Mildred Larson by George Moore - plus two short stories --A Look at What Paris Meant to the Irish - A Post for Paris in July 6

Paris in July # 6. 

OJ

I was very happy to see  Thyme for Tea's post announcing that she be hosting once again an event devoted to all things related to Paris, Paris in July # 6.   This will be my fourth year as a participant.  You can participate in a lot of ways  besides posting on literature related to Paris.  Pretty much anything tied into Paris is very much welcome.  There is a weekly link of participant posts and lots of special events.  

So far I have posted on a short story by the great French master of the form, Guy de Maupassant and a short story set in Paris by Mavis Gallant.

Today I will post briefly about three works by George Moore (1852 born County Mayo, Ireland, 1933 died London).  I have posted on several of his short stories and his excellent novel Esther Waters (1894) dealing with the great importance of horse trading and racing in Ireland.  Moore is now I think mainly read by those very into Irish literature. He was influenced by the realism of Zola. His short stories in turn influenced James Joyce in Dubliners.  Moore is considered by many to be the first modern Irish short story writer.  Moore was from a very wealthy family and at 18 when his father died was free to do whatever he wanted.  He wanted to be a painter and escape from what he felt was the repressive stifling atmosphere of Catholic Ireland.  He had an image in his mind of Paris as the world capital of art and of course he dreamed of making love to the beautiful French women who worked as models for artists.  So he went to Paris and did become an authority on French painters if not a successful painter.  

Mildred Lawson is the lead work in Moore's 1925 collection of three long short stories, The Celibates.  One of the grand themes of Irish literature concerns the sexual repression of the Catholic Church and the devastating impact this had on the lives of the Irish.  An Irishman or woman who tells their family and friends they are going to Paris to study painting is seen as entering a world of license and sexual liberation.  Mildred Larson is particularly interesting as it centers on a young woman of comfortable circumstances who goes to Paris to study painting.  She is shocked at first my the nude artist models, including men, who pose for art classes.  There is a lot of interesting material about art classes and the various students and teachers Mildred meets.  The drama of the story is in her long term relationship with an Irishman who wants to marry her. (She cannot given her deep enculturation in the doctrines of the Catholic Church have sex outside of a marriage).  If she does she will live out her days in a comfortable but unexciting in comparison to Paris life.  

"In the Clay" and "The Way Back" are the opening and closing stories in George Moore's collection of short stories, The Untilled Field (1915).  This collection directly influenced James Joyce and through it helped create the modern short story.  A movie was recently made based on one of the stories, Alfred Nobbs.

"In the Clay" is about a young man who wants to become a sculptor.  He is doing a statue of the Virgin Mary but he needs have a nude model to base  his work upon.  He tells a friend all clothed sculptures are based on nude models and then clothed.  Of course there is an underlying sexual element to this in repressive Ireland and I think this was considered a shocking topic in 1915.  These two stories are tied together.  "In the Clay" is set in Ireland.  A neophyte sculpturor has just completed his first major work, based on a nude model.  The "first draft" of the work is done in clay.  As the story closes the man funds his clay model smashed to pieces.  The guilty parties are the three brothers of the model who view posing as a model as on a level with being a prostitute.  He is driven to go to Paris by this episode.  In "Tne Way Back" we meet the sculpture many years later, he is now a mature artist and a sophisticated man of the world.  He encounters an artist friend from Paris and they talk about how their  time in Paris shaped their lives.

Writers, painters, and lovers of the good life have been drawn to Paris for hundreds of years.  Like no other city in the world it had special meaning in the art and literary world.  In these three works by a very important Irish writer we can see a bit of the power of Paris.

