DOCSLIB.ORG

Reader's Guide for Wild Decembers Published by Houghton Mifflin

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Reader's Guide for Wild Decembers Published by Houghton Mifflin A Reader's Guide Wild Decembers by Edna O'Brien • Questions for Discussion • Edna O'Brien on Writing, Writers, and Herself • About the Author • A National Bestseller & a Book Sense '76 Title "A page-turning narrative . as wildly beautiful and windswept as the country of her fiction." —Elle "O'Brien is a storyteller, an Irish storyteller, one of an ancient tradition of storytellers, people who tell the truth." —Thomas Cahill, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Beautiful and lush . a precise, poetic recollection of a distant world" —New York Times Book Review With the arrival of Michael Bugler's newfangled tractor, and of Mick Bugler himself, fresh from Australia to claim his family heritage, life on the mountain of Slieve Clochan and in the village of Cloontha is changed forever. And Joseph Brennan's relationship with the fields, bogs, and woods of the mountain he calls his own is also transformed–as is the conventional, home- and church-bound life of Joseph's younger sister, Breege. Edna O'Brien's masterly novel recounts the tragically rapid and life-altering demise of relations between Joe Brennan and Mick Bugler, "the warring sons of warring sons," on a tradition-bound mountain in tradition-bound western Ireland. With her inimitable gift for illuminating individual and social conflict www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 1 of 7 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved and heartbreak, O'Brien raises Joseph's love for his land to the level of his sister Breege's love for both him and his new rival, Bugler. Aware for the first time in her life of love's possibilities, Breege also sees "the wrong of years and the recent wrongs" fuel each other, as Bugler's actions clash with her brother's long-unquestioned claims. A classic drama ensues, involving all the "treasons, stratagems, and spoils" of which the human heart is capable. And all is leavened by the comedy of which Edna O'Brien never loses sight. A village dinner dance and Mick Bugler's seduction by a pair of land-hungry sisters rival Joyce in their comic exuberance. As the story unfolds, however, we are drawn into a destined discord of love, envy, possessiveness, and revenge, in a place both near and far away. Wild Decembers is a triumphant work from a writer who breaks new ground with each new novel. Questions for Discussion We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion for reading groups and provide a deeper understanding of Wild Decembers for every reader. 1. What is the significance of the novel's title, in itself and in association with the Emily Brontë quotation used as an epigraph? Why is the title in the plural? 2. What "frail and rusted shards" and relics of "the long ago" — actual and metaphoric — are still present in, or emerge from, the town, fields, bogs, and woods of Cloontha and Slieve Clochan and affect the people of today? In what respect might individual characters themselves be regarded as relics of "the long ago"? 3. In the preface, O'Brien writes: "They say the enemy came in the night, but the enemy can come at any hour, be it dawn or twilight, because the enemy is always there and these people know it, locked in a tribal hunger that bubbles in the blood and hides out on the mountain." Who or what is "the enemy"? How would you describe that "tribal hunger"? How does it make itself known in the lives of the characters? 4. In what ways are Reena and Rita's methods of acquiring land both different from and similar to the historical and contemporary ways of others? To what extent is their attachment to the land similar to Joe's and Mick's? www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 2 of 7 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved 5. In what sense are the bogs "sacred places and the storehouse of our past," as Joseph writes to Bugler? What importance does this view of the bogs — and of the mountain itself — take on? 6. How important to the story and to the lives of the people of Cloontha is the notion of the outsider–"the inferiority of the returned exile," in Mr. Leveau's words? Why in a community like Cloontha is the outsider, however related to the locality by family history, seen as a threat? 7. Just before he beats her, Breege sees in Joseph's eyes "that mad rage that is the inverse of love." What other "inverses" of and obstacles to love occur in the novel? How and why do destructive feelings and actions turn people away from the love and friendship that they otherwise feel – or might feel — for one another? 