Down by the River: A Novel

Modern Ireland Trilogy #2

by Edna O'Brien

Set in the author’s native Ireland, a powerful and passionate novel about a young girl who becomes pregnant by her father—a situation made worse when it becomes fodder for the gossip mill of church, state, and the town square.

Genres: Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Novels, Contemporary

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1997

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

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il romanzo affronta una tematica forte per l’Irlanda, patria della scrittrice Edna O’Brien, un fenomeno che ancora oggi, nel 2014, crea difficoltà, sofferenze, paura e disagio nelle giovani donne irlandesi: il diritto della donna alla procreazione cosciente e responsabile –così recita il preambolo della legge n. 194 del 1978. Se è vero che l’idealizzazione della maternità all’interno del matrimonio è da sempre un elemento fondamentale nella retorica politica e religiosa dell’Irlanda, come afferma la professoressa Maria Luddy insegnante di storia moderna dell’Irlanda all’università di Warwick, ed è quanto la scrittrice conferma nella ricostruzione dell’ambiente bigotto, reazionario e formato ad un cattolicesimo cieco e fanatico che ricorda l’oscurantismo dei tribunali della santa inquisizione, si immagini cosa possa accadere nell’opinione pubblica nel caso in cui una quattordicenne rimanga incinta dopo aver subito abusi in famiglia. Accanto alla problematica sociale che emerge netta dal romanzo, vi è l’aspetto propriamente letterario, del saper narrare un fatto così terribile con parole lievi e quasi trasparenti, come se ci fosse un velo impalpabile che attutisce la violenza –pure presente- ma non la elimina, anzi, se possibile, la esalta e fa ancora più male. Un romanzo che colpisce la coscienza e fa riflettere noi italiani, che sull’aborto avemmo una legge nel lontano 1978, all’epoca all’avanguardia, mentre in Irlanda la prima legge sull’aborto risale al 2013, ed è limitata al solo caso del pericolo di vita della donna.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great work of literary impressionism by Edna O'Brien. She uses settings and the character's sense impressions to show emotional and psychological states better than just about any writer I can think of. In this book she never needs to tell what Mary is feeling or thinking because we are already experiencing it via the impressionistic descriptions she uses to set the scene. This book takes on the themes of sexual abuse, abortion, and Catholicism but does so in a way that doesn't stray from what Mary is experiencing. It never slips into a diatribe. The social issues come up naturally as impediments she must work through, and it never feels like O'Brien is out to prove a point, but prove a point she does. It's also a very sad book that touches on the wide variety of ways that people inflict pain upon each other.

[Jayne Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is based on a true story and as I read it I found myself recalling the media coverage of the case. Edna O'Brien has a very individual style of writing. She doesn't so much tell as imply. Though her prose is quite poetic, it is can also be hard to follow. There were many of these short chapters that I had to re-read to make sure I had got the point. Sometimes I couldn't work out what the point was. Though I think I just about got the story, it sort of fluttered at the edge of my vision like a dream straight after you wake up. An acquired taste in literature I think!

[Katarina · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Njihova zdrava parohija više nikad neće biti ista.“
•
•
Pojedini naslovi sa teškom tematikom vas zgrabe i odvuku u ponor već sa prvom rečenicom. Roman Edne O'Brajen je drugačiji. On svog čitaoca vodi polagano, stranicu po stranicu, nagoveštavajući strahote koje neće imenovati, ali će pogled nacije i male parohije uperiti ne u počinioca već u žrtvu. Eksplicitni opis zločina zameniće klaustrofobična atmosfera koju za devojčicu Meri stvara društvo. Sud nacije obavija je kao gusta magla kroz koju se ona, stoički i u tišini, promalja.

Kratka poglavlja čitaocu omogućavaju da stav javnog mnjenja o pravu svake žene doživi kao omču koja se sužava i definiše dalji pravac života žrtve. Svako ko počini zločin je krivac. Nažalost, krivac koji uvek prođe bez posledica često je i samo društvo koje bez predumišljaja na stub srama postavlja žrtvu, dajući sebi za pravo da nju, umesto počinioca, osudi. Nipodaštavajući njeno pravo na pravdu. Uskraćujući joj pravo na oslobođenje od ubeđenja iz davnašnjih vremena u kojima je žena trpni glagolski pridev koji mora da ćuti o svojoj nesreći.

