Edna O'Brien's illuminating short stories

the following is a presentation of hocopolitso with support from the Maryland Humanities Council the Howard County poetry and literature Society presents the writing life Colleen Owens professor of English from George Mason University talks with the distinguished writer Edna O'Brien we're delighted to welcome to the studio today the distinguished Irish author at know Brian Edna has been a writer in the irish scene for the past 30 years having made a reputation for herself for her early works in Ireland and Britain when indeed she became not only a an overnight success as an author but also a in time a very important figure in modern Irish culture and and times in the impact that her works had on on the readership in Ireland and on the world at large the image that of Ireland that it gave Edna is very significant then in understanding modern Ireland and I delighted to talk to her today to catch up on what's happened to her since those early days when she was a scandalous woman so welcome at night thank you a scandalous woman I've never myself felt that but I called a story that and it was really a story about a little girl observing an older woman and the romantic life should we say of an older woman but it's odd how the name stuck when my books first came out the country girls was the first I had to put it mildly a rhumb time it was banned but prior to the banning the nuns from my convent in Laurier the head nun wrote to me and said we have heard that you have written a novel we give credence an open mind but we fear so I knew that wasn't an open mind then in my little village tome grainy three copies were abort much to the chagrin or more than that of the parish priest and they were don't die it's so pathetic but it's so funny they were burnt in the grounds of the church these three copies some women are said to have fainted then it was also officially banned there was no happiness for me in any of this but the the biggest or the the most hurtful blow what a Shakespeare caller the most kinda scuttle all was my own family they were very appalled and in retrospect I can understand it there I was one of their daughter didn't see him to be anything out of the ordinary not that I feel out of the ordinary but God gave me a talent and it's God I thank for it not myself suddenly wrote this book which to them seemed an utter disgrace and they were very oh they were awful about it and said my mother said that somebody said to my father the postmistress is always the postmistress she should be kicked naked through the town looking back on it why naked that in itself is a scandal I sister yes and I sent them the book and I had written in handwriting or not mom and dad with love Edna and years after when my mother died I found the country girls among some pillows and linen and it was something I will never forget and perhaps never forgive she had inked out to mom and dad with love Edna but she had gone through the book and you know there's a character called bhava who is a bit bored here he was as the odd word swear word she had inked out in thick black impenetrable ink every offending word and when I saw that and I saw I felt I myself was being mutilated but with the benefit of life and psychoanalysis and reading all of which I think is the education but true education in this world I think I think how awful it must have been for her how truly ashamed and shocked and horrified she must have been and again it's all to do with culture and education it wouldn't happen now there's television there's talk of contraception there's the word divorce is mentioned in Ireland even if it's not allowed but it was in its sense the dark edges now without I also want to say there was a good side to that for me which was I I like raw primitive material and raw primitive feeling it's the source of literature so you have to us they say take the good with the bad although I would have liked a happier and indeed to have been accepted rather than than than a condemned and pillory it at the same time they gave me both my individual parents and my country this peculiar kind of highly strong urvich Bourbonnais mmm-hmm and in a world now like the modern world that we're all in all that is gone the knots all gone but the world is computerized you know there's not much human story languages vitiates it people more or less talk the same language in Ireland there's a great great delight in language and in a way they don't ban books no they don't even take them that seriously I suppose no I'm your own experience is something that is historically significant in that it is one of the one of those that broke the ice for for Ireland in your books are are a demarcation between the that low point in the 50s and the New Ireland that began to come out in the 60s a bit of time yes I think so again I wrote and always do right instinctively I don't ever think who's going to like this book or who's not going to like it if I did I'd be at hospital permanently but I suppose it did first of all probably because it was a female voice and there had been mainly you know male writers including the great ones and we'll come to in a minute it was a female voice twist from a small locality therefore a very enclosed community and in the character of Babur for which I am ever grateful I was able to make fun of certain stringencies of the convent of the Catholic Church and so on I have to may I tell you one little joke about the convent do please the book obviously got to the convent no further letter but not so long ago like last year I was at Edinburgh Festival I was signing some books after and a girl said to me I went to Laurie a convent after you and I said ah she said you