History of the Rain: A Novel

"There's a book inside you. There's a library inside me."I woke up thinking about this novel, and I almost regret dedicating my morning to finishing it. But sometimes a story begs to be devoured.Sometimes, you can tell an author is a devout reader through their writing. Niall Williams clearly is one of these types, based on History of the Rain. So, of course, I love him the more for it. This is a story of family, history, love, tragedy, Ireland, and books. And it's probably my favorite Man Booker 2014 longlisted novel so far.Ruth lives in her room due to a vague illness and a fear of the outdoors. She's inherited her father's extensive library, where she attempts to find him, one book at a time. Throughout the story, books are dropped like rain, and I was personally reminded of how many I need to experience. Though I'm very familiar with one of the most important writers frequently mentioned: Yeats. For how could you not include him in an Irish novel about writing and poetry? So, he's there. History of the Rain will surely strike a chord in people who appreciate not just the story inside the books, but the history and physicality of them as well. I'm firmly in the camp of books being a necessary part of my home's ecosystem. But as I've gotten older I've come to relish certain stories not just for the meaning of their content but for the fact that they were purchased and read by my father. A few he's given to me, and reading them is something personally spectacular. Though I'm not searching for my father in the way Ruth must, I find through his books how he came to be who he is now, before I ever existed. A moment like this I could particularly see in my own father (and perhaps a quality in myself):"The library that grew in our house contained all my father's idiosyncrasies, contained the man he was at thirty-five, and at forty, at forty-five. He did not edit himself. He did not look back at the books of ten years ago and pluck out the ones whose taste was no longer his."I can relate to this as my Father's only daughter (and child), and the importance it's had on my own life. Williams writes of a father/daughter relationship not often seen in literature, though these are generally portrayed much less than father/son relationships in the first place.Niall Williams writes with beautiful clarity and apparent ease. Hardly a chapter or page went by without a pause to take note of something profound. The imagery evoked in this sleepy community celebrates the Irish qualities that only such an account as this can excite. I wanted to fly to Ireland immediately while reading, but perhaps I should explore my own history first.If themes like this are of any interest, I encourage a thorough reading of this chronicle of one family. Though you don't need to be a Swain, or Irish for that matter, you may find pieces of your own history in this account, like I did.Highly recommended.

An Irish girl has some terrible disease (cancer?), and is stuck in her bed. She has read all of the thousands of books in her attic bedroom, many of them many times. Most are classics. Books are her entire life. So she writes a book about the history of her family, with an allusion to some literary character, author or event on almost every page.The best things about this novel are (a) the fun of appreciating the allusions (okay, I didn't get at least 25% of them, not being as well informed on the classics...); (b) learning about life in a modern-day Irish small town; (c) watching the history of a very quirky family unfold; and (d) being amazed at the sheer beauty of the writing.Also, it was great that the tongue-in-cheek descriptions of an Irish town never became cutesy or patronizing. You felt that the author really knew these townspeople, was irritated by them sometimes, amused by them sometimes, but also had a fundamental respect for them.The writing is absolutely stunning. I kept wanting to underline whole paragraphs. Here's an example:"I am thin but not of the sylph kind, more the gawky lanky kind which may be what constitutes the Swain Beautiful but feels Rangy Ruth to me. My knees are actually sharp. At that age I am officially Waiting for My Chest. The Chest Fairy is on the way from Boozoomia or somewhere and all the girls in my class are going to sleep at night in their own state of Great Expectation, waking up and checking: is that it? -- throwing their shoulders far back and breasting the world, as if the task of womanhood is to balance the weight that lands on your chest and could easily topple you over. Which in a way I suppose is true."Here's another one:"Each family functions in their own way, by rules reinvented daily. The strangeness of each of us is somehow accommodated so that there can be such a thing as family and we can all live for some time at least in the same house. Normal is what you know."Now here's why I didn't give it five stars. It went on a bit too long. The descriptive parts were all very lovely, but there just so many of them. And I wanted to know what happened in the end. Even though I became impatient with a few of the characters sometimes, I also became quite fond of them, and wanted to see the plot resolve itself. I therefore ended up skimming over some of the beautiful descriptions, to reach what turned out to be a very satisfying ending.