Roman Edne O'Brajen zasnovan je na istinitom događaju iz devedesetih godina prošlog veka. U istom tom vremenu odvija se i njegova radnja. Međutim, dok ga čitate imaćete utisak da Edna opisuje društvo sa početka 20. veka.

Doduše, imajući u vidu da su priče o seksualnom zlostavljanju česta globalna tema, možda ćete jedino doći do zaključka da se, nažalost, stav dobrog dela društva nije promenio u odnosu na onaj od pre sto godina.

Srećom, vremena se jesu promenila, jer to sada (bar se nadam) nije i stav većine.

📻|Nick Cave - God Is in the House
📻|Delta Rae - Bottom of the River

[J.S. Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Edited to add, today [March, 2017] the results of the professional dig were announced: scores of babies up to age 2 &3 buried in a septic system at the convent that had housed unwed mothers in prior decades. Just shattering. Even a lapsed Catholic would go say a prayer and light a candle. Blasting the Church doesn't bring the babies back.

This story, Down By The River, grew heavy with brutality, explicit and implied. Even the judiciary were incestuous. The problem with a novel so laden with social messaging is that those who should see the message wouldn't venture outside his/her comfort zone to read O'Brien. ---Now there's a novel. What happens when the scales fall from eyes, when the bubble would at last pop, for someone like the pro-life-crazed Roisin? Nervous breakdown? To consider a different point of view?

Read this in conjunction with O Brien's Wild Decembers Wild Decembers. A good duo in that the second novel also covers some of the same dark regions in the mental world of rural Ireland.

[Albus Eugene Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Criminals Should Be Punished …
Mary MacNamara, quattordicenne, vive in una piccola cittadina dell’Irlanda dell’Ovest, e si porta nell’anima e nel corpo schegge di una sordida violenza domestica. Edna O’Brian si ispira al controverso processo “The X Case” del 1992, che aveva portato all’approvazione del tredicesimo emendamento: «the prohibition on abortion would not limit the freedom of pregnant women to travel out of the state.». Prima, recarsi all’estero per abortire, era reato.
«Correttezza! Voi uomini siete capaci di spegnere il cuore, di chiuderlo come una valvola, come hai fatto col rubinetto della doccia!»
Dura, durissima realtà quotidiana per tante giovani donne. Qualcuna finisce appesa ad un albero di mango, qualcuna sparata alla testa perché vuole studiare …
Cara Edna, ma che piccola storia ignobile sei venuta a raccontarmi, così solita e banale come tante che non merita nemmeno due colonne su un giornale …
[Jun, 2015]

[Frabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Romanzo del 1996 (pubblicazione italiana recente, del 2014) dai temi forti, a partire dall’abuso sessuale incestuoso con cui la narrazione ha inizio, protagonista-vittima la quattordicenne Mary. Il seguito non è da rivelare - ogni anticipazione guasterebbe la lettura: quel che si può dire è che la storia è ambientata nella cattolicissima Irlanda degli anni ’90 e che Edna O’Brien sa raccontare tutto - scabrosità, prevaricazioni, fanatismi - con molta attenzione, gestendo bene la tensione prodotta dalla conturbante vicenda fino all’acme delle ultime pagine. Qualche limatura di apparente superfluo forse avrebbe giovato, ma nel complesso il romanzo è comunque decisamente apprezzabile.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again O'Brien dramatizes a headline incident to show a cruel side of a country lauded for its striking beauty and warm hearth. A young girl, raped first by her father, then by her country, symbolizes the degradation of Irish women by religion, anti-abortion fanatics and a twisted judicial system. This is not the Ireland of the Magdelene laundry, struggling out of post-war irrelevancy and poverty; this story is set in the early 90s, just as Ireland is poised on Celtic Tiger stardom.

