illustrates how the Russia of the day could not facilitate the existence of a truly Christ-like man, and one is reminded that of course, neither could Roman Galilee.

Rashōmon – Akutagawa Ryūnosuke§

Extremely enjoyable, with some of the most vivid imagery and scene-setting in anything that I’ve read before, along with some excellent psychological characterisation. Rashōmon itself is particularly vivid and haunting. Horse Legs, in which a man is returned from the dead but with the legs of a horse in place of his original legs, reminded me strongly of the Irish tale of in which a king goes to great lengths to prevent anyone finding out that he has donkey ears — tá ḋá ċluis asail ar Laḃraiḋ Loingseaċ! . Hell Screen is similarly haunting and compelling, and contains the extremely relatable quote:

Born stupid, I can never understand anything that isn’t perfectly obvious, and so I had no idea what to say to her.

I highly recommend this collection of short stories and will be keeping an eye out for more of Akutagawa’s works in the future.

Thirst for Love – Mishima Yukio§

Like all of Mishima’s novels, deeply disturbing but nonetheless psychologically insightful. The evolution of Etsuko’s mind from numb loneliness, to mounting obsession, to fatal cruelty inspires a sense of impending horror in the reader. Her spiralling descent into increasingly irrational and erratic behaviour reminds me of the plight of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Itakura Shuri in Akutagawa’s Loyalty, and even, in a way, Esther in The Bell Jar. I found the following quote from the text particularly pertinent:

Rumour sometimes follows a more precise logic than fact, and fact more than rumour is apt to have a lie in it somewhere.

Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky§

I don’t think there’s any commentary I can add on this book that hasn’t been said already: a deeply religious masterpiece. One detail that particularly struck me is how Raskolnikov’s guilt is cemented by the murder of Lizaveta. He could have half-justified, in a brutal and utilitarian way, the murder of the old woman alone, but this crime against nature forces him into a position where he is no longer able to simply opt-in or opt-out of immorality: the arrival of Lizaveta forces him to choose between being caught or just another murder — because how different is 2 to 1 really? However, Lizaveta was more than innocent, and no argument could be submitted to justify her murder in good faith.

At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien§

Like all of Flann O’Brien’s works, a masterpiece. Incredibly interesting, a unique and masterful layered approach to storytelling, and very funny. The characterisation of Finn Mac Cool’s lengthy and boring explanations of personal histories will be very funny and relatable to anyone who’s read any medieval Irish texts (e.g., Agallaṁ na Seanóraċ ), with the stories often being interrupted with some lengthy genealogy to explain some minor detail of a place name: obviously important from a histiographical perspective, but not always an enjoyable diversion from the story. A must-read of Irish literature.

An idea that occurred to me while reading this, which I’m sure has both occurred to many others before me (but I’ve never seen) and which I’m not at all qualified to properly commentate, is that the likes of James Joyce and Brian Ó Nualláin (the legal name of Flann O’Brien), far from being progenitors of a new form of multi-layered and complex writing (often associated with literary modernism), are following in a broader tradition of Irish writing with multiple layers of meaning. Perhaps I’m making two kinds of stretches in this argument: first, that the multi-layered storytelling approach so associated with Joyce and his ilk is really comparable or indeed subsequent to the multi-layered symbolism of medieval writing, and secondly that this multi-layered symbolism can really be called uniquely Irish. However, as an example of what I mean, I would direct the reader to the excellent lecture delivered by Dr. Jesse Patrick Harrington in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies lecture Series Samhain agus Science Christian Curses in Medieval Ireland, in which (among a great many other interesting things), he discusses how St. Patrick was said to have cursed a British king named Coroticus with the words “Lord, if it possible, expel this godless man from this world and from the next”, and subsequently Coroticus was transformed into a fox and was never seen again.

Dr. Harrington goes on to describe how in early Irish law, the word sionnaċ ¹ or fox was also used to refer to an exile, and the excommunication from the Church is an exile from the Christian community. He goes on to explain further symbolism from the story, but to save from me (poorly) summarising his lecture here, I will suffice with a quotation:

Medieval authors intended their stories to be read on multiple levels. Some audiences may have taken the story literally, as if Coroticus was actually transformed into a fox; the more educated, those familiar with the law, may have taken it figuratively, referring to his exile; while the clergy, for their part, may have taken it morally, referring to his spiritual state. All of these meanings are inherent in the text, and any one of them could have been emphasises to underscore Patrick’s spiritual authority, alongside the seriousness of Corticus’ offence.

It may be interpreted here that I’m foolishly claiming that symbolism is a uniquely Irish invention, but that’s not what I mean; what I mean is that the complex and unexplained symbolism and themes in something like Joyce’s Ulysses is, far from being unique to Joyce, something that can be found in Irish literature going back centuries. Brian Ó Nualláin for his part, having studied early Irish literature (evidenced by the inclusion of Finn Mac Cool and Mad King Sweeney in At Swim-Two-Birds, but also having studied it formally at university, producing his M.A thesis on Nature in Irish Poetry²) would have certainly been aware of this tradition, and therefore, I argue, seen his work as a continuation of this tradition, not as an invention of his or Joyce’s.

