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The Love Object
A collection of remarkable short stories by one of the twentieth century’s most acclaimed and prolific authors
In this collection of eight stories, Edna O’Brien writes lyrically and passionately about women’s lives. In “Irish Revel,” young Mary yearns for the promise of a sweetheart to hold on to, as a hard life stretches out before her. In “The Rug,” a woman becomes consumed with her search for the sender of a mysterious gift. And in the title story, “The Love Object,” a successful television announcer struggles for emotional fulfillment through an affair with a married man. In each story, the objects of each woman’s affections vary, but all are masterfully bound together by their love and longing.
At once heartrending and captivating, The Love Object is an unforgettable exploration of isolation and romantic obsession.
In this collection of eight stories, Edna O’Brien writes lyrically and passionately about women’s lives. In “Irish Revel,” young Mary yearns for the promise of a sweetheart to hold on to, as a hard life stretches out before her. In “The Rug,” a woman becomes consumed with her search for the sender of a mysterious gift. And in the title story, “The Love Object,” a successful television announcer struggles for emotional fulfillment through an affair with a married man. In each story, the objects of each woman’s affections vary, but all are masterfully bound together by their love and longing.
At once heartrending and captivating, The Love Object is an unforgettable exploration of isolation and romantic obsession.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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About the author
Edna O'Brien
112 books1,378 followersEdna O’Brien was an award-winning Irish author of novels, plays, and short stories. She has been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the twentieth century. She was the 2011 recipient of the Frank O’Connor Prize, awarded for her short story collection Saints and Sinners. She also received, among other honors, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, and a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Literary Academy. Her 1960 debut novel, The Country Girls, was banned in her native Ireland for its groundbreaking depictions of female sexuality. Notable works also include August Is a Wicked Month (1965), A Pagan Place (1970), Lantern Slides (1990), and The Light of Evening (2006). O’Brien lived in London until her death.
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March 17, 2018
Happy St. Patrick's Day, Goodreads! Read Edna O'Brien, why dontcha?
In honour of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve decided to review a great big Irish book I finished last month that’s haunted me ever since. Edna O’Brien is a master of the short story. These 31 tales, written over half a century, are among the most passionate and memorable I’ve ever read. I know I will return to them over the years.
First a bit of background. I tend to take short story collections for granted, reading the stories over a few months, especially if they’re not connected. What’s the rush? There’s no overarching plot, right?
Case in point: I read the first story in this collection way back in July 2015. It’s called “Irish Revel,” and it’s about a country girl named Mary who’s been invited to a party at an inn in town. She thinks the invitation has come from a handsome English painter she met two years before who said he’d be in touch. But it turns out the hotel owner just needs an extra hand, someone to move furniture, polish glasses, serve food and drink, and look good for the male guests. Mary, who’s worn a special (and totally inappropriate) dress for the occasion, is humiliated, but she works, putting up with the other gossiping girl workers and the increasingly drunken partygoers, one of whom keeps trying to get her alone. She escapes home at the end.
It’s a simple yet heartfelt tale, with obvious echoes of James Joyce. And with its young, yearning protagonist, I thought it a fitting beginning to a retrospective collection. I put the book down, expecting to pick it up again soon.
Months went by and I literally read dozens of books afterwards. Then sometime in January, when I was looking for something cozy and warm to read in the dead of winter – literary comfort food, as it were – I spotted the thick red book on my shelves. And it hit me that “Irish Revel” had stayed with me all this time, like a warm glow. Mary’s humiliation; her longing for something more; the sharp, honest and unsentimental portraits of the townsfolk – somehow, I’d been walking around with the emotional weight of this story for months.
So I decided to pick up where I left off and read one or two stories a day, until I had finished it. The result? Utter bliss. Not every story had the same pull as “Irish Revel,” but O’Brien’s prose – sensual yet tough, emotionally raw yet disciplined – was simply ravishing. Every second or third story would absolutely devastate me.
I like intellectual games and puzzles as much as the next person, and grand, important themes are wonderful to behold. But as I get older it’s the emotional power of a book, play or movie that stays with me. And the best of O’Brien’s work seizes your heart.
Her story “The Love Object” is the quintessential tale of an affair with a married man. The frenzy and irrational nature of love and lust she evokes is universal. Nobody, except perhaps Alice Munro (who’s quoted on the book’s dust jacket), explores infidelity better than O’Brien. “Madame Cassandra” is a virtuosic aria of a story about a woman waiting to see a fortune teller about her husband’s philandering. “Manhattan Medley” recounts an affair between two expats in NYC; the narrator addresses the story to “you,” her beloved, and she spares us nothing in her ruthless accounting of her behaviour.
“The Connor Girls” is a masterpiece about a young girl’s obsession with two glamorous Protestant sisters, one of whom is jilted by a man.
“The Rug” is a brief story about how the delivery of an exotic rug temporarily cheers up a sad working-class mother.
The village itself takes on the character of a Greek chorus in "The Widow," a tale of a landlady whose second shot at love is ruined by town gossip.
One of O’Brien’s ongoing themes is the early closeness and eventual growing rift between mothers and daughters, especially when that daughter is independent, smart and ambitious. Nowhere is this explored more powerfully than in “A Rose In The Heart Of New York,” which chronicles the entire history of a woman and sad mother who never followed her dreams. “My Two Mothers” is a variation on that theme. In both stories the mother has left behind a man (her true love?) when she lived for a time in Brooklyn – a plot point that should resonate with anyone who’s read or seen Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn.
O’Brien is an expert observer of the class divide. In “Green Georgette,” a mother and daughter visit a wealthy family, only to be snubbed. (The mother once rescued one of the family’s parties by providing fresh cream from her farm.)
In “Paradise,” the narrator feels out of place among the yachting and jet setting acquaintances of her wealthy older lover, and her swimming lessons take on symbolic meaning.
In the masterful “Lantern Slides,” an obvious homage to Joyce’s “The Dead,” O’Brien gets us close to a dozen or so people of various classes at a fancy party, homing in on their hopes and dreams and disappointments.
And “Shovel Kings” is a terribly moving story about the working class men lured from rural Ireland to dig ditches and do other backbreaking work in London. Many of them turn to drink. The ending will break your heart.
Love. Drink. Catholicism. Sex. Families. Class. Living in Ireland, leaving it. Cheers, mate. Put down that glass of green beer and read some Edna O’Brien.
In honour of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve decided to review a great big Irish book I finished last month that’s haunted me ever since. Edna O’Brien is a master of the short story. These 31 tales, written over half a century, are among the most passionate and memorable I’ve ever read. I know I will return to them over the years.
First a bit of background. I tend to take short story collections for granted, reading the stories over a few months, especially if they’re not connected. What’s the rush? There’s no overarching plot, right?
Case in point: I read the first story in this collection way back in July 2015. It’s called “Irish Revel,” and it’s about a country girl named Mary who’s been invited to a party at an inn in town. She thinks the invitation has come from a handsome English painter she met two years before who said he’d be in touch. But it turns out the hotel owner just needs an extra hand, someone to move furniture, polish glasses, serve food and drink, and look good for the male guests. Mary, who’s worn a special (and totally inappropriate) dress for the occasion, is humiliated, but she works, putting up with the other gossiping girl workers and the increasingly drunken partygoers, one of whom keeps trying to get her alone. She escapes home at the end.
It’s a simple yet heartfelt tale, with obvious echoes of James Joyce. And with its young, yearning protagonist, I thought it a fitting beginning to a retrospective collection. I put the book down, expecting to pick it up again soon.
Months went by and I literally read dozens of books afterwards. Then sometime in January, when I was looking for something cozy and warm to read in the dead of winter – literary comfort food, as it were – I spotted the thick red book on my shelves. And it hit me that “Irish Revel” had stayed with me all this time, like a warm glow. Mary’s humiliation; her longing for something more; the sharp, honest and unsentimental portraits of the townsfolk – somehow, I’d been walking around with the emotional weight of this story for months.
So I decided to pick up where I left off and read one or two stories a day, until I had finished it. The result? Utter bliss. Not every story had the same pull as “Irish Revel,” but O’Brien’s prose – sensual yet tough, emotionally raw yet disciplined – was simply ravishing. Every second or third story would absolutely devastate me.
I like intellectual games and puzzles as much as the next person, and grand, important themes are wonderful to behold. But as I get older it’s the emotional power of a book, play or movie that stays with me. And the best of O’Brien’s work seizes your heart.
