[5PQ]∎ Read Gratis Mother Ireland A Memoir Edna O'Brien 9780452280502 Books

Mother Ireland A Memoir Edna O'Brien 9780452280502 Books

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Mother Ireland A Memoir Edna O'Brien 9780452280502 Books

Prolific Irish writer Edna O'Brien was born in Western Ireland in 1930. MOTHER IRELAND is her first nonfiction book. It is a memoir and was written in 1976. O'Brien comments on the title of her book: "Countries are either mothers or fathers...Ireland has always been a woman, a womb, a cave, a cow, a Rosaleen, a sow, a bride, a harlot, and, of course, the gaunt Hag of Beare."

In 1979 I entered the University of North Florida to pursue a degree in literature. In 1986 I was a charter student in the University's Irish Studies program. Irish books were difficult to find in America at the time. A local bookseller ordered a trilogy of O'Brien's early novels for me...including her debut novel THE COUNTRY GIRLS (1960).

But it is O'Brien's short stories that depict the 20th century Irishwoman and tell the true revolving story of Mother Ireland. Stories like A Scandalous Woman, The Love Object, Sister Imelda, and Mrs. Reinhardt. Unattractive characters like "fat, stolid, uninspiring" Hilda (Love) in The Small Town Lovers.

Philip Roth and Frank Tuohy comment on the writings of O'Brien. In his introduction of THE FANATIC HEART: SELECTED STORIES OF EDNA O'BRIEN, Roth relates:

"You see a country and a culture impressing itself deeply on this writer. The country is Ireland, and from the evidence available, she is more succubus than mother. The need to escape is visceral. There is a sense of protest in these stories, but it is often concealed or channeled into pain, perhaps because the author is a woman. The aggression takes the form of an arresting and unfaltering scream. When the background is rural-even barbaric-there is a rawness and earthiness..."

And the academic Frank Tuohy, in an essay about James Joyce, says that while Joyce was the first Irish Catholic writer to make his experience and surroundings recognizable, "the world of Nora Barnacle had to wait for the fiction of Edna O'Brien."

By all means, read this memoir about growing up in Ireland and view the countryside in her beloved Eire ...but find other portraits of 20th century Irishwomen in the characters of O'Brien's short stories.

Postscript: The jacket cover shown with this book belongs to the first UK edition of Mother Ireland. I found a nice copy in a bookstore in County Cork in 1999. I gave it to my alma mater, The University of North Florida, for an auction to promote Irish Studies. O'Brien's memoir "sold" quickly...


Tags : Mother Ireland: A Memoir [Edna O'Brien] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. First published in 1976 and long out of print, a colorful memoir by the accomplished Irish novelist gracefully recounts the author's coming of age in rural Ireland against the background of Irish history and the customs of her village. Reprint. 15,Edna O'Brien,Mother Ireland: A Memoir,Plume,0452280508,Authors, Irish;20th century;Biography.,Ireland;Social life and customs;20th century.,Women and literature;Ireland;History;20th century.,20th century,Authors, Irish,Biography,Biography & Autobiography,Biography & Autobiography Literary,Biography & Autobiography Personal Memoirs,Biography & Autobiography Women,Biography Autobiography,BiographyAutobiography,Childhood and youth,Historical - British,History,Homes and haunts,Ireland,Literary,O'Brien, Edna,O'brien, Edna - Prose & Criticism,Women,Women and literature,Social life and customs

Mother Ireland A Memoir Edna O'Brien 9780452280502 Books Reviews

Excellent book. A warm intellectual stream, poetry really. O'Brien writes impressionistically of the history, and her memories of Ireland. Have a glass of wine, and read it through once a very pleasurable task.
I wonder how many readers picked up this innocuous-looking little book thinking it to be another shamrock-bedecked little souvenir from the dear old island. It's coruscating and ambitious. Edna O'Brien eviscerates the sacred cows and spatters the pages with their carcasses. This is from a now-obliterated Ireland of only three decades ago, but much of it reads as if a hundred years ago at least. The opening chapter, in which she narrates the mythic and the historical origins of Ireland, dazzled me with its accomplished polyphony. The photos are typical, I suppose, of the sort that any reader will have before seen, but the captions and the comments that O'Brien appends deserve attention, as do the unfortunately uncredited excerpts from readings that she scatters throughout, especially that of the visit to the Garda (police) house full of drunken men in uniform that is cooly set down in prose out of another O'Brien, pen name Flann.

