The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue in Constant Reader

Apr 29, 2008 Wilhelmina Jenkins rated it really liked it

Shelves: novel

Reading this trilogy was an interesting experience for me because I read the first two books, The Country Girls and The Lonely Girl, as a teenager back in the '60s. In my opinion, those two books held up very well. Kate and Baba are best friends, although Baba frequently treats Kate, the more scholarly and sensitive girl, quite unkindly. Ultimately, the girls, later women, are the constant factor in each other's lives. Searching for a life beyond their restrictive small town life and convent sch ...more

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Aug 10, 2008 Yulia rated it liked it

What a roller coaster this put me on. While reading it, I was sincerely frightened for the characters and for my own fate in life, I pounded the pillow in helpless distress and needed to be comforted by Frank that, if it made me feel so much, she must be doing something right. But it was agony, not beautiful agony, but masochistic, call-your-therapist agony. The pain it induced was more than I'd bargained for. As I approached the end, I thought, this is a work I want to own, to add to my colecti What a roller coaster this put me on. While reading it, I was sincerely frightened for the characters and for my own fate in life, I pounded the pillow in helpless distress and needed to be comforted by Frank that, if it made me feel so much, she must be doing something right. But it was agony, not beautiful agony, but masochistic, call-your-therapist agony. The pain it induced was more than I'd bargained for. As I approached the end, I thought, this is a work I want to own, to add to my colection while is already filled in terms of shelf space. This is a book I can't forget and don't want to, like a tragic ending to the closest friendship of my life. And just an hour after finishing it, it felt as if a pillowcase that had been blinding me had been lifted. IO saw everything more clearly. How could O'Brien put me through such pain? Did she realize there was not one sympathetic male character in her entire trilogy (excepting Snowie perhaps)? Did she want women to call of romance and seek only the comfort of female friendships? Was life truly such a lost cause? Was there nothing to be gained or learned from our experiences? And now I'm left feeling deceived by her, as if I'd been caught up in a man-hating cult of abandoned women who still craved their drug.

This book was torture, good torture, then cruel torture, then unnecessary torture. I want my grounding on reality back. May no single woman in search of true companionship read this book. May no woman in a failing relationship read this, either. May no man waste his time on it. No, this book didn't end up a failure. It was sentimental, but saved by its humor, and deeply moving as only a roller coaster that has been derailed can move you.

Looking back on this destabilizing half-week experience in which I could do nothing but read this book or worry about reading on, for fear I would be further traumatized, I remember now who it was whore assured me as I cried in hopelessness or went into a panic. Yes, it was my partner, a concept that O'Brien's characters cannot fathom in this chronicle. What I'm left with is a love-hate relationship. I hate this book for torturing me as it did, but I love it for invoking such strong feelings. Thank goodness there is life outside this trilogy. If this were an accurate portrayal of human relations, I think I'd kill myself.

But my fault was in over-identifying with the literate and romantic Caithleen, even as she proceeds to lose her grip on reality. Warning: these characters are extremes. I wouldn't identify too closely with any if I could avoid it. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at dividing the literary world from the literal world.

Good luck to readers and have a supportive partner or an excellent therapist should you choose to read this. I regret recommending it to my mother.

Some lines I wanted to remember, for one reason or another (no use questioning their profundity):

"He was only a shadow now, and I remembered him the way one remembers a nice dress that one has grown out of" (p. 179, not this edition)

"I used to think of my life as a failure, purposeless . . . until I got older and became aware of things. I now know that the problem of life is not solved by success but by failure: struggle and achievement and failure, on and on" (p. 220).

"He directed documentary pictures but was always buying leisure, as if in the course of leisure he must found what he had been ordained to do" (p. 391).

"'Baba, why did you do it to me?' he said. Useless to say that I hadn't thought of him when I was doing it. Useless to say that I always thought your acquaintanceship with one person had nothing to do with another" (p. 471).

"She closed her eyes on the thought that sleeping with a man was unimportant. A nothing, if nothing in the way of love preceded it. Or resulted from it" (p. 500). ...more

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Jul 22, 2008 Barbara rated it really liked it

Edna O'Brien catches the details of a culture and a period of time that seems to have occurred one hundred years ago rather than in the early 1960's. She writes with an honesty and lack of sentimentality that drew me into the story and the characters. My criticisms are all minor compared to those qualities. ...more

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Aug 08, 2008 Gail rated it it was amazing

Shelves: irish-themes, 2009, 2008, constant-reader

I've only read the first part so far; waiting for the complete edition from Amazon.

O'Brien captures perfectly, in my opinion, the era and place she is concerned with. Not as downtrodden as "Angela's Ashes" by any means, but certainly far, far from sweetness and light. The pervading sadness and sense of claustrophobia subsuming the girls' lives struck me as true to life. The Catholic upbringing and the narrowness of the girls' options reflect my memories of those days pretty well. (Of course, we ...more

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Jul 31, 2008 Linda Aull rated it really liked it

Shelves: maindishfiction

This was just the kind of book(s) I've been yearning for. It's pretty melancholy, but I love any survival themes, especially friendships that survive through time. I understand that these are O'Brien's early works, and are harbingers of the good to come, so I am eager to read some of her more mature pieces.

I've read many comments about the shift in narrator for the third book, but I really liked it and thought it was an authentic and refreshing change. Caithleen/Kate was so passive and completel ...more

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Oct 23, 2007 Dottie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ocitylibrary, classics-corner, 1001-read, 2008

"Life, after all, was a secret with the self. The more one gave out, the less there remained for the center--that center which she coveted for herself and recognized instantly in others. Fruits had it, the very heart of, say, a cherry, where the true worth and flavor lay. Some of course were flawed or hollow in there. Many, in fact. "
— Edna O'Brien (The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue)
...more

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Jul 20, 2008 Al rated it liked it

Shelves: 2008-books

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this trilogy and epilogue. I started out just planning to read the first book, but I got hooked. This is not the type of book I normally think of myself liking. It was also really fascinating to watch O'Brien's style and voice develop over the books. ...more

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