The Country Girls, by Edna O'Brien

Obituary

BIOGRAPHY & SUMMARY, by Glòria Torner

Josephine Edna O’Brien was born in 1930, in Tuamgraney, County Clare, a small rural village in the west of Ireland. The youngest of four children, she grew up in the atmosphere of Irish National Catholicism of the 1940s, marked by an alcoholic father, who was a farmer, and a strict mother in religious practice who considered writing “a path of perdition”.

After finishing primary school in her village, she was educated at the Convent of Sisters of Mercy, a boarding school in Galway.  In her 20s, she went to university in Dublin where she graduated in Pharmacy in 1950 and where she worked briefly as an apothecary. In 1952, against her parents’ wishes, she married the writer Ernest Gebler, with whom she had two children. They settled in London, where O’Brien turned to writing as a full-time occupation. Ten years later, in 1962, she escaped from a loveless marriage and moved to the desolate suburban London where, at least, she felt free to write.

Her life has been divided between England, where she has lived for more than 50 years and where she writes, and Ireland, where her writing comes from and where it endlessly returns, exploring her home country from a more detached perspective.

Edna O’Brien has publicly acknowledged that James Joyce’s works, especially A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, were her main inspiration and led her to devote to literature for the rest of her life.

Her first novel, The Country Girls, written when she was 30, was published in 1961.  It is the history of two girls who live in a backward and repressive country, especially in rural areas of Ireland. They grow up in their strict homes, attend a convent school from which they are expelled and travel to Dublin and London in search of imaginary opportunities, love and sex. This book was considered a scandal in her country and she was labelled an enemy of Ireland. Her family felt humiliated by this book. It was the first instalment of a trilogy, written in autobiographical style, completed with The Lonely Girl, later published as Girl with Green Eyes, and Girls in the Married Bliss. Now, these two books are set in London, and there the protagonists become disillusioned with marriage and men in general.

She has written more than twenty works of fiction where the main themes are Ireland and women. Some of them are: The High Road, Down by the River, In the Forest, The Light of Evening, The Little Red Chairs, and the last one, written in 2019, Girl, which was inspired by the Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by members of Boko Haram.

Other notable works include a dramatic work about Virginia Woolf, two important biographies, of James Joyce and Lord Byron, and an autobiographical essay called Mother Ireland.

She also has published nine short story collections where their setting varies, although Ireland appears in several of them. One of them is From Mrs Reinhard and Other Stories, where In the Hours of Darkness is included.

She has died recently, in London, on July 27th, 2024, at the age of 93.

THE COUNTRY GIRLS

Following the plot of the book, it’s easy to divide this novel in three parts.

First part and first chapter. Last day of the school.

Edna O’Brien writes in first person, remembering her real life when she was fourteen years old, the story of Cait and Baba, two young Irish country girls. They live in a rural area of Ireland, (County Clare), a backward and repressive country. They grow up in their strict homes and they spend their childhood together, going to the same school.

Edna O’Brien presents the following characters:

Cathleen, “Kate” or “Cait” (in Irish) Brady, the protagonist. She is a charming and naïve narrator girl who describes only one day of her life in this first chapter.

And the other ones in order of appearance:

The father’s absence. Cait begins to talk about the figure of her father with coldness, with some insinuations: “The old reason”, “He had not come here”. We will understand later her father drinks too much, has a terrible temper, and a tendency to go on benders and then returning home to beat his wife.

Deep love for her mother, called Mama in the story. Cait says, “She was the best mama in the world”. What happens to her mother along the story? There is a premonition when Cait pronounces these sentences: “She straightened the cap on my head and kissed me three or four times”.

They are the poor Brady family.

 

Bridge, “Baba” Brennan, Cait’s best friend, is the novel’s deuteragonist. Despite being opposites in most respects, because Cait is dreamy and kindly romantic, and Baba is a lying and jealous girl who wants to dominate many times Cait’s behaviour, they are sometimes allies, and sometimes enemies. She is the daughter of the rich couple Brennan.