Mel u

"The Way Back" by George Moore

"The Way Back" by George Moore (1903, 21 pages, from The Untilled Field)

Irish Short Story Month

March 1 to March 31

Event Resources-Links to lots of short stories, from classics to brand new works-Guests posts are welcome-just contact me

Frank O'Connors in The Lonely Voice:  A Study in the Short Story ranks George Moore's (1852 to 1933, County Mayo, Ireland) collection of short stories, The Untilled Field as one of the greatest collections of short stories of all times.  Some authorities see this collection as the start of the modern Irish short story.  (There is additional background information on Moore in my prior posts on his work.)  He was a very prolific writer but I think now only his novel Esther Waters (a work I very much admired) and The Untilled Field are still much read.   The stories in The Untilled Field are wonderful works, not such academic required reads.   I wanted to be sure George Moore was included in Irish Short Story Week.

"The Way Back" opens with one man, an artist, telling his shocked friend, also an artist,  they are both Irish staying in London, that he feels he must return to Ireland.  Here are the opening lines of their conversation:

"It was a pleasure to meet, even when they had nothing to say, and the two men had stopped to talk.

"Still in London, Rodney."

"Yes, till the end of the week; and then I go to Italy. And you? You're going to meet Sir Owen Asher at Marseilles."

"I am going to Ireland," and, catching sight of a look of astonishment and disapproval on Rodney's face, Harding began to explain why he must return to Ireland.

"The rest of your life is quite clear," said Rodney. "You knew from the beginning that Paris was the source of all art, that everyone here who is more distinguished than the others has been to Paris. We go to Paris with baskets on our backs, and sticks in our hands, and bring back what we can pick up. And having lived immersed in art till you're forty, you return to the Catholic Celt! Your biographer will be puzzled to explain this last episode, and, however he may explain it, it will seem a discrepancy."

"I suppose one should think of one's biographer."

Rodney expands his account of his years in Paris to his time in Italy.   He went, as did many an artist to Paris and Rome to be inspired.  They both agree they cannot bear the ugliness of London any longer.  One of the men has some shocking news for his friend.  He has met his model, on Lucy Delaney.  It seems he was out for a walk and a woman approached him and asked him where a theater was.  He told her it was closed and she is very distraught and tells him she has to go on the stage to make a living and she in fact set fire to her school in order to make good her escape.   He is made very curious about her, she is seventeen and of course very pretty.   He invites her to have dinner with him as he can hear her story.   Soon he begins to support her, without any untoward actions occurring even though everyone thinks he must be sleeping with her.   Soon complications arise from false accusations which bring about some very interesting plot developments.

This is a very well done, very much worth reading story.  George Moore was a highly regarded art historian and the two men have some very interesting to things to say about art and the nature of beauty.   

You can read "The Way Back"  and other stories by George Moore here. 

Mel u

Esther Waters by George Moore

Esther Waters by George Moore (1894, 432 pages)


I have recently read a number of short stories by George (1852 to 1933, County Mayo, Ireland-there is some background information on him in my prior posts).    I greatly admire his work.   George Moore is considered the originator of the English realistic novel.  He greatly influenced James Joyce.      He was a deep student of French writers and contemporary art.  Esther Waters seems to be the consensus status (not a universally agreed to matter) best Moore novel.    The George Moore Society says it is his only canon status work but they concede it is not much read.

For its time this set in London novel about an unwed mother left on her own to raise her child was quite shocking.   Esther Waters comes from a poor family, her mother has had 12 children.    Her father is a drunken abusive brute.   The plot is exciting.   For sure you will care about Esther.   She is not your wimpy angelic seduced and abandoned heroine.    This girl has some serious spunk and back bone and when she gets mad she is not afraid to tell of anyone.   Esther leaves her parents house a young age to go into service as a kitchen helper.  She ends up getting impregnated by one of the male servants and when her employer finds out she is pregnant, she fires her but does give her a decent severance.   She goes back to her parents and her father finds out he has some money and he begins to demand she give it to him so he can drink at the pub with his friends.   He abuses her and he may be sexually molesting her younger sister.  Her mother is also pregnant.   While Esther is in the hospital after giving birth, her younger sister comes and tells her there mother died giving birth and all of the family is leaving for Australia but there is no money to take her.  The sister ends up talking her into giving her two pounds to pay her fare to Australia.   She promises to write or even maybe send for her and the baby but she never hears from her family again.  

