Paradise

by Edna O'Brien

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles.

An unnamed protagonist is on holiday with her new, much-married lover, in the company of the monstrously rich.

'How long would she last? It would be uppermost in all their minds.'

Each day, while the others are out at sea, she is taught to swim. Eventually, she will be expected to perform. The pressure mounts; it is only a matter of time before she snaps.

Edna O'Brien crafts a quietly horrifying scene of eroticism and insecurity, and makes one woman's near-fatal discomfort stand for society's larger trap.

Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Irish Literature, Literary Fiction, Ireland, Contemporary, Classics

62 pages, Paperback

Published January 3, 2019

About the author

Edna 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.

Reviews

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.



Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor Sholom Aleichem wrote. What would happen when the wise would be completely out of the picture? In her subduedly wry novella ‘Paradise’ Edna O’Brien’s seems to suggest that only a dreadful nightmare would subsist. The title of the story is pretty ironic, as O’ Brien’s paradise – think remote, exotic destination, sea, opulence and boats - resembles more a pasquinade turning the indulgence in early delights into hell.

Elegantly written, this cautionary tale on the unspoken politics of power which govern love and lust reminded me of Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac – the unnamed narrator seems akin to Brookers’s protagonist Edith Hope. She is an indecisive woman finding herself in the company of people she doesn’t even like and who thrive on class condescension. The undercurrents that undertow Paradise however are more murky. O’ Brien’s narrator half-heartedly considers attempts to fit in the group, to please, to comply to tacit expectations (by learning to swim) and to be a worthy successor to the many other women her older and wealthy lover formerly introduced into the circle of indifferent rich people he surrounds himself with. Paradise thematises not fitting in and the ambiguity of the longing to belong (who really wants to fit in with people you haven’t the slightest affinity with?).

One might think it necessary to transform oneself to fit in, or to be loved. Perhaps there is a little mermaid in each of us when we fall in love with someone, all too willing to adjust. But if that someone only thinks you worth his or her (evidently temporary) attention and affection if and only if you become someone else, a bit more of this or a little less of that, isn’t there only one possible conclusion: run, baby, run? Instead of learning to swim, wouldn’t it be more adequate in the narrator’s case to set for learning to fly? After all, you don’t want to end up like the little mermaid, don’t you?

I was mesmerized by Edna O’ Brien’s luminous and evocative prose; even if the characters nor the story were particularly gripping, I look forward to read more by her.
(*** ½)

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 2013, Paradise is a short, feverish story about an unnamed woman on holiday with her rich partner, who hires an instructor to teach her how to swim. What I took away from this story was an allegory about the self-congratulation of the rich when they take someone poor under their tutelage; performing in a proscribed manner is expected, developing your own ideas and aspirations is dangerous - and the metaphor is executed with searing prose and beautiful imagery. This was a great introduction to Edna O'Brien and I'm really looking forward to reading more of her work.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written story. Reminds me of William Trevor. I need to read more of this author’s oeuvre. I had a number of her novels and a short story collection and gave them all away several years ago because I had too many books in my house — imagine that…too many books!!!! (What was I thinking? There can never be too many books…)

4.5 stars for me. 😊

A woman has started a relationship with a man who has been married 3 times and is exceedingly rich. He only picked her out for his next relationship because he needed a chest X-ray due to a persistent cough and she was a radiology tech. Hmmmm…. Anyway he invites her on a vacation with some of his rich friends. She does not know how to swim so he arranges a private tutor to teach her how to swim. Does she learn how to swim? If she learns how to swim, will he choose her to be his next wife? Are enough hints dropped along the way in the story to let me know how it might end? I can answer the last query – yes. But it did not spoil the ending.

This was a story inside of her 2013 collection of shorts, The Love Object, and is part of the 30 short stories that make up Faber 90, a set of short stories in commemoration of Faber and Faber Limited publishing house celebrating its 90th birthday.

Note: this was shamelessly stolen from the first review below.
• Edna O’Brien, DBE is an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer. Philip Roth described her as “the most gifted woman now writing in English”, while the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson cited her as “one of the great creative writers of her generation”.

Reviews:
• https://storgy.com/2019/02/24/book-re...
• Blogsite, https://reviewsbychloe.com/2019/11/09...
• Blogsite, https://samquixote.blogspot.com/2020/...

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

A young woman is holidaying with her much older, much wealthier boyfriend and his similarly rich friends. Coming from a poor background, she has trouble fitting in though she tries - but does she really want to?

I wasn’t that taken with Edna O’Brien’s Paradise. The story itself is kinda slow and dull - the main character learns to swim (a metaphor for learning to fit into the expected mould of this rich life - how exciting...), attends numerous dreary meals and O’Brien generally shows the lives of the super wealthy to be vapid and empty. Maybe they are but I suspect they’re no more so than most people’s, regardless of wealth.

The seaside setting of boats and idyllic countryside comfort is extremely blah and nowt much happens until the end. The message of the importance of being your own person, as well as the condescending attempts of the rich to help the poor in their misguided, clumsy way, were hardly revelatory.

