# George Moore: Spheres of Influence, Kathryn Laing, Mary Pierse (eds.)

Sarah Levy Valensi

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OpenEdition
Journals

## Édition électronique

URL : https://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/19020

DOI : 10.4000/12nwy

ISSN : 2259-8863

## Éditeur

Presses universitaires de Caen

## Édition imprimée

Date de publication : 6 décembre 2024

Pagination : 157-159

ISBN : 978-2-38185-248-5

ISSN : 0183-973X

## Référence électronique

Sarah Levy Valensi, « George Moore: Spheres of Influence, Kathryn Laing, Mary Pierse (eds.) », Études irlandaises [En ligne], 49-2 | 2024, mis en ligne le 08 novembre 2024, consulté le 13 avril 2025. URL :

http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/19020 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12nwy

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Au tribunal, il peut se montrer arrogant, manipulateur, insupportable, mais parfois aussi touchant, humain, intéressant. Il a 40 ans aujourd'hui et va passer le reste de ses jours dans une prison du Colorado.

Diane Foley, elle, est une femme américaine de 73 ans, épouse de médecin, mère de cinq enfants, fervente catholique, qui puise sa force dans le recueillement et la prière. Dès sa première rencontre avec McCann, elle exprime le souhait d'apporter un peu de réconfort au monde, et tous deux considèrent que l'acte même de raconter une histoire comme celle-ci peut être source de réconfort. C'est une manière d'agir, tout comme Diane Foley a agi en créant une fondation à la mémoire de son fils pour venir en aide aux otages américains et soutenir leurs familles. Elle fait tout ce qu'elle peut et pense avoir retrouvé la paix aujourd'hui.

*American Mother* est un texte très fort, d'autant plus fort qu'il relate des faits réels, dont les protagonistes ne sont pas des personnages de fiction, mais des personnes. De toute façon, pour McCann, la distinction entre fiction et réalité n'a plus de sens aujourd'hui. Cet ouvrage tente d'apporter des réponses à des questions telles que : comment rester debout face à l'horreur ? Comment regarder dans les yeux celui qui vous a enlevé ce que vous aviez de plus précieux ? Peut-on pardonner à l'assassin d'un de ses proches ? Comment garder espoir dans un contexte si violent ? *American Mother* de Colum McCann et Diane Foley est un livre puissant, bouleversant. La mère de James fait montre d'une noblesse, une grandeur d'âme qui force le respect et l'admiration. Il s'agit là d'une belle leçon d'humanité, de dignité, de magnanimité.

Bertrand CARDIN

Université de Caen Normandie

***George Moore: Spheres of Influence, Kathryn Laing, Mary Pierse (eds.),*** Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2023, 288 p.

Approaching George Moore's 100th death anniversary, Kathryn Laing and Mary Pierse, both academics, edited a book entitled *George Moore: Spheres of Influence*. As the title indicates, George Moore, often referred to as GM, is central to the study. The notion of "sphere" encompasses various dimensions, from artistic and scientific to personal relationships, including friends and family. The term "influence" has a dual meaning: it signifies inspiration from individuals or artistic connections, as well as Moore's impact on writers of his generation and beyond. The book is structured into four sections, each comprising multiple essays.

At the dawn of the 12th international George Moore conference, this book expands the critical apparatus regarding the writer's life and works, introducing new materials – such as paratextual ones with Kathi R. Griffin and Maggie Breslin, focusing on the letters Moore sent to his mother, revealing his confessions as a
young man – while also exploring areas that have not received attention until now. In alignment with the research of Adrian Frazier, Elizabeth Grubgeld and Richard Allen Cave, this collective work reveals the ground-breaking aspects of Moore's oeuvre. Not only should this book be considered a valuable addition to the research field of Irish literary studies but it should also be read in correlation with many others. Indeed, the issue of gender is addressed by Kathryn Laing, Nathalie Saudo-Welby and Brendan Fleming. The artistic realm is also tackled by Ann Heilmann's and Michel Brunet's respective contributions. Additionally, a deeper analysis of the impact of French territory and history is proposed by George Hughes, while Márta Pellérdi offers new insights into a Russian concept.