The only let-down from this was its unevenness. As the book progresses, it reveals more an uncertain tone. Later chapters feel to me unsure of what O'Brien or the editors meant them to convey autobiography? travelogue? social analysis? memoirs? They gradually coalesce loosely into an account of her own maturity and flight to London from Dublin from the Co Limerick village where she was raised, and are worthwhile, but they do make for quite a change from the opening chapters.

A good follow-up from two decades later would be, if read with a considerable amount of grains of salt, Rosemary Mahoney's "Whoredom in Kimmage Irish Women Come of Age." The jump from these scenes in 1976 to those in 1994 is amazing, and these have only accelerated since Mahoney's stops. Today's unrecognizably permissive Irish cultural shifts would not have been possible without such as Edna O'Brien, who like Flann O'B, mixed satire and bitterness with affection and pride in the people of their stubborn island.
THIS BOOK WAS NOT WHAT I THOUGHT IT WOLD BE. JUST ANOTHER SOUR GRAPES PICTURE OF IRELAND. I WAS LOOKING FOR A HAPPIER TOME
If it wasn't because of what the British government did in Ireland, I would have never emigrated in the US.
very flowery, slow moving not up to the level of many other Irish writers, not suited to my taste such as history or amusing recollections
It was missing so much information- seemed like a private diary. I followed it up with Country Girl written in Ms. O'Bian's later years with greater detail.
I don't know what I was expecting from this book, but somehow it was not delivered. I had read Little Red Chairs and am planning a trip to Ireland and was intrigued by the author's reputation. One gem I did find was a picture of "holistic healer" who may have inspired the character in her latest work.
Prolific Irish writer Edna O'Brien was born in Western Ireland in 1930. MOTHER IRELAND is her first nonfiction book. It is a memoir and was written in 1976. O'Brien comments on the title of her book "Countries are either mothers or fathers...Ireland has always been a woman, a womb, a cave, a cow, a Rosaleen, a sow, a bride, a harlot, and, of course, the gaunt Hag of Beare."

In 1979 I entered the University of North Florida to pursue a degree in literature. In 1986 I was a charter student in the University's Irish Studies program. Irish books were difficult to find in America at the time. A local bookseller ordered a trilogy of O'Brien's early novels for me...including her debut novel THE COUNTRY GIRLS (1960).

But it is O'Brien's short stories that depict the 20th century Irishwoman and tell the true revolving story of Mother Ireland. Stories like A Scandalous Woman, The Love Object, Sister Imelda, and Mrs. Reinhardt. Unattractive characters like "fat, stolid, uninspiring" Hilda (Love) in The Small Town Lovers.

Philip Roth and Frank Tuohy comment on the writings of O'Brien. In his introduction of THE FANATIC HEART SELECTED STORIES OF EDNA O'BRIEN, Roth relates

"You see a country and a culture impressing itself deeply on this writer. The country is Ireland, and from the evidence available, she is more succubus than mother. The need to escape is visceral. There is a sense of protest in these stories, but it is often concealed or channeled into pain, perhaps because the author is a woman. The aggression takes the form of an arresting and unfaltering scream. When the background is rural-even barbaric-there is a rawness and earthiness..."

And the academic Frank Tuohy, in an essay about James Joyce, says that while Joyce was the first Irish Catholic writer to make his experience and surroundings recognizable, "the world of Nora Barnacle had to wait for the fiction of Edna O'Brien."

By all means, read this memoir about growing up in Ireland and view the countryside in her beloved Eire ...but find other portraits of 20th century Irishwomen in the characters of O'Brien's short stories.

Postscript The jacket cover shown with this book belongs to the first UK edition of Mother Ireland. I found a nice copy in a bookstore in County Cork in 1999. I gave it to my alma mater, The University of North Florida, for an auction to promote Irish Studies. O'Brien's memoir "sold" quickly...