Two Days in Aragon

by M.J. Farrell, Molly Keane

Grania and Sylvia Fox live in the Georgian house of Aragon, with their mother, their Aunt Pidgie and Nan O'Neill, the family nurse. Grania is conducting a secret affair with Nan's son, Foley, a wily horse-breeder, whilst Sylvia who is 'pretty in the right and accepted way' falls for the charms of Captain Purvis. Attending Aragon's strawberry teas, the British Army Officers can almost forget the reason for their presence in Ireland. But the days of dignified calm at Aragon are numbered, for Foley is a member of Sinn Fein.

Genres: Fiction, Modern Classics, Ireland, Classics

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

M.J. Farrell is a pseudonym used by Molly Keane for her earlier published novels and plays.

Reviews

[TBV (on hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But this afternoon was April, 1920, an afternoon in the time of long memories and quietness and dull ageless stretches of time. A time when a bitter little war went untidily on, and news of its progresses went from mouth to mouth in whispers. Many old and beautiful houses that year had their last hours of life. They were stilled for death that summer. They waited in beauty and quiet for fire and the end.”

In her Introduction to this novel Polly Devlin says: “Two Days in Aragon is a precise title. The novel relates the tragic sequence of events over the last two days of Aragon, a great house by a large river in County Westmeath.” and “In Two Days in Aragon Molly Keane looks at the rights and wrongs of a series of traumatic events in the course of two days of Irish history in an Irish house.” She goes on to say that the fictional Aragon is an amalgam of the grand houses that author Molly Keane knew and loved.

Aragon is certainly a beautiful house with magnificent gardens and tennis courts, all of which are lyrically described. The house is inhabited by the widowed Mrs Fox and her two daughters Grania and Sylvia, as well as Aunt Pigeon who adds a gothic element to the tale as she is somewhat unhinged, and spends some of her time locked in her garret. The house is ably run ruled by nurse Dymphnia O’Neill, better known as Nan, with the help of Frazer the butler. The girls seemingly have an idyllic life riding, playing tennis and socialising. On the surface beauty and happiness prevail, but underneath there are petty jealousies, cruelty and hatred.

One day in April, 1920, things start going wrong. There is one incident after another on that day and throughout the next, the 20th, when everything goes totally awry and everyone is caught up in events that escalate out of control. No character in the novel will be untouched by these catastrophic events. There is a need to suspend disbelief in the last few pages where all hell breaks loose.

As the events unfold, hidden aspects of some of the characters are revealed. Good old reliable Nan is perhaps not quite as kind as she seems; brave and crafty, yes; foolish, perhaps. Frazer is full of hatred and spite. Eighteen-year-old Grania turns out to be perfectly willing to sacrifice everything for someone she loves, and so is Nan. Nan’s handsome horsy son Foley reveals himself as cruel, selfish and indifferent, yet like his mother Nan he is able to be brave and defiant. Sylvia is always cool, calm, detached and perfectly dressed for any occasion, but even she has a momentary shift when things get rough. There is some excellent characterisation in this novel, but there is also a peculiar and irritating tic. For reasons beyond my comprehension the reader is repeatedly (over twenty times) told that Grania is fat, that she has fat arms, fat hands and a fat face.


Extracts:

“Nan again, Nan all the time. She was the beginning and the end of Aragon.”

“She sat neatly and prettily because that was the way she would have sat even if she was being electrocuted.” [Sylvia]

“Aragon was at the supreme height of its beauty this late April afternoon. The house was like an elegant woman sitting quietly in front of her mirror, restful and still in her perfection, for Aragon was a very female house both within and without and wore the more exquisite moments of the year with a wonderful grandeur and quietness.”

"In those extraordinary days there was every chance of bloodshed after tea and tennis with strawberries and cream."

“What a moment of supreme and blissful triumph for Frazer, what an exquisite hour of fulfilment was here on that spring evening as he closed the drawing-room door on the ring of pale faces, faces paled and shocked by his story, faces consternated in the still air of the room, when he left them to go, before any could forestall him, and carry the tale to Nan’s kingdom, the nursery.”

“A man came running heavily down the side of the hill to them, the splendid thrill of disaster bore him to them as surely as a land-coming wave. He was disappointed that disaster’s victim was still alive, he had viewed the fall, and thought she had no business to be.”

““Oh, I wouldn’t drown a dog,” said one.
“I couldn’t shoot a dog,” said another.
“I wouldn’t harm a little dog for any money,” said Denny the Killer.” [three gunmen]

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this book, I think I can fairly say this book is poorly served by its packaging, both physical and cultural. I picked it up in a used bookstore, unimpressed by the staid cover art but interested in reading something by an Irish novelist, particularly an Irish woman. In the first few chapters, I picked up on what I thought was an Austen-like treatment of the last days of the Anglo-Irish nobility in Ireland. Perhaps that would make for a compelling novel, but, upon further reading, you'll see that's not what this novel is.

