"TRINITY" by Leon Uris

[TexasProgresive]

Last edited Mon Jul 27, 2015, 07:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Trinity by Leon Uris 1st printed in March, 1976

This novel begins in northern Ireland, Ulster, in May of 1885. It is not what I have come to expect in historical novels. Most historical novels I've read have real characters and events which are usually told through the eyes and ears of minor fictional characters that the author weaved into the lives and events of history.

Trinity on the other hand is about 99% fictional, both events and characters. This style did not hamper Mr. Uris from laying out the truth of the situation in Ireland and especially in Ulster. His prose is exquisite and at times playful. These description of Caroline Weed made me smile.

"Caroline was twenty at the time, continentally educated, deliciously pampered, and had already collected a small pyramid of the bleached bones of jilted suitors."

Students of political science would do well to read this book which lays out the strategy of "playing the Orange card", that pitted the Protestants against the Irish Catholics. The Ascendency and nouveau riche, like industrialist Sir. Frederick Week are intent on keeping Ulster profitable to them on the backs of the people. It is to there benefit to have the Protestant workforce focus on the evil papists instead of their paltry wages and miserable lives.

While few of the events portrayed in Trinity actually happened it is a good read. I recommend it heartily. Don't get caught up in the religious aspect, it is being used as a tool much like what is happening currently in the U.S.A.

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Thanks for reminding me that I have yet to read that one.

I have read a lot of Uris' books, but not this one yet. I have always loved the way that he writes. It is good to know ahead of time that the events are fictional.

[TexasProgresive]

2. You're welcome and thanks for your sig line

both my wife and I really laughed out loud.

[Enthusiast]

3. Nice! Thank you, TexasProgresive.

Mrs. Enthusiast read Trinity. Now she knows a little about the conflict.

Leon Uris is an excellent writer.

I have a copy of Battle Cry waiting on me. I remember you telling us you were reading Battle Cry a while back.

[TexasProgresive]

4. Twasn't moi

Trinity is the 1st Uris book I've read. I did see Exodus at the theater. I think it was a talkie. HA HA it was in living color.

[Enthusiast]

5. Oh, I thought it was you. My memory, geez.

[PufPuf23]

6. "Redemption" by Uris follows up "Trinity" with many of same or descendants of characters

including an older Caroline Weeks.

Trinity was my first Uris read but also read Exodus, Topaz, QB VII, Mila 18, and Redemption; not a bad read in the lot though cannot recall much specifics except for Trinity and Redemption as re-read 5 years or so ago.

I was visiting my Catholic relatives in County Down in 1981 when Bobby Sands died of a hunger strike at the Maze Prison.

Interesting times and what led me to read Trinity.

[TexasProgresive]

7. I have Redemption on my shelf

I have been reading Morgan Llwelyn's quartet of the Irish Century. The last book is 1999. She writes her historical novels filled with actual events and people as seen through the eyes of fictional characters. This morning I was at the point of Bobby Sands' heroic stand against the might of Britain with the only weapon he had, his body and his death. Llwelyn equates the Long Kesh hunger striker deaths as galvanizing the Irish psyche as did the execution of the leaders of the 1916 Easter rising.

When I finish 1999 I will turn to something a bit lighter and then I will read Redemption. There is only so much of this one can take at a time.

Even though it is about different people the dehumanization process is the same of what the British did to the Irish and the Europeans did to the native Americans. So someday I will reread Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee but I am not sure when I will be able to stomach it.

[PufPuf23]

8. I recommend In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by

Peter Matthiessen about AIM and the FBI in 1975 at Wounded Knee.

Also How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill.

A less well-known but easy and uplifting reading is Land of the Grasshopper Song. There is a 2nd edition from 2011 but more reviews at Amazon are located at the page for an earlier reprint of the First Edition on Kindle.

In 1908 easterners Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed accepted appointments as field matrons in Karuk tribal communities in the Klamath and Salmon River country of northern California. In doing so, they joined a handful of white women in a rugged region that retained the frontier mentality of the gold rush some fifty years earlier. Hired to promote the federal government’s assimilation of American Indians, Arnold and Reed instead found themselves adapting to the world they entered, a complex and contentious territory of Anglo miners and Karuk families.

In the Land of the Grasshopper Song, Arnold and Reed’s account of their experiences, shows their irreverence towards Victorian ideals of womanhood, recounts their respect toward and friendship with Karuks, and offers a rare portrait of women’s western experiences in this era. Writing with self-deprecating humor, the women recall their misadventures as women “in a white man’s country” and as whites in Indian country. A story about crossing cultural divides, In the Land of the Grasshopper Song also documents Karuk resilience despite seemingly insurmountable odds.


http://www.amazon.com/In-Land-Grasshopper-Song-Klamath-ebook/product-reviews/B003X4LAGI/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewopt_srt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=all_stars&pageNumber=1

[Enthusiast]

9. Thank you for the recommendations, PufPuf23!

Land of the Grasshopper Song looks like something that would appeal to me.

[japple]

10. Ditto what Enthusiast said since we have the same taste in reading (and beer!)

Thank you, PufPuf23. Both of these are going on my list.

[cyberswede]

11. That was a big hit in my house in the 1970s

I was only 10 in 1976, but my parents and all my older siblings (6 of them) read it - that book was laying around the house for years being read by various people.

This picture takes me back...



I should probably read it now (I bet the original copy is still over at my mom's. lol)

[Sir Edmund]

12. Not a Fan of Uris

I've read three of his novels (The Angry Hills, Topaz, Mitla Pass), and his obvious biases turned me off.