I have marked this as finished, but that's a wee fib, 'cause I haven't. But I just can't be bothered with this book any longer. It's boring. The first part was quite interesting, a tale of Edna growing up in the stultifying atmosphere of catholic Ireland in the 1930s but then she degenerates into...
I have read other autobiographies of the 1960's but could hardly get through Edna O'Brien's. Raised in a deteriorating country house in Ireland then sent to convent school, we see her spiral into self-pity and loveless marriage before she becomes the darling of the jet-set and American president...
A beautiful probably-autobiographical wee slip of a novel which reads more like a memoir about two Irish girls between the ages of 14 and 18 in which nothing much happens except ordinary poor country life stuff, the girls being bored witless and trying to grow up, the girls being righteously disg...
“…the milk-white china cups with their beautiful rims of gold, dimmed here and there from the graze of lips…” (3-4).“…telling her that she would have to go to Dublin for observation. Observation for what? As is she were the night sky” (8).“…I’ll never forget this moment, the hum of the bee, the s...
Edna O'Brien's prose reads like poetry. She conjures images from the mists of Irish mountains and the thick skin of peat bogs, her characters appearing wraith-like in a land of ancient legends and living superstitions. Her style lends a sense of timelessness to her stories and their settings and ...
I love that publishers are bringing back these vintage titles. This one was originally published in 1965. That’s not to say the story is dated. It’s about a young Irish woman with an eight year old son who’s been separated from her husband for a year. She’s also gone without sex for at least ...
We sang as we walked and when we could remember no more songs, the Doc sang folk songs from his own country, in his own tongue. Everyone wanted to be the person walking next to him. We were such a merry group that people waved to us from their passing cars. It was a sunny day and it was nice to r...
There is something about the kitchen that is not right. A kettle has been left on the gas ring, a new kettle at that and the after smell of burned rubber. Then there is Eily’s purse, the medicine that Maddie has to take every four hours and Elmer propped on the dresser, all evidence of their leav...
That was his wish. They spent their days in their wooden house, high up, on a mountain. There was snow for four or five months of each year, and in the early morning when the sun shone they sat on the veranda admiring the expanse of white fields, and the pines that were weighed down’ with snow. B...
Of course we did not hear of it straightaway as we live in the wilds, but a workman who comes to gather wood and fallen boughs told us that soldiers had swarmed the town and occupied the one hotel. He said they drank there, got paralytic, demanded lavish suppers, and terrorized the maids. The tow...
Everything about him was a paradox, insider and outsider, beautiful and deformed, serious and facetious, profligate but on occasion miserly, and possessed of a fierce intelligence trapped however in a child’s magic and malices. What he wrote concerning the poet Robert Burns could easily serve as ...
The cast was as follows: MISTRESS Lise Bruneau WIFE Julia Brothers DAUGHTER Tro M. Shaw Director Paul Whitworth Designer Kate Edmunds Lighting Kurt Landisman Costume Designer B. Modern Sound Designer Michael Woody Properties Artisan Sarah Ellen Joynt Stage Manager Sabrina Kniffin Production...
I have no bloodhounds to set upon them, so I vary the means by which I can get rid of them. I feign deaf and dumb. I slam the door. I palliate. I shout down from an upstairs window that I have a curling tongs to my hair. A very nice man came to mend a gas leak and because of having to strike matc...