Hungry Hill

Englishwoman Daphne du Maurier's Irish dynastic novel of 1943, HUNGRY HILL, is long, slow, weak on emphasis but otherwise competently written. *** The biggest weakness about HUNGRY OPINION, I think, is that the author does not understand Irish history. The Normans who came early to Ireland assimilated well, learned Gaelic, married local women, became thoroughly Irish. This is not the case with the Brodricks of Doonhaven. They had been centuries in Ireland before the novel begins in 1820. And yet till novel's end in 1920 the Brodricks play oil to Ireland's water. Brodricks claim to be Irish but act as if they had arrived only yesterday. They marry among other Anglo-Irish gentry. Their incompehension is profound of the Irish men and women whose labor makes their copper mining and later tin mining ventures deep within Hungry Hill. It is also inexplicable and hard to swallow. One strong man of no great social standing, "Copper John" Brodrick launches the family's wealth from mining in 1820. For the next four generations one male heir is weaker than the one before him. The women, with two exceptions are not much better. *** Supposedly a curse by the head of a "native" clan, the Donovans, once mighty locally, dooms the Brodricks. And there is indeed mild friction down the generations between Donvans and Brodricks. But it is half-hearted, unconvincing and trotted out from time to time only when the slow-moving narrative seems to demand to be freed of its sluggish shackles. Not one of Daphne du Maurier's masterpieces. -OOO-