8. As a result of Joseph's attack on Breege, "Fear had come into the house and with fear falsity." What fears and what falsities existed in the lives of Breege, Joseph, and the others prior to the beating, and which become prominent after the beating? 9. What roles, possibilities, opportunities, and resources are open to the women of Cloontha? What are the consequences for Breege and other women of ignoring or challenging conventions and expectations? 10. What is the purpose of the sometimes garbled, sometimes inappropriate literary and mythic quotations and allusions favored by Joseph and the Crock? How does deliberate or unintentional misrepresentation of history, myth, legend, and law result in a distorted view of the present and a deformed sense of oneself? 11. In what ways, and to what extent, does Breege take on a mythic presence and function, especially beginning on the moonlit night when she takes Bugler to her family's graveyard on the lake isle? In what ways, and to what extent, is Joseph's behavior the contrary of the mythic hero's or legendary warrior's? What other characters might be seen as similarly representing or alluding to mythic figures? 12. What supernatural signs, elements, and presences play a part in the story? How are they introduced, in what contexts, and with what relevance to the characters and the action? www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 3 of 7 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved 13. What factors result in Joe Brennan's ending up feeling "outside everyone and everything . , an outcast in the world"? What forces–personal, familial, communal, and historical–come together to impose an outcast state on Joseph? To what extent is he himself accountable for his virtually complete isolation? 14. Alone in the Brennan house after Joe's sentencing, Breege, "holding her belly, . reaches back, back to those nameless and spectral forces of which she is made. " If we were to give names to those "spectral forces," what might we call them? In what way are they the forces of which Breege herself is made? 15. O'Brien has said that "for the characters in Wild Decembers, the holding on to land is as vital as the holding on to life. They are interchangeable." In what ways are the two interchangeable for O'Brien's characters? To what extent might that interchangeability be the consequence of generations of deprivation and an inherited fear of dispossession? Edna O'Brien on Writing, Writers, and Herself On the rural Ireland of her childhood: I happened to grow up in a country that was and is breathlessly beautiful, so the feeling for nature, for verdure, and for the soil was instilled in me. Secondly, there was no truck with culture or literature so that my longing to write sprang up of its own accord, was spontaneous. The only books in our house were prayer books, cookery books, and blood stock reports. I was privy to the world around me, was aware of everyone's little history, the stuff from which stories and novels are made. On the personal level, it was pretty drastic. So all these things combined to make me what I am.1 On leaving Ireland: To establish oneself in a particular place and to use it as the locale for fiction is both a strength to a writer and a signpost to the reader. But you have to go if you find your roots too threatening, too impinging. Joyce said that Ireland is the sow that eats its farrow – he was referring to their attitude to their writers, they savage them. It is no accident that our two greatest illustrati – himself and Mr. [Samuel] Beckett – left and stayed away, though they never lost their particular Irish consciousness. In my own case, I do not www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 4 of 7 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved think that I would have written anything if I had stayed. I feel I would have been watched, would have been judged (even more!) and would have lost that priceless commodity called freedom. Writers are always on the run and I was on the run from many things. Yes, I dispossessed myself and I am sure that I lost something, lost the community, lost the day-to-day contact with reality. However, compared with Eastern European writers [as of 1984], I have the advantage that I can always go back.1 On the correct position regarding women in literature: The correct position is to write the truth, to write what one feels regardless of any public consideration or any clique. I think an artist never takes a position either through expediency or umbrage. Artists detest and suspect positions because they know that the minute you take a fixed position you are something else, you are a journalist or you are a politician. What I am after is a bit of magic and I do not want to write tracts or to read them.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Representations of Femininity in the Novels of Edna 0 'Brien, 1960-1996
