Rituals - Danielle McLaughlin

We all have our odd individual quirks and daily rituals, some we probably aren't even aware of or consider as anything out of the ordinary. Some routines around the home are comforting, reassuring, even precautionary, making sure things are switched off, closed, locked up. Some habits however are just strange and don't mean anything to anyone except ourselves. It's only when something changes, like another person coming in and upsetting the routine, that you might realise that they aren't always rational or easily explained to outsiders, but also bring an awareness that the motivations behind the behaviours might have deeper implications than you might think.

Since it's entitled Rituals, and since Joan's little quirks, customs and habits are detailed at the outset, you expect that to be a significant and interesting theme to explore in this short novel, but there is a lot more to derive from this simple domestic situation that Joan finds herself in when, as a single 56-year-old public servant taking a career break, she rents out one of her rooms to a young 20-year-old male lodger. It's partly for the extra money, but as a reader whose favourite book is Jane Eyre and someone whose only social activity is a beginner's Irish language class, Joan is hoping that a student from the English literature course at the university might make for some interesting discussions. What follows is, as you might expect, eventful in a small way of awkward situations and growing accommodation between two people of different generations with very different outlooks on life.

I have a natural suspicion/aversion to ‘nice’ life-affirming middle-class literature about overcoming first-world problems. Danielle McLaughlin manages to avoid that, although perhaps I'm making allowances, based on being surprised by her first novel successfully overturning expectations on that front and establishing its own unique voice. Like The Art of Falling, McLaughlin's previous book, Rituals is deceptively light, but deeply human, revealing other layers and depths; the little personal dramas of ordinary lives suddenly brought into focus and human nature observed under pressure. There may not be anything revealing on a grand scale but they are profound personal dramas nonetheless, beautifully observed, with humour and kindness of observation.

It's tempting to the domestic drama of Rituals however as a kind of metaphor that uses a small situation that has implications on a much wider scale. And in a way it does, although there is very little that suggests that this is the intent. Perhaps it's just that it aligns with certain recent events for me - and I'm sure another reader might find some other personal resonances within the novel - but the situation that the author describes could easily be applied to Ireland as a whole, where a former way of living and little comforting securities have been subtly disrupted by the modern world, with the introduction of outsiders who have different ways and beliefs: whether you are talking about immigration, or even just the change that a new generation brings.

If McLaughlin is proposing Rituals as a metaphor - and as I say, I'm not sure she does - it doesn't need it for the book to have its own charm and value for the quality and truth of its insightful observations. In fact it's a measure of how accurate they are that they still hold true when scaled up and viewed in a wider context. What is described and highlighted most apparently on the surface (something that gradually revealed itself also in The Art of Falling) is the generational difference between Joan and the lodger. The young man's different attitudes, his eco- awareness, his use of language and his habits seem alien to someone of a different generation, particularly one that grew up under a much more restrictive and closeted upbringing in Catholic Ireland.

You can read Rituals simply as a nice life affirming novel of wonderful observations about two people, each with their own odd behaviours who learn to accept each other's ways and beliefs, and it would still be a wonderful heart-warming book that anyone can easily identify with. It's not hard to see however that it is about more than this, that it widens out to include the troubles that Joan's neighbour is experiencing, and in the process takes in community and the need to look out for each other. 

There are hints nonetheless - not least in the fact that "the lodger" is not given a name in order to remain "non-specific" and apply to many - that there are other subtle messages and dark warnings we are also invited to consider in Rituals. When the robot lawn mower next door malfunctions, the observation that "who knew whether the machine, pliant and docile as it seemed, mightn't turn vicious if suddenly thrown off its circuit, if its routine was messed with" is loaded with implications that extends the ambition, scope and gentle drama of Danielle McLaughlin's second novel far beyond its modest 162 pages.

Reading notes: Rituals by Danielle McLaughlin is published by The Stinging Fly Press in Dublin. I read the lovely quality paperback edition that this publisher produces. I still have a copy of McLaughlin's short story collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets that I must get around to reading. I'm reviewing this as part of a selection of books/authors that featured in this year's Belfast Book Festival.