Mum lent me The Breezes by Joseph O'Neill (of Netherland fame) but I cannot now remember if she liked it or not. My Mum has the most impeccable taste of anyone I know, far more impeccable than any of my own senses. In fact we have exactly the same sensibilities in almost everything - we mesh on our appreciation of Revolutionary Road - it's just that I like lots of extra stuff as well and sometimes love most the stuff Mum hates - for example Wet and Wild viking romances. I'm just sooooooooooo postmodern. Anyhoo, I'm fabricating a memory of her saying she liked The Breezes because it's pretty likely, knowing her preferences for good modernists, the Irish, some social satire, some family drama, and plenty of black humour.
The novel looks at the absurd and occasionally tragic occurrences surrounding the Breeze family - focusing mainly on the twenty-something year old son and his lazy struggle to not become like his shambling, pitiable father. The sister and her deadbeat boyfriend also star in variously volatile episodes.
It's a quiet book - no explosions, speeches or even great revelations - it just examines the emotional, political and moral minutiae of living in families. The most interesting moments of the novel, as I saw them anyway, were the explorations of ambition and purpose - the Breeze family are in so many ways accidental revolutionaries in their total failure to engage with the rhetoric and signs of 'success', 'achievement' or 'worth' in any socially sanctioned way. If this much weren't already endearing, O'Neill's writing is - like Alan Rickman reading a shopping list on the radio. It's not the most memorable book I'll ever read, but it's appealing in many ways and it certainly whet my appetite for more of his books, more of his take on life.
***^/***** (3.5 / 5 stars)
