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Returning: Tales
A first rate collection of short stories from the critically acclaimed author of House of Splendid isolation and Down by the River.
When all the convent girls were in love with Clark Gable... When bachelors rose on lonely bicycles, and jam was a luxury...
In this excellent collection of short stories, Edna O'Brien powerfully evokes the sensations of childhood and adolescence in Ireland - the smells and tastes , the fears and joys, the sadness and the confusions.
When all the convent girls were in love with Clark Gable... When bachelors rose on lonely bicycles, and jam was a luxury...
In this excellent collection of short stories, Edna O'Brien powerfully evokes the sensations of childhood and adolescence in Ireland - the smells and tastes , the fears and joys, the sadness and the confusions.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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97 people want to read
About the author
Edna O'Brien
110 books1,369 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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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 11, 2021
I read “Lantern Slides” last week and went ga-ga over it. But I made this comment – ‘Early on when reading the stories I appreciated the writing and how good it was, but I could not discern the point of the stories and was a bit disappointed but soldiered on, and then the stories got way better (in my opinion).’ – and sure enough I felt the same way with the first story in this book. But usually with short stories that I don’t understand the point of, I am not too keen about the story when rating it, but this time or maybe with this author it is different. I may not understand the point of the story but the writing is so good, my enthusiasm is only diminished a bit. Even If I didn’t understand the point, it was an interesting story (The Connor Girls). I was lost in it. In fact a general comment was that I was lost – that is , immersed – in all of the stories. And that’s where you want to be, isn’t it? In the heart of the story you are reading. I am so excited I have become acquainted with Edan O’ Brien because she has many more books for me to read by her! 😊
• The Connor Girls ¬ 4.5 stars
• My Mother’s Mother – 5 stars – Wowwwww. So so good. A girl goes to her grandmother’s house and really likes it there but misses her mother although her house can be stressful to love in given the father can go on alcoholic benders that frightens her and her mother. She is at her grandmother’s house but misses her mother so goes back, and the mother, rather than being pleased that her daughter is back home because the daughter loves her, is pissed off that she’s home. Here’s the final sentences of the story. I was blown away when coming upon these sentences for the first time. … ‘I thought how much I needed to be without her, so that I could think of her, dwell on her, and fashion her into the perfect person that she clearly was not. I resolved that for certain I would grow up and one day go away. It was a sweet thought, and it was packed with punishment.’
• Tough Men – 5 stars – I laughed out loud at one point. This story was so hilarious. A man is married to a woman who “nearly drove him mad, sitting in front of the kitchen fire saying she could see face in the flames and then getting up suddenly and running upstairs to see if there was a man under her bed. He had sent her to Lourdes the summer before to see if that would straighten her out, but she came back worse. … His wife had developed a craze for putting sugar and peaches into every piece of meat she cooked. The she had a fegary to buy an egg timer. She played with the egg timer at night, turning it upside down and watching the passage of the sand as it followed down into the underneath tube. Childish she was.” Plus there’s a tainted chicken he and his chums are eating….unbeknownst to them until it’s too late, and that’s hilarious. This was such a pleasure to read. Oh yes, and what does ‘fegary’ mean? “whim”, “foolish action”, or “tantrum” I learn something new everyday.
• The Doll – 3.5 stars
• The Bachelor – 3.5 stars
• Savages – 3.5 stars
• Courtship – 3.5 stars
• Ghosts – 2.5 stars
• Sister Imelda – 4 stars – A girl goes to a convent school for high school and develops a crush for Sister Imelda.
Notes:
• All nine stories are told in the first person.
• You can read all of the stories from this collection in a later collection of her short stories, ‘A Fanatic Heart’ (1984), that includes ‘Returning’ in its entirety and many more stories from another 3 of her collected works.
Reviews: I could not find any. ☹
• The Connor Girls ¬ 4.5 stars
• My Mother’s Mother – 5 stars – Wowwwww. So so good. A girl goes to her grandmother’s house and really likes it there but misses her mother although her house can be stressful to love in given the father can go on alcoholic benders that frightens her and her mother. She is at her grandmother’s house but misses her mother so goes back, and the mother, rather than being pleased that her daughter is back home because the daughter loves her, is pissed off that she’s home. Here’s the final sentences of the story. I was blown away when coming upon these sentences for the first time. … ‘I thought how much I needed to be without her, so that I could think of her, dwell on her, and fashion her into the perfect person that she clearly was not. I resolved that for certain I would grow up and one day go away. It was a sweet thought, and it was packed with punishment.’
