'Attributes' reviewed by Dr Arthur Broomfield

"It needs qualification to claim Michael Mc Aloran is a post-Beckett writer, which he is, no mean achievement and rare itself in an age when the narrative is being dragged, kicking and squealing, to its long overdue death. Like The Master the existential experience is a dark place for Mc Aloran, albeit, accessed through language that cuts to that which drives him with a searing contempt for representation: ‘…there is nothing else to observe / but the razorblade's chime dancing’. Like Mondrian he strives to present: ‘Colour me/I am erased/ else there will be no sky left,’ grapples with and entertains the notion of presenting what it is to be; ‘the light is an inaudible cry’. Mc Aloran sees hope in the life as it is, [unlike Beckett’s perception that existence is a transitory experience], it is ‘crying out to the dead god in us’. That god responds in Mc Aloran’s vision of an elsewhere that is rid of meaning and ethics in a cry audible to the perceptive ear, in language gifted by the gods." -- Dr Arthur Broomfield

First published 2011, the book itself is available @ Amazon.co.uk