Excavating the Hidden Self: Adrian Duncan's The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth
Lucy Collins of University College Dublin explains that Duncan refuses what we expect of a novel. The ideas of visual art matter more here than the plot and character that usually drive fiction. Our focus is on the restorative sculptor John Molloy, and the narrative takes us into his craft. While Chris finds Molloy a frustratingly repressed character, a crisis forces Molloy to confront his past. His interest in sculpture recalls both his father's accident at the local quarry and his mother's vision of a Blessed Virgin statue moving. Molloy remains unemotional despite establishing a relationship with fellow-artist Bernadette, but the imminent death of a friend compels him to grieve. Lucy and Chris discuss how Molloy's day among the artworks of Bologna, minutely observed, offers means for Molloy to engage with old trauma and new bereavement. In all of this author Adrian Duncan avoids obvious literary techniques so that the reader must encounter Molloy on his own terms as an artist.
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