There is so much great detail about the life of Esther.   Some of this book is totally stunning in its expose of how poor unmarried manless women were treated in London in the 1890s.  In one really sad scene a number of women are put out in the street from the birthing ward who can barely walk because other people need their beds.   We come to see that when a woman who has just had a child becomes a wetnurse, a pretty well paying job, it meant her baby would be put out for care and would probably die.   Esther left her job as a wet nurse when her employer, the babies of two prior wet nurses in her employment died already, refuses to let her go see her son when he is sick.   The keeper of the baby tells her that if she gives her five pounds (a month pay) she will take the baby off her hands.   Esther knows this is a death sentence for the baby.

There is a lot in this novel.   Moore was deeply into horse rating and  we learn a lot about racing and betting in this book.   We learn what it is like to own and manage a public house.

Esther is very religious and never loses her faith.   We also see how faith can be used for cruelty.

Esther Waters is not found on any great books list.   There are flaws in the book.   The portrayal of the character of her son is not that strong and I think some people will get bored with all of  the horse racing material.

Historically this is a very important book.   It is often compared to the work of Zola.   Some of the insights into the characters are just totally brilliant.   The level of the prose is very high.   Moore was a conscious artist.   I think most people will be glad they read this novel.  I know I am.   If you do get bored, just keep going as it will get interesting again soon.  I will be for sure reading more Moore soon.

Mel u

"Alms-Giving" and "So He Fares" by George Moore

"Alms Giving" (1903, 12 pages, included in The Untilled Field)
"So He Fares" (1903, 15 pages, included in The Untilled Field)

The Irish Quarter-March 11 to July 1

A Celebration of the Irish Short Story

A Few Days with George Moore

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Posts by Participants

Prior Post on George Moore

Please consider joining us for The Irish Quarter,  Year Two.   Everything you need to participate is in the resources page, including links to 1000s of short stories, from brand new ones to stories now in the public domain.   Guests posts are also welcome.

This will be my last post during The Irish Quarter Year Two on stories included by George Moore in his great work, The Untilled Field.   There are thirteen items in the collection, three of them are over sixty pages and I will for sure come back to this collection and read them at some point in the future.   I am very close to adding George Moore to The Reading Life list of Great Short Story Writers of All Time.   I plan to read very soon his consensus best novel, Esther Moore and as many of his shorter works as I can find online.   I have praised Moore highly in my other posts on him and here I am just going to briefly remark on two of the shorter works in the collection.   

"Alms Giving" is a very interesting story about the relationship of a man of at least comfortable financial status and a blind beggar.  I think the greatness in this story is the way Moore shows how the richer man comes to see the humanity in the beggar, to see him as a person in many ways surprisingly like himself.   He begins to give the beggar every day a very small to him donation, placing a coin of the lowest denomination in the box in front of the beggar.   He sees the beggar suffers the terrible cold and deprivation and he begins to wonder if it would be better to give him nothing so he will die sooner or even push him in the river.   Then he begins to talk to the beggar, something no one else ever does.  He finds the beggar lost his eyesight to small pox years ago, and that he has a wife and a son.  His son drops him off at his spot every morning and picks him up at night.  The beggar tells him he can get almost two days worth of food from the small coins the man gives him.  I have not done justice to this great story and I hope some will one day read it.