O'Brien writes with incredible tension- not a word wasted, not an action or gesture with meaning or consequence. She cannot hide her love for her mother country, but she does not shy away from damning its behavior, either.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

O'Brien's novel was inspired by a highly controversial incident that took place in Ireland in the 9o's - a 14-year-old Irish rape victim, whose struggles with the legal system affected many and caused in Ireland itself a nationwide examination of conscience. However, behind the story lies a significant part of women's history: years of deceit, fear and pain, concealment of pregnancy, unattended births, infant corpses. A fact that is hushed but still goes on ...

Taking Mary's point of view, and slowly revealing the full horror and pathos of her heroine's plight, O'Brien creates a stark, unflinching story. Not for the weak of heart.
Church and state use their full powers to enforce laws banning abortion; not taking into account the person who is pregnant or the devastating consequences. Mary's fate is not her own; it is in the hands of the ""men in suits"" in the courtroom and psychiatric ward, she is buffeted between the pro-life and the pro-choice camps like a human football, and she is dehumanised in their eyes.
A harrowing book that leaves the reader drained.

[Liam Liddane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christ above. This was HEAVY, even from the first chapter. But a phenomenal read. I AM TERRIFIED of devoutly catholic irish women from the 1990’s. There was too many gut wrenching quotations from this book to even begin including in this review. All I can say is you have to read this.

I have seen some themes from this book explored before in a similar social context in ‘Foster’ by Claire Keegan but ultimately I think while in Foster the protagonist seems to get to the other side still with some semblance of a childhood and innocence, it is totally destroyed for Mary in this book by the end of the first chapter.

I was also surprisingly a fan of the very short chapters that seemed to jerk the story on, managing to portray captivating scenes in so few pages i think is no easy feat and O’Brien DELIVERED.

This book fucking hurt and i don’t think i will stop thinking about it for several days.

[Stefan Garland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Voleo bih da određene sudije Vrhovnog suda SAD pročitaju ovu knjigu. Samo kažem...

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most impactful book I have read on the topic of unwanted pregnancy and abortion, as it so perfectly humanises the debate. Harrowing but wonderful. I think, potentially, one of my favourite ever reads. I can't wait to discover more Ednas.

[L.A.Weekly · Rating 5 out of 5]

EDNA O'BRIEN: IRELAND'S OTHER LITERARY HEAVYWEIGHT
By Jim Ruland

This summer, instead of slogging through all 250,000 words of Ulysses (as well as the shelf-cracking row of books you’ll need to decipher it), read Ireland’s other modernist prose stylist and genius storyteller: Edna O’Brien.

The author of more than 20 novels, short stories and plays for stage and screen, O’Brien has had a prolific career spanning nearly 50 years. She has been described as possessing “the soul of Molly Bloom and the skills of Virginia Woolf,” and heralded as “the most gifted woman now writing fiction in English” by none other than Philip Roth. She has received countless accolades, yet remains one of Ireland’s most misunderstood writers. Shortly after the release of her critical study of James Joyce in 1999, one reviewer sniffed, “All Edna O’Brien’s effort proves is that lightweight novelists should stick to what they do best.”

O’Brien’s relationship with Ireland has always been a cantankerous one. Her first novel, The Country Girls, written in 1959 during a three-week frenzy, was condemned by the minister of culture as a “smear on Irish womanhood.” The book, which deals with the sexual awakening of a young woman from a small village in west Ireland, was promptly banned. As were her next eight novels.

Read the rest of Jim Ruland's article in the LA Weekly here:
http://www.laweekly.com/art+books/boo...

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a rapid series of short chapters that alternate from character to character, Edna O’Brien tells the story of a young Irish country girl—made pregnant by her father—whose efforts to get an abortion became a national legal sensation in the early 1990s. O’Brien’s prose is especially luminescent and impressionistic (conjuring jagged visual and mental sensations) when evoking young and vulnerable Mary’s surroundings in the country. Also surprisingly effective are the emotional and personal underpinnings of the darker male realm of the legal barristers who mount forces to deal with the case, making it clear that sometimes a legal contest is less about the issues of the case than the personalities of the lawyers. Also affecting in a horrible way is the portrait of the fanatic Roisin whose love of the unborn child perpetuates other damaging cruelties. The portraits O’Brien is able to create with just a few deft paragraphs come to life—I’m thinking particularly of Mary’s father—and they can inspire contempt and anger, but they also afford some mitigating mercy. The arc of the novel rounds off positively, and while there is an symbolic completeness in the portrait of Mary, who stands at the end with some new mysterious resolve—an anti-Mother Mary for the cause of abortion—she seems to have shrunk personally, and the poetry that flowed from her at the novel’s start has turned into the frivolity of pop music.