The occasional scene unexpectedly jolted me out of the mundane malaise of the story and O’Brien can write some interesting sentences. Still, I wouldn’t say Paradise was anything special.

[Jessie Pietens · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book doesn’t really do what it says on the tin. I don’t know if my expectations were raised due to the blurb or if I just misinterpreted it, but I feel like the story was boring and I could not connect to any of the characters. I would say: that’s not fair, because it’s a short story, but Sally Rooney managed to do it in her Faber Short Story that had only half the amount of pages this one did. O’Brien has an interesting writing style, and I can see why people love reading her work, but I just felt like her writing style and this particular story weren’t well suited to the length of the book. I do have to say that, as the story progressed, it got better. Nevertheless, I wasn’t really enjoying this one. But hey, that’s the beauty of these short stories! They’re read quickly and then you have somewhat of an idea if the writer is for you or not.

[Aine · Rating 4 out of 5]

My date was late and my phone was dying so I dropped in to a bookshop and bought Paradise so I’d have something to read. Honestly, I picked it up because the book was slim and everything else seemed to be about scorned or desperate women, which didn’t seem to be a great look on a first date.

I’m not sure why I thought an Edna O’Brien story wouldn’t make for a worrying description the first time you meet someone.

In the end the book was better than the date.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

To celebrate their 90th birthday, publisher Faber and Faber have launched a series called ‘Faber Shorts’. Short stories by a host of well-known writers such as Samuel Beckett, Kazuo Ishiguro, P D James, Lorrie Moore, Flannery O’Connor and Sylvia Plath. The first launch of these individual shorts has twenty slim volumes. There will be more later in the year.

Edna O’Brien’s story “Paradise” was first published in 2013. An unnamed woman is on holiday with her older, much married, lover. It is a holiday for the wealthy; a large house with staff and many friends, swimming pools, olive groves, warm seas, yachts and privilege. Into this world steps this (I assume much younger) woman. She is both on show and under scrutiny. The other guests know the former wives, and so she feels that she is always being compared. The holiday is unsettling and uncomfortable.

The woman cannot swim, so each day while the others go out to sea she remains behind and is taught to swim. A man has been hired from England to give her lessons every day.
This short quote sums up the atmosphere one evening:
“The one who had been most scornful about her swimming sat at her feet and said how pretty she was. Asked her details about her life, her work, her schooling. Yet this friendliness only reinforced her view of her own solitude, her apartness. She answered each question carefully and seriously. By answering she was subscribing to her longing to fit in.”

You have to wonder why the woman wants to stay there. What is in it for her? Yes, the man obviously has wealth and a wonderful lifestyle but she is so insecure about fitting in, about keeping her place. Her insecurity leads her to over compensate in the bedroom; “…the simulated hunger that she like him to think she felt.”
The man too has insecurities of his own, but these seem to matter less. He has the wealth and possessions after all. But he likes to invite people to stay, to make their time there perfect, but also to watch their happiness. Observing but not sharing. The guests are a mixture, an odd bunch. This made me laugh:
“More than one guest was called Teddy. One of the Teddys told her that in the mornings before his wife wakened he read Proust in the dressing room. It enabled him to masturbate. It was no more than if he told her that he missed bacon for breakfast.”

[Jenny Cooke (Bookish Shenanigans) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5* rounded up.

[Giulia (moonrise.bookdom) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She was tired. Tired of the life she had elected to go into and disappointed with the man she had put pillars around. [...] 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."

[Srishti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow I hated this... I guess I could see what she was trying to do by the end, but it was way too abstract and loose to have worked for me. I found it extremely boring, to be honest. It could have been something so much better. I liked the premise, but the narration and writing was just not my cup of tea.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to read more Edna O'Brien like right now.

[christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so good I can’t wait to read more Edna O’Brien really soon 🤠

[Paula Mota · Rating 3 out of 5]

#abrilcontosmil

[Annie 2manybeautifulBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

▪️

a little bit of Edna.
I just had the need.
I couldn’t think of who else could satisfy the need.

sometimes when my own inner aches silently scream at me, the only solution is to turn to Edna because within her world I know I will find deep meaningful aches that will meet my own.

oh, and I’ll surely find a killer sentence that will make me gasp in awe

“she would forget him and he would live somewhere in the attic of her mind, the place where failure lurks.”

curiously, I also found a woman who is inhabiting a space where she is surrounded by the beautiful people and she doesn’t quite fit in, ( I suggest the story title Paradise is ironic), she is quite literally out of her depth - Edna makes her a non-swimmer - she is a creative genius and I love her so.
▪️

[David J · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Review to come.

[Maltheus Broman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some marina during a bygone summer. An unnamed young woman in a relationship with an unnamed rich old man lives in his villa. She catches up on swimming lessons in his pool. Careless dinner parties and boat tours ensue. Troubles are either in the distant past, far away like summer lightning, or subtle in the air like lazy afternoon heat. When does this fantasy turn to a nightmare?