Baba’s parents would appear frequently throughout the story.

Hickey, he is the underpaid farm labourer who preserves the family’s fields and animals, and keeps the place going. Cait says “I love him”, but later she changes the word “love” saying “what I really meant was that I was fond of him”.

Jack Holland, owner of the local grocery store who claims loving Cait and says that he wants to marry her. We know he has always been attracted to Cathleen’s mother, but now he is showing his love to Cathleen.

Miss Moriarty, the teacher. As it is the last day of school, Cait and Baba are going to say goodbye to her, and Cait brings her a bunch of lilacs.

The only one character that doesn’t appear in this first chapter is Mr Gentleman, (her real name is de Maurier), a rich French lawyer, much older than Cait. He lives in a nearby manor house with his wife and several children. He has a very important role in the novel. Cait feels attracted to Mr Gentleman, and she imagines her future life with him. Mr Gentleman will be her protector and...

If you read the book, you will know about the relationship between Cait and Mr Gentleman.

Edna O’Brien also describes the rural landscapes of green meadows and wild flowers of Ireland. We are in the poor Brady’s farm, near County Limerick, where fields must be ploughed with effort, and we’re going to discover the daily habits and the atmosphere of Cait’s home when she gets up in the morning and has her breakfast. She describes an Irish village with many small details as the names of trees, flowers, birds…

At the end of this first part, Cait, rushing home to tell her mama she’s won a scholarship to go to a convent school, something very significative happens...

Second part. The oppressive forces of the religious education.

Cait and Baba attend a convent school. They discover that life in the convent is terrible: only prayers, hours of study, and punishments. Cait feels very sorry and sad, but she shines academically. Baba gets into trouble because she hates this school so much, that on several occasions she considers running away. And according to a plan that the manipulator Baba develops, they are both expelled. Their life will change.

Third part. From repression to freedom.

After their expulsion, they move together to Dublin. Baba is sent to a secretarial college and will follow her studies, but Cait will work in a grocery store. They will go to London in search of imaginary opportunities, love and sex in the big city. They struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. At the end of this part, the two girls are 18 years old. And someone who appears along the story clams to find “his country girl” but…

Do you imagine how the book could finish? A happy new life in Dublin, London or another place? Or a sad ending?

SOME REMARKS

I hope to encourage you reading this sensitive book because I think:

Events, people, feelings, emotions and landscape are very well described.

It’s a realistic portrait of Irish people.

The book talks about the discovering of sex without any taboo. This frank treatment of sex and the sharp critique of Irish society in the post-World War II period was considered scandalous at the time in Ireland. But I have not found the obscenities they cite in some references.

Tender and sad book!

QUESTIONS

-What are the meaning of these expressions (page 6, lines 22), “A nun you are in my eye”, “the Kerry Order”, “two heads in one pillow”?

-In your view, using an alarm clock, is it a natural way of waking up? Timetables, are they a better way of organizing our lives, or they're only another way to control us?

-People usually reserve the best plates, tablecloth, cutlery... for visitors. What do you think it's the reason for this? Is it also your habit?

-Aren't you angry when you see an oppressed person happy with their way of life? What would you say to this person?

-In the story there's no much hygiene. In your opinion, does our society exaggerate with cleanness?

-Do you have a kind of talisman you put under your pillow (to sleep better, to have sweet dreams, to not snore...)?

-In your opinion, what is the best way to become your teacher's favourite?

-What is your point of view about religious education? Is it necessary to teach religion in the schools?

-What is the meaning of the last sentence, the maxim "Weep and you weep alone"? Is it true, or it's only an old wives' saying?

VOCABULARY

ankle socks, dew, hedge, canned sweets, turf house, beamed up, pullet, chicken run, he did his water, flag, flush, clippers, range, sharp, stingy, bog, simmering, paling, boulders, meal, moping, pick your steps, blackbird, fudge, sprees, bout

Carmina Burana, by Several Poets

Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff

Carmina Burana (“Songs of Burana”) is a collection of medieval poetry. It’s the largest and most varied surviving anthology of medieval Latin poetry. The poems belong to the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. They were written mostly in Latin, although some ones are in German because the manuscript was found in Bavaria, in a Benedictine monastery, Benedickbeuern, “Benedictoburanum” in Latin. The poems are about love, sex, gaming and drinking in taverns, and they are bawdy, anticlerical, satirical and irreverent.

