Exquisitely crafted novel. And I do mean BEAUTIFULLY written — images, word choice, lovely repetition of motifs. It really does deserve all the plaudiExquisitely crafted novel. And I do mean BEAUTIFULLY written — images, word choice, lovely repetition of motifs. It really does deserve all the plaudits and would not at all surprise me if it takes the big award. It’s a debut novel, for heaven’s sakes!
The audio is also beautifully read.
It would be silly to summarize. It deserves to be discovered in its own right....more
Powerful. Especially the last chapter, or actually the Epilogue. The three books of the trilogy are so different, reflecting different periods of the Powerful. Especially the last chapter, or actually the Epilogue. The three books of the trilogy are so different, reflecting different periods of the principal characters’ lives. It would be worth rereading all three. These audiobooks were all read by the author and I loved her presence throughout. The passion of her reading of the epilogue blew me away, in fact....more
**spoiler alert** I found the second installment of Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls trilogy much more absorbing than the first. Perhaps it was becaus**spoiler alert** I found the second installment of Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls trilogy much more absorbing than the first. Perhaps it was because I knew the characters better and they’d grown on me. But I think the real reason is that the romance between Cait and her older lover Eugene allows O’Brien to dig so deeply into the impoverished souls of her Irish characters, shaped as they were by experiences of brutal loving family, brutal absolute religion, brutal drink. Still O’Brien’s characters are complex and none is completely irredeemable, although Cait’s father comes close.
The love affair between Cait and Eugene explores the connection between two people attracted to each others differences—age, background, sophistication, relative wealth—until they aren’t, until the gulf separating them becomes too great. Cait dislikes Eugene’s friends and comes to feel he is only truly hers when they are making love. He tires of her emotionality, however well earned from the abrupt loss of her mother and her brutish drunk of a father. Eugene tells Cait that she needs to grow up and learn to control her emotions, because « the world is not just us ». If Eugene is, as Cait accuses him, so sure of his rightness, she is not hesitant in trying to manipulate him into telling her what she wants to hear, into doing what she wants. I felt great sympathy for both of them.
By the end of the novel, Cait and her best friend Baba are heading for London. Cait has waited to the very last moment of departure believing Eugene will come and get her, she will run to him, and their stable disequilibrium will be restored. Thankfully he doesn’t come. As he said, she needs to grow up. Baba worries that Cait will persist even in London in reading and wearing flat shoes, evidence to Baba of being « a right idgit ». But Cait tells us that, in fact, she was just finding her feet.
O’Brien writes with a wonderful lyricism and this audio version of the series is read affectingly by herself.
I did not like this story. I thought it was sentimental and not in a good way. The beginning was stronger than the end and I began to flag in my tolerI did not like this story. I thought it was sentimental and not in a good way. The beginning was stronger than the end and I began to flag in my tolerance around the midpoint. It’s not a long book, but I thought it dragged. Another reviewer said it seemed a lot like auto-fiction which is not something I gravitate toward. There is a sort of happy ending which made all that preceded it seem pointless. Not my cup of tea. Booker long-listed? That is a mystery to me. ...more
Rushdie is always a brilliant writer, and has seemingly read and digested everything. My favorite part, the most harrowing and insightful and sad partRushdie is always a brilliant writer, and has seemingly read and digested everything. My favorite part, the most harrowing and insightful and sad part, was Chapter 7 wherein Rushdie conducts his imaginary interviews with his attacker. It also had a bit of Rushdie’s characteristic humor in a chapter that makes clear the chasm between terrorism and humor. Much more besides. I hope Rushdie has nothing but happiness ahead of him....more
**spoiler alert** What I think is that Adrian Tchaikovsky is a genius. I admit that I struggled at times to keep things straight, but my interest neve**spoiler alert** What I think is that Adrian Tchaikovsky is a genius. I admit that I struggled at times to keep things straight, but my interest never flagged and the conclusion was satisfying, believable (within the realm), and soaring. I love the cephalopods—those are creatures after my own heart. I hope Dr. Kern will reappear in the next volume. She has grown and redeemed herself from her early cantankerous self-righteousness even if it took her long years and many reboots. It is a wonder to me how AT manages to make his wild technological imaginings both accessible and ever tied to our prosaic history and psychology. ...more
All the enthusiastic reviews I read were not exaggerating. I loved it and for all the complexity, I never felt lost in the weeds. The author had some All the enthusiastic reviews I read were not exaggerating. I loved it and for all the complexity, I never felt lost in the weeds. The author had some great ideas that he made convincing—like culture and language growing from entirely different sources than those familiar to us humans. To say more would be a spoiler. He also had some great satirical ideas like the revolt against the accepted practice of killing your mate after sex in the matriarchal society of spiders. Slowly males come to demand their rights and assert their arachnidity, and even more slowly the females begin to acquiesce in profound cultural change. This sci fi novel, despite the expanses of time and space, has nothing arid about it; it is suspenseful, has a soul and a sense of humor. I’m so relieved to find two more volumes in the series.
