Judging by the amount of Irish work being published as well as performed in Britain, Irish writing has never enjoyed such unanimous approval. Interestingly, for all the emphasis placed on linguistic fireworks, vernacular dialogue and the portrayal of extremes, the traditional understatement of William Trevor and John McGahern endures, and nowhere more obviously than in the work of the Belfast-born novelist Ronan Bennett. His third novel The Catastrophist is important for several reasons, not least because it marks the latest step in a career which began as recently - and impressively - as 1991 with The Second Prison and was quickly consolidated within a year by another fine political thriller, Overthrown By Strangers. In keeping with his work, Bennett is quiet, precise, intellectually assured and very deliberate. There are no tricks, his prose style is plain to the point of flatness. The dynamic which elevates Bennett's fiction out of the ordinary is its psychological intensity and the author's fascination with the theme of displacement. Ask him where he lives and he says, "I've lived all over the place" while his cultural background draws on the legacy of a middle class Protestant father who began a doctorate at Oxford and the working class Catholic mother who raised him and his brother after their parents parted. Aware he does not belong to any specific group of Irish writers he says neutrally, "I don't fit in to any of the camps."
Bennett's first two novels are driven by strong plotting, "action was very important, maybe too important. I wrote them both very quickly," he says. "But this time, I had more time to think. I was also writing screen plays and they gave me time and space - that definitely made a difference to the novel.
The Catastrophist took five years to write and although it is mainly set in the Belgian Congo during the struggle for independence, it is not primarily an action novel. Retrospective in mood and sustained by the narrator's sense of regret, it is a love story and succeeds in being sympathetic without being sentimental, as the narrator swings between love and hate for the woman who has left him.
Throughout it, James Gillespie, the central character and narrator assesses his life and his actions, blaming himself for the failure to act. All the while he is watching the other characters. "I wanted to consider the worth of writing," says Bennett, "I wanted to ask `does it have any real value?' and `do words have any worth?' I think being a writer is a very privileged life, it makes me feel uncomfortable."
Gillespie is also a writer and he is an Irishman intent on distancing himself from his past. Bennett agrees he sees himself as a writer who happens to be Irish rather than an Irish writer, yet agrees Ireland remains important to him. In common with Gillespie, Ireland is always hovering in the background of Bennett's immediate world. The Catastrophist is obviously not about Ireland yet it could be read as a metaphor for the situation in the North. Bennett accepts such an observation as inevitable. Equally there are autobiographical elements in the new novel, but Bennett is not a autobiographical writer. Ideas seem to concern him more than events. His central character is a published novelist who also practices journalism, albeit more randomly than his Italian girlfriend, Ines. She is a passionate embracer of causes - her latest being the independence leader Patrice Lumumba. Her reporting borders on polemic and hardly surprisingly, she eventually loses interest in the passive, detached Gillespie.
Also in common with Gillespie, Bennett writes journalism, mostly for The London Review of Books and mainly on Ireland.
Having been in Belfast for the Assembly elections, he will soon begin work on a commentary piece.
Though not a moralistic writer, a moral integrity does run through his work. Even at their most detached his central characters are alert to the morality of their actions. James would love to betray his former lover's new boyfriend, but somehow he can't.
A History graduate of King's College London, Bennett went on to complete a Ph.D in History in 1987. Of his thesis, "Enforcing the Law in Revolutionary England 1640-1660," he says "it's not a great piece of scholarship. It's competent, but not particularly original. I have always had a deep interest in 17th century English history. Radicalism, the Levellers and the Roundheads and all those ideas." His next novel is set in the 17th century, but it also works to expose the weakness of Blair's New Labour, "which I loathe." Obviously interested in Lumumba whom he regards as a flawed, very human hero, did Bennett fear using such a larger-than-life historical figure would overshadow his characters? "There is always a problem but not here, I think Lumumba is sufficiently in the background."
Fiction dominated Bennett's teenage reading but he abandoned it in favour of fact, only to return to novels on the suggestion of a friend. Overthrown By Strangers encouraged one reviewer to compare him with Greene and less convincingly with Richard Ford. Bennett laughs at the tag yet concedes "Greene is an influence. I'm sure he is. I remember reading The End of the Affair - it's great - and then went on to The Heart of the Matter and The Quiet American. He seemed to hit this great post-War purple period. I thought some of the early ones were awful. Brighton Rock is such a dreadful book." The literary political thriller has strengths as well as limitations, and Bennett has recognised this, which is why his new book is so deliberately introspective.
Remarking of his pleasure in discovering the outstanding Indian novelist Rohinton Mistry, Bennett says of A Fine Balance, "it's the sort of book which leaves a writer feeling so envious." When I mention that Mistry's first novel Such a Long Journey is even better, Bennett looks as if he has been given a present. Influences and comparisons are invariably debatable, however; Bennett's fiction does evoke a similar atmosphere and reflective tone to that of the American, Robert Stone.
Considering he has been a full-time writer since the publication of his first book, there is none of the youngish successful writer's bravado about Bennett. Nor does he feign fashionable world weariness. His demeanour is closer to that of an academic. Soft spoken and thoughtful, although many have commented on his intensity, he seems more quietly ambitious than driven. But he is opinionated and more precise than his delivery might suggest. Referring to Conor Cruise O'Brien's book To Katanga and Back (1962), he says it's a fine book, and adds that it is far removed from Cruise O'Brien's recent thesis that the IRA ceasefire would result in all out civil war: "There are some people whose contribution to the peace process has been harmful and he's one of them." Bennett believes the violence in the North will end as people no longer wish to sustain it.
Still very boyish looking, he has a tidy, organised appearance and appears to have somehow successfully warded off the standard wear and tear of mere living.
But there is another side to Bennett, one which continues to interest as much as, even more than, his books. It is a story of which he seems to have wearied. "It all happened more than 20 years ago. It doesn't seem important anymore," he says quietly, bracing himself for yet more questions about his life in Belfast. In a recent interview for this new novel, he answered a few questions which became the entire basis of the article when it was published.
At 18, in 1974, just before he started a History degree at Queen's University, he was arrested and charged with the murder of a policeman. Found guilty he was sentenced to life and was sent to Long Kesh and later Brixton. Eventually cleared, he was released after almost three years' imprisonment and has lived in London, more or less, ever since. Politically, he is a nationalist, but is irritated by the myths which have surrounded him. "I was never a member of the IRA. You know I have spoken about my experiences and then many of my friends got fed up with this as many of them had had experiences as well. It was true of the time." In 1994 he spoke about this in Fire and Rain, a radio voice piece he wrote to mark the 20th anniversary of the burning of Long Kesh in October 1974. Was Bennett ever brutalised or beaten in prison? "I was during the riot. There was a lot of violence. But when I was in prison I was surprised at the . . . " he searches for the word, and then decides on "solidarity". Not content with his reply, he adds, "I was also surprised at the sympathy, the humanity." Is he bitter by his experiences? "Not at all. It was something that happened," and repeats, "it was true of the time."
