In the Forest by Edna O'Brien (2002, 208 pages)

My Posts on Edna O'Brien

The Irish Independent has published twenty books in a series called "Irish Women Writers".  The very first book in the series is In the Forest by Edna O'Brien.  Edna O'Brien in works like Country Girls was one of the first Irish writers to deal with sexual themes in modern Ireland.  

In the Forest is based on three murders in 1994 in County Clare.  A man in his late teens murdered a woman, his sexual partner, and her young son on one occasion and shortly after that shot a priest.  In the Forest tells the story of how such an evil set of events came to pass.  The young man had live much of his life in state care with no one to really are about him.  He grew up in a brutal eniviorment with the basest of values but so do many who go on to normal lives.  In the Forest helps us to understand the genesis of these muderers.

Told in short chapters from multiple points of view, we see the killer's world.  He lived in a universe of prey and hunters.  The prose of O'Brien is exquiste.  This is a harsh world and she does not shield us from the darkest corners.  

Mel u

A Pagan Place by Edna O'Brien (2004, 240 pages)

My Prior Posts on Edna O'Brien


A Pagan Place by Edna O'Brien is a savagely beautiful novel that seems to me to take us deeply into the contradictory depths of Irish culture.   It speaks to me  from an ancient sensibility I cannot really articulate.   Some say it is kind of a female Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man.  All I can say for that now is maybe.    There is great pain in this story, a pain we cannot really explain but which we can deeply feel.   This is a very Irish novel.   My blogging time will  be limited for the next three weeks so my posts will be shorter than normal.  I will simply say I loved this book.  It is one of the few 21th century books I am aware of which matches some how the beauty, warmth and coldness of the Irish country side.  There is a deep love and perhaps a deeper darker hate for Ireland in this wonderful book.

Quick note, Irish Short Story Week is over.  My interest in Irish literature is becoming stronger with every new great writer and work I discover.   It is permanent and is one of the core focuses of The Reading Life.  

Mel u

The Love Object by Edna O'Brien

The Love Object by Edna O'Brien  (1969, 172 pages, a collection of short stories)

March 1 to March 31

Edna O'Brien 

Event Resources

Please consider joining us for the event.  All you need to do is complete a post on any Irish Short Story  and let me know about it.  I will publicize your post and keep a master list. 

Edna O'Brien's (1930) first novel, Country Girls (1960) is often credited with shaking the Irish literary world out of a sexually repressive atmosphere.   The book shocked many by its frank depiction of female sexual desires in a time and place where any sex out side of marriage by a woman was intensely looked down upon. Only twenty years before The Country Girls was published a woman deemed "of low morals" could be placed in a mental hospital.   The Love Object is her first collection of short stories and I can see it shocking most conservative readers, even more so as it was written by a woman.   There are seven stories in the collection.   I will post briefly on four of them They do contain very graphic, maybe not by today's standards, sexual descriptions by women narrators and depict promiscuous activity in a society dominated by the Catholic Church who condemned all such actions.   Men prior to marriage either abstained, at once married a woman they got pregnant  or resorted to prostitutes.

"The Love Object", the title story, gets the collection off to an exciting start.  It is told in the first person by a woman, a well known TV announcer.  She meets and falls in love with a much older married man and begins an affair with him.  She is separated from her husband.   She meets him through her work.  His wife is thirty, his third wife, just like she is.   He takes her out to dinner and they have sex.   She wants to start an affair with him but he tells her he will just see her once a month or so as he does not want to start a cheap affair with her (I thought, good line!).   She becomes obsessed with him.  The first sexual scenes are shocking even now as the woman seems so refined and dignified and I guess I was not accepting it in an Irish short story from so long ago.   We see the affair run it course.  it ends not in hatred but in a kind of mutual boredom.  This is a very good acutely observed story and I very much enjoyed reading it, and not just for the sex!

