Mad Puppetstown

The phrase "by distance enchanted, glorious, and romantical" used by the author (difficult to speak of since she has published as both M. J. Farrell and more famously as Molly Keane) captures the essence of this book. This novel is a lyrical account of a happy childhood, its tragic ending in the Irish war, and the recapturing of some of childhood's pleasures in young adulthood. It reminds me a little of Virginia Woolf's _To The Lighthouse_ in its ability to capture a moment in time and make it real and poignant. Like _To The Lighthouse_, _Mad Puppetstown_ is essentially elegiac, a tribute to a past time that is made more beautiful by its honesty in seeing the flaws that co-occur with life's joys. Another of Farrell's phrases in the book, "this web of littleness that was life day by day," captures the force that conflicts in the book with moments that are "enchanted, glorious, and romantical." Farrell's book is about the struggle to be happy, to rise above not only the pettiness of life, but also the tragic problems of Ireland. _Mad Puppetstown_ has a fairytale-like feeling, and some would argue its treatment of Irish politics and history is also romanticized and simplified. Readers of Farrell's _The Rising Tide_ might be startled by the contrast in the two books: _Mad Puppetstown_ is a hopeful novel in which the good can find happiness while _The Rising Tide_ depicts a more realistic, morally mixed, and much darker world: there is no "good" character or classic poetic justice.