    Representations of Femininity in the Novels of Edna 0 'Brien, 1960-1996 being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Hull by Amanda Greenwood, BA, MLitt (University of Bristol) April 1999 Acknowledgements My greatest debts are to Dr Jane Thomas (University of Hull) and Professor Marion Shaw (Loughborough University) for their unfailing inspiration and support throughout their supervision of this thesis. I am grateful for financial assistance in the forms of a part time studentship from Loughborough University followed by a full time graduate teaching assistantship from the University of Hull. I would also like to thank Dr Katharine Cockin and Professor Angela Leighton of the University of Hull for reading draft versions of this thesis and advising me on revisions. Finally I am indebted to Edna O'Brien's publicity officer, Nick MacDowell of the Orion Publishing Group Limited, for supplying extensive copies of reviews of House of Splendid Isolation. Contents Introduction 1-30 Chapter 1, Negative Romance: The Country Girls trilogy (1960-1964) 31-80 Chapter 2, 'Glacial Nihilism': August is a Wicked Month (1965) and Casualties of Peace (1966) 81-124 Chapter 3, 'Woman must write herself': A Pagan Place(1970) and Night (1972) 125-175 Chapter 4, 'Ireland has always been a woman': Mother Ireland (1976) 176-219 Chapter 5, 'An Other Landscape': The High Road (1988) 220-275 Chapter 6, 'Might before Right': House of Splendid Isolation (1994) and Down by the River (1996) 276-343 Conclusion 344-347 Bibliography 348-363 11 Introduction In the National Portrait Gallery Bill Brandt's black and white photograph of Edna O'Brien (1980) is exhibited alongside portraits of Doris Lessing and Germaine Greer.' The Gallery's implicit recognition of O'Brien as a contemporary woman writer of significance is reinforced by the portrait's caption, which reads: 'Since her first novel The Country Girls (1960), O'Brien has addressed the subject [sic] of women in society, of solitude and sexual repression'.
    [Show full text]
  • Reader's Guide for in the Forest Published by Houghton Mifflin
    A Reader's Guide In The Forest by Edna O'Brien • Questions for Discussion (Coming Soon) • Edna O'Brien on Writing, Writers, and Herself • About the Author • A New York Times Notable Book and a Book Sense 76 selection "This literary thriller reads like a dark enchantment, an unholy myth, a terrifyingly true fairy tale." — Elle In the Forest returns to the countryside of western Ireland, the vivid backdrop of Edna O'Brien's best-selling Wild Decembers. Here O'Brien unravels a classic confrontation between evil and innocence centering on the young, troubled Michael O'Kane, christened by his neighbors "the Kindershrek," someone of whom small children are afraid. O'Kane loses his mother as a boy and by age ten is incarcerated in a juvenile detention center, an experience that leaves him scarred from abuse — and worse, with the killing instinct buried within. A story based on actual events, In the Forest proceeds in a rush of breathtaking, hair-raising episodes and asks what will become of O'Kane's unwitting victims — a radiant young woman, her little son, and a devout and trusting priest. Riveting, frightening, and brilliantly told, this intimate portrayal of both perpetrator and victims reminds us that anything can happen "outside the boundary of mother and child." www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 1 of 5 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved "A chilling read that will settle forever into the marrow of your bones." — USA Today "A tour de force of finely restrained fury." — Dan Cryer, Newsday "It's pure Edna O'Brien, who can take the verdant promises of the west of Ireland and render them sensual, paralyzing, and dangerous, sometimes all at once." — Gail Caldwell, Boston Globe "One of [Edna O'Brien's] most powerful and effective novels, a model of its kind." — Sunday Telegraph Edna O'Brien on Writing, Writers, and Herself On the rural Ireland of her childhood: I happened to grow up in a country that was and is breathlessly beautiful, so the feeling for nature, for verdure, and for the soil was instilled in me.
