Bestiary Cl

by Higgins,Aidan

• ISBN13: 9781564783585
• ISBN10: 1564783588
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-07-17
• Publisher: JOHN MUIR

Summary

Originally published as three separate volumes'” Donkey's Years, Dog Days , and The Whole Hog'”A Bestiary relates the life and times of one of Ireland's greatest contemporarywriters. As in his fiction, Higgins's writing exquisitely capturessights, smells, and emotions, detailing his life from childhood inCounty Kildare before his family's economic decline, to his mother'sslow, agonizing death; from his travels in England and South Africa, tohis two years spent living with a schoolmistress after the end of hisfirst marriage. In writing his memoirs Higgins exposes the sources for many of his best novels, from Scenes from a Receding Past to Langrishe, Go Down , giving the reader a rare look into the "story behind the story." But A Bestiary is more than a factual expose'”this collection of memoirs is constructedin a novelistic way, creating a work of literary art out of a life.

Author Biography

Aidan Higgins is the author of more than a dozen books, including Langrishe, Go Down, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Irish Academy of Letters Award, and was filmed for television with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. His novel Balcony of Europe was shortlisted for the 1972 Booker Prize

Table of Contents

Book One: Donkey's Years
Preface	5	(6)
PART I: Kildare
1 The Great Flood	11	(13)
2 The Keegan Boys	24	(12)
3 The Goat in the Tree	36	(5)
4 The Bogey Man	41	(3)
5 The Bowsy Murray	44	(9)
6 The Great Wall of China	53	(2)
7 The Bareback Rider	55	(2)
8 The Protestant Gate	57	(3)
9 Zeno's Café	60	(1)
10 Wurung	61	(1)
11 The Hand & Flower Press	62	(5)
12 Kitted Out for Killashee	67	(6)
13 A Day at the National School	73	(2)
14 The Temptress, the Eely River	75	(7)
15 That Noble Pile	82	(7)
16 The Names	89	(4)
17 A Longford Wedding, Suicide of Josef Moorkens	93	(4)
18 Starlings Invade the Nursery	97	(2)
19 Mistress Mumu & OldJem Brady	99	(2)
20 Because We Are Catholics	101	(2)
21 The Bad Smell	103	(2)
22 Flotsam	105	(4)
23 The Bracing Air of Sodom	109	(13)
24 The Price of Land, the Great Lord, the Gollimockey Stream	122	(6)
25 The Dodo, His Habitat	128	(17)
26 The Course Record	145	(1)
27 On the Isle of Man	146	(13)
PART II: London
28 Ealing	159	(5)
29 Tea With Mr Spender	164	(4)
30 The Attic	168	(4)
31 Billy	172	(2)
32 The Ice-Cream Factory	174	(2)
33 Galustian Sc Co.	176	(4)
34 Your Life Before Me	180	(2)
35 The Pond	182	(3)
36 The Ghost of Elwyn Anders	185	(4)
37 From Fiume to Old Ragusa	189	(6)
PART III: South Africa
38 The Shore of Africa	195	(4)
39 Touring with the Puppets	199	(6)
40 The Child of Storm	205	(6)
PART IV: Dun Laoghaire
41 The Gentleman Rider	211	(9)
42 The Hospital by the Sea	220	(12)
43 Mortuary Chapel	232	(5)
44 Sedna	237	(6)