"So He Fares" is another great story that I cannot imagine anyone reading and not loving it.   The story cover about thirteen years of the life of a may who ran away from home at age ten and returned thirteen years later.   The story is told in the third person and starts out telling us about a boy who mother has forbidden him from wandering the roads or playing with other children from his neighborhood.   His father is in the army and wears a red coat. (There is three hundred years of history in that coat.)  His mother is, in the ten year old boy's mind, very harsh with him.   There is a commercial boat canal very near their home and he has been given strict orders never to go near the ships.  Like any ten year old boy, he has to do all these forbidden things.   One day his mother catches him near the boat canal so she puts a bee into his shirt and laughs as he cries in pain.   Telescoping a bit, he runs away and ends up for three years at the home of a very loving motherly widow who takes him in and treats him with great kindness.   She dies when he is thirteen and he ends up working for ten years on boats that circumnavigate  all the ports of Ireland.   We learn he lived a rough life in this years, it is just a sign of the genius of Moore that he can put so much in just a sentence.   He decides to go home.  I just do not want to tell the rest of this story as it is just amazing.

"Please consider joining my
event"-Carmilla

Mel u

George Moore: Three Great Stories from The Untilled Field

The Irish Quarter-March 11 to July 1

A Celebration of the Irish Short Story

A Few Days with George Moore

"The Exile" and "Julia Cahill's Curse"

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Posts by Participants

Stories covered in this post

"A Playhouse in the Waste"
"The Wedding Gown" 
"The Clerk's Quest"

Please consider joining us for The Irish Quarter,  Year Two.   Everything you need to participate is in the resources page, including links to 1000s of short stories, from brand new ones to stories now in the public domain.   Guests posts are also welcome.

I have decided to change the name of this event from Irish Short Story Week to The Irish Quarter.   A lot of the stories have been about emigration and most emigrants first lived in an Irish Quarter, whether they landed in Boston or Buenos Aries.  The event is also about a quarter of a year long.  Also calling it Irish Short Story Week as causing some potential participants to feel they did not have time to join us. 

"A Playhouse in The Waste" is the seventh short story from George Moore's 1903 collection of interrelated short stories, The Untilled Field, which I have so far read.   I really am amazed how great the stories I have read so far from this collection really are.    Moore was very much a self conscious artist, deeply schooled in the visual arts and French literature.   He was born into massive money and was able to devote his entire life to self-cultivation with a bit of serious dissipation thrown in.   James Joyce acknowledged him as an influence and it is easy to see it in The Dubliners.  I am pretty close to adding George Moore to my list of world's greatest short stories.   In a quick comparison, I am also currently reading through the short stories of Edith Somerville and Violet Martin in Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. and the are good fun to read stories but they seem a bit juvenile next to the work of Moore.   

As "A Playhouse in the Waste" opens the narrator is traveling on a muddy poor excuse for a road in one of the poorest parishes in Ireland.   He is being taken about by a driver, in a horse carriage who turns out to be an incredible talker with a deep insight into life and Ireland.   Everywhere they go they see evidence of terrible poverty, almost all of the houses are mud huts.  When you go inside, there is a good chance someone will be laying in the corner dying.   Lots of places are just deserted.   The tenants have go to America and the landlords can find no one to take their place.   He does notice that there are some roads built through the bogs, going no where, that seem ti just stop for no reason.  He asks the driver what to make of this and he is told these are relief projects, make work jobs.   He then is told the attitude of many government officers is that it is just cheaper to let the people leave the country.   The man comes up with the idea of building a playhouse out in the wastes and training the local people to be actors on the idea that this might produce revenue when people come to the show.   Much of the rest of this simply marvelous story is spent debating the validity of this idea.   It is just a flat out great story.   So far I like "Lady Cahill's Curse" best but this is a close second.  

"The Wedding Gown" is a very entertaining story.  In the hands of a lesser writer the story of an old woman driven mad by loneliness and her devoted granddaughter would be a cliche, in the hands of Moore it is a joy to read.   It is also about family ties and lets us see  how people dealt with mental illness in the era of the story.   Much of the fun of this story is in the plot so I will leave it untold.  