Arguably there are hordes of people who would pay good money to be so leisurely in misery, but the crux of the matter might be at the core of such a life that pushes responsibility away, ignores feelings, and treats every human, animal, or thing as something replaceable. A feeling of emptiness calls for endless fun. Edna O’Brien handles metaphors brilliantly. The short pool near the endless sea, the woman who learns how to swim, the water…

A wishful fantasy of a dreadful nightmare! Highly enjoyable.

[Ivety · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neither the rich nor the poor have any desire to really get to know each other. There are often too many parts of our life that we grew up frowning upon to ever reconcile. So if your rich boyfriend implicitly asks you to become one of them in order to continue your relationship, run away.

Sometimes you are just there for the sex, and that is perfectly fine. Your sexual affinity does not necessarily imply a compatibility of lifestyle or taste. Pretending otherwise can lead to dire consequences when this proves not to be true, viz suicide.

Interestingly written but quite basic in its themes.

[Wendy Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful-looking little volume and an evocative January read, with glittering sea, suntan oil and lolling around on boats in the age of telegrams. All mixed with the tension of being a fish out of water in a group of unpleasant rich folk, headed up by a restless millionaire lover who'll dispatch you in an instant if you fail to meet his nebulous requirements.

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short and engaging story follows a young woman as she sets off on vacation with her wealthy, much older partner. Upon learning that she is unable to swim, he hires an instructor to teach her, with the understanding that she will display her newly learned skill for him and his friends at the holiday’s end.

This was my first experience of O’Brien’s fiction, and it has certainly piqued my interest. She successfully creates a quietly off-kilter tone; the simmering threat that we are building towards something uncanny. This, coupled with her evocative prose and strong imagery made for a great little taster of her work.

There’s definitely some allegory at play, but O’Brien doesn’t deign to hand us all the answers, which leaves the latent meaning open to interpretation. To me, it spoke about how mentally destructive it is to try and change yourself to appease others, as well as the self-serving, toxic brand of pride that can arise when the wealthy try to ‘help’ those beneath them on the social ladder.

[nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

a rather evocative short story but nothing extraordinary in my opinion. i had hoped for something much darker and a less ... mundane setting. standard portrayal of the rich in a sense and an unsureness about wether or not the protagonist actually doesn’t fit or merely tells herself as much. still an enjoyable read.

[Spencer Fancutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

These little Faber volumes are so great. The best things in small packages.
O'Brien paints a pitch-perfect portrait of a young woman trying to understand her relationship with her older, millionaire lover and her place in the society he lives in. Her insecurities and the ultimate assertion of her identity are quietly and firmly drawn with the command of a master of the short story form.

[Svasti Dutta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see what she was trying to do, but it just didn't work for me. To her credit, there were sentences here and there that made me want to pull out a pencil for underlining. Unfortunately, I don't think her skills are suited to the short story format. Perhaps this would have been better if lengthened.

[Tabrizia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but beautifully depicted novella about trying to break out of the sphere that is built for you and the so-called "consequences" when you decide to take risks and break out of society's confining mold.

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neither here nor there

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

girlie likes to swim cause her rich boyfriend buys her lessons (with some fluffy stuff as well) xxxxxxx

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful and immersive, beautifully written. Relationships, false friends, and self-determination all simmering within a so-called holiday paradise. Edna O'Brien has a way of writing that exposes so much and she does it in style. An enjoyable read that I highly recommend.
4.5 stars.

[Nevena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't quite make up my mind about this one. On paper, it sounds exactly like my kind of thing: a story about a wistful, indecisive female protagonist struggling to fit in (feat. beautiful imagery). In reality, this left me quite lukewarm.

It lacks certain deepness and intensity, which I was initially so excited about - particularly because that's what I somehow aways expect of anyone who heavily uses water as symbolism in any way.

There were some lines that cut a little deeper, but it wasn't enough for me. I did like the writing style, which definitely makes me want to look into more of Edna O'Brien's work. Hopefully her other pieces are a bit more hard-hitting and emotionally charged.

[Cindy C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect. Of the four Faber Stories I purchased, Mr. Salary, Mrs. Fox, Terrific Mother, Paradise is my favorite.

Terrific Mother is also excellent. Mr. Salary and Mrs. Fox less so - themes, thoughts and language all more tinged with cliches, generic-ness, and a lack of complexity compared to Terrific Mother or Paradise.

Side note - while all of the covers were pretty, this one was the best as a representation of the ideas within.

Excited to have discovered another short story writer to explore. Highly recommended if you like short stories or are deciding from the many in the Faber's Story collection.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

She believed that it would be better once they were married and had children. She would be accepted by courtesy of them. It was a swindle really, the fact that small creatures, ridiculously easy to beget, should solidify a relationship, but they would.

[rosie · Rating 1 out of 5]

In all honesty I was just a bit lost and didn’t get it