The Big House of Inver

by Edith Anna Œnone Somerville and Edith Œnone Somerville

Book Overview

This novel, according to Somerville, "concerns the history of one of those minor dynasties that, in Ireland, have risen, and rules, and rioted, and crashed in ruins." "Somerville and Ross know their world as well as Jane Austen knew hers."--John Bayley.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1879941473
• ISBN13: 9781879941472
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: J. S. Sanders and Company
• Length: 299 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.3" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

A good story

It takes a little keeping up with at the start. Nearly three-fourths of a dynasty is followed in the first part of the book and then the latter half is the main story, covering only a couple of months. The progression of time is fairly well done. The characters really do come to life, each with a quirk or five. The interactions between them practically require diagrams. Lots of horses jumping and talk about fishing. More than anything, though, it is the syntax and style that really captures the uniquely Irish mood and impishness. Many of the descriptions force me to suppress laughter, but I read on anxiously, enjoying the momentum of the ride. I recently read that to mimic dialect, one should focus on the sentence structure and word choice, and not to purposefully misspell words. These authors are great at this. The better-known Irish R.M. stories use this to great effect. However, this novel was written after Martin's death. Those little misspelled words creep in a way that didn't happen in the R.M. While I do not doubt their partnership endured despite being in separate worlds, there is certainly a difference in the writing, albeit slight. The relationship between those in the house and those in the tower is interesting, as well. Overall, it is a very good story.