Short Stories of Pádraic Pearse – Desmond Maguire§

This collection of short stories by Pádraic Pearse was a bilingual edition, with English text on the left page and the original Irish on the right. I’ve been intending for a while now to increase my reading in both Irish and French, having held myself back for some time on the basis that my skill in whichever language wasn’t “at the level” for that sort of activity — as if it would ever improve to that level without throwing myself into the deep end and trying to read in that language (my occasional perusal of the RSS feeds for RTÉ Nuacht, Tuairisc, and Le Monde notwithstanding). This edition being bilingual was a boon in that regard: whenever I didn’t understand a word or phrase, I could glance to the left and read its translation, before returning to the text.

I hummed and hawed at length about the optimal way to go about reading a bilingual text (making, as I am wont to do, perfection the enemy of good), and considered two potential lines of attack before settling on a third:

1. Read the English translation through in its entirety, and then read the original: I’ve seen people recommending this approach online, and while it certainly sounds sensible, I knew that I simply could not be bothered to read the same piece of text twice in a row.
2. Reading the original text, and looking up any unfamiliar words or phrases, and adding them to deck of flashcards: I think this sort of thing is called “mining” in language-learning communities (at least with respect to the acquisition of kanji in Japanese studies). I made a good attempt at this in the beginning, but it was incredibly distracting and time-consuming³, and for me destroyed much of the enjoyment of actually reading the text.
3. Just ploughing through the original text, glancing at the translation where needs be: ultimately, this approach was the only serious contender because it was the only approach in which I actually read the original text in a timely manner, and that didn’t turn the enjoyable act of reading into an incredibly arduous chore. The success of this approach in comparison with the previous two was such that I’ll probably continue “just ploughing through” for any future non-English texts I read, bilingual or not; however, this remains to be seen.

Given the approach that was ultimately adopted, I’m afraid I can’t really comment on the quality of Maguire’s translation, as I didn’t really read it; what little I did read however, was generally pretty good, although I wouldn’t always have made the same choices. Sometimes, he chose to simplify a phrase or opted not to translate it literally, which I found inconveniencing when I tried to use his translation as a sort of dictionary, but I don’t think he can reasonably be faulted for this.

Since the collection of short stories here was somewhat eclectic, I’ve chosen to list each one which I wish to comment on individually, which additionally neatly separates my comments on each; the comments I wrote in Irish because I thought it most suitable for Gaelic subject matter, but my English translations of these can be found below its corresponding Gaelic original.⁴

This short story is a very simple story, but it’s an enjoyable story anyway. It reminds me of the sort of story that the old priest Father Lavin told us when I was a primary school student. He told us a range of stories, and after his brain surgery a gloomier character came upon them: stories about death in the trenches, self-inflicted gunshots, and a version of The Widow’s Offering with an alcoholic man who gave two bottles of beer as an offering to the baby Jesus at Christmas Eve Mass. I learned a lot from those stories.

Íosagán⁵ is a beautiful story, and the faith of Pearse is to be seen in it. It illustrates the path to God not through the Church but through personal virtue, and in particular love for children; perhaps not the most Catholic belief, but characteristic of the sort of traditional faith of the old people of Ireland. It reminds us to see Christ in every child.

I didn’t understand that this story was a metaphor for tuberculosis before I discussed it with my mother on the phone: I thought that it was about suicide or something like that, but my mother remembered it from school and that the heart of the story was the phrase “glow in the cheek” — the characteristic sign of tuberculosis, apparent recovery before rapid death.

Horrible yet very interesting story about a cursed woman in a small village and the interaction of the woman with the population of that area. There is a link between this story and the discussion I made in the section §At Swim-Two-Birds above: a priest put his curse on the woman, and from that day, she was a pariah. But, this story puts our concept of justice in question: we don’t know what the cursed woman did, but the priest put his curse on her and the curse comes into effect, and therefore it appears that the woman is an evil person, because the anger of the priest & God is on her. However, we see that she isn’t a person without mercy: she delivers a young child from drowning, and she shows kindness to the child after that. It is understood that she is not a person without virtue. Alas, the child goes under the dominance of the curse, and she dies. Where is the justice when a penalty is put on an innocent child for the good deed of another person?

A heartbreaking story about an old widow who does be always waiting for her son coming home; however, her son isn’t coming home — he was killed years ago by the English. We see Pearse’s nationalism and his righteous fury directly in this story. For example:

“He didn’t die at all”, says my father with a black face on him. “He was MURDERED”.