[Marcia Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the author's amazing ability to write vividly, this novel was exceptionally difficult for me to read. Young Mary MacNamara's impoverished life has been turned upside down by many factors: ignorance, her mother's death, sexual abuse, small-town jealousies, harsh judgment, and fear. The pain of any part of her tragic life is compounded by public outcry, church fanaticism, a leering press, and the arrogant opinions of her neighbors.

While the novel isn't terribly graphic, you understand exactly what's going on; the impact is psychologically powerful. Read at your peril!

[Sofia Brito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Painful and raw! O'Brien paints with words the rural west of Ireland with their taboos, superstitions and extreme poverty. She doesn't tell us the story, she introduces us to these characters and we cry and laugh, eat at the same table and live and die with them.

[Femke Buysen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75⭐️

[Tamar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore Edna O'Brien but I just can't seem to have the same experience with her I had when I read House of Splended Isolation (my first Edna O'Brien book). This book is supposed to be one of her most famous and it was good, but difficult to read. It's an interesting juxtaposition of abortion, incest, and Catholicism ruling Ireland. If that doesn't sound interesting to you, avoid the book. But her writing is always lyrical, which makes it worth the journey. If you've never read any Edna O'Brien books I would recommend you start with House of Splendid Isolation and even check out The Country Girls Trilogy. From there you might be more prepared for the heavier topics explored in this book.

[Kelv · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very abstract harrowing book. Full of characters, twists, and turns, which I felt hard to enjoy. The plot era is not known - kind of felt early 1900s Ireland due to Dickensian environment of poverty and strict Catholicism. But perhaps that is the point - religious fanatics exist, probably with more inflexibility thanever, in this age.

[Tamsin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing (as always) from this author is really really good - but… I was confused during some parts of the book, and I also found the content pretty hard to read due to its subject matter. Not an easy book to tackle for that reason. Not sure I’d recommend it,as I almost quit halfway through, but perhaps others wouldn’t feel so emotionally affected.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry, Edna. Based on reviews, subject matter and my own dislike of your rambling writing, the is leaving my SOUB without even being opened. Life is too short for such a distressing story by such an incomprehensible writer.

[Pungent Sound · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edna O’Brien’s Down by the River opens ominously with a road in a verdant and decaying rural Ireland. “The road is silent, somnolent yet with a speech of its own, speaking back to them, father and child, through trappings of sun and fretted verdure, speaking of old mutinies and a fresh crime mounting in the blood.” Hey, wait one hot second, Gladiola! Yes, dear reader. This is all wrong. My great-grandmother was born in Ireland, and I went there last year on a golf trip. Where are the wee folk and the pints of Guinness? The songs about unicorns? My apologies, dear reader, but this is a story by Edna O’Brien. She’s Ireland’s William Faulkner. Or, perhaps better put, William Faulkner is America’s Edna O’Brien. She writes about Ireland in all its melancholy and sordidness, so fear and superstition appear on every page – song too, but no wee folk; no unicorns.

Mary (that’s a loaded name in a predominantly Catholic country) is 14 years old. Her father is James. He loves horses, but he’s a cruel man who believes in “might before right.” He’s been raping Mary for quite some time now, and she is desperate to get away from him. She and her sister, Elizabeth (another loaded name), visit a remote shrine and pray for their father to be cured of his “epilepsy”. They speak in code, because the truth is too awful to say, even to God.

There’s another truth too awful to say: birth can be a brutally violent act. Mary witnesses this when her father helps a mare give birth. “Mare and foal, though of the same flesh, are warring, two warring things, not like a mother and its young, each fighting the other, except that the foal is stronger, her energy and her thrusting prodigal now.” Soon after, Mary becomes pregnant. When James finds out, he attacks her with a broom stick trying to cause a miscarriage. He was kinder to the horse and foal.