They were written mostly by goliards, that is, clergy students that had abandoned the seminar and went travelling around Europe reciting their poems. The word “goliard” seems to come from Goliath, and so meant something bad, or the devil. Some sources say that they were Abelard students. Abelard was a philosopher, poet and theologian, famous for his romantic affair with the nun Heloïse. They had a child, although they supposed to be celibates, and the result of this conflict was that Abelard was castrated by her uncle. A good definition of “goliard” is “a drop-out and spoiled priest gone wild.”

So the goliards were a kind of entertaining travellers, and, contrasting with the troubadours, (who, by the way, wrote in a vernacular language), they praised the physical love.
These were the centuries when the first universities were being built, when reading silently for oneself and without moving the lips (an accomplishment of Saint Jerome which impressed his fourth century admirers) was a growing skill. Latin was an international language, and students used to travel not only to earn their living or to enjoy the life, but in search of teachers and their theories.
However, the Carmina Burana collection wasn’t found until 1803 and published in 1847.
It consists of songs of morals and mockery, love songs, songs of drinking and gaming and two spiritual theatre pieces.
Carl Orff created a musical composition based on some of these poems.
Only a few authors are known:
Hugh of Orléans (1093-1160). He spent his life roaming France. His nickname was Primas because they say he was a master of poetry.
Peter of Blois (1135-1212). He was the secretary of Henry II of England. He taught English in Paris and was Archdeacon of Bath.
Walter de Châtillon (1135-1204). He worked for Henry II and was secretary of the Archbishop of Rheims. He also worked as a teacher in Châtillon.
And a poet called the Archpoet, patronized as Poet Laureate by Rainard of Dassel (♰1165), Chancellor of Frederick I, aka Barbarossa. They say he was the coughing ghost because the word “cough” appears in some of his poems, and we don’t know anything else of him.
Abelard (1079-1142) wrote some poems in his youth, but we don’t know if some of the Carmina Burana poems are his.

Two poems translated from Latin into English by David Parlett

O Fortuna 

O how Fortune, 

inopportune, 

apes the moon's inconstancy: 

waxing, waning, 

losing, gaining, 

life treats us detestably: 

first oppressing 

then caressing 

shifts us like pawns in her play: 

destitution, 

restitution, 

mixes and melts them away. 

Fate, as vicious 

as capricious, 

whirling your merry-go-round: 

evil doings, 

worthless wooings, 

crumble away to the ground: 

darkly stealing, 

unrevealing, 

working against me you go: 

for your measure 

of foul pleasure 

I bare my back to your blow. 

Noble actions, 

true transactions, 

no longer fall to my lot: 

powers to make me 

then to break me 

all play their part in your plot: 

now seize your time — 

waste no more time, 

pluck these poor strings and let go: 

since the strongest 

fall the longest 

let the world share in my woe.

In taberna quando sumus 

In the tavern when we're drinking, 

though the ground be cold and stinking, 

down we go and join the action 

with the dice and gaming faction. 

What goes on inside the salon 

where it's strictly cash per gallon 

if you'd like to know, sir, well you 

shut your mouth and I shall tell you.

Some are drinking, some are playing, 

some their vulgar side displaying: 

most of those who like to gamble 

wind up naked in the scramble; 

some emerge attired in new things, 

some in bits and bobs and shoestrings: 

no one thinks he'll kick the bucket 

dicing for a beery ducat.

 

First to those who pay for wallowing, 

then we layabouts toast the following: 

next we drink to all held captive, 

thirdly drink to those still active, 

fourthly drink to the Christian-hearted, 

fifthly drink to the dear departed, 

sixthly to our free-and-easy sisters, 

seventhly to all out-of-work enlisters.

