A review by morbid_swither
Ironweed by William Kennedy
4.0
3.5 stars. This is the third time I’ve read Ironweed, which is curious.
A friend and I once had a conversation around the concept of favorite movies. Certainly, I often would consider the unwritten lists we keep in our minds of things we value and appreciate the most. But like many people, even a causal stab at a selection of Favorites is a dubious thing. Josh’s thoughts on the matter were a revelation to me. He said that his favorites have little to do with anything too analytical. He told me that the movies he considers favorites possess only one criterion: that regardless of anything else, a favorite film is one that under typical circumstances he would more or less always be down to watch.
Ironweed, much like Nunez’s The Friend or Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow…, has emerged as a favorite in this way. Without question a powerful novel, Ironweed isn’t The Savage Detectives (though voice in both is extremely strong), nor is it Stone Upon Stone or Conversation in the Cathedral—books I typically say are my Favorites.
Ironweed isn’t a book you give to the sensitive and joyful people in your life when they ask for a recommendation. It’s an almost impossibly sad story that elevates the downtrodden, ghost filled plight of the itinerant alcoholic—as derelict as a littered liquor-store paper bag blowing in the wind—into something quite universal. Simultaneously austere, spiritual, convincing, sordid, funny and tragic, for this reader, Ironweed proves a perennial “comfort.”
Thematically, Redemption is intrinsic to this work. But not Forgiveness. Or maybe I have that backwards. The boldest thing I can say about Ironweed, and why I decided to round up instead of down, is that the pathos in this short novel (potent within or without the context of the “Albany Cycle” trilogy it concludes) is bittersweet in the most satisfying way. As its reader, we asymptotically approach some sense of hope.
Neither do we merge with the notion that things will ever really be okay.
A friend and I once had a conversation around the concept of favorite movies. Certainly, I often would consider the unwritten lists we keep in our minds of things we value and appreciate the most. But like many people, even a causal stab at a selection of Favorites is a dubious thing. Josh’s thoughts on the matter were a revelation to me. He said that his favorites have little to do with anything too analytical. He told me that the movies he considers favorites possess only one criterion: that regardless of anything else, a favorite film is one that under typical circumstances he would more or less always be down to watch.
Ironweed, much like Nunez’s The Friend or Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow…, has emerged as a favorite in this way. Without question a powerful novel, Ironweed isn’t The Savage Detectives (though voice in both is extremely strong), nor is it Stone Upon Stone or Conversation in the Cathedral—books I typically say are my Favorites.
Ironweed isn’t a book you give to the sensitive and joyful people in your life when they ask for a recommendation. It’s an almost impossibly sad story that elevates the downtrodden, ghost filled plight of the itinerant alcoholic—as derelict as a littered liquor-store paper bag blowing in the wind—into something quite universal. Simultaneously austere, spiritual, convincing, sordid, funny and tragic, for this reader, Ironweed proves a perennial “comfort.”
Thematically, Redemption is intrinsic to this work. But not Forgiveness. Or maybe I have that backwards. The boldest thing I can say about Ironweed, and why I decided to round up instead of down, is that the pathos in this short novel (potent within or without the context of the “Albany Cycle” trilogy it concludes) is bittersweet in the most satisfying way. As its reader, we asymptotically approach some sense of hope.
Neither do we merge with the notion that things will ever really be okay.