Her story “The Love Object” is the quintessential tale of an affair with a married man. The frenzy and irrational nature of love and lust she evokes is universal. Nobody, except perhaps Alice Munro (who’s quoted on the book’s dust jacket), explores infidelity better than O’Brien. “Madame Cassandra” is a virtuosic aria of a story about a woman waiting to see a fortune teller about her husband’s philandering. “Manhattan Medley” recounts an affair between two expats in NYC; the narrator addresses the story to “you,” her beloved, and she spares us nothing in her ruthless accounting of her behaviour.
“The Connor Girls” is a masterpiece about a young girl’s obsession with two glamorous Protestant sisters, one of whom is jilted by a man.
“The Rug” is a brief story about how the delivery of an exotic rug temporarily cheers up a sad working-class mother.
The village itself takes on the character of a Greek chorus in "The Widow," a tale of a landlady whose second shot at love is ruined by town gossip.
One of O’Brien’s ongoing themes is the early closeness and eventual growing rift between mothers and daughters, especially when that daughter is independent, smart and ambitious. Nowhere is this explored more powerfully than in “A Rose In The Heart Of New York,” which chronicles the entire history of a woman and sad mother who never followed her dreams. “My Two Mothers” is a variation on that theme. In both stories the mother has left behind a man (her true love?) when she lived for a time in Brooklyn – a plot point that should resonate with anyone who’s read or seen Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn.
O’Brien is an expert observer of the class divide. In “Green Georgette,” a mother and daughter visit a wealthy family, only to be snubbed. (The mother once rescued one of the family’s parties by providing fresh cream from her farm.)
In “Paradise,” the narrator feels out of place among the yachting and jet setting acquaintances of her wealthy older lover, and her swimming lessons take on symbolic meaning.
In the masterful “Lantern Slides,” an obvious homage to Joyce’s “The Dead,” O’Brien gets us close to a dozen or so people of various classes at a fancy party, homing in on their hopes and dreams and disappointments.
And “Shovel Kings” is a terribly moving story about the working class men lured from rural Ireland to dig ditches and do other backbreaking work in London. Many of them turn to drink. The ending will break your heart.
Love. Drink. Catholicism. Sex. Families. Class. Living in Ireland, leaving it. Cheers, mate. Put down that glass of green beer and read some Edna O’Brien.
March 26, 2018
Inside: Love's Reality
The "inside" is "where a person loves from," it's "the reality, not what they say," said Hypocrites. While this could be deemed a universal truth, it seems poignant to the artist drawing a flesh-and-blood woman, for such a feminine creator must draw from within the woman so the reader can experience the "reality" of the woman's "love," her pain or the many other thoughts and feelings. I make a distinction here for creating a female character since she cannot be drawn from the outside nearly as authentically as can most men, whose feelings/thoughts are worn for all to see on their face, their posture, their sleeve or at times below the belt.
While, as a man, I could never presume to know the mindset of any woman, I do have a bit of perspective having, for all but a few years of my life, lived with and loved women, as son, brother, father and husband. From this perspective, it seems that Edna O'Brien captures the inside of women better than most any writer I've read.
girls just wanna have fun
Ms. O'Brien was a courageous trailblazer in her native Ireland and well most anywhere in the world in the 1960s, as she tuned into and wrote of the uncensored lives and thoughts of women, the woman as a sexual human being, having from time to time some lust in her heart and purely primal thoughts in mind.
In 1960, this was unthinkable, particularly to the upstanding religious-minded men in Ireland. These men said only whores would think of or engage in such abominations, thoughts and acts that are fairly tame more than a half century after Ms. O'Brien's first banned book in 1960 when she came out of the gate, but good, at the age of 30 with The Country Girls, the first of what's now known as The Country Girls Trilogy (1960-64). These books were banned, and even burned, in Ireland due to their vivid coloring of the sensual lives and prurient thoughts of young single women from middle class families.
Most of the tales in this splendid collection of selected stories portray women as real, live carnal beings, their thoughts and dialogue, their strengths and flaws, as they exist in relationships with men and with respect to other women.
The title story seemed to me perhaps the most notable and illustrative of the writing I've tried to describe. The Love Object was published in 1968, and Ms. O'Brien brilliantly frames a vibrant, self-supporting divorced woman who is erotically hungry for, and ultimately obsessed with, a married man with whom she is/was in a sexual relationship (or in love?). O'Brien draws out her daydreams, imaginations and deliberations as she devolves into a near-hysterical obsession over this man.
Other stories show the savagery of some women, particularly in leading a collective of other women and gossipy men (pathetic creatures, they are). In the story THE WIDOW, a young single lady named Bridget moves into town and rents out rooms in her home to pay the bills; the women (and men) refer to her at times by quoting a rhyming song that goes, "Betty the whore who lives in a house without a door."
Bridget marries, and some years later, her husband drowns while out fishing. After a new man comes a-calling on Bridget, they fall in love and quickly get engaged, but the townsfolk start rumors that her first husband committed suicide and, well, it's not a happy ending. Woe, insidious depraved people.
I haven't yet had a chance to read all the stories, but I've made my way through most. I should think this would be an excellent collection for anyone who pleasures in the writings of Virginia Woolf and other feminist writers.
The "inside" is "where a person loves from," it's "the reality, not what they say," said Hypocrites. While this could be deemed a universal truth, it seems poignant to the artist drawing a flesh-and-blood woman, for such a feminine creator must draw from within the woman so the reader can experience the "reality" of the woman's "love," her pain or the many other thoughts and feelings. I make a distinction here for creating a female character since she cannot be drawn from the outside nearly as authentically as can most men, whose feelings/thoughts are worn for all to see on their face, their posture, their sleeve or at times below the belt.
While, as a man, I could never presume to know the mindset of any woman, I do have a bit of perspective having, for all but a few years of my life, lived with and loved women, as son, brother, father and husband. From this perspective, it seems that Edna O'Brien captures the inside of women better than most any writer I've read.
girls just wanna have fun
Ms. O'Brien was a courageous trailblazer in her native Ireland and well most anywhere in the world in the 1960s, as she tuned into and wrote of the uncensored lives and thoughts of women, the woman as a sexual human being, having from time to time some lust in her heart and purely primal thoughts in mind.
In 1960, this was unthinkable, particularly to the upstanding religious-minded men in Ireland. These men said only whores would think of or engage in such abominations, thoughts and acts that are fairly tame more than a half century after Ms. O'Brien's first banned book in 1960 when she came out of the gate, but good, at the age of 30 with The Country Girls, the first of what's now known as The Country Girls Trilogy (1960-64). These books were banned, and even burned, in Ireland due to their vivid coloring of the sensual lives and prurient thoughts of young single women from middle class families.
Most of the tales in this splendid collection of selected stories portray women as real, live carnal beings, their thoughts and dialogue, their strengths and flaws, as they exist in relationships with men and with respect to other women.
The title story seemed to me perhaps the most notable and illustrative of the writing I've tried to describe. The Love Object was published in 1968, and Ms. O'Brien brilliantly frames a vibrant, self-supporting divorced woman who is erotically hungry for, and ultimately obsessed with, a married man with whom she is/was in a sexual relationship (or in love?). O'Brien draws out her daydreams, imaginations and deliberations as she devolves into a near-hysterical obsession over this man.
Other stories show the savagery of some women, particularly in leading a collective of other women and gossipy men (pathetic creatures, they are). In the story THE WIDOW, a young single lady named Bridget moves into town and rents out rooms in her home to pay the bills; the women (and men) refer to her at times by quoting a rhyming song that goes, "Betty the whore who lives in a house without a door."
Bridget marries, and some years later, her husband drowns while out fishing. After a new man comes a-calling on Bridget, they fall in love and quickly get engaged, but the townsfolk start rumors that her first husband committed suicide and, well, it's not a happy ending. Woe, insidious depraved people.
I haven't yet had a chance to read all the stories, but I've made my way through most. I should think this would be an excellent collection for anyone who pleasures in the writings of Virginia Woolf and other feminist writers.
May 15, 2015
3.5 Edna O'Brien is an author I have always wanted to read but until now never have. Her first book Country Girls was banned in Ireland upon its release for its depiction of female sexuality. Her writing is elegantly descriptive and though their are a few stories I didn't really care for, there were some I absolutely loved.
The rug was one, a rug is unexpectedly delivered to a family, or is a beautiful purple rig and they spend time trying to guess who has sent this rug that they now all loves to them. There is of course s catch but it would a spoiler to tell you the rest. In another a young country girl is thrilled to be invited to her first party, but finds out things are not as she thought. And of course the mother, daughter story which I am always drawn too.
A wonderful collection of stories of want, love and failed expectations. Now I need to get my hands on Country Girls.
ARC from publisher.
The rug was one, a rug is unexpectedly delivered to a family, or is a beautiful purple rig and they spend time trying to guess who has sent this rug that they now all loves to them. There is of course s catch but it would a spoiler to tell you the rest. In another a young country girl is thrilled to be invited to her first party, but finds out things are not as she thought. And of course the mother, daughter story which I am always drawn too.
