ABSTRACT
It may seem puzzling to start a book on post Celtic Tiger landscapes with a discussion on a short story by William Trevor, while the ctional horizon of that longstanding author is more often than not early or mid-twentieth century parochial Ireland. A recent review pointed out that his work did not in fact evolve much over his career. In a 2008 New York Times review about a selection of William Trevor’s stories1 written in the 1990s and after, Charles McGrath2 wrote how hard it was to see any evolution in William Trevor’s writing over the years and that there was scarcely any hint of the Celtic Tiger in his ction, nor of the economic consequences. In the same review, however, Charles McGrath describes William Trevor’s writing as timeless. Quoting critic Fintan O’Toole, McGrath adds that, perhaps owing to his past as a sculptor, Trevor’s writing is sometimes sculptural and almost abstract. The timeless characteristic of William Trevor’s writing might explain why it escapes usual categories. His longevity as a writer indeed proves that if his message is also timeless, however it nds in present day events enough material to trigger the ame of creation. But the fact that his ction remains anchored in the past or away from Ireland should indeed question Trevor’s readers. It might well be a hint that a change of paradigm is necessary to read William Trevor’s work and that, perhaps, reading it as a timeless description of life in mid-twentieth-century parochial Ireland is not doing his work full justice. The close study of his short stories and longer works reveals that in the folds of the implicit discourse so often described as his personal style, a particular space is chiselled in. The space in question is the invisible and mysterious place of creation from which imagination can burst forth in the minds of readers. This particular place of creation is sculpted in the text as William Trevor the sculptor would have sculpted it. As he explained on several occasions, he started writing because his sculpting had become too abstract and he realized the esh that was missing in his sculpture had found its place in his stories.3
