Robert Kanigel

ON AN IRISH ISLAND

Awarded Michael J. Durkan Prize, American Conference for Irish Studies, 2012

Review Excerpts

"A remote setting, a handful of young visitors, a collection of colorful locals, an ancient language and a story that spans half a century: These are but a few of the elements that make Robert Kanigel's On an Irish Island an exuberant and delightful book...[It can be read] as an erudite primer to the [literary] works of the islanders; as a beautifully assured ensemble biography; and as a large-scale portrait of a remarkable time in the history of Great Blasket and the wider world. Yet it is, above all, a compelling tale of ordinary -- and often enviable -- lives in an extraordinary setting." -- Wall Street Journal

"The portraits in this book are classic Kanigel: lively, sympathetic and thoroughly engaging...A mesmerizing interplay of lives and socio-historical contexts." -- Kirkus, starred review

"Scholars and literary types fell in love with Ireland’s Great Blasket Island in the previous century, just when it was in its twilight. The doomed love affair, the dying—what could be more Irish?" -- Malcolm Brown, The Daily Beast

An "impressively researched, greatly inviting history." -- Booklist

"Deliciously homes in on the 'singularly severe glory' of the Blasket Islands off the west coast of county Kerry." -- Boston Globe

"An unexpected combination of characters, all treated with dignity and sensitivity." -- John L. Murphy, New York Journal of Books

A tale of “hardscrabble but joyful life.” – Rachel Nolan, San Francisco Chronicle.

"Robert Kanigel's history weaves a ribbon around your heart...Part literature history, part Irish history, and a liberal dash of encroaching modern times make On an Irish Island an escapist magical journey that will crawl into your psyche. -- San Francisco Book Review

"Perceptive and well-balanced" -- Columbus Dispatch

"On an Irish Island might be the next great Irish story...A fascinating collection of tales." -- Portland Book Review (Oregon)

"In his clear-eyed yet admiring chronicle..., Kanigel charms us with visions of [a] disappeared world, while raising intriguing questions about how even the most loving, respectful visitor can forever alter a remote destination....Kanigel turns his admirable trove of research into a surprisingly jaunty read, entertaining all these complicated and sometimes troubling possibilities with wisdom and no small amount of warmth." -- Cherie Ann Parker, Shelf Awareness

"Kanigel rewrites his literary fieldwork into a chronicle that is alive and kicking on every page; his writing conveys the flavor, scent, and sound of life on a remote Irish island...[On an Irish Island is] a story rich in color and texture, and is viable as a work of cultural anthropology in its own right." -- Janette Van Gruisen, The Independent Scholar Quarterly

"Shortly after the turn of the last century, a handful of scholars started making pilgrimages to Great Blasket Island, a storm-wracked lament of granite, bog, and pasture about three miles out into the Atlantic off the west coast of Ireland, home to some 150 souls and a lovely strain of the Irish tongue. The scholars, linguists from the mainland and from the Continent, came for the language but soon found themselves beguiled by the people and their island life. There followed for thirty years a fruitful exchange between the residents and the scholars, which Robert Kanigel artfully and empathetically chronicles in On an Irish Island...In passages that have a wonderful, ecstatic quality, Kanigel traces [George] Thomson's notion that Homer had come alive on Great Blasket." -- Peter Lewis, Barnes & Noble Review

"Kanigel tells a fascinating piece of history...[Nowadays], what's gone is the whole concept of village life, without television, iPads or Beyonce. There's no point in posing questions about where such a life went, or whether we can get it back. But now, at least, we've got this lovely book." -- Carolyn See, Washington Post

Review Excerpts, Irish heritage publications

"Kanigel captures the wild bleak beauty of the island while weaving an intricate tangle of [human] relationships...Beyond being a fascinating slice of history, Kanigel's riveting narrative prompts one to question what we may be missing that the islanders, in all their simplicity, found." -- Sabina Clarke, Irish Edition

An "immensely readable and passionate exploration" of the Blasket story. A "masterful study...This book is literally spellbinding." -- Irish Central

"Kanigel is a gifted storyteller in his own right. Rather than offering a typical historical narrative, [he] makes sure that his chronicle of Great Blasket Island is both entertaining and informative. The place comes alive." -- Irish America

The author "places a solid literary stamp on a rich Irish legacy. Readers quickly sense in his text a passion not only for the wondrous historical tale he unveils but his own love of the written word....A wild ride on the Blasket Islands literary rollercoaster." -- Desert Shamrock, Phoenix, AZ

Full text, Kirkus starred review of On an Irish Island

"A richly detailed biographical study of a group of early-20th-century intellectuals whose shared love for a dying insular culture helped save it from extinction.

"Kanigel displays his abundant erudition and narrative finesse in this story of how four European intellectuals—classicist George Thomson, British Museum curator Robin Flower and linguists Carl Marstrander and Marie-Louise Sjoestedt—found their lives forever changed by encounters with the people of Great Blasket Island, off the coast of Ireland. The four traveled to this remote island at different times and for different reasons. Thomson followed the suggestion of his friend and fellow Celtophile Flower and went to Blasket for the “Gaeltacht,” the Irish culture which had already enchanted Flower. Marstrander, a Norwegian, sought to examine the linguistic links that bound the Vikings to the ancient Celts. The sophisticated Parisian Sjoestedt sought the opportunity to study one of the most complex linguistic systems in the world. Although the islanders lived in "primitive" conditions, all four visitors became enthralled by the rich island culture. Interwoven among these overlapping, sometimes intersecting biographies are other stories, including that of playwright John Millington Synge, who went to the island to learn spoken Irish; and those of the men and women the four scholars befriended, loved and inspired. Thanks to their influence, dialect-rich folktales and life histories that would otherwise have perished found their way into Irish literary history. The portraits in this book are classic Kanigel: lively, sympathetic and thoroughly engaging. Yet what makes the narrative so affecting is the loss that permeates the text. As cultures like those on Great Blasket continue to be destroyed by the march of progress, so too are our connections to a simpler, more personally fulfilling way of living.