"The Clerk's Quest" sort of reminded me of "Alfred Nabbs" in that it is about a man who stifles all of his emotions and ambitions and lives for a simple job, in his case that of a bank clerk.   He works for the same firm for thirty years, never late, never asks for a day off and never has a personal life to talk about.  Then one day among the checks he is processing is one which smells of an intoxicating perfume.   He learns who the woman is and begins to fantasize about her.   He spends a lot of his life time savings sending her jewelry along with very demure love letters.   She returns the gifts and tells him if he persists she will complain to his employer.    He continues on and is warned by his employer and at last is fired.   The ending is just so sad.  I will not tell it all but it is very well done and another proof of what a great writer George Moore really is.

George Moore Two More Stories from The Untilled Field

The Irish Quarter-March 11 to July 1

A Celebration of the Irish Short Story

A Few Days with George Moore

"The Exile" and "Julia Cahill's Curse"

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Posts by Participants

Please consider joining us for The Irish Quarter,  Year Two.   Everything you need to participate is in the resources page, including links to 1000s of short stories, from brand new ones to stories now in the public domain.   Guests posts are also welcome.

I have decided to change the name of this event from Irish Short Story Week to The Irish Quarter.   A lot of the stories have been about emigration and most emigrants first lived in an Irish Quarter, whether they landed in Boston or Buenos Aries.  The event is also about a quarter of a year long.  Also calling it Irish Short Story Week as causing some potential participants to feel they did not have time to join us.  I thank Suko for her feedback on this name change.  






"Julia Cahill's Curse" (1903, 32 pages) is a great story.   Frank O'Connor said "Homesickness" was a perfect work of art.  William Trevor said "Alfred Nobbs" was a master work.  I am not going to say they are wrong, because of course they are not and who am I to say such a thing anyway but "Julia Cahill's Curse" is to me a better work of art than "Homesickness", a better story than "Alfred Nobbs" and has a tremendous amount to teach us about Ireland.   It also does show very clearly why Moore did not like Catholic Priests all that much!.   When I first began to read the stories of George Moore it was sort of in the spirit of OK here are some historically important short stories so let us read them.   It is a very Irish story but it could be retold in many other periods and places and be just as powerful. It also goes deep into the heart of Irish folk ways and beliefs and lets us see how these interact with  the Catholic faith   Just like here in the Philippines we have a very devoted to the Catholic faith population who also believes firmly in lots of ideas from older cultures (of course Catholicism is not as old here as it is in Ireland) so the same can be said of Ireland.  The basic plot of the story is not hard to follow.   There is a priest who wants everyone to be totally obedient to the church and its doctrines.    Frank O'Connor said that one of the underlying causes of the massive emigration from Ireland, besides the famines, was a desire to escape from the rule of the priests.  Julia Cahill is a young woman  who is so beautiful as to take the breath away and full of the joy of life and not afraid to argue with the priest when he tells her she must marry so as not to be a distraction in the community.   I hope at least a few people will read this story so I am going to stop telling the plot here.  The ending was very open and just a marvel.   It is a very sad cruel ending but still it is wonderful and let me in awe of Moore.  


"The Exile" is also a very good story and it  also centers on the trouble caused by priests, who seem to love to cause petty misery in the lives of the people they are supposed to look after in order to make up for the emptiness of their own lives.   It is also about how marriages come about.  The priest was very opposed to the idea of young people arranging their own marriages and when ever he saw a young couple "walking the road" together he at once condemned them and reported them to their parents.  It is also a another story about emigration and those left behind.


You can download for free The Untilled Field from Manybooks


I will be doing three or four more posts on George Moore soon.  I will talk a bit more about his life and career then.


Mel u

George Moore-Two Stories in The Untilled Field

"In the Clay" (1903, 29 pages)
"A Letter to Rome"  (1903, 32 pages)

Irish Short Story Week Year Two

March 11 to July 1

A Few Days with George Moore

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

My Prior Posts for ISSW Year Two

Posts by Participants

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week Year Two.   Everything you need to participate is in the resources page, including links to 1000s of short stories, from brand new ones to stories now in the public domain.   Guests posts are also welcome.  

