ANYONE familiar with the craft and precision of Liam Mac Coil's work would not have been surprised at the news that his novel An Dochtuir Athas had been shortlisted for The Irish Times literary awards.
An Dochtuir Athas is an extremely significant book and has given the novel in Irish a much needed shot in the arm. To say that it is a challenging work which incorporates elements of the best detective writing, large chunks of analysis and counter argument concerning Freud and psychoanalysis - its main subject matter - some hilarious and delightfully sharp literary and other references as well as lots of plain good fun, merely hints at the complexity and scope of the novel's performance. I think the concept of "performance - is a particularly apt description of the novel which, in the best traditions of modernist writing, leaves the reader just a split second behind in terms of comprehending where the narrative and plot are at any one time - and constantly pulls the rug from under carefully constructed presuppositions).
As with any good detective story, I don't intend to ruin the plot by divulging exactly what happens in the end; or anywhere else, for that matter. Suffice to mention that the narrator is sent to the psychoanalyst Seamas Athas who, in a series of varied and sometimes bizarre therapy sessions, seeks to cure him of his "illness".
All is not as it seems, however, as the two become interlocked in a complex interrogation of all the tenets of pyschoanalysis and circumstances of Freud's work and life. The effect of all this posits the work as a kind of therapy via literature, and a personal contract between reader and text where the small print is particularly important - all the more so as it keeps changing the perspective and context.
The 33 chapters, or "sessions", provide a framework within which the "action" takes place. But there are enough undermining caveats throughout the text to warp the seemingly logical progression, as when Athas proclaims "is i an tsiocanailis an galar a bhionn an tsiocanailis ag iarraidh a leigheas".
As required of such a meticulously constructed novel the writing is very tightly controlled throughout; some passages contain detail of a Beckettian degree, while others are reminiscent of some of Mairtin O Cadhain's best writing in the balance they strike between the importance and banality of life's minutiae. There is much to be got from further sessions with An Dochtuir Athas. I'll certainly be going back.