Keane deftly exposes the inner workings of the people who live in and off of the Aragon estate, allowing each character to inhabit very human, inevitably contradicting sets of traits. The 'sluttish' younger daughter of the Fox family is silly, caring, and self-aware all at once. Her elder sister, for most of the book a tidy, pragmatic, and annoyingly astute thing, in the end has her own moment of impulsiveness. As for Nan, the bastard daughter of Aragon who has over decades insinuated herself into every aspect of the running of the household, her assiduous competence seems to pull all but one skeptic into orbit around her. The reader is tempted to fall in line. But Keane won't stand for an uncomplicated hero. Nan's abuse of one member of the Fox family is all the more keenly felt for her apparent obliviousness to it.

Had 'Two Days of Aragon' spent, as the title and opening chapters suggest, two days with these characters and their varied interests, the comparison to Austen might be appropriate. But Keane's sense of plot is much more modern. With the skill of a suspense novelist, she places her characters in a historical period known for its violence and betrayal - the Troubles, the period of guerrilla warfare that eventually led to Ireland's independence (with civil war following closely behind). The final third of the book is harrowing. Keane makes no secret of the fact that Aragon will not survive the intrigue set in motion by an unlucky meeting of the two Fox daughters' love interests - one a British officer and the other the beloved son of our very own Nan. The reader is compelled onward, wincing at the destruction but in marvel at the skill and humanity with which Keane maneuvers her players.

[Zane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up at random from a small English-language library on a whim, drawn by the name alone (I thought it would be set in Spain!) and totally blind.

Instead, an overview of the Irish Civil War, from the perhaps less-common viewpoint of the Anglo-Irish gentry.

It felt slow-going at times, with nothing much *happening* but at the same time no great overview of the wider macro status of Ireland during the time period.

Few of the characters elicit any form of sympathy, least of all Nan - an archetypal snivelling and Fanonesque servant, holding herself as holier-than-thou and above the rest of her class and race in a peculiarly Irish way. Her wrath and ire is aimed only at Aunt Pidgie, arguably the only blameless individual in the novel, but she genuflects to the rest of the family as if some wretch.

Whenever I read about Ireland from the 19th century onwards, the concludion is always the same: Tiocfaidh ár lá

[Anna McPherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took a while to get into but grew on me. Very good about the class set up of the era. Characters were interesting. Showed the tragedy of women made pregnant and then dumped by the father. The fire was described well and with drama

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compelling novel written in 1941 (but set in 1920) concerning two intense days at an Anglo-Irish estate. Think Downton Abbey with more gutsy realism, including the IRA. Excellent read. My copy is a 1985 reissue by Virago Modern Classics, which were a precursor to Persephone Books. I will be looking for more of these in used bookstores based on the quality of this novel.

[Amy Gentry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1941, this was Molly Keane's last original novel before a long dry spell. (The two that came next were adapted from her plays, and show it.) It's also her most ambitious, and as far as I know the only one to directly address the Irish War of Independence, which is completely ignored by the polite and oblivious Anglo-Irish hunting society in her other novels.

It's definitely odd to see Keane's seriocomic style embracing full-on Victorian melodrama (characters confessing secret pregnancies!) and even adventure scenes (desperate gunmen hiding in caves!). The compressed timescale of the novel makes it seem as if it were influenced by Keane's recent success at playwriting, but on the whole it feels more cinematic than stage-y--the ending recalls Rebecca, and the IRA toughs, one nicknamed "the Killer," Hollywood gangsters.

These elements were, however, drawn directly from Keane's own childhood and adolescence. Ballyrankin, the big old 18th-century house where she grew up, was burned by the IRA during her last year at boarding school. The gunmen supposedly dragged chairs out on the lawn for her family to sit in while they watched, an amazing detail that might have made the climax of the novel come alive if she'd included it. Instead, Keane's lengthy attempt at an action sequence drifts into cliche. Similarly, the real-life incident of two active duty English officers being captured on their way to an Anglo-Irish tennis party--because in the middle of a war it's still very important to play lawn tennis!--doesn't feel either as horrifying or as silly as it should. Dilating these anecdotes into full-scale plots diminishes their impact, somehow. It's fun, but it feels made-up, which it very much isn't.

Not until Good Behaviour, with its fractured narrative and black humor, did Keane really get a handle on the tone she would have needed to make this book work. Still, as in Keane's other mature works, there's plenty of originality and brilliance. Perhaps the most harrowing thing in the novel is its depiction of elder abuse, a theme that runs through Keane's novels but is explored in shocking detail here.

[Adelaide Mcginnity · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few excellently rendered characters (in particular Nan) and an exquisite setting cannot save this book from its major, damning flaws. The prose is way too literary for its own good. The plot is very predictable, particularly for someone who has read Rebecca (whose ending this book rather shamelessly steals). But perhaps the most egregious flaw is Foley's timeline. By the book's own internal logic, Foley cannot be older than 17, which makes him a year younger than Grania and only a year older than Dottie (who supposedly looked up to him when she was a child and rode ponies he was trying to sell when she was eight - i.e., when he was nine). This makes no sense; his character is clearly rendered as that of an older young man (of at least 23 or so), and he definitely takes the older role in his love affair with Grania. Does time simply move faster at Mountain Brig than Aragon? Or did Molly Keane need to do a couple more rounds of revision to make her story internally consistent? I favor the latter.

[Liz]

Another book which I couldn’t get into, a disappointment as I have so enjoyed other books by this author.