"An Outing" is another story with the power to shock, not for anything explicit that happens but because the very unaccepted actions of a woman married for a very long time, in a quite settled routine.   Mrs Farley worked as a main, cleaning up houses.  Her husband was a boiler maker.   They have no children, she has miscarried three times.   Mrs Farley passes a shop one day and sees a three piece furniture set that she really fancies and makes a deposit on it.  The idea behind it is to try to make her house look very nice on the day Mr. Farley goes on the annual company outing.   Mrs Farley has fallen totally in love with a married man, really just by accident.   The very chaste romance is beautifully told.  In a way I felt a bit ashamed of Mrs Farley as her husband does not seem a bad sort but we can see her life is totally dull.   "An Outing" is a very good story that will make those in long term marriages think a bit about the potentially chilling effects of to much sameness and boredom.  

"Cords" starts out with a woman leaving the family farm, after reminding her husband what to feed the hens and the turkeys, to visit her daughter Claire in London. She lives in Ireland with her husband and it will be her first time to fly.  Her daughter sent her the ticket.    She was worried about her daughter as she had lost her faith "and she mixed with queer people and wrote poems.  If it was stories one could detect the sin in them, but these poems made no sense at all and therefore seemed more wicked".  Claire picks her up at the airport and the reunion is very touch if a bit stiff.  There is a very interesting dinner party where the daughter meets some of Claire's London friends.  It brings out the very real problems between the mother and daughter.  Things go from bad to worse and the mother returns after only six days instead of the planned seven-teen, saying she is worried about the turkeys and her husband.  This is another very well done story.

"Revel" is the story of Mary.  Mary works on the farm in Ireland and does all the odd jobs.   Life was hard on the mountainy farm.    She is seventeen and is going to her first party.  At first her mother does not want to allow her to go but Mary and begs and she is allowed to go because the hostess is an important woman.  Mary is so thrilled and her mother lets her wear the dress that came from America.   Imagine Mary's sadness when she learns she was expected  to work on the party arrangements before the event begins.  The party is an unmitigated bore with only really stupid acting lads there.  Mary had been expecting a lad she fancied to be there.  Mary ends up having to serve everyone their food.  The events at the party are brilliant depicted.  Simply another wonderful story.

There are three other stories in the collection, all centering on the lives of women and girls.  This is a first rate collection of short stories very much worth reading.

In the interests of full disclosure, I was provided a free copy of this book by the publisher.

"Carmilla, why don't you just admit  it,
I am your Love Object"-Rory

I have previously posted on Edna O'Brien's novel August is a Wicked Month.

"Nice stories but tame compared
to my life"-Carmilla

August is a Wicked Month by Edna O'Brien

August is a Wicked Month by Edna O'Brien (1965)

Edna O'Brien (1930, born County Clare, Ireland) is one of Ireland's leading writers.   Her work was considered daring for its treatment of the lives and sexuality of women as she was a ground breaker for women writers.   She was way ahead of the pack in letting us explore the inner lives of women.   August is a Wicked Month has just been reissued by Open Media Media publishing in a beautiful new edition.

The novel is about a woman seperated from her husband for two years now.  They have a son they shared custody on.    She has decided to go to the French Rivera to revive her joie de vivre and rekindle her sexual impulses.   This impulse is initiated when a man she does not know well shows up at her door one day to complain about his girl friend and she ends up spending the night with the man.   This night is in a way cruel to her as it brings to the surfaces wishes and desires she thought she had put to rest.   She buys herself some new "party girl" clothes and sets off for the French Rivera.  I think in 1965 this had an exotic ring to it, maybe more than it does now.

The woman has several sexual encounters, they range from completely joyless to OK experiences.    The book is surprising it the frankness of its sexual scenes, and was even more so in Ireland in 1965.  The lead character Ellen is being ironic when she says "August is a Wicked Month" as this is at best tepid evil.

O'Brien does a great job of showing us how trapped Ellen is by her culture and the morals drilled into her being by her upbringing.   She cannot, it seems, just let go in a sexual encounter but must create a sense that she has a relationship with the man involved.  It is like she wants to have a series of short marriages rather than a robust debauch.  The prose is a joy to read and we really do get to know Ellen.

This is a very good novel and I hope to expand my reading of her work soon.

This book is published by Open Road Integrated Media.   They have a very interesting, diversified and rapidly expanding selection of works on their very well done web site.

Mel u