A Traveller's Portrait of Ireland
"The rain here is absolute, magnificent, and frightening. To call this rain bad weather is as inappropriate as to call scorching sunshine fine weather." So writes Heinrich Boll about that most bewitching of countries, Ireland. Here he travels with his wife and children; coping with the intricacies of foreign exchange, eavesdropping on conversations aboard a steamer, tramping through rain-soaked peat.
This is Ireland seen through the loving eyes of a novelist and a stranger - the lilt of the voices, the laughter of the children, the smell of the wet earth, and the warm, heady friendliness of the pubs are evoked here with amused understanding and a matchless vitality.