A wonderful collection of stories of want, love and failed expectations. Now I need to get my hands on Country Girls.
ARC from publisher.
July 11, 2021
I’m bingeing on Edna O’Brien. 😊
I didn’t mean to, but I got her collection of short stories, ‘A Fanatic Heart’, and it consists of selected short stories from four of her short story collections (and another four stories previously not published in a collection). Problem is that the four short story collections are not in ‘A Fanatic Heart’ in THEIR ENTIRETY….in her short story collection, ‘The Love Object’, three were left out of ‘A Fanatic Heart’. So I went to The Open Library (https://openlibrary.org/ ) and they just so happened to have ‘The Love Object’ (Knopf, 1969) available so I checked it out. Let me tell you…I am not done bingeing. Edna O’Brien is incredible. 😊 And incredible given these stories were written so many years ago. To me they are timeless.
She transports me to her world during most of the time I was reading these stories. That’s where I want to be.
Just as an aside, this is my third collection of short stories I have read by Edna O’Brien ‘The Lantern Slides’ and ‘Returning’ and I don’t recall the sex being so explicit in the other two collections. My goodness gracious! 😮 That’s not meant as a criticism…I thought I would just point it out because it really struck me as I came across some passages….and that it was written in 1969 (although I’m not sure what that has to do with anything 😐).
Here are the titles of the short stories. The majority of them had been published in The New Yorker previous to publication of this collection (exceptions being ‘The Mouth of the Cave’ and ‘Paradise’).
• The Love Object – 5 stars [This story reminded me of Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close and Michael Douglas…I had this feeling of dread throughout a good deal of the story…I think I have said enough 😬….]
• An Outing – 3.5 stars
• The Rug – 5 stars
• The Mouth of the Cave – 3.5 stars
• How to Grow a Wisteria – 4.5 stars [As far as I can tell, the word ‘wisteria’ was not used once in the body of the story. So I can’t tell you how to grow a wisteria although I bet if you google that you will find your answer!]
• Irish Revel – 5 stars
• Cords – 5 stars
• Paradise ¬ 3.5 stars [This is a re-read. Two months ago I rated it 4.5 stars. So maybe it was the repetition…anyhoo the story was damn good that is for sure and the writing was out of this world.]
Notes:
• Edna O’Brien quotes Aristotle at the very beginning of the book: “As matter desires form so woman desires man.”
• Edna used a couple of words that threw me….I had to look up ‘venial’...I know what venial sin is…anyhoo venial means ‘slight, pardonable’… and churtle as in ‘The refrigerator, churtling at different speeds…’ I think it means “deep prolonged, trilling sound’ like what a nightjar sounds like although I don’t know what a nightjar is…..Elton John used that word in his song “Come Down in Time” ‘cluster of nightjars’……jaysus I am really meandering here!
Review
• I can’t find any reviews from literary magazines or newspapers or blog sites for the 1969 Knopf collection ☹
I didn’t mean to, but I got her collection of short stories, ‘A Fanatic Heart’, and it consists of selected short stories from four of her short story collections (and another four stories previously not published in a collection). Problem is that the four short story collections are not in ‘A Fanatic Heart’ in THEIR ENTIRETY….in her short story collection, ‘The Love Object’, three were left out of ‘A Fanatic Heart’. So I went to The Open Library (https://openlibrary.org/ ) and they just so happened to have ‘The Love Object’ (Knopf, 1969) available so I checked it out. Let me tell you…I am not done bingeing. Edna O’Brien is incredible. 😊 And incredible given these stories were written so many years ago. To me they are timeless.
She transports me to her world during most of the time I was reading these stories. That’s where I want to be.
Just as an aside, this is my third collection of short stories I have read by Edna O’Brien ‘The Lantern Slides’ and ‘Returning’ and I don’t recall the sex being so explicit in the other two collections. My goodness gracious! 😮 That’s not meant as a criticism…I thought I would just point it out because it really struck me as I came across some passages….and that it was written in 1969 (although I’m not sure what that has to do with anything 😐).
Here are the titles of the short stories. The majority of them had been published in The New Yorker previous to publication of this collection (exceptions being ‘The Mouth of the Cave’ and ‘Paradise’).
• The Love Object – 5 stars [This story reminded me of Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close and Michael Douglas…I had this feeling of dread throughout a good deal of the story…I think I have said enough 😬….]
• An Outing – 3.5 stars
• The Rug – 5 stars
• The Mouth of the Cave – 3.5 stars
• How to Grow a Wisteria – 4.5 stars [As far as I can tell, the word ‘wisteria’ was not used once in the body of the story. So I can’t tell you how to grow a wisteria although I bet if you google that you will find your answer!]
• Irish Revel – 5 stars
• Cords – 5 stars
• Paradise ¬ 3.5 stars [This is a re-read. Two months ago I rated it 4.5 stars. So maybe it was the repetition…anyhoo the story was damn good that is for sure and the writing was out of this world.]
Notes:
• Edna O’Brien quotes Aristotle at the very beginning of the book: “As matter desires form so woman desires man.”
• Edna used a couple of words that threw me….I had to look up ‘venial’...I know what venial sin is…anyhoo venial means ‘slight, pardonable’… and churtle as in ‘The refrigerator, churtling at different speeds…’ I think it means “deep prolonged, trilling sound’ like what a nightjar sounds like although I don’t know what a nightjar is…..Elton John used that word in his song “Come Down in Time” ‘cluster of nightjars’……jaysus I am really meandering here!
Review
• I can’t find any reviews from literary magazines or newspapers or blog sites for the 1969 Knopf collection ☹
September 16, 2017
ora lo posso dire. faccio parte di un commando per la resistenza attiva alle fascette sui libri. lo strillo editoriale è un nemico del popolo: reo di spingere i più ingenui ad acquisti improbabili (catechizzandoli con alcune delle frasi più stupide che mai siano state scritte), e di corrompere il senso estetico degli altri con colori a contrasto che non indosserebbe nemmeno queen elizabeth al chelsea flower show. in più spesso segue regole tutte sue, accampa dati di vendita di paesi che a nessuno verrebbe in mente di controllare, ed è uno spazio subdolo di cui diffidare.
la fascetta di questa silloge però meritava considerazione maggiore. «quelli di edna o'brien sono i racconti più belli e dolenti che siano mai stati scritti», firmato alice munro. bum.
non ho saputo resistere (questo spiega perché nel commando faccio parte dei peones d'assalto, e non mi hanno ancora dato i gradi). ho piegato la striscia, l'ho usata come segnalibro e l'ho persa un paio di giorni fa, caduta sul campo insieme alla mia coerenza barricadera. non escludo di essere espulsa dai combat-ready con procedimento d'urgenza. e il peggio è che non ne è valsa affatto la pena: sono racconti tutt'al più carucci questi di o'brien, ma l'ambientazione fa un po' anna-dai-capelli-rossi (le bambine degli anni '70 capiranno) e lo sviluppo fa un po' gruppo di self-help. la donna che ricorda ancora la bambola di porcellana sottratta dalla maestra, la ragazza con passione sofferta per la suora del collegio, quell'altra che ripercorre la nascita e la sfioritura di un amore clandestino (questo è il racconto che dà il nome alla raccolta, e non a caso forse il migliore che ho letto).
fino a oltre la metà, dove mi sono arenata, mancava solo: ciao, mi chiamo edna e non bevo da tre mesi e quindici giorni. in ogni caso, per quanto mi riguarda sono storie troppo for-women-only per andare oltre le 2 stelle e mezzo.
(nota procedurale a uso del commando. forse oltre ai libri, toccherà salvare anche alice munro dalle fascette colorate. c'è da dire che questa era in un pantone rosso assertivo che tutto sommato non mi spiaceva affatto. aveva più carattere dei racconti, di sicuro).
la fascetta di questa silloge però meritava considerazione maggiore. «quelli di edna o'brien sono i racconti più belli e dolenti che siano mai stati scritti», firmato alice munro. bum.
non ho saputo resistere (questo spiega perché nel commando faccio parte dei peones d'assalto, e non mi hanno ancora dato i gradi). ho piegato la striscia, l'ho usata come segnalibro e l'ho persa un paio di giorni fa, caduta sul campo insieme alla mia coerenza barricadera. non escludo di essere espulsa dai combat-ready con procedimento d'urgenza. e il peggio è che non ne è valsa affatto la pena: sono racconti tutt'al più carucci questi di o'brien, ma l'ambientazione fa un po' anna-dai-capelli-rossi (le bambine degli anni '70 capiranno) e lo sviluppo fa un po' gruppo di self-help. la donna che ricorda ancora la bambola di porcellana sottratta dalla maestra, la ragazza con passione sofferta per la suora del collegio, quell'altra che ripercorre la nascita e la sfioritura di un amore clandestino (questo è il racconto che dà il nome alla raccolta, e non a caso forse il migliore che ho letto).
fino a oltre la metà, dove mi sono arenata, mancava solo: ciao, mi chiamo edna e non bevo da tre mesi e quindici giorni. in ogni caso, per quanto mi riguarda sono storie troppo for-women-only per andare oltre le 2 stelle e mezzo.