Eighthly drink to friars deconverted, 

ninthly, monks from monast'ries diverted, 

tenthly, sailors of the oceans, 

eleventhly, louts who cause commotions, 

twelfthly, those who wear the penitential, 

thirteenth, and whose journey is essential — 

to this fat pope, to that thin king — 

who the hell cares why they're drinking!

Drinking tinker, drinking tailor, 

drinking soldier, drinking sailor, 

drinking rich man, drinking poor man, 

drinking beggarman, thief and lawman, 

drinking servant, drinking master, 

drinking mistress, drinking pastor, 

drinking doctor, drinking layman, 

drinking drunkard, drinking drayman: 

Drinking rude man, drinking proper, 

drinking tiddler, drinking whopper, 

drinking scholar, drinking gypsy, 

drinking drunk or maudlin tipsy, 

drinking father, drinking mother, 

drinking sister, drinking brother, 

drinking husbands, wives and lovers

and a hundred thousand others — 

Half a million pounds would never 

pay for all we drink together: 

for we drink beyond all measure, 

purely for the sake of pleasure: 

thus you see us, poor and shoddy, 

criticized by everybody —  

God grant that they be confounded 

when at last the trump is sounded!

Something Childish but very Natural, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY

This is a love story between Henry (17) and Edna (16). They are very young, so we have to suppose very inexperienced about love, but also very pure and innocent.

Henry is a clerk in an architect office, and he thinks he’s great into books, although he hasn’t read many, and he doesn’t have many. Edna is a student in a training college; she wants to be a secretary.

One day, at Charing Cross station, Henry almost misses his train because, as it has a stop of ten minutes, leaving his hat and a portfolio in his carriage, he gets off to look at the books in the station bookstall and, when he is reading a poem from a book, he hears the station master announcing that the train is leaving, and Henry has to hurry up. He runs to the nearest carriage and dashes into it. But it’s not his, and he feels embarrassed because there is another passenger, a girl, and he has not his hat on. He notices the girl’s hair and falls in love with it. In the end, he gathers courage to say something, and they begin a bit of conversation. And when Edna points to the mark his hat has left on his forehead, he feels he’s definitely in love with her. He asks her to meet again, and she tells him that she takes the same train every day.

So they meet again, and they start a kind of love affair, they tell each other about their jobs, their families… He asks her to see her hair, and reluctantly she takes off her hat, but she doesn’t allow him to touch it.

And during their courtship, he can’t even go near her and, much less, kiss her. However, Henry isn’t angry with her, he is patient and understanding and can wait. Edna knows that he wants some more closeness and understands his desires, but, at the moment, she can’t bear being touched. She prefers keeping some distance between them, as if they were still children, and not already teenagers. But they both dream being together, living together, and they imagine having a house and behaving like husband and wife.

But after a time, Henry is a little tired of waiting for a kiss or a caress, he hungers for physical contact. One day, in an excursion, when they stop to have tea, the landlady offers them a cottage to rent. They go and see it, and they like it very much. They can figure it could be their home. Eventually, Edna lets him hold her, and tells him she has wanted all day to tell him that he could kiss her. They decide to rent the house.

But when Henry waits for Edna the day they have to begin to inhabit the cottage, she doesn’t come. Instead of her, there comes a little girl with a telegram for Henry. We don’t know what is there in the message, neither whose it is from, although we can imagine. He opens it, reads it, and the world around him gets wrapped in darkness.

 

QUESTIONS

-Why do you think the girl doesn’t want any physical contact?

-In your opinion, a romantic mood, is it only possible when you are young?

-Do you think love without sex is going to work? Or is this idea sexist?

-What can be the meaning of the Swiss cow-bell, the silver shoe and the fish hanging of Edna’s bangle?

-Why is hair so powerful a sexual symbol, according to your view?

-“Have you ever been in love before?” is a very unusual declaration of love. Do you know any other singular one? E.g., this one.

-Some people say love is a kind of illness that only lasts three years. What is your opinion?

