Sunday, November 20, 2022

Prayers of Sherkin by Sebastian Barry

I've spent more than a few minutes thinking about Sherkin Island since I was there 8 1/2 years ago. I liked its smallness. Its separateness from The World. Its beauty.

Our arrival on Sherkin.

The Abbey

I didn't notice until years later that you could see The Baltimore Beacon in the background here.



The view of Sherkin from the Baltimore Pier on a choppy day.


And every once in awhile I try to find things related to the island and its history.

My first find was a song, "The Sherkin Island Ferry," by Roger Drawdy & the Firestarters. After I'd bought and listened to that song a few times I wondered if I could ever see Mr. Drawdy play live, Googled that and found out that he had a regular gig at Molly Malone's in Covington, Kentucky, a mere 95 miles from my front door (and most of it highway)...so of course I went up to see him. And during his break I was having a cigarette in the parking lot and Roger Himself came out for one as well, so I ambled over and talked to him about it all and mentioned that "Sherkin Island Ferry" was my favorite of his songs. When we went back inside after the break he launched into "Sherkin Island Ferry" and gave me a nod, so that was all quite nice.

And I found a few other Sherkin things after that, but most of them were either hard to lay hands on or pricey, so none of that, and it wasn't until yesterday morning that I happened upon Prayers of Sherkin by one Sebastian Barry, of whom I'd not previously heard.

I looked about and found some copies of the play, but on a whim had a look over at Internet Archive before laying down the dollars, and lo and behold...



So not just the play that I was looking for, but four others as well. Also, I liked the look of this collection. It reminded me of the Sam Shepard books I'd managed to collect...


And with good reason I realized as I fondled my Sam Shepards for this photo, because two of these were also published by Methuen. (For some reason the 2 volume was published by Faber & Faber. What's up with that? Was Methuen out of paper that year?)

And of course looking at my 3 collections of Sam Shepard made me think, "I should read those next!" But I'm going to try very hard to stick to one obsession at a time.

At any rate...I read Prayers of Sherkin and was quite happy with it. Mr. Barry is a strange dramatist, for sure. I don't know how this play could be staged, for instance, as it involved several trips from Sherkin Island to mainland Baltimore by rowboat, and also has scenes involving a candle maker's shop, a graveyard, and a general store. That seems a lot for a play that probably clocks in at (53 to 119 = 67 pages) slightly over an hour's running time. And of course there are many things you can do with the audience's imagination--just ask WS--but I don't think several people in a moving rowboat is one of them.But it has been staged, so what do I know?

At any rate, read it, liked it, plan on reading some more Sebastian Barry.

So I had a look to see what else he'd written to date (as he is still going), and our friends at Wikipedia gave me this rather impressive list:

Poetry *

The Water Colourist (Dolmen Press, 1983) ø
The Rhetorical Town (Dolmen Press, 1985) ∆
Fanny Hawke Goes to the Mainland Forever (Raven Arts Press, 1989) 
ø

*These books have two things in common: they are not readily available and they are very expensive...$100 to $200. 

Fiction

Mackers Garden (1982) ∆
The Engine of Owl-Light (1987) ∆
The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998) ∆
Annie Dunne (2002) ≈
A Long Long Way (2005) ≈
The Secret Scripture (2008) ≈
On Canaan's Side (2011) ≈
The Temporary Gentleman (2014) ≈
Days Without End (2016) ≈
A Thousand Moons (2020) ≈
Old God's Time (2023) 
ø...to be released March 21, 2023.

Plays

The Pentagonal Dream Under Snow (1986) ø...but a podcast of the play is available at https://podcasts.apple.com/mt/podcast/the-pentagonal-dream-under-snow-by-sebastian-barry/id794399080?i=1000545525525
Boss Grady's Boys (1988) ∆
Prayers of Sherkin (1990) ∆
White Woman Street (1992) ≈
The Only True History of Lizzie Finn (1995) ≈
The Steward of Christendom (1995) ≈
Our Lady of Sligo (1998) ∆
Hinterland (2002) ø...but cheap versions available online.
Whistling Psyche (2004) ∆
Fred and Jane (2004) ∆
The Pride of Parnell Street (2008) ø...
but cheap versions available online. 
Dallas Sweetman (2008) ø...but cheap versions available online. 
Tales of Ballycumber (2009) ø...but cheap versions available online. 
Andersen's English (2010) ø...but cheap versions available online. 
On Blueberry Hill (2017) 
ø...but cheap versions available online. 

≈ Available at the Louisville Free Public Library.
∆ Avaiable at the Internet Archive.
ø So far as I can tell, no free version of these works is available.

So...with the exception of two poetry collections, it looks like The Complete Sebastian Barry could be mine with a fairly minimal investment...probably around $50 or less.

Hmmm.

Meanwhile, I have watched the movie version of The Secret Scripture (2016), but need to finish collecting my thoughts on it before writing anything extensive. (The Not Extensive Versison: Worth watching, but some Serious Plot Problems.) So I think my next goal is going to be to read the one poetry collection which I found available (The Rhetorical Town) and then get back to some plays.

Very exciting!


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