This is Ireland in the 1990s. Abortion is illegal. Bishops control the medical profession, and society decries the “abortion holocaust” taking place in England. Mary concludes suicide is her only option. Betty, an older cousin, rescues Mary from the river and figures out her secret. She helps Mary get to England, but a neighbor discovers the plan and alerts the authorities. Betty and Mary are brought back to Ireland before the abortion occurs.

Now the bishops and lawyers get involved. Mary becomes public property, and the public presumes to know what is best for the born and unborn. But the public only knows Mary as the “Magdalene” so how could they know best.

Time is relentless, and a decision must be made. But who gets to make it. Everyone demands to be heard, but whose voice should be heard? It’s telling we don’t hear Mary’s voice until the end. It’s beautiful.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor - Pungent Sound Journal of Pulp Poetry (PungentSound.com)

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosaries and ovaries, I don't know which does the most damage to this country.

After recently finishing the newly released The Little Red Chairs, I promised myself I'd read some more Edna O'Brien, and now that I'm through with Down by the River from 1998, I'm not much closer to having a coherent opinion of her work: once again, the writing itself is gorgeous and masterful, and once again, I think that O'Brien has gotten lost in her own agenda; losing me in the process. They say that hard cases make bad law, but as this book proves, bad law also makes hard cases: in a country like Ireland where abortion is illegal in all circumstances, it's not difficult to present an extreme case that makes such a law seem absurd and cruel. But by using an extreme case, I think that O'Brien forfeits the opportunity to illustrate a nuanced position or persuade readers to her point-of-view (which I assume is her objective?); she's preaching to the choir here and failing to reach the uncommitted; the book feels somehow unsuccessful. Spoilers from here.

Immediately, we meet Mary and her father, going for a walk into the hidden reaches of their rural property in West Ireland:

Ahead of them the road runs in a long entwined undulation of mud, patched tar and fjords of green, the grassy surfaces rutted and trampled, but the young shoots surgent in the sun; flowers and flowering weeds in full regalia, a carnival sight, foxglove highest and lordliest of all, the big furry bees nosing in the cool speckled recesses of mauve and white bell. O sun. O brazen egg-yolk albatross; elsewhere dappled and filtered through different muslins of leaf, an after-smell where that poor donkey collapsed, died and decayed; the frame of a car, turquoise once; rimed in rust, dock and nettle draping the torn seats, a shrine where a drunk and driven man put an end to himself, then at intervals rubbish dumps, the bottles, canisters, reading matter and rank gizzards of the town riff-raff stowed in the dead of night.

This kind of writing – a bit rambling and lyrical, even when describing garbage – is absolutely to my taste, and O'Brien employs an even more gestural/stream-of-consciousness style to describe the first time that Mary is raped by her father (I don't mean to be abrupt with that, but it happens for the first time on page four).

It does not hurt if you say it does not hurt. It does not hurt if you are not you. Criss-cross waxen sheath, uncrissing, uncrossing. Mush. Wet, different wets. His essence, hers, their two essences one. O quenched and empty world. An eternity of time, then a shout, a chink of light, the ground easing back up, gorse prickles on her scalp and nothing ever the same again and a feeling as of having half-died.

On the opposite page, O'Brien telegraphs that this act will have far-reaching consequences:

In the City far away men of bristling goatee beards, men of serious preoccupied countenances, move through the great halls, corporeal figures of knowledge and gravity, the white of their wigs changing colour as they pass under the rotunda of livid light, ribs of yellow hair, smarting, becoming phosphorescent, powerful men, men with a swagger, a character personified by the spill of the gown or the angle of a coiffed wig, their juniors a few paces behind them laden with briefs and ledgers, the whole paraphernalia of the law in motion, some already at the bench, others walking slowly to the appointed courts, men of principle who know nothing of the road or the road's soggy secret will one day be called to adjudicate upon it, for all is always known, nothing is secret, all is known and scriven upon the tablet of time.

