A rewarding read and so beautifully written. The book considers the legacy of the Ordnance Survey
(the 19th-century colonial mapping project) in Irish literature and analyses works by Mangan, Synge, Joyce and Beckett that are in direct engagement with the concerns of the survey. The survey was a context for modernist writers and Synge's fieldwork on The Aran Islands where the collision of time and space scales are artfully characterised by the ruins of Inis Meain, the question of optics and scale in Ulysses, and Beckett's barren landscapes that dismantle the fantasy of comprehensive knowledge, all echo the survey's attempt to render a portrait of the whole island. Its work was one of preservation in the face of extinction, and the book argues that it was originary to the development of Irish modernism. Precisely what he's talking about can be found in Elizabeth Bowen, whose work captures the sleepy atmosphere and dying days of the Big House ascendancy classes in Ireland. The Last September, in particular, also considers scale, distance - personal, political, spatial - and perspective.
Parsons writes like a poet, and his obvious gra of maps and topography shimmers throughout the book which despite its theoretical bent, is lyrical from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed the final section on Beckett whose fiction I am not overly familiar with but whose sense of alienation and unbelonging, antipathy to nostalgia and methods of challenging and dismantling everything, I found relatable and intriguing to read about.
Enriching and interesting book.