“Who killed your own grandfather? Who drew the red blood from the shoulders of my own grandmother with a lash? Who would do that but the Foreigners⁶? My curse on —”

I drew great enjoyment from this extract:

My mother was so kind-hearted that she wouldn’t like to cast a bad word upon the devil himself. I believe there was pity with her in her heart for Cain and for Judas and for Diarmaid of the Foreigners⁷.

This extract is a very Irish extract — the three worst people, according to Pearse: Cain, Judas, and Diarmait Mac Murchada. Three murderers & traitors — compare this with the three worst sinners according to Dante: Judas, Brutus, & Cassius.

Maxims & Reflections – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe^†§

I was quite excited to pick up this book on my most recent bookshop visit, as I greatly enjoyed reading Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther; Goethe, being one of the greatest German geniuses⁸ of all time, was sure — I felt — to have a fascinating and rich collection of aphorisms. Sadly, I found this collection to be mind-numbingly boring and abandoned reading it, with no intention to pick it back up (for the foreseeable future at least). I didn’t find any of the contents particularly interesting, just the assorted thoughts of some guy on various subjects, none particularly interesting.

In Goethe’s defence, these maxims were originally spread out across several different volumes and not all were published by him in his lifetime, so he can hardly be blamed for them producing a terribly boring book when piled together. There are some really quite good quotes in there, but distilled into one volume like this they come across as little more than mildly interesting shower thoughts. Some of my favourites (before I gave up circa p.54) included:

Because he speaks, everyone believes that he can also speak about language.

What we call good conduct and manners is meant to achieve what could otherwise only be effected by force, or not even by force.

The miller thinks that no wheat grows except to keep his mill going.

And, for reasons which I’m sure are quite obvious, my least favourite was:

A collection of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest treasure for a man of the world — as long as he knows how to weave the former into apposite points of the course of conversation, and to recall the latter on fitting occasions.

The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis§

An entertaining and illuminating read, dealing with the banality of evil and instructing one in how to avoid falling into devilish traps by counter-example. Points out a number of easy traps one might fall into, like how easy it is to infer mal-intent when a household member annoys you, while simultaneously demanding that everything you do to annoy them be taking purely at face value and good-intentioned, and how relationships fail because the couple overlook issues in the honeymoon period and rely on their passion to make them tolerate these issues, and so when the honeymoon period ends they have not developed any of the tools or communication tools to deal with these issues directly.

Often, I have found it useful in my life when facing a personal problem to imagine what I would do if I were a demonic entity actively sabotaging that aspect of my life. For example, when going through a period of having difficulty sleeping, I ask myself what I would do if I were actively trying to sabotage my sleep: I would drink lots of caffeine, go to bed at irregular times, wake up at irregular times, start and end my day by filling my mind with useless yet highly stimulating information from a blue-light-emitting screen, and maintain poor sleep hygiene by lying in bed all day. I wouldn’t eat well, or exercise, and so know I wouldn’t be tired at the end of the day. I would do most of my work at night, and stay inside during the day to maximally disrupt my circadian rhythm. Then, I ask myself which of those things I am currently doing, and the answer is very often “essentially all of them”.

Say Nothing – Radden Keefe§

A harrowing and detailed account of IRA activity during the Troubles. Well-researched, with a compelling narrative, and a very good entry-level historical account of the IRA’s role in the Troubles. Would certainly recommend.

On Everything – Hilaire Belloc*§

I picked up an old and faded copy of this book from some corner of my late grandfather’s house, which is plastered in bookshelves from head to toe. My grandfather was evidently a big fan of Belloc, and bought all of his grandchildren Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children which contains a wonderful selection of poems, each about a child who was naughty in some way or another and as a result of this naughtiness suffered some horrible death⁹ (the book is more child-friendly than I make it sound, think something on the level of Horrible Histories or similar); indeed, to this day, I can recite the tale of Matilda: Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death by heart.

This book contains of a series of essays on various subjects, none of which insult the reader by spelling out the meaning of the author directly, but illustrate it through example. My favourite of these essays was On an Empty House in which a man who is in the process of buying a home is joined in a viewing by a friend, whose presence in the house lit up the home with a life and spirit, and upon her leaving of the house shortly thereafter, he comes to see the house he was once enthusiastic to purchase as empty, bleak, cold, and desolate, and ultimately ends up aborting the whole thing and never buying a house at all.

I also greatly enjoyed the essays in which Belloc creates portraits of geographical areas that would inspire anyone to visit: On the Approach to Western England, The Weald, and A Crossing of the Hills, to name my favourites. Another favourite was The Duel, in which two students are set to kill one another over an insult that neither the giver nor the receiver really understood, over a matter neither seemed to remember, pressured by their social circumstances and a need to preserve one’s honour in the foreign country in which they both were living (France), despite both being English.

Belloc was a truly fascinating man, and I look forward to reading more of his works in the future.