• Tough Men – 5 stars – I laughed out loud at one point. This story was so hilarious. A man is married to a woman who “nearly drove him mad, sitting in front of the kitchen fire saying she could see face in the flames and then getting up suddenly and running upstairs to see if there was a man under her bed. He had sent her to Lourdes the summer before to see if that would straighten her out, but she came back worse. … His wife had developed a craze for putting sugar and peaches into every piece of meat she cooked. The she had a fegary to buy an egg timer. She played with the egg timer at night, turning it upside down and watching the passage of the sand as it followed down into the underneath tube. Childish she was.” Plus there’s a tainted chicken he and his chums are eating….unbeknownst to them until it’s too late, and that’s hilarious. This was such a pleasure to read. Oh yes, and what does ‘fegary’ mean? “whim”, “foolish action”, or “tantrum” I learn something new everyday.
• The Doll – 3.5 stars
• The Bachelor – 3.5 stars
• Savages – 3.5 stars
• Courtship – 3.5 stars
• Ghosts – 2.5 stars
• Sister Imelda – 4 stars – A girl goes to a convent school for high school and develops a crush for Sister Imelda.
Notes:
• All nine stories are told in the first person.
• You can read all of the stories from this collection in a later collection of her short stories, ‘A Fanatic Heart’ (1984), that includes ‘Returning’ in its entirety and many more stories from another 3 of her collected works.
Reviews: I could not find any. ☹
May 29, 2021
‘I cannot be certain what I would have said. I knew that there is something sad and faintly distasteful about love’s ending, particularly love that has never been fully realised. I might have hinted at that but I doubt it. In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.’
In all, or almost all, of this collection women are narrating and telling the stories of the pivotal periods in their lives as young girls in the country. All the stories are set in small rural towns and O’Brien depicts them, and the natural world, gorgeously. Her descriptions are highly evocative, and the lightly lush lyricism in her sentences tastes very sweet. But the lives of the girls are hard, their desires and passions need to be kept secret, their fathers are angry, violent brutes, their mothers are subdued creatures too busy and too reconciled to have much to offer them. There was a gothic quality to these stories, and they reminded me of Munro’s early collections, similarly about the predicaments of young girls and women in small towns. Though Munro’s world is Canada, there’s much that connects them. And I believe both writers revere each other, both having started their writing careers in the sixties. O’Brien is a treasure and should be given the Nobel.
In all, or almost all, of this collection women are narrating and telling the stories of the pivotal periods in their lives as young girls in the country. All the stories are set in small rural towns and O’Brien depicts them, and the natural world, gorgeously. Her descriptions are highly evocative, and the lightly lush lyricism in her sentences tastes very sweet. But the lives of the girls are hard, their desires and passions need to be kept secret, their fathers are angry, violent brutes, their mothers are subdued creatures too busy and too reconciled to have much to offer them. There was a gothic quality to these stories, and they reminded me of Munro’s early collections, similarly about the predicaments of young girls and women in small towns. Though Munro’s world is Canada, there’s much that connects them. And I believe both writers revere each other, both having started their writing careers in the sixties. O’Brien is a treasure and should be given the Nobel.
August 16, 2018
Nine short stories that evoke village and convent life in 1940s Ireland with a novelistic eye for detail. The writing is robust and the characterisation and observational qualities top-notch, but sometimes there’s a sense of O’Brien spinning out to twenty or twenty-five pages a gossamer thread of a narrative that could have comfortably been told in eight or ten. That said, the final piece - ‘Sister Imelda’ - is a perfect example of what the short story form can achieve.
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July 27, 2011Amazing how Edna O'Brien transports you straight into the middle of rainy and Catholic guilt-ridden 1940s Ireland. Even more amazing when you realise that she's recounting true stories about real people. Truth really is stranger than fiction.
January 13, 2020
This is the first book I've read by this author and I thoroughly enjoyed her witty and evocative style of writing. She paints a vivid picture of life in Ireland in the mid-20th Century.
January 1, 2022
My last book for 2021
Because I love reading the work of Irish writers I really enjoyed Edna O'Brien's ( must be autobiographical) stories of rural Ireland in the 1940s. Some turns of phrase are familiar to me from my childhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I will seek out more of her work.
Favourite quotation:
"I still can't imagine any of them dead. They live on; they are fixed in that far-off region called childhood, where nothing dies, not even oneself." (from "Ghosts")
Because I love reading the work of Irish writers I really enjoyed Edna O'Brien's ( must be autobiographical) stories of rural Ireland in the 1940s. Some turns of phrase are familiar to me from my childhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I will seek out more of her work.
Favourite quotation:
"I still can't imagine any of them dead. They live on; they are fixed in that far-off region called childhood, where nothing dies, not even oneself." (from "Ghosts")
October 7, 2022
These well crafted stories are told in a natural voice with the accents and atmosphere of Ireland. The stories cover a variety of subjects although most are told from the perspective of a young girl — are they reminiscences? They are at once lovely and a little sad. Highly recommended.
July 29, 2022
"In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things"
December 23, 2023
Edna O'brien blows me away with her short stories every time!!!
September 1, 2008
Excellent writing - I want to read other works by her.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews