Our mission was to initiate a discussion of the prospects for writing a synthesis of a History of Ukraine outside the canon of the master narrative. We were not interested in producing a fundamental historiographic outline or a profound theoretical treatise. Our task was quite utilitarian: to assess the possibilities of ' national history ' as a way of organizing knowledge about the past, as well as to outline possible ways to overcome its limitations. This article is based on an analytical note prepared for a working group based at the Institute of the History of Ukraine (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine), which in 2010 sought to develop the concept of a multivolume history of Ukraine. Leonard and Hungry Paul is published by Bluemoose.The process of formulating the concept for a new synthesis of Ukrainian history has brought to light several problems, the resolution of which depends on the success of the main plan: to ensure the emergence of a generalizing version of the history of Ukraine that would differ qualitatively, in terms of methodology and content, from previous syntheses and that would also be intellectually compatible with prevailing trends of history writing in Western scholarship. These flashes of wit and poignancy make something exceptional out of what might easily have been humdrum, vindicating WH Auden’s assertion that the novelist must learn “how to be / One after whom none think it worth to turn”. In the same sentence he can be heart-rending, adding that Leonard chose not to go because “nothing made him feel lonelier these days than the thought of spending time in the company of extroverts”. He is often inventively funny, as when he refers to blokes going to the pub “for an evening of darts, dominoes, cards or other prison games”. Nevertheless, this is an appealing book thanks to Hession’s engaging style, which flits lightly across the emotional range like a harpist plucking the strings.

But I defy any author, even one as winning as Hession, to make us savour a detailed discussion of who’ll order from the set menu and who’ll go for the a la carte. We’re meant to be appreciating the unappreciated aspects of life. Here the novel struggles to escape the fate of all books about unexciting people: they’re not exciting. The leisurely pace flags further when it comes to the subplots, which involve even less remarkable relatives.

As a man who lets the world wash over him, he’s low on appetite.) A strange choice of main character, you may think, and you’d be right: this is very much a two-hander, and without the low-key dynamism of Leonard as a counterbalance, Hungry Paul’s story would go nowhere. He is the walking embodiment of mindfulness, living in and for the present moment. Hungry Paul, by contrast, is self-contained: considerate, fond of his family, but perfectly content with “the innate orderliness of things”. Leonard, who writes for children’s encyclopedias, yearns to connect with someone and share the awe he feels at the beauty of the universe. The two title characters are single men in their 30s. It’s witty, but the jokes, refreshingly, are never at anyone’s expense. Irish debut Leonard and Hungry Paul is its opposite: a charming, warm-hearted celebration of all that is treasurable about everyday life, “stories of overlooked people who had simply lived their lives as best they could”. The grandaddy of the genre is George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody (1892), and that took malicious pleasure in skewering the pretensions of its bourgeois everyman. You don’t often get good novels about ordinary people living tranquil lives almost completely devoid of incident – no shocking discoveries, no crises, no coming to terms with a dark past.

Diana leonhard ukraine