April Prize for a Participant- I am happy to announce that a randomly selected participant in ISSW2 will receive a copy of the Frank O'Connor Prize listed work, Somewhere in Minnesota through the kindness of the author, Orfhlaith Foyle.  If you are a participant in the event please email me to be in the drawing for this wonderful collection of short stories.

"Take George Moore, for example. George Moore is the best living novelist — and the worst; writes the most beautiful prose of his time — and the feeblest"-Virginia Woolf 

"It is no country for an educated man.  It won't be fit to live in for another hundred years.  It is an unwashed country, that is what it is"-from "In the Clay"

I have decided to devote a few posts to the stories in The Untilled Field"  by George Moore.    Frank O'Connor said it was one of the greatest of all collections of short stories.   I first posted on Moore's story "Albert Nabbs", about a woman living out her life as a man. (This story is not part of  The Untilled Field).   By pure luck I posted on it just as a movie based on it was up for an Academy Award for best picture.   I did not know there was a movie based on the story (the movie never showed in Manila) until I checked my blog stats and saw ten times the normal number of hits on a new post.  A quick Google search found the movie.  I wish George Moore could have gotten a pay day from this.  For my first post for Irish Short Story Week Year Two I selected Moore's "Homesickness" mostly on the powerful endorsement of Frank O'Connor who describes it as a perfect work of art.  I loved the story.   I have decided to post on the remaining stories in the collection one by one, probably two to a posting.   Interest in Moore as a writer seems high.  A five volume collection of his short stories has recently been published, going for a mere $495.00!   

In order to increase my understanding of Irish literary culture I have begun reading what is clearly a brilliant book, Inventing Ireland:  The Literature of the Modern Nation by Declan Kiberd  In the opening chapters he talks about how many of the greatest of Irish writers did not really develop a strong sense of being Irish until they left Ireland.   He talks about how the Irish almost needed to define their own identity by a contrasting duality with the English.   George Moore is a prime exemplar of this theme as illustrated by the opening story in The Untilled Field.

"In the Clay" is almost an attack on the Ireland, depicted as a place where art could not flourish and priests control a backwards citizenry.  

"In The Clay" is about a sculptor working in Ireland.   I think Moore used as is artist a sculptor as the "over head" cost of producing a work of art is very high and takes a long time.   The sculptor has spent a lot of time practicing his craft in Italy where he was a helper to a master and did some commission work and lived on a scholarship grant he received.  When the money ran out he came back to Ireland and with the prestige of Italian training attached to his name, he was able to set up shop and get steady work.   He received from the local senior priest a very wonderful commission to do a statue of The Virgin and her child.   The first step for this is to find a model for the Virgin, who must be willing to pose nude.   He finds a sixteen year old girl, a beautiful very respectable girl who agrees to pose for him.   Artist or not there is clearly a sexual element in the work and in the man staring intently at the naked body of the girl and objectifying her body parts.   The artist does not see it that way, of course.   One day the priest comes into see how the work is going.   When he sees the nearly finished statue he has a shock of recognition when he sees the face of the girl on the statue.   The priest does not say anything but when the artist comes to his studio the next day the statue has been smashed.   The girl arrives to model shortly and he tells her the priest has sent in thugs to destroy the statue because he cannot understand the beauty of his art. She knows this not what really happened.    I will leave the rest of the story untold as the ending is really powerful and bears out the notion of the Irish identity being created by writers in exile and of the internalization by the Irish of the brutal characterization given them by the English.   Kiberd's book is helping me see Irish literature as very post  colonial.   