(nota procedurale a uso del commando. forse oltre ai libri, toccherà salvare anche alice munro dalle fascette colorate. c'è da dire che questa era in un pantone rosso assertivo che tutto sommato non mi spiaceva affatto. aveva più carattere dei racconti, di sicuro).
May 16, 2020
The love object
La prima volta che ho "incrociato" Edna O'Brien è stata quando ho letto L'animale morente di Philip Roth ,è sua l'epigrafe che apre il romanzo
Nel corpo, non meno che nel cervello, è racchiusa la storia della vita
così,quando ho aperto Oggetto d'amore e ho letto la dedica ,proprio a Philip Roth, suo amico di lunga data ,ecco, non ho saputo resistere ! :)
Belli questi racconti (anche se non tutti allo stesso livello, nel complesso, media alta, 3/4 stelle)
ho apprezzato molto la sua raffinata capacità descrittiva e il suo saper catturare sempre quell'inafferrabile nonsoche delle sue protagoniste...
Donne in continuo viaggio, a inseguire qualcosa -i sogni , l'amore, la libertà di essere se stesse,la strada per il mare-
Donne a volte ferite , deluse ,offese dalle crudeltà quotidiane, ma sempre con una insopprimibile vitalità , una prorompente esuberanza e generosità, anche quando l'esistenza non è per niente semplice
I miei preferiti :
-Bagordi Irlandesi **** mi è piaciuta la delicatezza e l'innocenza di Mary, come un tenero bocciolo tra erbacce urticanti
-Oggetto d'amore ****
- La signora Reinhardt (chiusa fulminante !)*****
-La bocca della caverna **** breve e denso di un bruciante desiderio represso
- Paradiso ,con un terribile senso di inadeguatezza e di profonda solitudine , in un'atmosfera sfarzosa ,falsa e infida *****
e infine Fiore Nero ***** spiazzante
La prima volta che ho "incrociato" Edna O'Brien è stata quando ho letto L'animale morente di Philip Roth ,è sua l'epigrafe che apre il romanzo
Nel corpo, non meno che nel cervello, è racchiusa la storia della vita
così,quando ho aperto Oggetto d'amore e ho letto la dedica ,proprio a Philip Roth, suo amico di lunga data ,ecco, non ho saputo resistere ! :)
Belli questi racconti (anche se non tutti allo stesso livello, nel complesso, media alta, 3/4 stelle)
ho apprezzato molto la sua raffinata capacità descrittiva e il suo saper catturare sempre quell'inafferrabile nonsoche delle sue protagoniste...
Donne in continuo viaggio, a inseguire qualcosa -i sogni , l'amore, la libertà di essere se stesse,la strada per il mare-
Donne a volte ferite , deluse ,offese dalle crudeltà quotidiane, ma sempre con una insopprimibile vitalità , una prorompente esuberanza e generosità, anche quando l'esistenza non è per niente semplice
I miei preferiti :
-Bagordi Irlandesi **** mi è piaciuta la delicatezza e l'innocenza di Mary, come un tenero bocciolo tra erbacce urticanti
-Oggetto d'amore ****
- La signora Reinhardt (chiusa fulminante !)*****
-La bocca della caverna **** breve e denso di un bruciante desiderio represso
- Paradiso ,con un terribile senso di inadeguatezza e di profonda solitudine , in un'atmosfera sfarzosa ,falsa e infida *****
e infine Fiore Nero ***** spiazzante
October 1, 2013
Last year, when I started dipping my toes into short stories, it was clear that there seem to be 3 grandmasters of the genre: Alice Munro, Grace Paley and Edna O'Brien. Discovering that the latter had a collection coming out that covers 5 decades of writing, I was literally jumping up and down.
You needn’t be a literary genius to understand why Edna O’Brien achieved Grandmaster-Status. It’s obvious from the get-go. She writes with enormous depth and elegance, and often needs but a few pages to get this done. In this day and age where people only seem to consider something 'a proper story' when it’s 300 pages at least, it’s good someone reminds us how powerful a 10 page story can be.
Edna O’Brien has a very peculiar writing style, which I struggle to describe but I've settled on a very physical writing style, in the sense that whatever she describes immediately becomes a very, very real thing in my mind.
She evokes Ireland to me in a brilliant way - it is impossible not to see and smell the Irish landscapes she describes. But she does the same in how she captures characters and their (mostly flawed) relationships. They become so real: I’m not just reading about these people, I can feel their emotions, even though O’Brien herself isn’t writing very emotionally at all. She just describes, but I respond on a very emotional level. Few authors manage to do this in so few words.
Add to that plenty of powerful opening lines, and you’re in for a treat. Go on, open the green iron gate that is the opening sentence to a story called 'The Connor Girls', and let's talk about the stories:
Since these are selected stories, it’s impossible to find one general theme, but there are a few returning ones nonetheless:
The innocence of childhood: “As a treat, my grandmother let me smell a ball of nutmeg, which was kept in a round tin that had once held cough pastilles.”.
Many of the stories have a coming of age element to it, where a girl realizes that what once was the centrum of her world and what seemed so important is really fully trivial. And whether or not we’ll ever be asked to tea by the Connor girls, it’s likely we won’t miss much.
Complicated relationships, especially mother-daughter relationships: “[My mother], she insisted that literature was a precursor to sin and damnation, whereas I believe it was the only alchemy that there was.”
Misunderstood daughters and their choices, that follow whenever mothers and daughters don’t abide by the same rules. “It seemed to her that she always held people to her ear, the way her mother held eggs, shaking them to guess at their rottenness, but unlike her mother she chose the very ones that she would have been wise to throw away.”
And then I’m not even talking about the numerous love affairs yet.
The massive influence of religion on daily life, on children and their upbringing, comes back in quite a few stories. Sometimes a character is introduced with the important sidenote ‘that he is a protestant’, but sometimes it goes very deep: “Somewhat precipitately and unknown to my parents I had become engaged to a man who was not of our religion. Defying threats of severing bonds, I married him and incurred the wrath of family and relatives just as Miss Amy had done, except that I was not there to bear the brunt of it. Horrible letters, some signed and some anonymous, used to reach me and my mother had penned an oath that we would never meet again, this side of the grave.”
(Yes, you can add this quote to the complicated mother-daughter-relationships as well.)
Last but not least, she does not avoid some of the tragedies in Irish history:
The mass exodus of emigration workers when jobs were too scarce in Ireland; and the identity loss you inevitably get after years abroad. ”He doesn’t belong in England and ditto Ireland,’ Adrian said, and, tapping his temple to emphasise his meaning, added that exile is in the mind and there’s no cure for that.”
And a graciously neutral story about the conflict surrounding Northern-Ireland:
“He had fought for what he believed in, which was for his country to be one, one land, one people and not have a shank of it cut off.” (…) “It had begun to drizzle. A brooding quiet filled the entire landscape and the trees drank in the moisture. There would be another death to undo his and still another and another in the long grim chain of reprisals. Hard to think that in the valleys murder lurked, as from the meadow there came not even a murmur, the lambs in their foetal sleep, innocent of slaughter.”
To be clear, this is me being enormously restrictive in the number of quotes I share in this review. The original version of this review had nearly three times more quotes. I guess it's just easy to quote when the writing is this good!
Disclaimer: This book has been provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All quotes are taken from the pre-published copy and may be altered or omitted from the final copy (though I hope not!).
You needn’t be a literary genius to understand why Edna O’Brien achieved Grandmaster-Status. It’s obvious from the get-go. She writes with enormous depth and elegance, and often needs but a few pages to get this done. In this day and age where people only seem to consider something 'a proper story' when it’s 300 pages at least, it’s good someone reminds us how powerful a 10 page story can be.
Edna O’Brien has a very peculiar writing style, which I struggle to describe but I've settled on a very physical writing style, in the sense that whatever she describes immediately becomes a very, very real thing in my mind.
She evokes Ireland to me in a brilliant way - it is impossible not to see and smell the Irish landscapes she describes. But she does the same in how she captures characters and their (mostly flawed) relationships. They become so real: I’m not just reading about these people, I can feel their emotions, even though O’Brien herself isn’t writing very emotionally at all. She just describes, but I respond on a very emotional level. Few authors manage to do this in so few words.
