High Ground

Abstract

‘High Ground’ is the title story of the contemporary Irish writer John McGahern’s third collection — he has also written four novels.¹ It is not the leading story of the volume, however: that one (the first) is called ‘Parachutes’. These stories, and these titles, fascinate me, because they are at once (as their altitude suggests) aloof, distinct, cool and yet (as the ambiguities of the titles hint) prepared to enter into a relationship, to establish a stance or line between reader and text: prepared by the writer, as I take it, who creates the taste by which he is to be enjoyed, first by designating the space within which this process is to take place.