[{"node":{"title":"Boyd064","Collections":"Boyd Letters","Contributor":"Boyd Estate","Coverage":"1970 Jun 22nd","Creator":"Linen Hall Library","Date":"Wednesday, March 16, 2016","Format":"TIFF","Identifier":"Boyd064","Item Description":"Letter","Keywords":"Friel, Mournes","Language":"English","Path":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/boyd064","Publisher":"Linen Hall Library","Relation":"Linen Hall Library","Rights":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA","Scanned image":{"src":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Boyd064_1.jpg","alt":""},"Source":"LHL Archive","Transcript":"\ufeff22nd June, 1970.\n\nMrs. Mennna Gallie,\n38 Parkside,\nCAMBRIDGE.\n\nDear Menna,\n\nI return your proofs which I read during a fairly hectic\nweekend - ranging from a visit to Donegal to make a recording\nwith Brian Friel to a visit to the Mournes with three lively\nAfricans! Any comments must be treated with proper disrespect -\nas usual.\n\nI don't think you have made any major, or indeed minor\nhowlers. I have enclosed a lot of tiny textual minutiae\njotted these down without a dictionary to hand, and sometimes\nlate at night. So double check them. Hope you can make out\nmy writing.\n\nNow for the novel itself. I. think the descriptive\nwriting is brilliant. Also all the women characters. You\ndeal less successfully with men. Caroline and Una are fine\ncreations. Sarah too - except I think she should think more\noften of her dead husband. Both the professor and the\njournalist are incompletely realised, particularly the journalist.\n\nTowards the end the material seems to swamp you. The\nWelsh lad added a complication which distressed me. I am a\ngreat one for keeping to a fairly straight story line. This\nof course, may be the dramatic discipline that binds me down.\n\nI was very worried indeed by the melodramatic note towards the\nend. Cried outs \"God, restraint, restraint\" - you galloped over\nbogland and mountainside like Lochinvar or somebody. I wanted\nto say \"Calmez-vous\"!\n\nTher you are. I hope I get a letter in return!\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nJOHN BOYD\n","Type":"Text"}}]