Add to that plenty of powerful opening lines, and you’re in for a treat. Go on, open the green iron gate that is the opening sentence to a story called 'The Connor Girls', and let's talk about the stories:
“To know them would be to enter an exalted world. To open the stiff green iron gate, to go up their shaded avenue and to knock on their white hall door was a journey I yearned to make.”
Since these are selected stories, it’s impossible to find one general theme, but there are a few returning ones nonetheless:
The innocence of childhood: “As a treat, my grandmother let me smell a ball of nutmeg, which was kept in a round tin that had once held cough pastilles.”.
Many of the stories have a coming of age element to it, where a girl realizes that what once was the centrum of her world and what seemed so important is really fully trivial. And whether or not we’ll ever be asked to tea by the Connor girls, it’s likely we won’t miss much.
Complicated relationships, especially mother-daughter relationships: “[My mother], she insisted that literature was a precursor to sin and damnation, whereas I believe it was the only alchemy that there was.”
Misunderstood daughters and their choices, that follow whenever mothers and daughters don’t abide by the same rules. “It seemed to her that she always held people to her ear, the way her mother held eggs, shaking them to guess at their rottenness, but unlike her mother she chose the very ones that she would have been wise to throw away.”
And then I’m not even talking about the numerous love affairs yet.
The massive influence of religion on daily life, on children and their upbringing, comes back in quite a few stories. Sometimes a character is introduced with the important sidenote ‘that he is a protestant’, but sometimes it goes very deep: “Somewhat precipitately and unknown to my parents I had become engaged to a man who was not of our religion. Defying threats of severing bonds, I married him and incurred the wrath of family and relatives just as Miss Amy had done, except that I was not there to bear the brunt of it. Horrible letters, some signed and some anonymous, used to reach me and my mother had penned an oath that we would never meet again, this side of the grave.”
(Yes, you can add this quote to the complicated mother-daughter-relationships as well.)
Last but not least, she does not avoid some of the tragedies in Irish history:
The mass exodus of emigration workers when jobs were too scarce in Ireland; and the identity loss you inevitably get after years abroad. ”He doesn’t belong in England and ditto Ireland,’ Adrian said, and, tapping his temple to emphasise his meaning, added that exile is in the mind and there’s no cure for that.”
And a graciously neutral story about the conflict surrounding Northern-Ireland:
“He had fought for what he believed in, which was for his country to be one, one land, one people and not have a shank of it cut off.” (…) “It had begun to drizzle. A brooding quiet filled the entire landscape and the trees drank in the moisture. There would be another death to undo his and still another and another in the long grim chain of reprisals. Hard to think that in the valleys murder lurked, as from the meadow there came not even a murmur, the lambs in their foetal sleep, innocent of slaughter.”
To be clear, this is me being enormously restrictive in the number of quotes I share in this review. The original version of this review had nearly three times more quotes. I guess it's just easy to quote when the writing is this good!
Disclaimer: This book has been provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All quotes are taken from the pre-published copy and may be altered or omitted from the final copy (though I hope not!).
July 30, 2024
Amazing. I loved all of these. Similar vibe to Virginia Woolf and Jean Rhys, in that the women in these stories seem to be floating through their lives, and to be kind of half-conscious of their surroundings -- thus providing a vague, murky, and almost surreal reading experience. The female consciousness is the only focus of each of these eight stories -- we have no idea of the political or social conditions that surround these women. Instead, we are only aware that they are in desperate pursuit of happiness via sex/love/adultery/etc., and are each failing miserably. Not super uplifting, but beautifully written. I especially liked the last story, because the metaphor of the unnamed protagonist learning to swim (which really means her learning to fit in to her older lover's rich and superficial world) was done so well, and the whole thing had a feverish feeling to it that really enthralled me.
A line from that story --
The house, the warm flagstones, the shimmer of the water would sometimes, no doubt, reoccur to her; but she would forget him and he would live somewhere in the attic of her mind, the place where failure lurks. Pretty! But sad!
C u soon :)
A line from that story --
The house, the warm flagstones, the shimmer of the water would sometimes, no doubt, reoccur to her; but she would forget him and he would live somewhere in the attic of her mind, the place where failure lurks. Pretty! But sad!
C u soon :)
June 19, 2020
In Oggetto d’amore, i racconti portano il lettore a conoscere donne dai destini tutt’altro che semplici, fatti di amori clandestini, speranze tradite, vulnerabilità e un grande desiderio di vivere liberamente.
Laddove i giorni si assomigliano, spesso vediamo le protagoniste scappare da case, scuole e conventi, e nella loro disperata ricerca di una vita più libera scuotono il lettore e lo interrogano.
I mondi della sua narrativa, in cui tutto è noto ma nulla si ripete, sono un microcosmo meraviglioso e la vita interiore delle donne è così ricca, che il mondo esterno sembra essere sottomosso ad essa
I contesti della narrazione sono diversi, passano dalla campagna alla città dove i personaggi femminili sono presentati con straordinaria compassione: madri, figlie, amanti, suore, studentesse, vedove, strette a legami forti, ma che, per quanto saldi, finiscono male.
Donne fragili che finiscono per essere più forti di quello che sembrano. Donne potenti che si spezzano sotto il peso delle circostanze. Donne che lavorano, che combattono, che soffrono, che amano, che usano e sono usate, che seducono e sono sedotte. Donne che con fatica costruiscono un universo femminile, belle dentro o fuori, donne uniche che si forgiano a colpi di sogni e speranze, ma che a volte si perdono lungo la strada.
Donne che affondano e rinascono.
Ognuna di loro è Edna O'Brien.
Laddove i giorni si assomigliano, spesso vediamo le protagoniste scappare da case, scuole e conventi, e nella loro disperata ricerca di una vita più libera scuotono il lettore e lo interrogano.
I mondi della sua narrativa, in cui tutto è noto ma nulla si ripete, sono un microcosmo meraviglioso e la vita interiore delle donne è così ricca, che il mondo esterno sembra essere sottomosso ad essa
I contesti della narrazione sono diversi, passano dalla campagna alla città dove i personaggi femminili sono presentati con straordinaria compassione: madri, figlie, amanti, suore, studentesse, vedove, strette a legami forti, ma che, per quanto saldi, finiscono male.
Donne fragili che finiscono per essere più forti di quello che sembrano. Donne potenti che si spezzano sotto il peso delle circostanze. Donne che lavorano, che combattono, che soffrono, che amano, che usano e sono usate, che seducono e sono sedotte. Donne che con fatica costruiscono un universo femminile, belle dentro o fuori, donne uniche che si forgiano a colpi di sogni e speranze, ma che a volte si perdono lungo la strada.
Donne che affondano e rinascono.
Ognuna di loro è Edna O'Brien.
May 11, 2020
Huge collection of short stories by Ms. O'Brien doesn't miss a beat when writing about women, relationships, failures, grieving, subtle and large achievements. Each story is an original unto itself. I admit I did not read them all. Some I started, and quickly discarded. Wasn't my book, so I can't now go back and re-read those I didn't read, but I don't believe I have to. I've read her incredible work, I've loved her stories, and those that speak to me, and squeeze my heart are forever there. That's what is so lovely about collections of short stories, there is something for everyone!
January 27, 2016
"The Love Object: Selected Stories" (2012) authored by award winning author Edna O'Brien covers the directness and emotional depth related to marriage, extra marital affairs, estrangement and abandonment. Nearly all the complexities in the lives of young to middle aged Irish women are revealed in this masterfully written short story collection.
Martha, 30 years old is the same age as her lovers wife: in "The Love Object". As the affair continued, Martha felt no pity for his wife and seethed with resentment; could she be as deeply in love as she thought? The lovemaking was perfect, yet she felt degraded when he proclaimed: "You still have a great physical hold over me."
In: " An Outing" Mrs. Farley is a perfectionist, waking up to a 6:00 am alarm each day, married to a pudgy boring husband she no longer loves. Much of her time is making plans to meet with her married lover, as she looks for happiness outside her marriage.
"The Rug": when a poor Irish family receives an area carpet in the mail after having linoleum installed, they marvel at who could have sent them such a grand gift, the truth behind the carpet's arrival never occurs to the family.
Mary, a youngish hardworking Irish farm girl is seemingly invited to a party at a hotel in the nearby town in "Irish Revel" although the invitation was misleading, and she had every right to decline, she accepted the invitation and learned a great deal in the process.
