The art of the "good step" in Colm Tóibín's Bad blood

a walk along the Irish border (1987)

Marie Mianowski

pp. 267-277

in: Klaus Benesch, François Specq (eds), Walking and the aesthetics of modernity, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

In the summer of 1986, Colm Tóibín set off on a walk along the Irish Border. From the outset, choosing to walk along the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland implied a political perspective. In 1986 the "Northern Ireland peace process' was still not on the agenda and the choice of the Border as a walking space was therefore a highly symbolic one, but its mapping was unsettled and uncertain. While exploring Tóibín's narrative and topographic detours, I will also examine how well Tim Robinson's definition of "a good step" applies to Tóibín's enterprise, as every step "carries [him] across geologies, biologies, myths, histories, politics, and trips [him] with the trailing Rosa spinosissima of personal associations' (Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage, 1986, 20).

Cited authors

Toibin Colm