Appendix (Kildare): Farsoonerite Fears, Preverbal Chaos, Undertow of Time, the Mulligrubs	243	(16)
Book Two: Dog Days
PART I: First Love
1 The Happy Hours	259	(5)
2 Sirius Rising	264	(2)
3 Stolen Kisses	266	(1)
4 Philippa's Aged Parents	267	(1)
5 The Bouncing Balls	268	(1)
6 The Undertaker of Aungier Street	269	(1)
7 On Being Whirled Away	270	(3)
8 The Grafton Picture House and Restaurant	273	(3)
9 An Aged Barber	276	(1)
10 The Old Flame on Butt Bridge	277	(4)
PART II: No. 11 Springhill Park Preamble	281	(14)
11 My Father Dies	281	(5)
12 57 Beskidenstrasse	286	(3)
13 Los Alamos	289	(6)
PART III: Ballymona Lodge, 1985
14 Aboard the SS St Columba	295	(5)
15 The Return	300	(2)
16 Santa Cruz	302	(1)
17 Dream-Houses	303	(6)
18 Cycle of the Hours	309	(3)
19 In the Hall of the Mountain King	312	(1)
20 Some Suggestions for Brightening Up the Home	313	(2)
21 My First Arrival	315	(1)
22 Wicklow Town	316	(2)
23 Interrogatory	318	(3)
24 The Bum Bailiff	321	(2)
25 Fumes	323	(3)
26 'Cash' Murphy Appears	326	(3)
27 My Second Arrival	329	(1)
28 The Haughty Horsewoman	329	(2)
29 Lambing Time	331	(1)
30 A Bat at Evening	332	(4)
31 Anastasia and the Seven Dervorgillas	336	(4)
32 Silent Love	340	(2)
33 The Worst Choice	342	(1)
34 Davis and Demons	343	(2)
35 The King and Queen of Spain	345	(3)
36 The Camarero Miguel Lopez Rojas	348	(1)
37 Epistolary: 1974-78	349	(4)
38 The Dodo in London	353	(2)
39 The Classic Cinema in Baker Street	355	(2)
40 Mornings in the Dewy Dell	357	(1)
41 The Finn	358	(2)
42 'Cash' Up for Sentencing	360	(1)
43 Year Ending	360	(7)
PART IV: The Tomb of Dreams
44 The Trinity Professor	367	(3)
45 Walking in the Dream	370	(5)
46 Native Son	375	(2)
47 Down in the Country	377	(6)
PART V: Ballymona Lodge, 1986
48 Brittas Bay	383	(3)
49 To Arms! To Arms!	386	(4)
50 The Old Flame	390	(1)
51 The Far Horizon	391	(3)
52 Stardust	394	(1)
53 Lammas	395	(2)
54 James	397	(6)
55 The Roscommon Fairies	403	(1)
56 Big Mick (Ned's Racist joke)	404	(1)
57 The Screaming Horrors	405	(3)
58 Titanic	408	(4)
59 October Footing	412	(1)
60 Dusky	413	(1)
61 Grey Days	414	(2)
62 Verveen	416	(1)
63 The Mangle	417	(2)
64 A Hanging	419	(1)
65 On Cuesta del Cielo	420	(3)
66 The Road to Aranjuez	423	(3)
67 Saul Bellow Reading at TCD	426	(1)
68 An Incident on the Road to Pontoon	427	(1)
69 A Walk to Greystones	428	(1)
70 An Official Visit: Garda Reynolds	429	(3)
71 Halley's Comet	432	(2)
72 Dervorgilla at Home	434	(2)
73 The Eye and Ear Hospital	436	(1)
74 The Year Ending	437	(3)
75 The Road to Arklow	440	(1)
Epilogue and Epigraphs	441	(6)
Book Three: The Whole Hog
Prologue	447	(4)
PART I: Only Family Matters
1 A Bit of Strange	451	(1)
2 Largo: Three or Four Miseries, 1956-85	452	(2)
3 Forgive My Silence	454	(4)
4 The Genesis of Langrishe, Go Down	458	(3)
5 Ordeal at Mealtimes	461	(12)
6 Mainly Semantics	473	(2)
7 An Unwelcome Visitor Calls	475	(2)