-Can children be in love, or is love something you only find in teenagers and adults?

-When they are at the tea house in the country, and the woman offers to rent a cottage, do you think Henry has planned it previously? (remember he had been there often)

-And when the woman asked if they were brother and sister, why does Henry answer yes?

-When they are in the cottage, do they really kiss? Why do you think so?

-What does the telegram say? What is Henry going to do now?

 

VOCABULARY

soot, spangle, pap, clutched, marigold, wreath, utter, curb, training college, nests, loathsome, winding up, raked out, caretakers, heather, jonquils, Bags I

 

Something Childish, but very Natural, poem

Film (from minute 29:48)

AUDIOBOOK

ANALYSIS

VIDEO PRESENTATION

Phosphorescence, by Tessa Hadley

 

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteres

Graham Cooley is 38 years old, has a degree in physics, is married with children, is a competitive chess player and loves quantum mechanics and quarks.

One Friday, at the university, where he works as a physics professor, a course on food hygiene was held, and he saw a woman with shiny grey hair, a belligerent jaw, a turned-up nose, and a wide mouth. It was Claudia, a woman who he had met one summer at his parents’ house in West Wales, when Graham was 13 years old.

Graham told his wife Carol that in college he saw a woman he hadn’t seen in 25 years. At night, when Graham and his wife were in bed, he told Carol that when Claudia was on holiday at his parents’ house, she had made advances toward him. His wife ended the conversation saying, what would you think if a man did to your daughter what Claudia did to you?

Graham took Claudia’s address and went to her house. He introduced himself saying that he was Graham Cooley and that she and her family had been on holiday at the Cooley’s in West Wales. Claudia remembered, she looked at his face and told him that he was handsome and that she always had good taste in men.

She invited him into her house, they sat down, and he put his hand on Claudia’s knee and reminded her that, on the last night she was at his parents’ house, he took her and her two young daughters by boat. He told her that she had sat in front of him while he rowed; the water that night was full of phosphorescence, tiny sea creatures that glowed in the dark, and that she put her feet on top of his and rubbed them all the time. Once he said this, he kissed her, put his hands under her clothes and she didn’t stop him.

Graham got home very late, his wife was waiting for him, and, for a moment, he thought that Carol might suspect something, but he immediately thought, I am her husband, the physics professor who loves quantum mechanics and a puritan. Nothing happens here.

QUESTIONS

Describe Graham’s family

Talk about Graham.

What can you say about Claudia?

Do / did you play board games? What is your favourite? What kind of player are / were you? Do you have any anecdote?

When do children start dressing as adults?

Do you think our children know better about sex than us?

Do you think that in our time swearing has increased its intensity? Aren’t “shit” and “bloody” a little soft?

In your opinion, why did Claudia choose Graham, and not Tim or Alex?

At first Graham thought Claudia was old, but then, when he saw playing badminton, not so old, even young. How do you calibrate the age of a person? Is there a kind of touchstone?

How does Claudia approach Graham?

Why in a moment wasn’t Graham able to look at his mother?

Do you think our generation have overprotected children?

“He suffered like an adult, secretly.” Do adults suffer in secret? In which cases?

How did Graham / Claudia change over the time?

What do you think about telling your past to anybody (a new friend, a partner, your children)?

Graham’s wife thought that his experience with Claudia was horrible. Does Graham agree? Do you agree?

How was it possible that Claudia didn’t remember him and their story?

Did he have a “trauma” because of Claudia’s seduction?

In your opinion, did Graham cheat on his wife?

How do you think the story would go on?

What do you imagine it’s the relation between the title and the story?

 

VOCABULARY

daps, reslating, chalet, meadow, overspill, Dormobile van, making it all up, toddler, snap, suntan, soothed, scooping, shuttlecock, halter top, gritty, sandpapery, scorch, racing demon, humming, waxed, plug, rewire, flip-flops, hog, six-form college, foyer, pugnacious, brash, dregs, blare, droop, mews, stone-flagged, batik, tans, sag, tinged, GCSE moderation