I feel totally underquailfied to adquatetly critique this book. It's unlike anything I have ever read. It has gothic undertones. It is part poetry, part essay, part fiction, part biography, part unsolved mystery. It is undoubtedly a female story. It is both the past and the present.
A Ghost In The Throat is about a woman's obsession with a poem written in 1700s by Eibhlín Dubh, a keening for her murdered husband Art who met a horrific end. Eibhlín in her grief drinks handfuls of his blood and composes what has been described as the greatest poem ever written in the 18th and 19th Century in Ireland or Britain.
The poem is written in Irish and has been translated many times by many different people but as the author points out it loses something of Eibhlín Dubhs voice when translated
A Ghost In The Throat is predominantly about motherhood, grief and the erasure of the female contribution from our history. How is it that the poet of the greatest poem of its time has vanished without a trace? We do not know nothing of what happened to Eibhlín Dubh after her husband died. We know of her son's and of her male relations but we do not know where she ended up or where she is buried. It doesn't make any sense yet it has happened to women for centuries.
I am so grateful that I live in a time where women are pushing to uncover and remember all of our female ancestors contributions. Unwilling to let them be forgotten. I love Herstory for this reason. If you haven't heard of them check them out here
Doireann points out that much of women's work is perceived as ordinary and so often goes unnoticed. Anyone who has been pregnant for instance will tell you it is far from an ordinary thing. As women we sacrifice so much of ourselves for others be it knowingly or unknowingly. It is in my view mostly instinctive but maybe some of it is also conditioning.
“In choosing to carry a pregnancy, a woman gives of her body with a selflessness so ordinary that it goes unnoticed, even by herself. Her body becomes bound to altruism as instinctively as to hunger.”
Ní Ghríofa talks about how a baby inside it's mother's womb lacking in calcium will draw on the mineral reserves of its mother’s bones.
“Sometimes a female body serves another by effecting a theft upon itself.”
Women's artistic contributions are also sadly overlooked and or questioned. Certainly the authorship of Eibhlín Dubhs beloved Caoineadh has had its authorship questioned in the past something I feel would not be touched upon at all if the situation was reversed and it was her husband who had composed it instead.
My online book group The Lockdown Bookclub (You can find us in Facebook Groups) chatted a little about how as mother's we could understand and relate to A Ghost In The Throat and how much of the book may possibly be lost on some readers who aren't mother's themselves. I guess that's up to each reader to decide for themselves. I definitely as a mother felt myself within Doireann Ní Ghríofa's female text. I could relate to the experience of a traumatic pregnancy and the want for more babies.
I gave this book a well deserved 4 stars on Goodreads
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