That's a lot to have happen within the first five pages of a book, and immediately, the various camps with their views on abortion are drawn. In what I found to be an out-of-nowhere scene, neighbouring women have a social meeting with the town priest and a visiting anti-abortion evangelist; a young woman named Roisin who demands everyone present not avert their eyes from a photo of a butchered and bloody fetus. When these women of good faith attempt to bring up arguments for abortion access, Roisin shoots them down. What about in the case of rape? “An abortion won't unrape her, all an abortion will do is compound the crime.” And what of incest? “Oh, the incest tosh...It is sad, of course, but there can be no exceptions.” In a country that will countenance no exceptions, Mary will soon seek one.

The first time Mary becomes pregnant by her father, he digs it out of her with a broken broom handle (very similar to a scene in The Little Red Chairs), and that had me squirming and resistant to reading further. After Mary's mother dies and she's forced to leave her boarding school and return home, and after a failed attempt at running away, the nearly fourteen-year-old girl discovers she's pregnant again and goes to a neighbour woman for help. Once she twigs onto the incest, Betty flies Mary off to England for an abortion, but they are ordered to return to Ireland by the alerted authorities; men of good faith who are sworn to uphold the law, but privately, rather wish that Mary had gone through with the abortion anyway and save them the trouble of a public hearing on her rights; a hearing bound to polarise the entire country. While waiting for Mary's hearing, the pro-lifers are all rabidly adamant that it's hellfire for Mary if she goes through with it and the pro-choice side is populated with gentle and understanding people who are willing to break a bad law in order to save an innocent's psyche. Roisin and her bloody pictures make a reappearance and a policeman's mistress asks why he would send her over to England to end her own pregnancies but thwart the victim of incest; righteous anti-choicers send Mary hate-filled letters and one of the presiding judges has trouble explaining to his own daughter why upholding the law is the greater good; there are no shades of grey in this narrative: the people who would force the innocent victim to carry the product of incestuous rape to term are either religious zealots or people who have their hands bound by their position, often in conflict with their private beliefs. And then the ending pulls the rug out from any argument O'Brien might have been building just as the verdict is about to be announced on the news, Mary miscarries. So, what's the point?.

I shared long passages of O'Brien's writing because I find her words to be so beautiful, but once again, I'm dissatisfied with her overall product. As an aside, I googled to see if Ireland's abortion laws have changed in the past twenty years and I found this story about a 19-year-old woman in Northern Ireland (and this was a surprise to me since Northern Ireland is a part of the UK and I would have assumed they'd have more liberal laws) who was recently criminally charged with ordering drugs online to cause her miscarriage when she couldn't afford to travel to England to end her pregnancy. That's a much more nuanced case, and in my opinion, an idea more worthy of a literary treatment. Yet again, I'm not against looking for more of Edna O'Brien's writing.

[Marco Spelgatti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cosa vuol dire non poter possedere il proprio corpo? Subire la vita come un oggetto, un oggetto riottoso magari, ma che viene rimesso sempre in quello che viene visto come il suo posto?
Essere una bambola contesa dal padre e dallo Stato? Ma soprattutto da donne che decidono per te cos’è giusto e cosa no, mettono la tua vita dopo quella di qualcuno che ancora non è, e lo fanno senza un minimo di pietà nei tuoi confronti?
Cosa vuol dire perdere la speranza a quattrodici anni? Cosa significa muoversi per un mondo che non vuole vedere? Finendo per non poter decidere nemmeno quando la possibilità ti viene data?

Leggere “Lungo il fiume” è stata un’esperienza toccante, piena di domande. Ci sono molte cose che non ho apprezzato (il finale, o il fatto che il parteggiare della voce narrante sia sempre così esplicito), ma nell’insieme è stata un’ottima lettura, soprattutto per le riflessioni che ne sono nate.