I think the fact I've read this book now 3 times in two months says something for how much I love it. I love the flow of language, I love how Ruth is so rooted in the current time, as a young woman, and yet so interested in digging into discovering what it was that made her father the man he was. I love that the narrative flows like a river, and yet meanders, too. I love Ruth's occasional "stream of thought" asides. I love her voice as a narrator. I love that she's a writer and it occasionally comes out in 4th wall moments. I love that Williams wrote her with an illness that she has to come to grips with and that is scary and yet she faces it, she continues to look for her dad in his ancestry, in his book collection, in who he was to her. I love RUTH, full stop.I love how Williams wrote this story, the structure, the understanding of his characters' hearts and minds and lives, and how he wove Ruth's thought-meanders into a beautiful story of discovering who not only her father was, but her brother and herself as well. I also love that we get the full flavor of the town and surrounds of Faha, and Clare and Ireland.This was my second Niall Williams book, after This is Happiness, which I also loved because of the wonderful characterization of the characters (that was an awkward sentence), and also of the town of Faha. I'm not as big a fan of his earlier works. Though there is the Niall Williams flavor to all of them, the story lines just didn't grab me. But History of the Rain grabbed me hard by the heart, and I think has ruined every book I'll ever read from now on because none can match it.

One of the most poignant, beautiful, poetic, and enduring books, I have read from this decade. William is humor, sensitivity, perception, and love of Ireland and people and books, and nature all add up to create a memorable experience.

Un libro straordinario, unico, pregnante e al tempo stesso comico.L'anima irlandese messa a nudo e il paesaggio che non è solo verde, ma anche intriso di pioggia e di fango.Storie di due famiglie che si intrecciano attorno ad una ragazzina geniale e molto malata.Grande bravura dell'autore nel fare ridere e commuovere il lettore.

I'm not sure what the story is actually about, but who cares ? Brilliantly written. Funny, and also heartbreaking in a slow motion "I see it coming" way. Why are the Irishmen (and women) sooooo good at telling stories (and singing) ? Do they all have chimney fires in their homes, around which they gather on a rainy day (ie most days, apparently) and practice storytelling, or what ?

Hugely imaginative, warm and funny. Very well written, crammed with images and symbols of water, rivers, salmon, the written word. Includes reminders of all the great English & Irish authors and a handful of American ones) whom we brushed up against in high school and college. These references to literature and poetry are woven throughout the narrative which is the tale of one young Irish girl's pursuit of the true character of her beloved father through his reading and writing, and of bygone generations in rural Ireland. There is nothing mundane in the vision of these modern Celts and their astonishing ability to transform and be transformed through perseverance, loyalty, love and grief. A great read.

This is truly a book which makes you feel that the book is a world of its own and the author is just going about it one day at a time. Its like if you stopped reading midway too, you wouldnt be particularly dissatisfied.

This is an outstandingly beautiful book, quirky, funny, & profoundly moving. The quality of the writing is superb - evocative, allusive, poetic. The story it relates through the young woman (Ruth) is in a way a fantasy as she lies in bed reconstructing her father's life (& those of his forbears) through various devices, but most importantly through his books & journals. But he & the other characters are very immediate & real, & I believed implicitly in them, cared about them & closely empathised with their trials & their joys.I can find almost nothing to criticise: early on there are a couple of occasions when Ruth jumps from one thought to another, where I failed to understand the allusion, but this was so rare & such a minor blip that is hardly worth mentioning. All other aspects of the book were as near perfect as it's possible to be. Unlike some other reviewers I found little fault with the depiction of the people of the village, for example; they seemed to me to be clearly delineated & individual. But their unremitting kindness required some suspension of disbelief!The landscape & the rain permeate the story, integral to the stories of the characters & suffusing the book with melancholy (but not misery). It is often poignant, sometimes unbearably sad, but the quality of the writing transforms it into an affirmation of life.I have said that Ruth's reconstruction is a kind of fantasy, where the true & the imagined together create their own reality. This is of course what literature does, & as others have said the book is about stories. It is about how we make stories, how we participate in their meaning & how they contribute to, even create, the landscape of our minds.I wonder if to 'get' this book you have to be able to relate to the characters, especially to the father. I mean in the sense of recognising his frustrated talent, his sense of inadequacy combined with a kind of persistent almost desperate hopefulness which refuses to be extinguished. Hope, Niall Williams says, (paraphrasing poet Emily Dickinson), is a thing with feathers, & claws.This is the best book I have read for ages - I would almost say 'have ever read'. A deeply affecting & satisfying book, remaining with you long after you've finished it