Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 29, 1992 TAG: 9203290250
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by MARY ANN JOHNSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Maeve Binchy has the natural storyteller's ability to make the events of ordinary lives interesting. Character and situation are her forte, and there is a gentle sensibility, almost domesticity, to her writing that enables her to be a neutral observer of human failings and foibles.
Although "The Lilac Bus" is a collection of five stories, the title story - itself a collection of eight stories - easily could have been published alone as a novella. If it had been developed to the extent it deserves, it would have been a novel.
Every Friday evening seven passengers board a purple bus in Dublin for the trip across the Irish countryside to the small town of Rathdoon where they spend the weekend in individual pursuits. Binchy allocates a chapter to each passenger, and their stories, like their lives, intersect. The concept is appealing and Binchy's execution is effective. The bump in the road is that the definition of a final scene is missing; the bus lets us out before we feel we have reached our destination.
The yen for more is sated by the overindulgences in the story that follows, "Dinner in Donnybrook"; "Flat in Ringsend" makes a humorous point but is tiresome in the process; "Decision in Belfield" maintains an unsettling past perfect verb tense throughout; and "Murmurs in Montrose" provides no surprises.
These stories, grouped together as the Dublin 4, were first published years ago, which may explain the flaws. After the first section of "The Lilac Bus" and after the novels "Circle of Friends" and "Silver Wedding," her readers expect more.
There is something delightfully stealthy about Maeve Binchy's writing. What initially appears to be absorption in shallow concerns gradually evolves into an understanding treatise on the substance of life. In a voice that is free of judgmental overtones, she writes with compassion of commonplace characters who face modern-day problems.
Sometimes this very capable Irish storyteller tarries too long at the trite, and less would be better. Other times her story stops before it ends. The journey on "The Lilac Bus" is comfortable and intriguing; would it had lasted a few more miles.
Mary Ann Johnson is an alumna of Hollins College.
by CNB