A mother flew to London to visit her daughter, the author of stories and poems that didn't make "sense" to the mother, feeling she also "mixed with queer people" in "Cords". The daughter made every effort to be respectful of her judgmental mother, taking her shopping and enjoying sights, it would seem that the mother would be nicer, more appreciative with the enormous effort to improve the mother-daughter relationship. The reader senses the heavy weight of disappointment and misunderstanding.
My favorite story was the last one "Paradise": an unnamed younger woman joined her 60 something very wealthy and famous lover at his waterfront mansion. Attended by servants, dining on the best of cuisine, she was also subjected to judgment related to her lovers multiple former wives and children. Feeling inadequate, because she couldn't swim, a special British swim instructor was hired to work with her. This still didn't help, very fearful of the water, an incident happened that alters the relationship with her lover.
Edna O'Brien is recognized for writing about feminist Irish life and culture, a notable bestselling prolific author and playwright, her "Country Girl: A Memoir" (2013) was released, also a trilogy featuring the same title. O'Brien has authored a biography of James Joyce, and "Byron In Love: A Short Daring Life" (2010) also other novels, plays, and short story collections. She lives in London. ~ With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
Martha, 30 years old is the same age as her lovers wife: in "The Love Object". As the affair continued, Martha felt no pity for his wife and seethed with resentment; could she be as deeply in love as she thought? The lovemaking was perfect, yet she felt degraded when he proclaimed: "You still have a great physical hold over me."
In: " An Outing" Mrs. Farley is a perfectionist, waking up to a 6:00 am alarm each day, married to a pudgy boring husband she no longer loves. Much of her time is making plans to meet with her married lover, as she looks for happiness outside her marriage.
"The Rug": when a poor Irish family receives an area carpet in the mail after having linoleum installed, they marvel at who could have sent them such a grand gift, the truth behind the carpet's arrival never occurs to the family.
Mary, a youngish hardworking Irish farm girl is seemingly invited to a party at a hotel in the nearby town in "Irish Revel" although the invitation was misleading, and she had every right to decline, she accepted the invitation and learned a great deal in the process.
A mother flew to London to visit her daughter, the author of stories and poems that didn't make "sense" to the mother, feeling she also "mixed with queer people" in "Cords". The daughter made every effort to be respectful of her judgmental mother, taking her shopping and enjoying sights, it would seem that the mother would be nicer, more appreciative with the enormous effort to improve the mother-daughter relationship. The reader senses the heavy weight of disappointment and misunderstanding.
My favorite story was the last one "Paradise": an unnamed younger woman joined her 60 something very wealthy and famous lover at his waterfront mansion. Attended by servants, dining on the best of cuisine, she was also subjected to judgment related to her lovers multiple former wives and children. Feeling inadequate, because she couldn't swim, a special British swim instructor was hired to work with her. This still didn't help, very fearful of the water, an incident happened that alters the relationship with her lover.
Edna O'Brien is recognized for writing about feminist Irish life and culture, a notable bestselling prolific author and playwright, her "Country Girl: A Memoir" (2013) was released, also a trilogy featuring the same title. O'Brien has authored a biography of James Joyce, and "Byron In Love: A Short Daring Life" (2010) also other novels, plays, and short story collections. She lives in London. ~ With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
March 10, 2019
The Love Object by Edna O'Brien is a thick collection of short stories that are surprising in their diversity but all attached in one way or another to the melancholy of being Irish. Here are family feuds, painful loves, poignant disappointments, and a few risky adventures beyond Ireland's shores, leaving the small towns, hamlets and farms of Ireland behind.
I don't know that I would call O'Brien a master of the short story form in the category of a Chekhov, Joyce, or William Trevor. In his introduction, John Banville places her there. But I definitely find a quality of mastery in her work albeit smudged by a lack of conciseness. Her stories are close to mesmerizing even when they lurch a bit and go on too long.
In fairness, there's something about contemporary writing that can never be as "good" as the now accepted classics, of course, so I'll set unjust comparisons aside in favor of commenting on O'Brien's splendid characterizations--all her characters live and breathe--and skill in delineating the faultlines and conflicts in what might be called "Irishness."
Most of the stories in The Love Object are modern literary stories in the sense that they aren't really stories at all. They have no more plot than there's a plot in rain and fog. To me that's good. Life lacks plot, or if it has plot, it's contested, questionable ground. What O'Brien gets at is the incompleteness of human relations, the truths that can be known but through bad timing, mishaps, and perhaps ill will, can't quite be said, or would be too painful to be pronounced.
Many women are hurt in O'Brien's stories and on occasion when they're not hurt--or not yet hurt--they find themselves caught up in romantic fantasies that are not entirely convincing. But men are hurt here, too, often out of misguided sentiment, anger, bad luck and drink, lots of drink. Triumph doesn't really play much of a role in the world she portrays because it would have to come at someone else's expense, and that's no triumph at all. She is a compassionate writer in this sense. She doesn't force things. She writes with a pen full of rain and fog.
I don't know that I would call O'Brien a master of the short story form in the category of a Chekhov, Joyce, or William Trevor. In his introduction, John Banville places her there. But I definitely find a quality of mastery in her work albeit smudged by a lack of conciseness. Her stories are close to mesmerizing even when they lurch a bit and go on too long.
In fairness, there's something about contemporary writing that can never be as "good" as the now accepted classics, of course, so I'll set unjust comparisons aside in favor of commenting on O'Brien's splendid characterizations--all her characters live and breathe--and skill in delineating the faultlines and conflicts in what might be called "Irishness."
Most of the stories in The Love Object are modern literary stories in the sense that they aren't really stories at all. They have no more plot than there's a plot in rain and fog. To me that's good. Life lacks plot, or if it has plot, it's contested, questionable ground. What O'Brien gets at is the incompleteness of human relations, the truths that can be known but through bad timing, mishaps, and perhaps ill will, can't quite be said, or would be too painful to be pronounced.
Many women are hurt in O'Brien's stories and on occasion when they're not hurt--or not yet hurt--they find themselves caught up in romantic fantasies that are not entirely convincing. But men are hurt here, too, often out of misguided sentiment, anger, bad luck and drink, lots of drink. Triumph doesn't really play much of a role in the world she portrays because it would have to come at someone else's expense, and that's no triumph at all. She is a compassionate writer in this sense. She doesn't force things. She writes with a pen full of rain and fog.
August 28, 2018
Tra i migliori racconti della raccolta: Oggetto d'amore, Una rosa nel cuore di New York, La signorina Reinhardt, Paradiso.
"... l'opera raccolta in questo volume prova che il suo vero maestro è stato Čechov, perché rivela un'empatia indiscutibilmente cechoviana con i personaggi e gli ambienti che ritrae. Il genio di uno scrittore si riconosce dalla capacità di scavare a fondo nella coscienza delle personalità più disparate." - dall'introduzione di John Banville
Cit.
"... l'opera raccolta in questo volume prova che il suo vero maestro è stato Čechov, perché rivela un'empatia indiscutibilmente cechoviana con i personaggi e gli ambienti che ritrae. Il genio di uno scrittore si riconosce dalla capacità di scavare a fondo nella coscienza delle personalità più disparate." - dall'introduzione di John Banville
Cit.
Read
August 5, 2024The Little Red Chairs is the only other book I have read by Edna O'Brien, which I found disturbing but riveting. When I read that Ms. O'Brien had died, that was a reminder to me to try some more of her work.
I hate giving up on a book but when I found myself making up ridiculous excuses not to listen to this one, when I found I preferred to do boring household chores in silence rather than keep listening to this audiobook, I felt it was time. I got to 15%.
I disliked all the characters and yet kept being afraid horrible things would happen to them (and I was right). It was a heavy gravy of Irish doom, no trope of Irish life missing except maybe child-molesting priests, but maybe if I had kept reading I would have encountered one. Each story I read ended on an interesting turn, a sort of stepping back to see the larger picture. I enjoyed this, but not the slog to get there.
I hate giving up on a book but when I found myself making up ridiculous excuses not to listen to this one, when I found I preferred to do boring household chores in silence rather than keep listening to this audiobook, I felt it was time. I got to 15%.
I disliked all the characters and yet kept being afraid horrible things would happen to them (and I was right). It was a heavy gravy of Irish doom, no trope of Irish life missing except maybe child-molesting priests, but maybe if I had kept reading I would have encountered one. Each story I read ended on an interesting turn, a sort of stepping back to see the larger picture. I enjoyed this, but not the slog to get there.
March 4, 2021
Un giorno di marzo uscì il sole, si spensero i termosifoni e malgrado il vento sferzante ci dissero che la primavera era ufficialmente arrivata e che potevamo andare fuori a giocare. Ci dirigemmo in massa al campo da gioco e scoprimmo con grande sorpresa che quel giorno l'arbitro era Suor Imelda. I luminosi narcisi di un giallo abbagliante non trovavano requie ma non avevano certo il fascino dei piccoli, timidi bucaneve che tremolavano al vento. Giocammo a baseball e quando toccò a me colpire la palla con la lunga mazza di legno feci cilecca e mi abbassai per paura che la palla mi venisse addosso.
