By the same token, it might have been easy to turn The Law of Dreams into some treacly, redemptive, Oirish epic, but Behrens was keen to avoid that. He strove for authenticity, researching and writing for a decade. “The West of Ireland at that time was on the fringes of Europe. It was barely part of Europe,” he points out. “And, in a lot of ways, 1847 was the beginning of the modern world.” Meanwhile, the peasants in the Connacht were living lives that were almost prehistoric. It was a threshold, an utterly unique moment in time. Then it all disappeared.
“It was destroyed in two or three years, that world.” Now, Behrens is helping that curious corner of history live and breathe again.
Peter Behrens reads from The Law of Dreams on Wednesday, September 27, at the Harvard Bookstore, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge; call 617.497
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Peter Behrens: //www.peterbehrens.org/
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