"A Letter to Rome" is just a flat out wonderful story on lots of levels.  It is hilarious, it is wicked (it made me think of Swift's "A Modest Proposal" but his is probably only me), is is another attack on the priesthood (Moore repudiated the Catholic Church, the religion on his raising) it  is a satire on attitudes toward Ireland at the time and the ending is just a marvel.    The plot is pretty simple.   The population of Ireland is way down from the middle of the 19th century, by about fifty percent due to the famine and the exodus it caused.   The people are pretty much in poverty over much of rural Ireland.   According to the priest who drafts a letter to Rome there are about 4000 priests in Ireland.   Outside of a few landlords and rich people in Dublin, they have the best houses, the best food, and the highest income. So the priest has an idea, why not let priests marry, within the first two years he says there would be about 4000 children and over five years close to 20,000.   All well fed and well housed.   He feels he needs to write the letter in Latin to show the proper respect but his Latin is very rusty so he approaches  another priest who is a Latin scholar and he asks him to redraft the letter.    His friend thinks the idea is a bad one and they get into a conversation about the merits of the plan.   I loved how Moore kept us wondering of the letter ever got mailed or not.   

Both of these stories are wonderful.   It is clear Moore is not a big fan of the role of the Catholic Priest in Irish society.   I have ten more stories to read and I am really looking forward to them.   

You can download The Untilled Field for free at several different places.

"Please join in ISSW2"-Ruprecht

Mel u

"Home Sickness" by George Moore-Post 1 for Irish Short Story Week YearTwo

"Home Sickness" by George Moore  (1903, 32 pages)

Day One 

Irish Short Story Week Year Two

One of Three Stories on The Irish Diaspora

Resources and Ideas for Irish Short Story Week

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week Year Two, March 12 to March 22.   All you need do is post on one short story by an Irish author and send me a comment or an e mail and I will include it in the master post at the end of the challenge.   

"Take George Moore, for example. George Moore is the best living novelist — and the worst; writes the most beautiful prose of his time — and the feeblest"-Virginia Woolf 

"I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would've stayed home"  Bob Dylan 

In 1903, the year "Home Sickness"  was first published, St Patrick's Day was made a public holiday (it was done to encourage temperance).   The Irish Land Bill was introduced in the British House of Commons.   The University of Dublin first granted degrees to women.      Edward the VII became Emperor of India.    The Ambassadors by Henry James was published.    There were 7,635, 426 people living in the Philippines in 1903 and just over 4,000,000 in Ireland.   

Between 1830 and 1914 about five million people moved from Ireland to the United States.    Millions more went to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina., the islands of the Caribbean, and England.   In 1890, forty percent of the people born in Ireland had moved out of the country.   The historic causes of this massive exit are complex on the one hand and simple on the other.   It all seems to come down the perception that a person's future would greatly improve if he left Ireland.   These massive exits had and still have a massive influence on the literature of Ireland.   Its most famous novelist, James Joyce, and the most important playwright of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett, both spent much of their lives in exile.   


People did not in the 19th century and before leave the only life and the ancestral home of their family as far as the mind goes back because they were happy where they were.   Emmigration was born of desperation and also took great courage.   When someone left Ireland, in most cases he or she knew they would never return and never see their loved ones again.   This caused huge emotional pain both in those who left and those who stayed.     Some left with a great sense of adventure, others in great fear and sadness.   Out of these experiences great literature was  born.   All who left Ireland left with a great love for its culture.   


George Moore (1852 to 1933-County Mayo, Ireland) is a great short story writer.   I recently read and posted on his story "Albert Nobbs"" which was recently made into an Academy Award nominated moving starring Glenn Close.   I was really amazed by this story of a woman in 19th century Ireland living her life as if she were a man.   

