Ciarán O’Driscoll's latest work, The Golden Ass, is an unforgettable odyssey

A superb novella by Ciarán O’Driscoll was recently published by the Limerick Writers’ Centre.

It is titled, The Golden Ass.

The story is about Martin an Irishman teaching in Paris who takes a break from married life to try and deal with his sexual confusion and residual PTSD from leaving a religious order. 
The Golden Ass is a brilliantly crafted work with profound psychological insight, infused with rollicking humour. 
Ciarán O’Driscoll hails from Callan, Co Kilkenny but lives in Limerick. He is a member of Aosdána (the Irish academy of artists, each of whom must have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality). He has published 10 books of poetry, a childhood memoir titled, A Runner Among Falling Leaves and a novel, A Year’s Midnight. 
In the book Martin takes time off from his job and family and goes to Holland, hoping to de-stress. His problems follow him, including nocturnal visitations by an incubus. An incubus is a demon in male form in folklore that seeks to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women; the corresponding spirit in female form is called a succubus. Parallels exist in many cultures.
But in this novella we have a gay incubus. There is a psychopathological disorder known as Incubus Syndrome in which a person has a strong delusion that they have been sexually approached at night by a devil/demon. There is a stirring or an awakening of sexual identity and orientation here, a transitioning. Although there is nothing new about such a theme it, nevertheless, puts the focus of the novel at the centre of contemporary issues that will resonate with many  readers.
Ciaran’s prose is masterfully laconic and that terseness is conveyed with such apparent ease that I’m sure it took a lot of work. 

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When Martin returned to teaching he attempted to foster a deep appreciation for poetry amongst his students, despite opposition from the head of literature studies. Rather than his students exclusively dissecting poetry for exam purposes he sought to instil a love for poetry and the mystery of it.
The question arises as to whether Martin (the protagonist) is obsessed or possessed.
O’Driscoll deals with this superbly well in remembering a theology lesson in his seminary where both were respectively defined and distinguished. Anyway these delusions, apparitions, figments of the imagination, evil incorporeal entities or the emanations of an unhappy and overwrought mind continue to be manifest. There is a profound analytical insight offered by way of explanation on page 18. 
Central to this work is the idea of gender fluidity. Martin, in conversation with Sarah (his wife) says at a later stage of the novel, “Isn’t that what’s coming to the surface these days, Sarah. That we are all fluid, in various degrees.”
The significance of the last word (Ithaca) in the novel is telling as it is the Greek island in the Ionian Sea, regarded as the home of Homer's Odysseus. This novella is, indeed, an unforgettable odyssey.