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Monday, July 29, 2013

The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien


"Upstairs in a bedroom two greyhounds moaned. It was the moan of death. Suddenly I knew that I had to accept the fact that my mother was dead. And I cried as I have never cried at any other time in my life." (Kate, Page 43)

About the Book (from wikipedia.com): Penguin Books, 1960; Kate and Baba are two young Irish country girls who have spent their childhood together. As they leave the safety of their convent school in search of life and love in the big city, they struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. Kate, dreamy and romantic, yearns for true love, while Baba just wants to experience the life of a single girl. Although they set out to conquer the world together, as their lives take unexpected turns, Kate and Baba must ultimately learn to find their own way.


"Lighthouses blinked and signaled on all sides and I loved watching the rhythm of their flashes, blinking to ships in the lonely sea. They made me think of all the people in the world waiting for all the other people to come to them. For once I was not lonely, because I was with someone that I wanted to be with." (Kate, Page 200)

     My Thoughts: The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien (Plume Publishing, 1960) is a difficult book that you will heartily devour. Difficult because of the always looming tragedy that the reader can instantly sense, as though the characters have no hope of escaping their bleak destinies. This is a tale of a tumultuous friendship between Caithleen "Kate" Brady and Bridget "Baba" Brennan, and the role of women in 1950s Ireland. The Country Girls was originally banned in Ireland when first published due to what was considered, having at the time been considered scandalous as it addressed female sexuality. It is a coming-of-age tale that is processed through into adulthood with no questioning what becomes of these enigmatic characters.
     The first two books are told with Kate as the narrator and detail their beginnings, school years, and then life in Dublin as young women searching for independence while attempting to maintain social acceptance. Kate's life is deeply impacted by the death of her mother while she is a child and her father's alcoholism. She struggles to escape the fate that was dealt to her mother and discovers that she embodies many of the same weaknesses. After she and Baba plan a scheme to be expelled from the convent in which they were studying, Kate's dreams of a higher education are finished, withering her chance at a life different than the women before her.
     The third book is told via Baba, and the reader has the opportunity to view Kate with a new perspective. It is a realistic look at the relationship between husband and wife and the gradual unraveling of a marriage with glimpses at domestic violence, adultery, and controlling behaviors. In The Country Girls, O'Brien presents a sociological portrait of the plight of women and their struggles to not only have their voice heard but to find the voice they wish to project.

nytimes.com
About the Author (from wikipedia.com): Edna O'Brien (born 15 December 1930) is an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer. She is considered the "doyenne" of Irish literature.O'Brien's works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men, and to society as a whole. Her first novel, The Country Girls, is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following World War II. The book was banned, burned and denounced from the pulpit, and O'Brien left Ireland behind. O'Brien now lives in London. She received the Irish PEN Award in 2001. Saints and Sinners won the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the world's richest prize for a short story collection. Faber and Faber published her memoir, Country Girl, in 2012.


Happy Reading!
Rebecca

Friday, July 19, 2013

Book Beginnings: The Country Girls Trilogy

 Today I am linking up to Book Beginnings hosted by Rose City Reader where readers share the first sentence of the current book they are reading.


"I wakened quickly and sat up in bed abruptly. It is only when I am anxious that I waken easily and for a minute I did not know that my heart was beating faster than usual. Then I remembered. The old reason. He had not come home."

From the introduction, the reader grasps that the narrator is worried over the absence of a particular individual. She states that her quick wakening was from "the old reason," providing the reader with the background that she finds herself in a situation familiar to her. Whom is she referencing and what is the underlying problem?

About the Book (from wikipedia.com): Penguin Books, 1960; Kate and Baba are two young Irish country girls who have spent their childhood together. As they leave the safety of their convent school in search of life and love in the big city, they struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. Kate, dreamy and romantic, yearns for true love, while Baba just wants to experience the life of a single girl. Although they set out to conquer the world together, as their lives take unexpected turns, Kate and Baba must ultimately learn to find their own way.

nytimes.com
About the Author (from wikipedia.com): Edna O'Brien (born 15 December 1930) is an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer. She is considered the "doyenne" of Irish literature.O'Brien's works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men, and to society as a whole. Her first novel, The Country Girls, is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following World War II. The book was banned, burned and denounced from the pulpit, and O'Brien left Ireland behind. O'Brien now lives in London. She received the Irish PEN Award in 2001. Saints and Sinners won the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the world's richest prize for a short story collection. Faber and Faber published her memoir, Country Girl, in 2012.