The initial section delves into Moore's “Artistic Influences and Approaches”, which are indeed plentiful. A parallel is drawn between Moore's *Memoirs* and the significance of French literature and pictorial art in his career and life, with France exerting a significant influence on him. Another one is drawn with the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev and the concept of the “superfluous man” (p. 27), reflecting a nuanced connection both authors shared with their homeland. Mary Pierse discusses the salon, highlighting its influential role due to its spherical dimension where numerous social, musical, and literary circles intertwine. Finally, an analysis of Moore's prefaces unveils their influential power, as they help reshape the boundary between fact and fiction while offering a fresh perspective on their significance.

The following section explores the female influence on his works, hence its title: “*Cherchez la femme?*”. Throughout this section, the contributors reveal how women’s voices were recognised in both public and private spheres. There was an oscillation between female emancipation and the acceptance of women, particularly in transnational and cosmopolitan circles during the *fin-de-siècle* era, first through the lens of the “Literary Ladies”, also known as *salonnières*, and then through the theme of the unsaid, more precisely silence and secrecy. Gladys Parrish, a lesser-known female writer, is the subject of a whole paper due to her reinterpretation of Moore’s *Evelyn Innes*, which sheds light on the influence of Moore’s novel and offers a fresh perspective on the original oeuvre.

The penultimate section delves into Ireland's friendly neighbour, France, and aptly titled “France: Fiction and Letters”. Moore's affection for France is not merely tackled, as the discussion on the story of the two French star-crossed medieval lovers Héloïse and Abélard's, written by Moore and Helen Waddell, proves; Moore's love for France is also evident from his evolving writing style, which transitioned from impressionism to expressionism. This transition was made explicit using the railway as a lens of exploration. Before delving into fiction, Moore had to confront reality. The exchange of fourteen letters between young Moore and his mother offers a poignant glimpse into his journey to maturity, revealing his rarely-mentioned innocence to the reader.

The last section encapsulates three major ubiquitous elements of Moore's life, hence the necessity to devote a unique section to “Politics, Religion and Nationality”. In it, Claire Masurel-Murray, David Clare and Conor Montague guide the reader back to the place in which Moore grew up, that of Catholic Ireland. Masurel-Murray
elucidates how this religion influenced him, while Clare highlights a paradox in his writings: the use of Catholic characters with English names, partly masking a desire for greater recognition of Irish identity. Territorially speaking, Montague conducts an investigation regarding the case of James Owen Hannay, who portrayed Ireland with an “acerbic eye” (p. 217) – a case of Moore’s appropriation.

While influences on Moore are acknowledged and are worth focusing on, his influence on others, which is rarely analysed, is innovatively depicted in this book. In essence, the latter offers a comprehensive understanding of Moore’s life and literary endeavours.

Sarah LEVY VALENSI

Université de Caen Normandie

**Zosia Kuczyńska, *Brian Friel’s Models of Influence*, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, 278 p.**

“A complete archive is good. You always hope to get a complete archive. But of course it’s not a question of bulk” says David Knight in Brian Friel’s *Give Me Your Answer, Do!* (1997),<fnref n="1" /> as he hopes to convince writer Tom Connolly to sell his archive to the American university he represents. We can easily understand that the question should have exercised the playwright since at the time he was also pondering what to do with his own considerable archive… The decision he made was to donate it to the National Library of Ireland (NLI) and, as a result, one hundred and thirty boxes were presented and conveyed from the playwright’s Donegal home to Dublin in 2000 and joined the collections of the NLI, becoming “The Brian Friel Papers”. Forty-eight more boxes came in 2011 becoming “The Brian Friel Papers Additional”. Given Brian Friel’s eminent role in Irish theatre and intellectual history in Ireland, North and South, as well as his international recognition, it is hard to overestimate the value and importance of this archive.

Zosia Kuczyńska's research into the archive has been extensive and fruitful. *Brian Friel’s Models of Influence* testifies to this research carried out lovingly and skilfully at doctoral and postdoctoral levels, providing food for thought for anyone interested in the works of Brian Friel, for those concerned with the “archival turn” in academe, the uses and abuses of archives generally but also for anyone keen to see how a creative mind functions. The volume is organised around seven chapters, including a fleshed-out introduction and a conclusion plus an appendix containing some of Friel's sources, a bibliography, and an index.

Kuczyńska displays a remarkable familiarity with the archive and with the playwright’s creative process as documented through these papers. She rightly claims

<footnote n="1">1. Brian Friel, *Give Me Your Answer, Do!* [1997], Dramatists Play Service Inc., 2000, p. 13.</footnote>