    [Show full text]
  • Edna O'brien, Irish Feminism and Her Gébler
    University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Honors Scholar Theses Honors Scholar Program 5-1-2007 ANOTHER "SCANDALOUS WOMAN": EDNA O’BRIEN, IRISH FEMINISM AND HER GÉBLER MEN Jeffrey P. Griffin University of Connecticut, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Griffin,eff J rey P., "ANOTHER "SCANDALOUS WOMAN": EDNA O’BRIEN, IRISH FEMINISM AND HER GÉBLER MEN" (2007). Honors Scholar Theses. 26. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses/26 ANOTHER ‘SCANDALOUS WOMAN ’: EDNA O’BRIEN, IRISH FEMINISM AND HER GÉBLER MEN Jeffrey Patrick Griffin A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Connecticut in partial fulfillme nt of the requirements for the Bachelor D egree of Art s in English with University Scholar and Honors Scholar designation. University of Connecticut 2007 Approved by: Dr. Mary Bur ke Dr. Brendan Kane Dr. Thomas S hea ABSTRACT Irish novelist Edna O’Brien suffered a tumultuous early reception ; her first six novels were banned in Ireland, and critics complained that her writing was sensational and gratuitous. Yet by the time Ireland’s economic boom arrived on the island, many contemporary critics suddenly applaud the novelist’s writing. Is th is significant change in critical reception based on O’Brien’s development as an author? Or was O’Brien writing stories that were ahead of her time and only now accepted by contemporary critics? My paper considers the writing and critical reception of Ed na O’Brien by placing her life and career alongside three waves of Irish feminism.
    [Show full text]
  • Distribution Agreement in Presenting This Thesis As a Partial Fulfillment Of
    Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis. Signature: _____________________________ ______________ Jessica Annemarie Itzel 4/14/2010 Troubling Irish Women: Edna O‘Brien‘s Country Girls Trilogy by Jessica A. Itzel Adviser Dr. Geraldine Higgins Department of English _________________________ Dr. Geraldine Higgins Adviser _________________________ Dr. Barbara Ladd Committee Member _________________________ Dr. Yanna Yannakakis Committee Member ________________________ 4/14/2010 Troubling Irish Women: Edna O‘Brien‘s Country Girls Trilogy By Jessica A. Itzel Adviser Dr. Geraldine Higgins An abstract of A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Emory College of Arts and Sciences of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Department of English 2010 Abstract Troubling Irish Women: Edna O‘Brien‘s Country Girls Trilogy By Jessica A. Itzel A decade before the women‘s movement launched in Ireland, Edna O‘Brien shocked Irish audiences with her realistic representation of women‘s experience in her first novel, The Country Girls.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of the Short Story in English, 63 | Autumn 2014 Questioning the Paddy Stereotype in Edna O’Brien’S “Shovel Kings” 2
    Journal of the Short Story in English Les Cahiers de la nouvelle 63 | Autumn 2014 Special Issue: The 21st Century Irish Short Story Questioning the Paddy Stereotype in Edna O’Brien’s “Shovel Kings” Jeanette Roberts Shumaker Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jsse/1514 ISSN: 1969-6108 Publisher Presses universitaires de Rennes Printed version Date of publication: 1 December 2014 ISBN: 0294-0442 ISSN: 0294-04442 Electronic reference Jeanette Roberts Shumaker, « Questioning the Paddy Stereotype in Edna O’Brien’s “Shovel Kings” », Journal of the Short Story in English [Online], 63 | Autumn 2014, Online since 01 December 2016, connection on 03 December 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/jsse/1514 This text was automatically generated on 3 December 2020. © All rights reserved Questioning the Paddy Stereotype in Edna O’Brien’s “Shovel Kings” 1 Questioning the Paddy Stereotype in Edna O’Brien’s “Shovel Kings” Jeanette Roberts Shumaker London is the place where the incessant labour that was the navy’s life can be forgotten for a while in the pubs of Camden Town and the dance halls of Cricklewood, so much so that it becomes a veritable home from home. Jean-Philippe Hertz (7) 1 Known for decades for her novels and short stories about passion, adultery, and relationships between mothers and daughters, Edna O’Brien seemed preoccupied by so- called “women’s concerns,” which may have caused her neglect by critics, according to Lisa Colletta and Maureen O’Connor (4). However, starting in the 1990s O’Brien broadened her focus
