"Belfast: The Far from Sublime City in Brian Moore's Early Novels"

Eamon Maher

Issue 360, vol.90, Winter 2001

But inevitably (as at the end of the last quote) the city is also its architecture : "the drab facades of the buildings grouped around the Square, proclaiming the virtues of trade, hard dealing and Presbyterian righteousness".

At the deeper level of social climate, the city is a place which confines. There is the dour Sabbatarianism of the Protestant majority imposed from the outside - and the paranoia of the Catholic minority within their own community (which in turn can pit Catholic against Catholic).

Some of Moore's protagonists have more success than others at making their escape to personal freedom. Gavin Burke (The Emperor of Ice-Cream) discovers that the Air Raid Precautions Unit in which (as a Catholic) he first seemed miscast, is suddenly the darling of the whole population. From this outer turn of events, he gets the inner strength to abandon the sham of pretended belief and church attendance which had been kept up for his parents' sake.

The teacher Devine (The Feast Of Lupercal) is too artistic to be content with the lot of pure functionary mapped out for him by his frugal Catholic upbringing. On the other hand, he draws back from full social emancipation in the shape of a relationship initiated with a Protestant girl. (Indeed, when this comes to light, he is saved from dismissal because the priest in charge goes out on a limb for him).

In The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne, the Catholic heroine launches out in desperation to experience companionship, love, adventure before it is too late - only to find all the supports of her life crumbling one by one. Socially, her class has come down in the world; the man who appears interested in her proves to be insincere; Fr. Quigley, to whom she turns, is casual; she prays but no answer comes; both the priest and a Protestant taxi-driver are bemused by her unstable behaviour.

The formative years are said to be the period when life is so lived that the human mind may be formed and crystallized into a receptacle for future experiences to be blended and assessed. At the same time, Moore's fear for himself seems not unfounded : had he actually remained in Belfast, his artistic voice would have been stifled.

Eamon Maher lectures in Humanities at the Institute of Technology, Tallaght, Dublin.