Kerrigan in Copenhagen

Questions?

Luckily for literature, Thomas E Kennedy can't either.

Book review: Kerrigan in Copenhagen, by Thomas E Kennedy

His ambitious, inspired project to do for the Danish capital what James Joyce did for Dublin in Ulysses is an exercise in seduction by stealth. So far each "Copenhagen Quartet" novel has a different season and literary mood: In the Company of Angels , lit by long Danish summer nights, contemplates the psychic trainwrecks caused by human brutality, while the autumnal universe of Falling Sideways portrays a tragicomic triangle of work, lust and dishonour. Counterintuitively, the latest volume, Kerrigan in Copenhagen: His project is ostensibly to complete a guide book to the city's pubs.

Thomas E. Kennedy at Harper College

But his real mission involves a deeper reckoning of the Copenhagen he fell accidentally in love with after a disastrous encounter with "blonde treachery". Blonde treachery stole his money and absconded with their child, and now Kerrigan drinks too much. Lover damage has led to liver damage.

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Thanks to television drama, every British TV licence-payer now has a passive acquaintance with Danish, and Copenhagen is at its most. Cover photo of Kerrigan in Copenhagen: A Love Story Cover photo of Last Night My Bed a Boat of Whiskey Going Down Cover photo of Getting Lucky: New and.

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Tuesday 18 December Kerrigan in Copenhagen by Thomas E Kennedy, review. Thomas E Kennedy, author of 'Kerrigan in Copenhagen'.

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Reaction suggests that he did a good job in evoking that mental state as I read. There is little plot in this novel, the story wanders and takes some unnecessary detours one chapter is devoted to a sudden trip to Dublin , but overall, despite his flaws and his drunkenness, Kerrigan is, if not likeable, ultimately relatable, as he struggles to define himself in a world where he aspires to great literature, but doesn't write much, is unsure of whether he can ever trust or love again, and struggles with his aging body, his taste for drink, and what kind of future would he will have being old, alone, and never having attained the success he dreamt of in his youth. It was an okay book that helped me get a feel for this city. First Runner-up, General Fiction new edition, Falling Sideways, published by Bloomsbury in The four-volume series was also the subject of a DVD documentary film produced by Harper College in and screened in various universities and art houses in the U. April Wordcraft of Oregon X I couldn't finish this book.

When he finally manages female intimacy, his reaction is to immediately flee to Dublin. He visits some of that city's better known pubs, giving a brief history of each.

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As he walks through Merrion Square, he notes that it is "the birthplace of Oscar Wilde at number 1, who died in , same year Nietzsche died and Thomas Wolfe was born, Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim appeared and Joyce's first piece of writing was published". The Keats poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci — source of some of Paul Keating's more memorable put-downs — is a constant presence in the text, because Kerrigan sees it as the story of his relationship with his wife.

He is also much enamoured of the melancholy in Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach , though the reason here is less clear.