-Che campionessa …- mi prese in giro Baba.
Dopo tre colpi mancati suor Imelda mi disse che se volevo potevo sedermi a guardare e quando anadai alla serra a soffocare la vergogna venne da me e disse che non dovevo cedere alle lacrime perché l'umiliazione era la prova più grande dell'amore di Cristo, anzi di qualsiasi amore.
-Quando diventerai suora lo capirai,- disse e decisi seduta stante di farmi suora e che anche se non saremmo state libere di esprimere i nostri sentimenti avremmo comunque vissuto sotto lo stesso tetto, nello stesso convento, in comunione mentale e spirituale per tutta la vita.
-E' molto dura all'inizio?- dissi.
-E' terribile, - disse lei e mi infilò una medaglietta nella tasca del grembiule. Serbava ancora il calore della sua tasca e, stringendola, capii che eravamo di nuovo vicine e che anzi non ci eravamo mai separate. Allontanandoci dal campo da gioco per il pranzo domenicale a base di montone e cavoli suor Imelda era assediata da nostro chiacchiericcio. Le ragazze le mulinavano intorno cingendola, cercando di prenderla per mano, contando le tante chiavi che aveva nel mazzo e rivolgendole domande impertinenti.
-Sorella, è mai andata in motocicletta?
-Sorella, ha mai portato i collant senza cuciture?
-Sorella, qual è la sua stella del cinema preferita…maschio!
-Sorella, qual è il suo piatto preferito?
-Sorella, se avesse un desiderio quale sarebbe?
-Sorella, come fa quando le prude la testa?
Sì, era andata in motocicletta e aveva portato i collant, ma con le cuciture. Più di tutto le piacevano le banane e se avesse avuto un desiderio sarebbe stato andare a casa qualche ora a trovare i suoi genitori, e suo fratello.
Quel pomeriggio, mentre passeggiavamo per la città, la vista dei negozi chiusi con fuori i barili di birra scura e dei cani randagi non dissipò la mia ritrovata beatitudine. Avevo la medaglietta in tasca e ogni qualche secondo la toccavo per assicurarmene. Baba vide nella vetrina di una pasticceria un fagottino alla marmellata spolverato di zucchero a velo appoggiato su un centrino ed era così allettante che urlò per la fame e si mise a inverire perché era rinchiusa in un maledetto riformatorio, circondata da mezze tacche tristanzuole. D'impulso sfilò di tasca la lima per le unghie e si precipitò alla vetrina per vedere se riusciva a tagliare il vetro. La capoclasse arrivò di corsa dal fondo della fila e chiese a Baba se voleva finire in prigione.
-Perché, adesso dove sono? - disse lei e si limò un'unghia per affermare la sua indipendenza e sfogare il malumore.
(…) Dopo la passeggiata scrivemmo a casa. Ci era concesso scrivere a casa una volta alla settimana; e le lettere erano sempre censurate. Raccontai a mia madre che avevo deciso di farmi suora e le chiesi se poteva mandarmi delle banane appena ne fosse arrivato un casco dal nostro fruttivendolo.
-Che campionessa …- mi prese in giro Baba.
Dopo tre colpi mancati suor Imelda mi disse che se volevo potevo sedermi a guardare e quando anadai alla serra a soffocare la vergogna venne da me e disse che non dovevo cedere alle lacrime perché l'umiliazione era la prova più grande dell'amore di Cristo, anzi di qualsiasi amore.
-Quando diventerai suora lo capirai,- disse e decisi seduta stante di farmi suora e che anche se non saremmo state libere di esprimere i nostri sentimenti avremmo comunque vissuto sotto lo stesso tetto, nello stesso convento, in comunione mentale e spirituale per tutta la vita.
-E' molto dura all'inizio?- dissi.
-E' terribile, - disse lei e mi infilò una medaglietta nella tasca del grembiule. Serbava ancora il calore della sua tasca e, stringendola, capii che eravamo di nuovo vicine e che anzi non ci eravamo mai separate. Allontanandoci dal campo da gioco per il pranzo domenicale a base di montone e cavoli suor Imelda era assediata da nostro chiacchiericcio. Le ragazze le mulinavano intorno cingendola, cercando di prenderla per mano, contando le tante chiavi che aveva nel mazzo e rivolgendole domande impertinenti.
-Sorella, è mai andata in motocicletta?
-Sorella, ha mai portato i collant senza cuciture?
-Sorella, qual è la sua stella del cinema preferita…maschio!
-Sorella, qual è il suo piatto preferito?
-Sorella, se avesse un desiderio quale sarebbe?
-Sorella, come fa quando le prude la testa?
Sì, era andata in motocicletta e aveva portato i collant, ma con le cuciture. Più di tutto le piacevano le banane e se avesse avuto un desiderio sarebbe stato andare a casa qualche ora a trovare i suoi genitori, e suo fratello.
Quel pomeriggio, mentre passeggiavamo per la città, la vista dei negozi chiusi con fuori i barili di birra scura e dei cani randagi non dissipò la mia ritrovata beatitudine. Avevo la medaglietta in tasca e ogni qualche secondo la toccavo per assicurarmene. Baba vide nella vetrina di una pasticceria un fagottino alla marmellata spolverato di zucchero a velo appoggiato su un centrino ed era così allettante che urlò per la fame e si mise a inverire perché era rinchiusa in un maledetto riformatorio, circondata da mezze tacche tristanzuole. D'impulso sfilò di tasca la lima per le unghie e si precipitò alla vetrina per vedere se riusciva a tagliare il vetro. La capoclasse arrivò di corsa dal fondo della fila e chiese a Baba se voleva finire in prigione.
-Perché, adesso dove sono? - disse lei e si limò un'unghia per affermare la sua indipendenza e sfogare il malumore.
(…) Dopo la passeggiata scrivemmo a casa. Ci era concesso scrivere a casa una volta alla settimana; e le lettere erano sempre censurate. Raccontai a mia madre che avevo deciso di farmi suora e le chiesi se poteva mandarmi delle banane appena ne fosse arrivato un casco dal nostro fruttivendolo.
July 4, 2024
somebody save her!
November 15, 2022
a true testament to o'brien's talent that, despite taking me over five months to read this collection, so many of the stories have stayed with me long after i usually would have forgotten them.
March 13, 2024
I am a long-time fan of Ms. O'Brien. And I expected to love this collection. The sadness, and lack of variation in the narrator’s voice wore me down. In an early story our narrator, a somewhat happy lower income Irish girl attends her first, adult, slightly more well to do party and has a disappointing time. In short stories to follow, what sounds like the same Irish girl/woman, attend other parties and always finds them less than all that. No matter what her economic status.
As for her less than middle class home, in every story life is not entirely bad, except that the more or less beloved father is never an entirely loving figure, and mom always is.
There is one terrifying and brilliantly written story about how bad it was to be Irish, during what they called the ‘Troubles” and the Army showed up. Later there is one almost perfectly written story about an Irish man, who travels to find work. It is a near perfect short story. It is also sad.
The point is there is some truly fine writing in this collection.
Almost all are sad.
Too many sound alike.
Many are reprints .
I strongly recommend reading the stories 1 or 2 at a time. For some one new to Edna O'Brien, this should me an amazing read. By about the 2/3s mark I felt worn down and rather hoping to be done with it. For me, The Love Object may be one Edna O’Brien too many.
As for her less than middle class home, in every story life is not entirely bad, except that the more or less beloved father is never an entirely loving figure, and mom always is.
There is one terrifying and brilliantly written story about how bad it was to be Irish, during what they called the ‘Troubles” and the Army showed up. Later there is one almost perfectly written story about an Irish man, who travels to find work. It is a near perfect short story. It is also sad.
The point is there is some truly fine writing in this collection.
Almost all are sad.
Too many sound alike.
Many are reprints .
I strongly recommend reading the stories 1 or 2 at a time. For some one new to Edna O'Brien, this should me an amazing read. By about the 2/3s mark I felt worn down and rather hoping to be done with it. For me, The Love Object may be one Edna O’Brien too many.