    [Show full text]
  • Edna O'brien's “The Little Red Chairs” and “Girl”
    Fecha de recepción: 1 septiembre 2019 Fecha de aceptación: 28 octubre 2019 Fecha de publicación: 9 febrero 2020 URL: https://oceanide.es/index.php/012020/article/view/43/186 Oceánide número 13, ISSN 1989-6328 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37668/oceanide.v13i.43 Dr. José Manuel Estévez-Saá Universidade da Coruña, España ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7979-2853 “Fearful … and Fearless”: Edna O’Brien’s “The Little Red Chairs” and “Girl” Resumen Las dos últimas novelas publicadas por Edna O’Brien, The Little Red Chairs (2015) y Girl (2019) han sido alabadas de forma unánime por la crítica. Philip Roth consideró The Little Red Chairs como la obra maestra de la escritora en la cubierta del libro, y para Éilís Ní Dhuibne se trató su novela más ambiciosa (2019), lo cual es mucho decir en el caso de una autora que ha sido un referente en la literatura irlandesa desde los años 60. Girl, su última novela, también ha sido reseñada positivamente, entre otros, por nombres tan influyentes como Christina Patterson (2019) y Anne Enright (2019). The Little Red Chairs se inspira en el episodio histórico de la Guerra de los Balcanes y el asedio de Sarajevo. Dividida en tres partes, la novela dirige a sus lectores desde el oeste de Irlanda hasta los Balcanes, pasando por Londres y el Tribunal de La Haya, en una serie de movimientos que sirven a la autora para ilustrar los intercambios migratorios en la sociedad actual, y que involucran a exiliados políticos, refugiados, expatriados y migrantes económicos. Girl ha sido descrita por la propia autora como la novela más dura y dolorosa que ha escrito.
    [Show full text]
  • Animals and the Irish Mouth in Edna O'brien's Fiction
    Journal of Ecocriticism 5(2) July 2013 Animals and the Irish Mouth in Edna O’Brien’s Fiction Maureen O’Connor, University College Cork1 Abstract From Edna O’Brien’s earliest novels, many commentators have noted that desire is at the core of the narratives. The true irony in such observations lies in their frequently blinkered understanding of what comprises that desire, reducing it to a heteronormative, Barbara-Cartland-style pursuit of “romance.” While the characters themselves may think this is what they hunger for, the text inevitably opens up vaster sources of insatiable longing. As Mary Douglas has established, “the body is capable of furnishing a natural system of symbols” (xxxii), and in O’Brien’s texts the human mouth, especially when at its most “animal,” metonymizes numerous desires, most often balked and even impossible ones, including those that actuate the scene of writing. Mouths are everywhere in O’Brien’s novels, licking, yawning, weeping, swallowing, keening, grimacing, biting, shrieking, chewing, singing, speaking, and opening in silence. These mouths give voice to the immaterial, and even animate the inorganic, which, for all of its immateriality, can yet resist manipulation. The inscrutable “inhuman” voice that emerges ultimately reveals “that words themselves are sphinxes, hybrids of the animal, the human, and the inorganic” (Ellmann 77). The natural cries of all animals, even of those animals with whom we have not been acquainted, never fail to make themselves sufficiently understood; this cannot be said of language. Edmund Burke The absolutely foreign alone can instruct us Emmanuel Levinas Ireland is the most rich, inescapable land.
