Found in translation: Ireland

The Deportees, a collection of short stories by Irish author Roddy Doyle, is great–if you’re Irish. But if you’re not, nor haven’t spent much time there, well … it’s still, as the Irish would say, “pretty fuckin’ good.”

The collection includes eight stories that center around the theme of ethnicity, or more specifically, the question of what it means to be Irish in a time when Ireland is rapidly changing.

It begins with “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and like its borrowed title, it is the story of a daughter bringing a black man home for dinner. Told from the perspective of the father, this story is hilarious, even as it attacks the issue of racism. Then we segue into the title story, “The Deportees,” which features a character from Doyle’s earlier work, The Commitments. “The Deportees” is followed by “New Boy,” which is a story about an immigrant child’s first day at school. Other tales in the collection add horror and noir elements, but all attach themselves to exploring ethnicity in some way.

Doyle’s writing is great “craic” (that’s Irish-speak for fun). And there’s the problem: The Deportees is written in Irish, not Irish Gaelic, but Irish-English (“Fuck off, ye fuckin’ eejit!”). Much of the humor in the collection comes from the language, which, while not completely inaccessible, may be a bit difficult to understand for the unfamiliar. That’s not to say that it isn’t funny or meaningful if you don’t know what “craic” is, it’s just a little less so.

But again, the book redeems itself with non-Irish audiences because the themes and points of conflict are entirely universal.

Doyle has used the current state of Ireland, like authors often do, to represent the core problems that face all peoples of the world. In this grain, one country’s struggle with the side effects of growth mirror another’s. Because of that, Doyle’s stories are both modern and timeless.

Racism, nationalism, stereotyping, profiling and questions of ethnicity are the issues that the characters of The Deportees deal with, some better than others. Doyle exposes the perpetrators, the victims and the aware in his stories, and shows that in every instance things are not, pardon the pun, black and white.

One excellent example from the book is the father in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” He struggles to let go of his own prejudices and fear while simultaneously feeling that the threat remains very real, and very much in his home. He desires to be both good and honest, and he is–he’s just afraid. The story neither condones racism, nor does it paint a picture of good versus evil.

At times though, events in the stories seem anticlimactic or not fully fleshed out. This can be blamed on the fact that the stories were originally written in 800 word segments for Metro Eireann, an Irish newspaper.

At other times, details arise that seem to border on racism. The way that African immigrants in the book speak is one of them. Throughout the collections, immigrants from Africa come across as very literal, academically critical and almost robotic. In a book that brings into focus preconceived notions and stereotyping, this stands out as a bit incongruous. It may be a result of the fact that Doyle is an Irishman trying to write from the perspective of an immigrant. To have relied on the stereotypes to fill in the missing details was perhaps not the best choice, but the stories are still, for the most part, informed and critical.

On the other side of that coin, the Irish characters of the book come alive. They represent both the old and the new Ireland. And Doyle was not afraid to hold the magnifying glass close, detailing the bad side as well as the good.

The Deportees is grand. The universality, the call to awareness and the unavoidable (but not preachy) lessons make up for any bits that get lost in translation.