Ep 25: Irish Stories - The Secret of Kells & Dubliners

<p>In this episode of Parallel Fiction, Heather and Jeff bring stories from Irish artists into focus as they celebrate St. Patricks Day.  Pulling inspiration from the green holiday, the hosts made sure to feature work that was created outside of their home in the US.  Heather and Jeff talk about the critically acclaimed animated film <i>The Secret of Kells</i> and the Eveline portion of James Joyce’s masterpiece <i>Dubliners.</i></p><p> </p><p>Heather starts first in the presentation portion with the <i>Eveline</i> short story of <i>Dubliners</i>, a novel that is broken up into many separate (parallel) stories of Irishmen and women of all ages in the early 1900’s.  Heather commends the nuance and heartbreak of the main character Eveline, and her struggle to move from Ireland.  The ending particularly stuck with Heather, as writer James Joyce struck a nerve with all of the short stories of <i>Dubliners</i> that stick with most readers long after they have finished the book.</p><p> </p><p><i>Fun Fact!  The standard "This movie is a work of fiction" disclaimer gets a little twist at the end: "Nobody was robbed during the making of this movie. Except you."</i></p><p> </p><p>Jeff brings us back into the second portion of summaries with the animated feature film <i>The Secret of Kells</i>, which is the fictionalized story of the real life Book of Kells.  Set in the 800’s, the film depicts a ton of medieval Irish lore that often times gets forgotten in pop culture.  Jeff notes that all of the imagery and legends mentioned in the film inspired him to look up more and go down a rabbit hole of research.  An Oscar nominated film, <i>The Book of Kells</i> is much more than the children’s move it pretends to be.</p><p> </p><p><i>True Story!  While the plot of the film is fictional, the Book of Kells is very real.  We highly recommend you google it and take a look at some of the pages.</i></p><p> </p><p>Following these reviews, Heather and Jeff dive into commonalities between the two works such as traditions, culture, landscap