8 The Handbell and the Gong	477	(2)
9 An Unwelcome Visit Recalled	479	(2)
10 A Fragment of the True Cross	481	(6)
11 A Rude Country Habitation	487	(6)
12 Brother Bun and the London Labour Mart	493	(6)
13 Ancestral Voices	499	(3)
14 Harry Allen, J. Pierpoint Morgan and Luis Bunuel	502	(5)
15 The Monk in the Cornfield (Where There Was Nobody)	507	(5)
16 Ah, Those Moonlit Revels!	512	(1)
17 Roll On, Ye Mighty River, Roll!	513	(6)
18 Black Bucks Vain of Their Dicks	519	(5)
19 Roryamours 1956-99	524	(1)
20 The Hoax that Joke Bilked	525	(1)
21 The Anaya-Toledos of Mexico City	526	(1)
22 The Shapely Flanks of Rita Hayworth (The Lady from Shanghai)	527	(8)
PART II: Foreign Faces and Places
23 Voyage	535	(3)
24 The Jacaranda Street Nudist	538	(8)
25 The Sharpeville Massacre, 1960	546	(3)
26 The Lazy Azores, 1960	549	(8)
PART III: Nerja in the 1960's
27 Ominous Auguries	557	(4)
28 Mrs Harriet Deck	561	(4)
29 A Child's Funeral	565	(3)
30 Moody, Fenning, Kramer and McCracken	568	(2)
31 The Way She Walked	570	(2)
32 Callus, Alas!	572	(3)
33 Can After Can	575	(1)
34 Kampen .Nact-Strand	576	(2)
35 Harriet	578	(5)
PART IV: Berlin Divided, Munich Mordfest
36 Im Doll	583	(1)
37 Some Places She Took Me	584	(1)
38 In a Strange Sort of Time	585	(2)
39 The Giantess and the Guardsman	587	(4)
40 Sommerspiele: September 1972 in Munich	591	(10)
41 One Thrust and He Was In	601	(4)
PART V: Danish Blue
42 On the Rorvig Ferry	605	(1)
43 Rorvig	606	(1)
44 The Ancient Moats	607	(4)
45 But Why Kandinsky?	611	(3)
46 Borges and I	614	(2)
47 In a Swedish Forest	616	(2)
48 My Everyday	618	(4)
49 On the Beatch with Petrushka	622	(2)
50 Linguistics	624	(3)
51 Such Delightful Copulatives!	627	(1)
52 A Malaga Morning	628	(1)
53 Kronborg	629	(4)
54 Ronda	633	(3)
55 Petrushka	636	(1)
56 The Floating Trousseau	637	(4)
57 Diary, April 1975	641	(2)
58 Last Letter	643	(4)
PART VI: Contretemps at Cranley Gardens
59 Events Leading to the Hill-Anders Divorce, Decree Nisi and Absolute	647	(4)
60 In the Woods	651	(18)
PART VII: Down Mexico Way
61 Blood and Sand	669	(4)
62 The Aztec Look	673	(6)
63 The Zaca Sails Again!	679	(3)
64 The Jogger on Coronado Shore	682	(5)
65 The Martinez Couple	687	(4)
PART VIII: How the Century Ends
66 The Three Brothers	691	(2)
67 In the Long Ago	693	(5)
68 The Great Battle	698	(4)
69 Sir Walter Raleigh and the Cockadoodledoo	702	(3)
70 Fisher Street and Environs	705	(5)
71 St Multose Cemetery and the Commogue Marsh	710	(7)
72 The Gangrenous Hand	717	(4)
73 Warning Shadows	721	(3)
74 Countess Markiewicz and the Siege of Derry	724	(4)
75 The Americanisation of Old Ireland	728	(3)
76 When Rory First Tasted Wiener Schnitzel	731	(3)
77 The Regional Hospital, Cork	734	(1)
78 Adieu in the Form of a Letter to Mrs Mary Alice Simpson (widow) of Chevy Chase, Maryland	735	(2)
79 The Old Moon with the New Moon in Her Arms	737	(2)
80 How the Century Ended	739	(2)
Epilogue	741