February 5, 2022
VIDEORECENSIONE: https://youtu.be/H36xm559zxI
June 19, 2015
The Love Object è una raccolta di racconti della scrittrice irlandese Edna O'Brien, autrice anche della famosa trilogia delle ragazze di campagna. Questi racconti parlano tutti di donne, e il filo conduttore è il loro love object, oggetto d'amore, che in ogni storia è differente ma sempre magistralmente descritto. L'autrice ha una prosa lirica e particolarmente ammirevole nelle descrizioni della natura:
The frost lay like a spell upon the street, upon the sleeping windows, and the slate roofs of the narrow houses. It had magically made the dunged street white and clean. She did not feel tired, but relieved to be out, and stunned by lack of sleep she inhaled the beauty of the morning. She walked briskly, sometimes looking back to see the track which her bycicle and her feet made on the white road (Irish Revel)
http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.it/2...
The frost lay like a spell upon the street, upon the sleeping windows, and the slate roofs of the narrow houses. It had magically made the dunged street white and clean. She did not feel tired, but relieved to be out, and stunned by lack of sleep she inhaled the beauty of the morning. She walked briskly, sometimes looking back to see the track which her bycicle and her feet made on the white road (Irish Revel)
http://robertabookshelf.blogspot.it/2...
October 17, 2015
Supple, sensual, heartbreaking, truthful, lyrical, musical - I find O'Brien's work amazing. This anthology, collected from her writing over many years, shows her spunk, wit, nerve, memory, focus, and sense of smell and sight and sound and feel.
Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, religious fury and frenzy, couplings of all sorts, a bit of political/sociological concern, the yearnings for so much for self and country and church and faith.
I so loved so many stories, but won't go blow by blow.
Suffice it to say that Edna O'Brien is a masterful storyteller.
And suffice it to say that the stories reveal and revel in hard times and hard tales and hard awakenings and deaths.
And what is the object of love? God? Man? Land? Class? Escape? Connection? One simple hand, up or down?
Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, religious fury and frenzy, couplings of all sorts, a bit of political/sociological concern, the yearnings for so much for self and country and church and faith.
I so loved so many stories, but won't go blow by blow.
Suffice it to say that Edna O'Brien is a masterful storyteller.
And suffice it to say that the stories reveal and revel in hard times and hard tales and hard awakenings and deaths.
And what is the object of love? God? Man? Land? Class? Escape? Connection? One simple hand, up or down?
August 1, 2018
This is a collection of 31 stories published over the last 50+ years. "Love" can be interpreted in various forms: not only husband and wife or two lovers, but also the love between a mother and her daughter, a teacher and his student, a woman and her dogs, a girl and her best friend, a man and his whiskey, and more. The stories run the gamut of what we'd expect from an Irish writer. We encounter nuns, drunks, society women, rebellious children, bullied wives, and flighty young girls. And yet O'Brien manages to move each of them away from the stereotypes, giving each a dash of originality. And her writing, as always, is stunning.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
December 26, 2018
I first became aware of Edna O'Brien when I saw her painted portrait at the Dublin Writer's Museum this year. I had never read anything by her, but my Irish forebears were named O'Brien so I vaguely hoped we were related (O'Brien is the sixth most common name in Ireland--we aren't). When I picked up this 500-plus-page volume I said, "They're short stories. I don't have to read them all." I then proceeded to devour the entire book in short order. Why had I never heard of this writer--a cross between Elena Ferrante, Annie Ernaux (although she was writing before they were), and someone wonderfully Irish? Crazy. Great stories.
January 3, 2016
I must admit I did not read every short story in this book - there are 31 - since it is a library book and I must return it today. But I read over half and each one was beautifully written and compelling. I would a few stories between other books and they were always a welcome distraction. The Love Object, The Rug & The Conner Girls are particularly memorable. Each story weaves a tale involving a complicated mother/child relationship, or romantic love, or a coming of age struggle. I'd like to read the rest of the stories one day.
January 15, 2015
I was bored out of my mind! I only liked one of the stories: The Rug.
April 10, 2016
One of the best short stories collection I've read in years, it's all I need to say.
November 16, 2021
Edna's short stories are choice morsels to be savoured. Read a story at a time, and regale in her fizzy, poppy sentences.
April 7, 2018
Ho scoperto Oggetto d'amore per caso. Non ci sono stati consigli ne avevo mai sentito nominare l'autrice, ma stavo solo guardando in giro su internet.
Sono rimasta molto colpita dalla copertina; una donna che osserva attraverso le dita, come a spiare meccanismi troppo dolorosi e misteriosi della vita che la circonda.
Questi trentuno racconti parlano tutti di donne, donne irlandesi piene di una vitalità che si rivolta contro di loro. Vogliono vivere, amare, trarre piacere dalle relazioni e dalla vita, ma scoprono tutte che un po' di felicità verra ripagata amaramente.
Una protagonista intensa e cupa è l'Irlanda stessa; viene fatto un intenso ritratto sociale di un certo tipo di Irlanda. Quella delle persone sopratutto appartenenti alle classi povere - lavoratrici.
Ecco perché la maggior parte delle donne protagoniste dei racconti sono definite, e si definiscono, creature nate per essere sfruttate o per lavorare amaramente.
Eppure, nonostante la cupezza dello sfondo, la voglia di vivere rimane sempre vivida.
La prosa di Edna O'Brien - che ho scoperto essere una delle autrici viventi più brave e conosciute al mondo - è di une bellezza commovente. Come ha scritto Philip Roth ( amico intimo della scrittrice ) lei descrive il dolore con una perfezione chirurgica. E' verissimo. Mi sono trovata spesso ad annegare nei dolori dei personaggi, sentendoli evidenti e notandoli con lo scrupolo con cui la scrittrice ha voluto evidenziarli.
Il racconto più bello, a mio parere, è " La signora Reinhardt" ma indimenticabili sono anche "Una rosa nel cuore di New York" e "Oggetto d'amore"
Per chi ama i racconti una lettura imprescindibile e preziosa.
Sono rimasta molto colpita dalla copertina; una donna che osserva attraverso le dita, come a spiare meccanismi troppo dolorosi e misteriosi della vita che la circonda.
Questi trentuno racconti parlano tutti di donne, donne irlandesi piene di una vitalità che si rivolta contro di loro. Vogliono vivere, amare, trarre piacere dalle relazioni e dalla vita, ma scoprono tutte che un po' di felicità verra ripagata amaramente.
Una protagonista intensa e cupa è l'Irlanda stessa; viene fatto un intenso ritratto sociale di un certo tipo di Irlanda. Quella delle persone sopratutto appartenenti alle classi povere - lavoratrici.
Ecco perché la maggior parte delle donne protagoniste dei racconti sono definite, e si definiscono, creature nate per essere sfruttate o per lavorare amaramente.
Eppure, nonostante la cupezza dello sfondo, la voglia di vivere rimane sempre vivida.
La prosa di Edna O'Brien - che ho scoperto essere una delle autrici viventi più brave e conosciute al mondo - è di une bellezza commovente. Come ha scritto Philip Roth ( amico intimo della scrittrice ) lei descrive il dolore con una perfezione chirurgica. E' verissimo. Mi sono trovata spesso ad annegare nei dolori dei personaggi, sentendoli evidenti e notandoli con lo scrupolo con cui la scrittrice ha voluto evidenziarli.
Il racconto più bello, a mio parere, è " La signora Reinhardt" ma indimenticabili sono anche "Una rosa nel cuore di New York" e "Oggetto d'amore"
Per chi ama i racconti una lettura imprescindibile e preziosa.
February 28, 2021
This is a most impressive collection, but certainly not a volume to take up when you are in need of cheering up. O'Brien is, if nothing else (and she is surely a remarkable stylist in addition), an astute chronicler and diagnostician of the many sorrows, regrets, nostalgias, and melancholia that can beset the human heart. To tell their stories is to bestow a kind of dignity and fellowship upon them, and that deeply humane and humanizing impulse is what keeps me coming back to her writing much as I keep coming back to that of Alice Munro. My favorite stories in this volume are "The Rug," "The Mouth of the Cave," "Shovel Kings," and the exquisite "Send My Roots Rain" (the title disclosed by the narrator as being from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins). This is a collection worth owning and savoring.
December 31, 2023
The Rug! And Cords. I see my parents everywhere in this collection, which is a bit scary, but also comforting in how casually these parallels can appear.
I'm also realizing the edition I picked up from a random bookstore in Paris (Penguin Books, 1970) is not the edition Goodreads has listed; I think she adapted a few of the pieces since this copy. Example: "Irish Revel", which I first heard read on a New Yorker podcast under its new name, "Come Into the Drawing Room Doris". The title story seems different from what other reviewers have described as well.
I'm also realizing the edition I picked up from a random bookstore in Paris (Penguin Books, 1970) is not the edition Goodreads has listed; I think she adapted a few of the pieces since this copy. Example: "Irish Revel", which I first heard read on a New Yorker podcast under its new name, "Come Into the Drawing Room Doris". The title story seems different from what other reviewers have described as well.
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