The light in the corner

All literary fiction is in some way involved in current cultural debate: its contribution is usually more graphic, and therefore more powerful, than the abstract grapplings of cautious anodyne theory. The advent of Teilifis na Gaeilge introduced a new and unknown force into the debate that Irish-speakers conduct with themselves and with tradition. Liam Mac Coil's new novel is a tale of this television ("Gael-Teilifis") and its impact on the world of the regional Gaeltacht, and the wider Gaeltacht properly-so-called of Irish speakers.

The novel, oh dear, tells a story and this one is televisually linear and uncomplicated as narrative. Eoin O Donnabhain returns from England full of idealism to take part in the cultural revival being spearheaded by the new TV station. He is a young man of much talent who wishes to be part of the renewal as George Moore and W.B. Yeats were 100 years before. His problem is that where literature can often be a solitary pursuit, the making of idealistic TV documentaries is unapologetically co-operative, and he finds himself thwarted and stymied by crass, commercial types. This leads him into a personal crisis where he doubts his own vision and his own ability, until he is rescued by the love of a good woman suddenly thrust upon him.

This sounds like the outline of a bad, predictable television drama. We know, of course, that this is quite deliberate. Not only is Liam Mac Coil taking television's impact on culture as his point of departure, he is also using a television story to interrogate the medium itself - as well as literature, the great identity debate, the nature of art, creativity, romance. But this is precisely what a simple story, well told, does all the time. While the telling is determinedly realistic - with minute descriptions of everyday artefacts to rival those of the camera - there are times when it seems to slide into fantasy, or what might be recognised as such. In fact the novel is described as "Sceal Fantaisiochta" which doubles our doubts about what is going on.

Liam Mac Coil is far too subtle an author to give us this, the simplest of stories, without prodding us all the way into thinking and imagining deeply about, for example, image and vision. The hero of the novel, if novels still have heroes, wants to put the vision back into television. Others are only concerned with image. But his vision may be a thing of the past, a romantic resurrection of the image-makers of yesteryear. He only begins to come to terms with this romanticism when he falls truly, madly, deeply for a solitary Gaeltacht lass who belongs to the real world but in the final chapters certainly transcends it. Suddenly, the romance of story rehabilitates the heroic romanticism of the Romantic movement, clearly underwritten by the music of Wagner which runs along the bottom of each page. We create our own romance as we create our own romanticism. The "Claiomh Solais" of the title casts many shafts of light but certainly also refers to the new television, itself heralding a cultural revival as the newspaper of that name did in its own time. It is an appropriate title for a novel of hope which is savage in its criticism of the bad semiotics which set up a simple contrast between modernity and tradition, or individual and communal creativity. As with everything by Liam Mac Coil, it is lovingly and, in the best sense, craftily written. It is a singular achievement to write a novel of ideas, in a direct manner, with credible and interesting characters within the logic of their own setting. That setting is, of course, our own story.

Alan Titley is an author and scholar. His latest book, Leabhar Nora Ni Anluain, was awarded Gradam Ui Shuilleabhain recently