[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-116680-en":3,"doc-seo-116680-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":89},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":21,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":26,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},116680,962075114765,"Quinn","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd",2,"Literature","Fierce Appetites - Loving, Losing and Living to Excess in My Present and in the Writings of the Past","A collection of personal essays structured by months explores how grief, love, memory, nature, time, and words shape lived experience. Drawing on medieval Irish and British literary and religious culture, the author moves between intimate family moments and historical voices, using poetry and ritual to interpret loss and excess. From lockdown and learning to inheritance and mourning, the writing connects emotional intensity with intellectual depth, turning private rituals into a broader meditation on how the past continues to live inside the present.","Elizabeth Boyle  \nFIERCE APPETITES  \nLoving, Losing and Living to Excess in My Present and in the Writings of the Past  \nContents  \nJanuary: Grief  \nFebruary: Mothers  \nMarch: Journeys  \nApril: Lockdown  \nMay: Learning  \nJune: Inheritance  \nJuly: Nature  \nAugust: Time  \nSeptember: Words  \nOctober: Bodies  \nNovember: Love  \nDecember: Memory Afterword  \nGlossary and guide to pronunciation Acknowledgements and permissions  \nAbout the Author  \nElizabeth Boyle was born in Dublin, grew up in Suffolk and returned to live in Dublin in 2013. She is a medieval historian specializing in the intellectual, literary and religious culture of Ireland and Britain. A former Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge, she now works in the Department of Early Irish at Maynooth University, where she was Head of Department for five years until 2020. Fierce Appetites is her debut collection of personal essays.  \nFor Nora – here, at last, are ‘the thoughts of my mind’  \nJANUARY  \nGrief  \nThe last words my father said to me were ‘Happy New Year’. By the evening of New Year’s Day he was back in hospital, drowning in his own fluids. The doctors recommended ceasing all treatment and he was moved into a side room to begin dying. His only surviving brother came to say goodbye, baffled by the injustice of the situation – that he, the eldest child, should be the last one standing, his four younger siblings all gone before him. An Indian priest came to administer the Last Rites. My youngest brother-by-the-same-father, unbaptized, the son of my Scottish Protestant stepmother, stood silently, uncomprehending, while I mouthed the responses to the Catholic sacrament with no belief other than that this is what our father would have wanted.  \nWe went home to sleep. My stepmother took the night shift, whispering memories to her unresponsive husband, playing songs to him on her phone. Around 6 a.m. we got the call: the time was near. My brother and I got into the car and he drove the journey along dark roads to the hospital. I tried to think of some profound life advice that I might have received from my father. He had once suggested that I spice up astale relationship by having an affair, but that didn’t seem like a suitably solemn lesson, although I had indeed followed the advice at the time. (It didn’t help. ) Nothing else came to mind.  \nMy brother and I arrived at the hospital and kissed our father’s forehead. At 8 a.m. we realized the coffee shop had opened and we slipped out to buy oversized Americanos. My brother poured seventeen sachets of sugar into his black coffee. I muttered to him, ‘If Dad dies while you’re adding all these fucking sugars I will never speak to you again.’  \nWe walked back to the ward. Dad had died, with my stepmum at his side, while we were adding endless sugar to coffee, and that somehow seemed right, and we hugged and cried and I left the room to tell a nurse that Dad was gone.  \nOne medieval Irish poet, speaking of grief, wrote ‘my heart is a clot of blood’. My heart was a clot of blood as I sat in the hospital coffee shop sending messages, receiving condolences, waiting for my eldest brotherby-the-same-father-and-mother and his daughter to arrive at the hospital, and for my father’s body to be prepared in the mortuary.  \nSometime in the middle of the eighth century, the poet Blathmac, son of Cú Brettan, wrote of the Crucifixion that:  \nThe whole world grew dark,  \nthe land shook under gloom.  \nAt the death of noble Jesus  \ngreat rocks broke asunder …  \nA stream of blood gushed forth – too severe –  \nso that the skin of every tree became red.  \nThere was gore on the surfaces of the world,  \nin the treetops of every great forest.  \nIt was fitting for God’s elements,  \nbeautiful sea, beautiful sky, this earth,  \nthat they should change their aspect  \nwhen keening their hero.  \nI stepped outside for a while and saw that the January sky was very blue. But nothing changed, the world did not grow dark, there was no gore ","cbCaimVgkA1iAMel","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimVgkA1iAMel","pdf",2461246,1,105,"English","en","# Contents\n## January: Grief\n## February: Mothers\n## March: Journeys\n## April: Lockdown\n## May: Learning\n## June: Inheritance\n## July: Nature\n## August: Time\n## September: Words\n## October: Bodies\n## November: Love\n## December: Memory\n## Afterword\n## Glossary and guide to pronunciation","[{\"question\":\"What is the organizing structure of the book?\",\"answer\":\"The essays are arranged by months, from January through December, followed by an afterword and supporting materials like a glossary and pronunciation guide.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the author approach grief in the January essay?\",\"answer\":\"The January section traces the death of the author’s father through detailed family interactions, hospital scenes, and ritual mourning, then deepens the reflection by invoking medieval poetry about grief and the natural world.\"},{\"question\":\"What kind of sources and cultural influences appear in the writing?\",\"answer\":\"The book blends personal experience with literary and religious references, including medieval Irish poets and descriptions of practices such as wakes and lamentation.\"}]","Fierce Appetites - 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