As someone of dual heritage myself (half English, half Polish), born in the same period as Hamilton I was interested to read this account from a man with a German mother and Irish father. His story is told in a series of vignettes, which gradually provide a coherent picture of the family's day-to-day life over the years of Hmilton's childhood. His mother brings with her memories of her family's anti-Nazi stance - yet in Ireland she and her family are called Nazi, Hitler, Eichmann or worse. His father insists on the family's Irishness - which meant denying everything English in their lives, from language to popular culture to newspapers. Both these threads isolated them all from their peers. They were rather poor, though Hamilton's father had all kinds of unusual and ultimately unsuccessful business ideas. This is an account of a young boy's growth into adolescence and adulthood, trying to find a path towards the adult he thought he wanted to be. A sensitive and restrained and thought-provoking narrative. ( )

Beaucoup de charme, mais une déception au final... Problème de traduction? ( )

Un Libro dedicato alla lingua e al silenzio, il romanzo di Hamilton scaturisce dalla propria personale esperienza di figlio di più culture, l'irlandese e la tedesca in un paese in cui il gaelico, lingua delle origini, e l'inglese lingua degli antichi colonizzatori si intrecciano e rappresentano una dicotomia. Figlio di un irlandese fanatico nazionalista e di una tedesca, il bambino Hugo si difende con il silenzio o bisbiglia di nascosto i dialoghi ascoltati fuori casa in quell'inglese odiato in famiglia e proibito. Difficile decifrare il mondo intorno a sé, difficile sentirsi parte di esso. Siamo nella Dublino degli anni cinquanta e sessanta, il concetto di multiculturalità non è neppure pensabile, sussiste invece in tutta la sua valenza negativa, come un marchio di infamia l'essere "brack", che in gaelico significa maculato, o meglio " speckled" in inglese "pezzato", "ibrido". "Speckled people" del resto è il titolo originale, molto più significativo di quello italiano.
Una storia priva di retoriche e sentimentalismi, bella anche divertente, spontanea perchè l'autore è riuscito a narrarla dal punto di vista di un bambino, quel bambino che è stato. ( )

Hugo Hamilton grew up speaking three languages. His mother was German so with her Hugo spoke German. His father was an Irish nationalist so he insisted that the children speak no English in the house, only German or Irish Gaelic. But, of course, living in a mainly English speaking Dublin in the 1950s Hugo had to know English. Now we would probably applaud the opportunity Hugo had but in the 1950s if you didn't speak English you were "different". Of course children hate anything different and hate being different. Hugo and his siblings were taunted as being Nazis and a gang of boys often attacked them. And then there was the father's insistence on speaking Irish which meant the children went to a different school than their neighbours. It's very hard for a child to stick out because most children just want to be the same as their peers. Hugo had no real friends and seemed to have spent a lot of time wandering by himself or with his brother. There's a dog in the book that belongs to no-one and spends much of his time at the seashore barking at the waves. I presume the dog existed but it certainly seems like an allegory for Hugo.

Hugo's father was autocratic and often angry. Sometimes his anger manifested itself by banging doors but at other times the children and sometimes even their mother bore the brunt of his anger. Small wonder that Hugo rebelled. On one occasion his father asked him the sum of 5 and 6 and although Hugo knew the answer he kept giving the wrong one. The father eventually got a switch and beat him until he gave the right answer. Fortunately, the mother was there to bake cakes and tell stories and sometimes she was able to dissuade the father from punishments. Considering the life she had experienced growing up in Nazi Germany as an orphan it is a wonder she wasn't the one who was angry.

This is an intimate and often painful read but ultimately enjoyable and interesting. ( )

El mundo de la niñez de Hugo Hamilton, nacido y criado en Dublín, es un lugar confuso. Su padre, un nacionalista irlandés que en ocasiones raya la brutalidad, obliga a sus hijos a hablar en irlandés, mientras que su madre, una emigrante alemana de voz suave muy marcada por los horrores del pasado nazi, les habla en alemán. El niño quiere hablar inglés, que es, en último extremo, la lengua en la que habla el resto de los niños dublineses. Así, el inglés es el idioma que utilizan cuando lo persiguen por las calles, lo llaman Eichmann, y cuando lo llevan a juicio y lo condenan a muerte en un tribunal ficticio reunido en el malecón. A partir de este sentimiento de miedo y de culpa, y de una serie de desencuentros interculturales no exentos de carácter cómico, el niño trata de captar las diferencias entre la historia irlandesa y la alemana, y de dar la vuelta a la lógica enrevesada que le transmiten como la verdadera. ( )