Farewell friend

"Irish author John McGahern has died in hospital in Dublin at the age of 71." The brief news item said that McGahern's death had followed a long battle with cancer. I was shocked when I read this, I'd hoped he'd live to be 100.
I first came to his work some years ago when a friend lent me a copy of Amongst Women. He told me I might find something in the story of a man facing death and the effect it has on his children that could help me understand the way my father's dying influenced me and my siblings. I was glad I did. Amongst Women took me into the story of a family where the father at times seemed the centre of the universe. It was territory I knew.
I was hungry for more of his writing. I found a short-story collection in the local library and here I discovered an Ireland where history happened to ordinary people. The Troubles were in the living rooms as well as in the pubs. I liked the way McGahern could see the worth of little scenes in people's lives. "He poured cream from a small white jug" seemed as important as any other event in the day.
I recommended his writing to others. One night I spoke with a Scottish friend and was happy to hear that, like me, when he got to the last page of That they may face the rising sun, he slowly shut the book, then reopened it and began it again.
I found an essay that McGahern wrote some years ago about the way he came to be a writer. He remembered the surprise of being able to borrow books from a neighbour's home not long after his mother had died. "There were few books in our house, and reading for pleasure was not approved of. It was thought to be dangerous, like pure laughter."
I read the last paragraph of the same article over and over to remind me of the way to write well. "Unless technique can take us to that clear mirror that is called style - the reflection of personality in language, everything having been removed from it that is not itself - the most perfect technique is as worthless as mere egotism. To reach that point we have to feel deeply and to think clearly in order to discover the right words."
I wish that I'd written to him, to thank him for his work. Ever since Amongst Women, I'd carried the idea of doing so.
Last year I travelled to Ireland with my two eldest sons. As we drove down lanes into the mid-west I thought of John McGahern. I knew it was his country by the shelter of trees and hedges thick with a mixture of greenery and light. I wondered if we might bump into him in a shop or if I'd recognize him walking down a road.
I have a photo of him, which I found on the internet, on the desktop of my computer. He's sitting in his kitchen wearing an old pullover, kettle gleaming on the stove, mug of tea on the wooden table in front of him, staring calmly out at the world. There's a soft smile on his face and when I look at that picture I feel as if I'm in the house of an old friend.


(this was originally published in The Age in April 2006)