Frank O'Connor, the author of the only book on the short story worth reading, says "Home Sickness" is a masterwork and included it in his anthology, Classic Irish Short Stories.   It opens in New York City with an Irish immigrant working in a bar.   He has been out of Ireland for a long time, he is doing OK money wise, is single, and keeps his health up by long walks.   He is feeling somehow despondent and his doctor tells him go back to Ireland for a while and you will come back fine. Three weeks later he is back in Ireland.    He does not seem to have any family left living there but he wants to go back to where he grew up.   He looks everywhere for people he knows and places he recalls.   Everywhere people ask him about life in America.   Can it really be true a man can make $4.00 a day?   Does everyone live in a fancy house?   

He ends up taking room and board with someone he once sort of knew and he meets a girl he likes.   At first she is very shy and almost runs from him.   Then he begins to court her and soon the word is out they will be married.   At first the man likes idea of taking her back with him to New York City.   I really do not want to spoil the story for you so I will tell no more of the plot.

"Home Sickness" kind of illustrates the truth of the old saying "you can never go home again".   It is a very emotionally intelligent account of the impact of immigration on both those who go and those who stay.   

"Home Sickness"  is a wise, beautifully written short story that I am very glad to have read.   


You can find it at Manybooks.

Please consider joining us for Irish Short Story Week Year Two, March 12 to March 22.   All you need do is post on one short story by an Irish author and send me a comment or and e mail and I will include it in the master post at the end of the challenge.   


Mel u

"Albert Nobbs" by George Moore

"Albert Nobbs" by George Moore (1895, 53 pages)


Frank O'Connors in The Lonely Voice:  A Study in the Short Story ranks George Moore's (1852 to 1933, County Mayo, Ireland) collection of short stories, The Untilled Field as one of the greatest collections of short stories of all times.   Recently I had something to do that involved going somewhere and waiting around a couple of hours so I took William Trevor's The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories with me and read Moore's "Albert Nobbs" while I was waiting.   I admit somehow I thought maybe this story would not stand the test of time but I was completely shocked by what a totally great story it was.   I got an even bigger shock when I just now Googled "Albert Nobbs" and found out a movie staring the great actress Glenn Close will be premiering world wide in less than a week.  (It has already opened in some venues.)    I wish so much George Moore could be here to see this movie and reap the rewards.

"Albert Nobbs" really goes beyond mere story telling into total brilliance.   Ford Madox Ford famously said of Moore that he would be better regarded if he had not had such an arrogant personality (of course leaving aside the question of Ford's own case!).   


Moore is, I think, considered the first great Irish novelist.   He was a hugely prolific writer, his collection of short stories comes to nearly 2000 pages and he wrote at least thirty books ranging from novels, to dramas, to art criticism and political reflections.  (There is a good article on him here)


There are all ready a number of outtakes from the movie posted on the net so you can easily get the basic idea of the story from these videos if you like but you really need to read this story first.  I do not care to spoil any of the plot of this wonderful story.


I admit I was shocked  by the secret in this story.   The character of Albert Nobbs is just so brilliant.   His life as a waiter in a hotel is perfectly done.  I know I praise a lot of the stories I read but "Albert Nobbs" is truly amazing.   As I read it I wondered if it should be seen as a GLBT story or not and I think others will have the same question.


This is a heartbreaking story.  It is perfect.   


You can down load it from Gutenburg.org under the title Celibate Lives.


George Moore will be one of the writers I will focus on during Irish Short Stories Week Year II.   I plan to post then on his perhaps most famous story, "Home Sickness".   I have also read the first story from his collection The Untilled Field and I may post on that soon  as it was also amazing.


Please share your experience with George Moore with us and please suggest other writers whose work is now in the public domain that might be good choices for Irish Short Story Week II which will be from March 12 to March 22 with St. Patrick's Day in the middle on March 17.


Everyone is invited to join in for this event-details to come but all you have to do is post on one short story by an Irish author and send me a comment with a link to your post so I can do a master post.   Last year there were posts on 57 stories by people from all over the world.   There are 100s and 100s of stories you can read online or download for free if you like.   I will do a resource page for the challenge before it begins.   






Mel u