**spoiler alert** The Constant Nymph was a more puzzling and less enjoyable read than The Feast, the other Margaret Kennedy novel I’ve read. The latte**spoiler alert** The Constant Nymph was a more puzzling and less enjoyable read than The Feast, the other Margaret Kennedy novel I’ve read. The latter was so much lighter of touch.
I did not find it convincing that the two central women would fall for the composer Lewis Dodd, who was a cad and a churl. The older of the two, Florence, marries Dodd, while the younger, Tessa, a girl of 15, develops a reciprocal grand passion with Dodd, which spells the end of the marriage and culminates in the two of them running off to the Continent together. Quite apart from the underage factor which wasn’t really thematic (the book was written in 1924), the three individuals seemed too slight in their personal qualities to bear the weight of the passion and choices that messes up their lives. I mean, I could understand Jane falling for Mr. Rochester….though I have to admit I read Jane Eyre in my teens and I am doubtless more disillusioned these several decades later.
The early part of the book, about a bohemian artist family (modeled on the painter Augustus John) and their ramshackle life in a big house in the Swiss Tyrol, complete with freeloaders, feral children, wives and mistresses, was much more enjoyable than the later parts. Still I like Kennedy’s writing and will read more of her work....more
This may be my favorite book of this year. It is so beautifully written and narrated (by Jennifer McGrath) with characters I adored: I loved Ruth, wisThis may be my favorite book of this year. It is so beautifully written and narrated (by Jennifer McGrath) with characters I adored: I loved Ruth, wished Virgil were my father and Mary my mother, and that Vincent Cunningham kissed me. I wept through the last chapter. Lest this sound like a romance novel with a sad ending, let me assure you it is so much other and more.
The story is positively mythic with respect to place and all the mysterious forces that go to forming a family, that go to the unfolding of « one damn thing after another ». It also plumbs deeply into the resonances of story, rain, and rivers, and ties all of this together in a persuasive story of an Irish village and the family Swain. The book is written so feelingly—one review I read referred to « some of the more syrupy passages », but I beg to differ. Or at least to say that it is not a fault in my view. I tire of writing distanced and ironic enough to make you forget that first of all the joys and sufferings of people are felt. The author gives a fine and sensitive voice to that experience.
I would also want to say that History of the Rain is not a somber read. It’s quite funny. The library left to Ruth is almost a character itself. (By halfway through the audiobook—which I highly recommend, I knew I would want a hard copy which is on its way.). For all the specificity of the characters and the fictional town of Faha, County Clare, the story is lovely and profound. If you love books, I think it would be hard not to experience something of yourself in the novel.
Thank you, Paul Secor. Much as I love Irish writing, I don’t know if I would have found this one on my own. Sure glad I did!...more
This, like the two volumes preceding it in the series The Songs of Penelope, is just fantastic. I loved all three and the developing story of PenelopeThis, like the two volumes preceding it in the series The Songs of Penelope, is just fantastic. I loved all three and the developing story of Penelope, the suitors, the kingdom of Ithaca, waiting twenty long years for the return of Odysseus from the Trojan war. The books are beautifully written, funny in parts, exciting, with a feminism worn lightly and convincingly. But more than anything they are just so much fun. Oh, and the goddesses and god or two, who are beautifully portrayed in all their—often conflicting—passionate partisanship, godly splendor and frailties. Oh, and Telemachus, son of Penelope and Odysseus, who is such a twit, always trying to live up to his storied father, always dismissing his mother’s wisdom and measured ways, failing at both. Lastly, the play of story, what the poets will tell, what really happened in war and love and shifting alliances, is another theme and resonant with our own time and the familiar jockeying for control of “the narrative”, for better and worse. Though these stories are a lot more entertaining and edifying....more
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