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Wheels Within Wheels
Sat Nov 21 20:02:20 GMT 2009
Having never previously read any of Dervla Murphy's works it might seem strange to start with a autobiographical book of her early life. Yet this strangeness is in part explained by how I first heard of Murphy, on a radio broadcast reviewing her book Through Siberia by Accident: A Small Slice of Autobiography, which details her wanderings in Siberia at the age of 73. A woman capable of such feats, I assumed, would almost certainly be worth learning more about.
I was not disappointed. Well written and engaging, Wheels Within Wheels is not only a chronicle of Murphy's upbringing in rural Ireland, but is genuinely thought provoking as an examination of the charged relationship between Murphy and her mother, crippled by arthritis at an early age and increasingly dependent on Murphy throughout the course of the book. If I was looking for the furnace that wrought a person willing to explore Siberia alone when most are settling down into retirement, then Wheels Within Wheels certainly contains that, and more besides.