"A mesmerizing interplay of lives and socio-historical contexts."

Vintage paperback, 2013

Knopf hardcover, 2012

Great Ideas Change the World

MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Robert Kanigel |
On An Irish Island

Thinking about the pace of modern life

"The eternal oppositions remain: To live challenging lives that
don’t grind us down with their pace and pressure. To sample
the best of the ‘simple’ things while enjoying the benefits of a
complex and sophisticated society. To exult in the beauty of
wild places without destroying them through use. To embrace
the wisdom of our parents and grandparents while adapting to
new situations and passing on new wisdom to our children."

— from On An Irish Island, by Robert Kanigel

An ongoing exploration about contemporary life

An award-winning science writer and author of the acclaimed biography The Man Who Knew Infinity, Robert Kanigel has spent his career exploring the evolution of society through a series of unique lenses that reveal what we have gained from modernity—and what we’ve lost.

Whether detailing the life of the world’s first efficiency expert (in The One Best Way), or the history of imitation leather (in Faux Real), Kanigel zeros in on the roots of our modern way of life, providing mirrors with which to see ourselves. “I’ve long been preoccupied with the pace of modern life and what it does to us,” said Kanigel, a Professor of Science Writing in the School’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies.

On An Irish Island | the lens of a traditional fishing community

In his forthcoming book, On An Irish Island, Kanigel examines the path not taken—a communal life free of modern technology—to see what we have all traded in for today’s fast-paced existence.

The Great Blasket Island, a small rocky outcrop visible from Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula, had its heyday in the early 20th century, when the island’s fishing village still had about 150 residents, and a series of linguists and writers—most notably J.M. Synge (author of Playboy of the Western World)—came to the island to study the Irish language and culture in its native form.

"Nobody’s going back to live the way people lived
on the Great Blasket Island. It was a brutally hard life.
But I don't think that means we 21st century people
can't stop running around for a minute to think back.
If my readers came away stopping to think about
these issues and reflect on their own lives, I'd be pleased."

— Robert Kanigel, Professor of Science Writing

A hard way of life, rich in human connections

The island had no plumbing, no priests, no shops, and no electricity. Most residents were illiterate, and all human communication—from simple gossip to news of an approaching storm—took place in person. The islanders entertained themselves with music, dancing, and storytelling.

“The visiting scholars fell in love with the life there... They found something they didn’t expect—a life deeply appealing to them,” Kanigel said. “This was like an antidote to modern life.”

The scholars recorded native stories and poems, wrote of their own experiences, and encouraged the locals to record theirs, with the result that a rich body of literature emerged very quickly from this one tiny enclave. But Kanigel doesn’t attempt to reimagine the lives of the Irish-speaking fishermen. “A lot has been written about the Great Blasket,” he said. “This book is as much about us—what it’s like to be confronted with a completely different way of life—as about them.”

A place that inspired scholars and writers

On an Irish Island centers on George Thomson, a London-born, Cambridge-educated classicist who first traveled to the island at the age of 19 to learn the language. Thomson was charmed by the communal spirit of the place, where singing and dancing were common entertainments, and lives were profoundly interconnected. Thomson became a gifted speaker of Irish, and became enamored of a local girl, Mary Kearney.

Interwoven with Thomson’s story are tales of other visitors, including Robin Flower, a medievalist and poet who worked at the British Museum, Carl Marstrander, a Norwegian linguist, and Marie-Louise Sjoestedt, a French linguist. Kanigel also writes of the Blasket natives of this era (roughly 1905-1950), several of whom becames authors themselves—notably Peig Sayers, Maurice O’Sullivan, and Thomas O’Crohan, author of the Irish classic The Islandman.

“The visiting scholars fell in love with the life there.
They found something they didn’t expect—
a simple life deeply appealing to them."

An ensemble biography

Of his forthcoming book, Kanigel says, "It's a kind of ensemble biography...about a clash of culture, with heroes and heroines among both the islanders and the visitors. It’s about love, language, and a culture rich in folklore, poetry, and verbal play."

“Today the world is moving very fast,” Kanigel continues, “There’s been a replacement of physical things with evanescent things—images on the screen. The kind of relationships we have are changing. Here was a culture where everything was face to face.”

What qualities of traditional culture are still appealing?

Yet, even as Kanigel’s story is unfolding, the population of the island is dwindling. Life may be richly shared there, but it takes rough work to make a living, and young people begin to make their lives elsewhere—most of them emigrating to America. None of the scholars chooses to settle on the island, and ultimately, the islanders make the same choice our ancestors made—in favor of modernity.

“Nobody’s going back to live the way these people lived. It was a brutally hard life. But I don’t think that means we 21st century people can’t stop running around for a minute to think back,” Kanigel said. “This is not a prescriptive book. But if my readers came away stopping to think about these issues and reflect back on their own lives, I’d be pleased.”

By 1953, the Great Blasket was abandoned, and today most of the houses on the island lie in ruin. A way of life has passed, but On an Irish Island gives us another chance to contemplate it. Of the islanders, Kanigel said, “After they left, they would say: "I had to leave, but ah, I was happy there.”

On an Irish Island is due in February 2012 from Alfred A. Knopf.

Robert Kanigel

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ON AN IRISH ISLAND

Review Excerpts

Review Excerpts, Irish heritage publications

Full text, Kirkus starred review of On an Irish Island