"The Passions of Sophie Bryant - A Short Story by Shauna Gilligan, author of Happiness Comes from Nowhere (2017)

You can read this story here

Irish Times Article on Sophie Bryant, August, 2016

Shauna Gilligan on The Reading Life, includes a link to her Q and A session

I have been reading Shauna Gilligan since March 31, 2012.  I have posted upon several of her wonderful short stories (my posts contain links to the stories) and her highly 

regarded debut novel, Happiness Comes From Nowhere.  Additionally she very kindly contributed an illuminating overview on the work of Desmond Hogan.  In her Q and A session on The Reading Life we dealt with a broad range of matters, many, but not all, Irish literature related.  In all there are eight posts devoted to or by Shauna Gilligan on the blog.  Obviously I would not follow a writer for so long and so closely if I did not hold them in quite high regard.

The just recently published short story "The Passion of Sophie Bryant" is a very intriguing work.  In just a few beautiful pages Gilligan brings to live for us the famous Irish mathematician, educator and a feminist, Sophie Bryant.  (I suggest nonIrish readers take a look at the article from the Irish Times linked to above to expand your understanding of her importance in Irish history.  My guess is most Irish readers will be aware of her importance but others, including myself, will have no prior knowledge about her. I believe Gilligan is assuming some knowledge.  

Sophie Bryant was born in Dublin in 1850, her father was a Trinity Fellow and a famous mathematician.  Bryant was educated at home, learning to speak French and German from governesses.  She moved to London at age 13 when her father was offered a position as Chairman of the Geometry Department of the University of London.  At sixteen she started college, focusing on science.  At nineteen she married a well known mathematician, ten years her senior, he died a year later.  She never remarried.  She continued her education, herself becoming a highly regarded mathematician and head mistress at the North London College school as well as a leading advocate of more legal rights for women, including the right to vote.  She loved outdoor activities and died while hiking in France while on holiday.  

Gilligan does a wonderful job in just a few page taking us into the interior life of Bryant, from her childhood, her brief marriage and her death.  On first scrutiny Bryant will seem the epitome of rationality, dedicated to geometry and science and moral philosophy.  I find I'm really liking the episodic narrative method. Gilligan skillfully takes us below that, to a seer with a vision for a unified view of science and morality.  She was raised in a culture that largely suppressed passion in women, Bryant may not have understood how to deal with this aspect of her life and Gilligan helps us feel her pain and loneliness.  

I really liked this story, I read it five times.

I look forward to following Shauna Gilligan's work for many years 

Shauna Gilligan lives in Kildare with her family and a black and white cat called Lucky. She writes short and long stories and is interested in the depiction of historical events in fiction, and creative processes. She is currently working on her second novel set in Mexico.

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