Happy Reading!
Rebecca

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Summer....in poem


Summer

The sun defines the beacon of the seasons 
Southern breezes whistle dreams into one's path 
Notions once past return with strength and promise 
Summer whispers the ripening of future 

Cool grass beneath calloused soles speaks to spirit 
Spirit responds by soaking earth with her tears 
Those gone before seem nearer 
Days presented on extended fingers 

Mama wake me from sleep unslumbered 
Lest I linger in intoxicated bliss 
The fruits of a trifling journey 
Laid bare upon the robin's chest

Dreams once dreamt return vivid 
A spark reignited from a cold ember 
Hope emerging through the silent creeping 
The sweet, lingering scent of honeysuckle on the vine 

                                                       ~ R.L. Morgan

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Sanctuary by William Faulkner


About the Book (from amazon.com): First published in 1931, this classic psychological melodrama has been viewed as more of a social document in his tragic legend of the South than mere story. From Popeye, a moonshining racketeer with no conscience and Temple Drake, beautiful, bored and vulnerable, to Harace Benbow, a lawyer of honor and decency wishing for more in his life, and Gowan Stevens, college student with a weakness for drink, Faulkner writes of changing social values and order. A sinister cast peppered with social outcasts and perverts perform abduction, murder, and mayhem in this harsh and brutal story of sensational and motiveless evil. Students of Faulkner have found an allegorical interpretation of "Sanctuary" as a comment on the degradation of old South's social order by progressive modernism and materialistic exploitation. Popeye and his co-horts represent this hurling change that is corrupting the historic traditions of the South.

"The house was a gutted ruin rising gaunt and stark out of a grove of unpruned cedar trees." Page 4

My Thoughts: Sanctuary by William Faulkner (Random House 1931) is described as Faulkner's breakout novel and its scandalous themes and seedy characters provide the reader with a quick moving plot that continues to surprise. Told as two storylines merging into one, Sanctuary introduces us to a slew of characters struggling to find their way in a changing culture and landscape of the South in the 30's.
     Temple Drake is a young, attractive socialite who finds herself in unfamiliar territory when a date with a "gentleman" goes sordidly wrong. Horace Benbow is an attorney searching hopelessly for purpose in his life. Together, these two characters direct the flow of the flow of the story although their interaction is brief and of little consequence to the outcome.
     Faulkner's writing is eloquent even when describing horrific events that alter Temple's future and wide variety of themes are tackled among the outcasts that pepper this story, including rape, murder, alcoholism, race, and society in a regressed environment. Faulkner addresses each with the ease of an author writing about what is familiar to him. For those who have never read Faulkner previously, Sanctuary is a great novel to start you on the path of discovering this classic American writer.

Have you read Sanctuary or other Faulkner novels? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Happy Reading,
Rebecca

Friday, July 5, 2013

Book Beginnings: Sanctuary by William Faulkner

 Today I am linking up to Book Beginnings hosted by Rose City Reader where readers share the first sentence of the current book they are reading.


Sanctuary by William Faulkner (Random House, 1931) begins with these words:

"From beyond the screen of bushes which surrounded the spring, Popeye watched the man drinking. A faint path led from the road to the spring. Popeye watched the man- a tall, thin man, hatless, in worn gray flannel trousers and carrying a tweed coat over his arm- emerge from the path and kneel to drink from the spring."

Faulkner exemplifies perfect summer reading to me. From the introduction in Sanctuary, the reader can instantly sense that this is going to be a character-driven novel. We become curious about not only Popeye but the man that he is observing and where their paths are going to lead them.

About the Book (from amazon.com): First published in 1931, this classic psychological melodrama has been viewed as more of a social document in his tragic legend of the South than mere story. From Popeye, a moonshining racketeer with no conscience and Temple Drake, beautiful, bored and vulnerable, to Harace Benbow, a lawyer of honor and decency wishing for more in his life, and Gowan Stevens, college student with a weakness for drink, Faulkner writes of changing social values and order. A sinister cast peppered with social outcasts and perverts perform abduction, murder, and mayhem in this harsh and brutal story of sensational and motiveless evil. Students of Faulkner have found an allegorical interpretation of "Sanctuary" as a comment on the degradation of old South's social order by progressive modernism and materialistic exploitation. Popeye and his co-horts represent this hurling change that is corrupting the historic traditions of the South.

About the Author: William Cuthbert Faulkner (born Falkner, September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962), also known as Will Faulkner, was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of written media, including novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays. He is primarily known and acclaimed for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, a setting Faulkner created based on Lafayette County, where he spent most of his life, and Holly Springs/Marshall County. Faulkner is one of the most important writers in both American literature generally and Southern literature specifically. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949Nobel Prize in Literature. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and his last novel The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century; also on the list were As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in August (1932). Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is often included on similar lists.

Happy Reading!
Rebecca

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

My Top 10 Intimidating Books

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Happy Tuesday Everyone!
Today I am participating in Top Ten Tuesday
hosted by The Broke and the Bookish with a list of 10 books I think of as intimidating. Click on the link above to head over and visit other submissions and to find great books to add to your To Read list.

I broke this set into two segments: Books that I initially thought would be intimidating but I finished reading and Books that I still find too intimidating to dive in but are still on my To Read someday list.

Read: Each of these I discovered were not as an intimidating as my perceptions allowed me to believe.

   


This next set is still on my To Read list. Most I started at one point or another but never broke through to the point where I was interested in the material.
 
  

I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I complete a novel that I considered a challenge. I am looking forward to discovering more "intimidating" literature from fellow book bloggers!

Happy Reading,
Rebecca

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