Qualche giorno fa con un amico abbiamo parlato di quanto poco leggiamo letteratura scritta da donne. Quello che lui registrava è un senso di straniamento davanti a questo tipo di testi, come se la possibilità di immedesimarsi si fermasse ad un certo punto. In fondo abbiamo letto di donne adultere e gravidanze non richieste, amori e lutti per lo più attraverso gli scritti di uomini che fingono la voce di una donna. Qui, quando è una donna che racconta il modo in cui può vivere certe esperienze, fornendoti quei dettagli che un osservatore esterno non può dire di aver vissuto, arriva l’estraniazione, la sensazione di aver a che fare con qualcosa che non si conosce fino in fondo. E questo accade perché non siamo abituati ad ascoltare quelle voci, quelle esperienze. Giudichiamo la qualità degli scritti sulla base di un canone letterario prettamente maschile, costruito nel corso dei secoli per lo più da uomini.
Una delle citazioni che ho preferito di quando lessi “I love Dick” è stata «Poiché rifiutavamo un certo tipo di linguaggio critico, la gente ne ha semplicemente dedotto che fossimo stupide».
Leggendo questo romanzo mi sono sentito stupido. C’è un intero mondo fuori dalla mia esperienza, un mondo che ho solo sfiorato di striscio, compreso fino ad un certo punto. L’unica cosa che posso fare è provare ad ascoltarlo di più, a leggerlo di più, a vederlo di più.

[Rahul Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

#ModernIreland2: At this moment, I feel Edna O'Brien is that one writer I gravitate toward when I want to torture myself. She is viscous in writing stories that destroys me and yet I am marvelled at her style. In this 1996-novel, we follow Mary. She is barely fourteen and doesn't understand much of life in the turbulent Irish countryside. The story begins with her father taking her by the river and then raping her. From there, we follow Mary as she survives further abuse, assault and the stifling nature of this harm on her very comportment. She is debilitating, reducing further as the story goes on. I was shocked at various instances in the novel both for the character and the novel itself. My heart went for Mary and I was shaken with anger and grief at the way she became the Magdalene of Ireland and their dogmatic beliefs. And at the same time, I was amazed by the tact with which O'Brien handled her characters. That an author could write this, the things that she did with such clarity and gusto. Every page rang with heart and its breaks. You found yourself moving toward the character and then seeing them in a broader light. This novel is a rich investigation of religion, and its fundamentalist nature in Ireland. It moves away from the public nature of The Troubles that was its feature in the first instalment. It unpacks religion and the Catholic fundamentalism through the body of the woman. It brings out rural Ireland and its violent antagonisms to light while showcasing a spectacle that had the entire country talking. It is one of those novels which stands as an example of how a writer can write about ideas through a compelling story. For contemporary writers, O'Brien's novel is as much moving as it is an enriching experience to know how to write, and write well at that. I will think of Mary for a long long time. I will always love O'Brien. Come what may. Also, what's with my book choices where I unknowingly pick up books of a father-daughter incest. I have still not forgotten Marquis de Sade, and then this! However, O'Brien does what de Sade could not. She writes a story of a similar incest but with much thought, grit and life. This is how one writes such a novel!.

[Gabrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

well, this is my first time reading edna o’brien, and i certainly have thoughts! first and foremost, there’s no debating the level of talent she possesses. the language and unsentimental, yet meaningful prose is nothing short of genius.
however - it’s kind of like shakespeare… i can acknowledge the genius, and i do, but i just don’t enjoy reading it!

this book in particular was very difficult and very necessary. it centers on a very young girl’s pregnancy at the hands of incest & abuse in the 90s, and how the attitudes of the church and irish government perpetuated the horrors she faced. tons of very triggering and disturbing scenes in this book, but again, an extremely courageous and necessary book.

the writing style was just not my cup of tea. oftentimes overly descriptive for my taste in terms of the natural environment, which feels a bit indulgent for the subject matter of the text. for instance, “outside the window a plump brown bird, the sole inhabitant of the bird table, lifts and lowers its tail again and again, mechanically, like a door latch, and in the wintry sky, the sun is a football of fire with muslins of cloud passing over it, wiping its face.” once again, i obviously am not denying the sheer talent. i just didn’t enjoy the style. it also seemed that sentences were either run-ons or fragments, with little in between.

