This is Happiness by Niall Williams
Years ago, a much-loved Uncle asked if he could come and visit. I was thrilled. He was known for his detailed storytelling and sure enough, after dinner, he settled into a recliner and began to narrate. His recounting was anecdotal and whimsical, lyrical and metaphorical. Just when I thought he was running out of steam, he’d lean forward and say, “And that’s not all…” On he would go. For the first hour, I was enthralled; the second, I was only half listening; the third, my head began to throb, and by the fourth hour, I regretted that I had opened my door to him in the first place. Too much of a good thing. Such is This is Happiness if you try to read it all in one go. It is rich; read it in small doses. It is poetic; read it aloud. It is exquisite; savor the use of language.
The author of This is Happiness, Niall Williams, was born in Ireland, educated in the U.S., married, and worked in Manhattan, before he and his wife, Chris Breen, decided to move to the Breen ancestral home in West Ireland. Like Mr. Williams, the narrator of This is Happiness, Noel Crowe (Noe), also finds his way to West Ireland, leaving the priesthood after the death of his mother and traveling to the tiny town of Faha in County Clare to live with his grandparents, Doady and Ganga. Now in his seventies, Noe looks back on the events during the summer of 1958 when the Rural Electrification Scheme brought electricity to Faha. and when, while becoming friends with one of the “electricity men” named Christy McMahon , he begins to discover what it means to live “a fully human life.”
Noe recalls his progress toward self-discovery through experiences shared by a group of unique personalities, among them Mrs. O’Donnell, who at ninety is still hunting for a husband; the widow Gallagher, who dies with a consecrated wafer stuck to the roof of her mouth; Ganga, who reads one book a year and that is Old Moore’s Almanac; Mother Acquin, who “could have been second choice to command the Allied Forces;” and, Mrs. Moore the aged smoker who holds the record for ash-balancing. These characters are incredibly well drawn, but long after you read This is Happiness, it will be Noe’s reflections that you will remember.
There are so many quotes I want to share, but I will stick to one and urge you to enjoy the others as you read This is Happiness. In this quote, Christy and Noe have just left a pub where “two fiddles, a flute and a concertina made time stretch so it was now and back across the ages in the same moment.” Christy states: “This is happiness” and Noe reflects on his statement.
‘Noe,’ he said, and took a theatrical breath, ‘this is happiness.’
I gave him back the look you give those a few shillings short of a pound […] but I came to understand him to mean you could stop at, not all, but most of the moments of your life, stop for one heartbeat and, no matter what the state of your head or heart, say This is happiness, because of the simple truth that you were alive to say it.
I think of that often. We can all pause right here, raise our heads, take a breath and accept that This is happiness, and the bulky blue figure of Christy cycling across the next life would be waving a big slow hand in the air at all of us coming along behind him.
‘This is happiness,’ he affirmed once more, pushing off and gasp-pedalling the uphill away from further enquiry. [Kindle Version, p. 170]
