This is a rambling, amusingly eccentric story written in 1931 and rescued from oblivion by the author’s diligent grandson. Its highly stylised use of the rotundities, circumlocutions and evasions of old Hiberno-English has an original rhythm that gradually envelops the reader. Nix achieves this in a series of dialogues in which his garrulous trio of teacher, farmer and builder discuss the state of the fledgling Irish nation and the miserable lot of the “ruralist”, scraping a living from the land.
These loquacious gossips are wont to tease out at considerable length their notions of where the country is going wrong. The plot concerns the semi-autobiographical story of a teacher pursuing a farmer’s daughter and a career in journalism. One of the many funny conversations describes that vocation: “Every successful journalist has been a failure at something else.”