one more thing-none of the characters are really introduced. there’s absolutely no context on anyone until they show up, and there are lots of characters. for instance, a neighbor will be referenced directly by their first name the first time they appear, or someone the character meets for the first time, but there’s no context given, at all, ever. that’s another thing i really struggled with! can anybody else relate?

i totally see why edna o’brien is canonical women’s irish literature, but i can’t see myself dying to pick up another of her books any time soon. ah well! 3/5 stars for me

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written nearly thirty years ago, this book is even more relevant today than it was then. The picture of lives bound by isolation, ignorance, fear and superstition is searing, difficult to read, and unforgettable.
From Publishers’ Weekly
Inspired by a highly controversial incident that took place in Ireland a few years ago, O'Brien's latest novel (after House of Splendid Isolation) is a riveting and resonating story. Mary, a young teenager, seems an ordinary girl but hides an abominable secret. For years, she has been brutalized and sexually abused by a monstrous father, a crime her victimized mother ignores. Even those--neighbors, priests and teachers--who know Mary and have their suspicions, say nothing. A dreadful silence is maintained in conformance to a society whose view of sexuality has become perverted by a fanatical church and a conservative state. When the forced incest results in Mary's pregnancy, a neighbor does rally to her side, but with disastrous results. Church and state use their full powers to enforce laws banning abortion; the consequences are devastating. Mary metamorphoses from terrified innocent to potential murderess. Her fate thrown into the hands of the ""men in suits"" in the courtroom and psychiatric ward, she is buffeted between the pro-life and the pro-choice camps like a human football, and her case fills headlines and blares from the television. Taking Mary's point of view, and revealing the full horror and pathos of her heroine's plight only gradually, O'Brien creates a stark, unflinching story. But a simultaneous poetic sense also embues the narrative with beauty and grace. O'Brien's early books were originally banned in her native Ireland for daring to put on paper the idea that Irish women had a sexuality at all. Here, she has written a harrowing, punchout of a book that leaves the reader drained. (May)

[Glen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a difficult book, not in the sense of being long, technical, or demanding of the reader in the ways that, say, Mann or Joyce can be, but because of the subject matter and because of O'Brien's long and penetrating gaze into it through the eyes of the person central to it. The novel was inspired by a 1992 case involving the rape of a 14 year old Irish girl and her thwarted attempt to seek an abortion in England. The novel centers on the character of Mary, a 13 year old girl who is raped by her widowed father on several occasions and becomes pregnant by him. From then on, she becomes less a tormented little girl than a political pawn, and O'Brien uses the protagonist to expose some of the hypocrisies of Irish social life and mores. Much has changed in Ireland in the 20-plus years since O'Brien wrote this novel, and cases like Mary's have been eclipsed in public consciousness and conscience by the Roman Catholic clergy sex scandals, but the torment and betrayal felt by her is told compellingly and humanely by O'Brien, and Mary shines through as a survivor, as gold buried by the excrescence left by her father.

[Rita Mahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. I devoured this book in a day. It is a sad story set in a rural town in Ireland. A young teenager named Mary McNamara life is forever changed when her father rapes her. Not only is she not sure what took place, she is too ashamed to say anything to anyone. Her Mother dies and things become worse when she discovers she is pregnant. I don't know which was worse the rape or the fanatical women in the town who are rabidly against abortion for any reason whatsoever. My heart goes out to Mary because she is so alone and although she tries to run away, she is always brought back to her father because in that Irish society a child, especially a daughter had no rights whatsoever. Mary will never reveal who the father of her child is but has given some hints and finally some clues are put together.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Down by the River is an important book for our time, exploring what can happen to young pregnant girls after incest. Set in a small Irish town, the Catholic Church looms large in anti-abortion causes, further resonating in frightening ways in the community where no one has the will to defend the 14-year-old central character. Magdalene, as the press calls her, has no voice, no choice. Men rule the government, the courts, the church. O'Brien's extraordinary writing skills propel the story forward. The background of a beautiful natural world give us hope, all the while, fearing for Magdalene, and all girls who are ignored and shunned after the most horrible abuse. I didn't want to read any more about abortion - but this book is exceptional, important, and thought-provoking. I have a long list of people I'd love to send a copy to!