Reply To: The Searcher: How does the author address current affairs?
So much to think about with this topic. I’m appreciating everyone’s thoughtful observations. I think there’s a broader level of poverty that is subtly hinted at in the novel that isn’t explicitly spelled out by Tana French but she does touch on it. That’s that the village itself is poor and tucked away from the power centres (eg Dublin) and therefore is forgotten and ignored and left to take care of itself. As result of that, the village has had to become self sufficient and has grown to distrust authority. The police officer tells Cal, “They’d rather keep us out of it, unless they have no choice at all.” This means that the village has implemented its own set of rules (eg the vigilante justice discussed previously). It also probably means that there aren’t much in the way of social services like youth centres or food banks and the like for families like the Reddys to turn to. This means that drug gangs and criminals can take advantage of the disadvantaged youth to expand their market. Whereas Brendan is somewhat sympathetic in this regard, Donie is not. But with the villagers keeping the police “out of it” this problem can only get worse because the drugs brings in its own market economy, violence, and Donies. This is very much playing out in many rural towns in North America, and probably in Europe too.
I also think Tana French examines what loneliness does to young men and old men – and it’s not positive. There’s a lot of talk in the media these days about the “epidemic of loneliness” in Western countries and French talks about it throughout the book. Cal thinks young people are purposeless and have no direction, which has negative consequences. He thinks: “His private opinion about a lot of the baby thugs and delinquents he encountered on the job was that what they really yearned after, whether they knew it or not, was a rifle and a horse and a herd of cattle to drive through dangerous terrain.”
What women do also matters. Nancy, I agree with your comment that the young women are more adaptable and therefore are leaving the village. As result, there are fewer children, more men are single, etc. Mart discusses with Cal several times that he has to look after his mental health and not be alone too much. Mart observes that Bobby and his UFOs is a result of a restless mind. “All that’s wrong with him is he spends too much time at the farm work. It’s grand work, but unless a man is pure thick, it can leave his mind restless. Most of us have something to look after that: the family, or the cards, or the drink, or what-have-you. But Bobby’s a bachelor, he’s got no head for the drink, and he’s that bad at cards we won’t have him in our game. When his mind does get restless, he’s got no option but to head up the hills hunting UFOs.”
But Lena also observes that the old bachelors like Mart are also scared: “Men with no children get to feeling unsafe, when they get older. The world’s changing and they’ve no young people to show them it’s grand, so they feel like they’re being attacked. Like they need to be ready for a fight the whole time.” So there are negative effects on the community as a whole when too many people are isolated and lonely.
