The Pig Did It

THE PIG DID IT

That's the title of a novel by Joseph Caldwell, first of a trilogy about "the pig". It's one of the funniest and weirdest books I've read in a long time. Highly recommended. Outrageous things happen as if they are commonplace. I can't even begin to describe it without giving away some of its secrets. It takes place in Ireland, and the author reproduces, I'm sure, Irish speech as it's spoken today (not one "Shur and begorra" to be read). But I'll give a sample that gives away none of the substance of the story because I'm in love with the language in this book:

...just the thought of climbing the pastures up past the heather, through the furze and the rocks and the muddied paths to the waiting heights, had given him again the sight of his great-aunt, tall, indomitable, astride the summit, gesturing with an arm grand enough in its sweep to include all the lands below and speak to him the words that had struck into his soul and made him Irish forever, no matter what other allegiances he might claim. "It was surely at this height,"

Aunt Molly had said, "it was at this height and at this place that the devil brought the proud powers of England and, speaking, said to them: 'All this will I give you' " -- and here the gesture came--" 'All this will I give you if you will but bow down and worship me.' And no sooner had the devil spoken these words than their knees, their English knees, buckled under them--and who would blame the poor hoors, such a height and such a wonder as was laid out before them? And so we fight not only to free ourselves but to free them too, don't forget. To get them up off their knees at last so they can stand and walk upright in the lovely land, free of the tempter's thrall. It's for them, for the kneeling English too, that we fight, poor hoors. And so it goes and goes and goes until we've freed them for good."
But then she would laugh a great laugh and add: "Or for evil. For with them, you never know." Then she would sigh a heavy sigh and repeat, by way of an amen, "Poor hoors."

Sure and begorra I may find meself talkin or writin again in my own poor faux Irish brogue.