    [Show full text]
  • O'brien, EDNA. Edna O'brien Papers, Circa 1939-2000
    O'BRIEN, EDNA. Edna O'Brien papers, circa 1939-2000 Emory University Robert W. Woodruff Library Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library Atlanta, GA 30322 404-727-6887 [email protected] Collection Stored Off-Site All or portions of this collection are housed off-site. Materials can still be requested but researchers should expect a delay of up to two business days for retrieval. Descriptive Summary Creator: O'Brien, Edna. Title: Edna O'Brien papers, circa 1939-2000 Call Number: Manuscript Collection No. 855 Extent: 46.25 linear feet (95 boxes), 1 oversized papers box and 2 oversized papers folders (OP), and AV Masters: .75 linear feet (2 boxes) Abstract: Literary and personal papers of Irish author Edna O'Brien from circa 1939-2000. Language: Materials entirely in English. Administrative Information Restrictions on access Special restrictions apply: Subseries 1.5, entire subseries is closed to researchers, including letters from Marie Heaney. Special restrictions: Use copies have not been made for audiovisual material in this collection. Researchers must contact the Rose Library at least two weeks in advance for access to these items. Collection restrictions, copyright limitations, or technical complications may hinder the Rose Library's ability to provide access to audiovisual material. Series 2, Journals, are closed to researchers and Series 5, Subject files, contains some material which is closed to researchers. Collection stored off-site. Researchers must contact the Rose Library in advance to access this collection. Emory Libraries provides copies of its finding aids for use only in research and private study. Copies supplied may not be copied for others or otherwise distributed without prior consent of the holding repository.
    [Show full text]
  • Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-13110-1 — a History of Modern Irish Women's Literature Edited by Heather Ingman , Clíona Ó Gallchoir Index More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-13110-1 — A History of Modern Irish Women's Literature Edited by Heather Ingman , Clíona Ó Gallchoir Index More Information Index Page numbers in bold indicate a detailed reference Abbey heatre, 126, 136, 144, 153, 313, 315 Backscheider, Paula, 51 abortion, 9, 10, 15, 124, 245, 261, 262, 273, Backus, Margot, 237 315, 429, 431 Balfour, Mary, 64 abuse, 193, 260 ‘Fairy Queen, he’, 64 domestic, 124, 253, 287, 340 Hope: A Poetical Essay; with Various Other institutional, 9, 394 Poems, 66 of children, 15, 267, 287, 291, 428, 430, 432 Banim, John and Michael (The Banim Act of Union, 7, 59 Brothers), 64 Adams, Bernard (Bishop of Limerick), 29 banshee. See bean sí Æ. See Russell, George Banville, John, 206 Aisling Ghéar heatre Company, 350 Barber, Mary, 51 AkiDwA, 400 Poems on Several Occasions, 51, 52 Akinjobi, Olutoyin Pamela, 399 ‘Written for my Son, and Spoken by Him at Herstory: migration stories of African women in School’, 52 Ireland (editor), 400 ‘Written for my Son, and Spoken by him on Akpoveta, Ebun Joseph, 399, 400 irst putting on his Breeches’, 52 Trapped: Prison Without Wall, 442 bardic schools, 19 Alcock, Deborah, 99 Bardwell, Leland Alexander, Mrs. See Hector, Annie French Diferent Kinds of Love, 287 Amharclann de hÍde, 349 Girl On a Bicycle, 265 amhrán, 19 Restless Life, A, 384 Anderson, Linda hat London Winter, 265 To Stay Alive, 368 here We Have Been, 265 Anglo- Irish, the, 7, 37, 207, 266, 283, 384, 433 Barlow, Jane Antares Skorpios (pseudonym). See Barlow, Jane Creel of Irish Stories, A,
    [Show full text]
  • London Irish Fictions
    London Irish Fictions Narrative, Diaspora and Identity Fictions London Irish Tony Murray This is the first book about the literature of the Irish in London. By examining over 30 novels, short stories and autobiographies set in London since the Second World War, London Irish Fictions investigates the complex psychological landscapes of belonging and cultural allegiance found in these unique and intensely personal perspectives on the Irish experience of migration. As well as bringing new research to bear on the work of established Irish writers such as Edna O’Brien, John McGahern, Emma Donoghue and Joseph O’Connor, this study reveals a fascinating and hitherto unexplored literature, diverse in form and content. By synthesising theories of narrative and diaspora into a new methodological approach to the study of migration, London Irish Fictions sheds new light on the ways in which migrant identities are negotiated, mediated and represented through literature. It also examines the specific role that the metropolis plays in literary portrayals of migrant experience as an arena for the performance of Irishness, as a catalyst in transformations of Irishness and as an intrinsic component of second-generation Irish identities. Furthermore, by analysing the central role of narrative in configuring migrant cultures and identities, it reassesses notions of exile, escape and return in Irish culture more generally. In this regard, it has particular relevance to current debates on migration and multiculturalism in both Britain and Ireland, especially in the wake of an emerging new phase of Irish migration in the post-‘Celtic Tiger’ era. A rich, sympathetic and nuanced exploration of that strange blend of exile and escape, of suffering and play-acting, which characterises the Irish migrant experience in London […] a valuable, unprecedented and necessary book.
