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Langrishe, Go DownAuthor: Aidan Higgins Irish Literature Series July 2004 253 pages, 5 x 8 Dimensions: Paperback, 1-56478-352-9 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $10.36—20% OFF! 
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Book Description
An eminently poetic book, Langrishe, Go Down (Higgins's first novel) traces the fall of the Langrishes—a once wealthy, highly respected Irish family—through the lives of their four daughters, especially the youngest, Imogen, whose love affair with a self-centered German scholar resonates throughout the book. Their relationship, told in lush, erotic, and occasionally melancholic prose, comes to represent not only the invasion and decline of this insular family, but the decline of Ireland and Western Europe as a whole in the years preceding World War II.
In the tradition of great Irish writing, Higgins's prose is a direct descendent from that of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, and nowhere else is his mastery of the language as evident as in Langrishe, Go Down, which the Irish Times applauded as "the best Irish novel since At Swim-Two-Birds and the novels of Beckett."
Langrishe, Go Down, considered by many to be Aidan Higgins's most accomplished novel, received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize when it was first published in 1966. It was later filmed for television with a screenplay written by Harold Pinter. This BBC adaptation, starring Jeremy Irons and Judi Dench and originally produced in 1978, recently made its belated theatrical debut at New York's Film Forum and has been screened in major cities throughout the U.S.
About the Author
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Aidan Higgins is considered by many to be the literary descendant of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. A consummate stylist, his writing is lush and complex, especially in his novels. Although his reputation as a writer is quite established in the UK and Ireland, most of his books have never been available in this country—a situation that Dalkey Archive Press is changing through the publication of many of his works. Higgins is the author of more than a dozen books, including Langrishe, Go Down, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Irish Academy of Letters Award, and was filmed for television with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. His novel Balcony of Europe was shortlisted for the 1972 Booker Prize. A Bestiary Flotsam & Jetsam Windy Arbours, Scenes from a Receding Past, and Langrishe Go Down are all available from Dalkey Archive Press. He has also written travel pieces, radio plays, and a large body of criticism. |
Praise
"Langrishe, Go Down is a wonderful piece of writing . . . Faulkner never listened more carefully to every creak of a decaying mansion than Higgins does to Springfield House."—New York Times"Higgins is very good at recreating the feeling of release and free flow of all senses that comes with the first bouts of physical love."—Guardian
"This carefully constructed and intelligent book . . . is ironic and witty in its juxtapositions."—Saturday Review
"Langrishe, Go Down is a masterful evocation of time, place, human sensibility . . . Mr. Higgins's descriptive style is poetic without loss of accuracy or insight."—Library Journal
More Information
Also by Aidan Higgins:A Bestiary
Bornholm Night-Ferry
Flotsam and Jetsam
Scenes from a Receding Past
Windy Arbours