    [Show full text]
  • An Examination of the Trilogy of Novels By
    EDNA O'BRIEN: AN EXAMINATION OF THE TRILOGY "GOING UP THE RIVER ON A BICYCLE" AN EXAMINATION OF THE TRILOGY OF NOVELS BY EDNA O'BRIEN By JEAN BAIRD, HBA A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University October 1988 DESCRIPTIVE NOTE MASTER OF ARTS (1988) MCMASTER UNIVERSITY (English) Hamiltion, Ontario TITLE: "Going Up the River on a Bicycle": An Examination of the trilogy of novels by Edna O'Brien AUTHOR: Jean Baird, B.A. (Brock University) SUPERVISOR: Dr. M. Aziz NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 132 ii ABSTRACT Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls~ was received with great public and critical praise. This novel was the winner of the Kingsely Amis Award for the best first novel of 1959 and has been translated into twelve languages. Despite the success of the first novel and subsequent endeavours novels~ short-stories, non-fiction studies, plays, movies~ television appearances there has been little formal critical attention given to O'Brien's work, particularly in North America. It seems to me that O'Brien is a writer of very considerable talent; she is a craftsman in prose, and a distinguished and distinctive one. The purpose of this study is to test this contention by considering the immediate, accessible qualities of O'Brien's work and subjecting the work to close, critical scrutiny. This critical introduction will consider the trilogy bf novels, The Country Girls~ Girl with Green Eyes and Girls in their Married Bliss. Although these novels do not have the power and impact of the fully developed later voice, they do lay the foundation for the mature work.
    [Show full text]
  • Audio Interview with Edna O'brien
    "The minute you feel answerable, you're throttled." Recently, Irish novelist Edna O'Brien appeared onstage in San Francisco at an event sponsored by City Arts & Lectures, where she read from her new novel-in- progress, "Down By The River." The author of 14 novels and five collections of short stories, O'Brien also talked about who and what drives her to live in exile (in London), to write about war, and to throw herself so exultantly into the rhythm of language. You come from a country that many writers seem to leave. Is it better or easier to write about Ireland from outside? My first book, "The Country Girls," was a simple little tale of two girls who were trying to burst out of their gym frocks and their convent, and their own lives in their own houses, to make it to the big city. It angered a lot of people, including my own family. It was banned; it was called a smear on Irish womanhood. A priest in our parish asked from the altar if anyone who had bought copies would bring them to the chapel grounds. That evening there was a little burning. My mother said women fainted, and I said maybe it was the smoke. When I wrote my second book ("The Lonely Girls"), the opinion was the first was a prayer book by comparison. My mother had gone though the book and inked out any offending words. So I was made to feel ashamed, made to feel I had done something wrong. It's hard enough to write a book at all; you have to dig and dig and dig into your unconscious, come up with some kind of story, and language, emotion, music.
    [Show full text]