know we said the Rosary for you every night of our lives I said what good has it done me they kept it up the Vendetta were you surprised at that reaction and how long it held on I was actually I shouldn't have been but again I there are certain things in this world I don't address myself to like you know I suppose I I hope in that way one hopes within a fairytale that all will be well so I was surprised I was also very stung by it and very hard and the reasons well the reasons are obvious but there's a very central reason which is that writing itself and writers by their nature have a deep we're going to think of Kafka Joyce anyone we love have a deep insecurity they have an authority when they write would often very disturbed creatures and therefore to be attacked especially by your own you know it's like Michael Collins killed by his own when you're attacked by your own not even literary people because you you know that's normal you're praised you're not praised or this and that by literary critics but when you're attacked by your own and made to feel a sinner there was one phrase I'll never forget which said if the country goes and the trilogy this smear on Irish womanhood and what hurt me terribly was I feel things very deeply and I'm only interested in feeling and only people in the world that I love and like and the only writers I love and like are saturated with feeling that is what writing is about rendered in language constable said of his pictures he said I paint emotion well I think what I want to do is to write emotion had I written a clever little book do you know are a funny little book and they attacked me but I think it's a yes to a savage of course a writer of your of your passion and a writer of your commitment right well if you're okay your vocation has got to be independent of what people think you have to be but it hurts I'm sure it does yeah you know I'd be a liar if I you have to be and also I think you get confidence as you go along not about the writing itself each book is harder than the previous one because you have to scrape harder at the side kids you know but you have I have found some wonderful friends who and support over the years and my publisher for instance Roger Strauss was a wonderful publisher they're wonderful because they're glad when you deliver a book and they're read it with great you know and then that's a lot I see yeah that helps and you have also enthusiastic readership in Ireland do you not today I have I I have certainly enthusiastic readership in America judging by last night and in England I have I I think in Ireland one of the things makes me a little sad is I don't think they have read my more recent books I think because the country goes created a star but for instance this book lantern sly it's a book my last book which is a book of short stories I don't think they've read it very much I don't know why well it certainly true that your reputation has enlarged in this country considerably over the past probably 10 15 years because you're appearing in the New Yorker yes the New York readership is amazing because it goes throughout the country and I get masses of letters from The New Yorker do you know forwarded on and I'm always surprised genuinely you know because my world is a fairly limited world in a sense it's a lot of the stories are in Ireland a nun in love with a young girl or vice versa a party to which a girl goes to Irish revel she thinks she's going to a party but she's really only going to wash up and it's that little story that I was nicely accused I think it was by William Trevor of copying the end of the dead because you know in the end of the dead and the snow is all falling softly over and in the end of this story Irish revel it's not snow but it's rain and the narrator who has a bicycle describes this rain falling on swamp on gateposts and then her own house like a little white box at the end of the world waiting to receive her there's almost like a coffin as well as if the house was a coffin so that to go back to having my readers here or readers here it's it's wonderful that that that can be that you know I've for instance love Chekhov and we recheck of all the time and of course that is a totally other world but I identify it because I identify with the pulse of emotion and story and longing longing is one of the things I think that's very central to my I think it's true of everyone well I see indeed in your stories from The New Yorker that you bring the combination of the passion and the vision of of an Ireland that you knew as a child with a very refined sense of technical control that I think is so wonderful why can sister Imelda many of these stories bring an extraordinary balance and judgment that I I think is so effective and I think the New Yorker readership appreciates I wanted to the extent to what extent do you think is your own your own style affected by the fact that you're writing for The New Yorker rather than for the audience for which you wrote the earlier works no it's not in fact they turn down stories as often they no no it isn't any and and I often have little I'm having one present time even as we speak unfortunately they often want to remove the very thing that gives a story it's book you know no I couldn't write for The New Yorker no insult I'm delighted they publish me but no because I couldn't write for any market I can only write it and that's hard enough and we write it but sometimes they take a story that surprises when they take another one they reject Jesse you know it's very arbitrary really yes but I I see that in all your work as you progress through your your career states just it's that vision of Ireland which remains constant because that is the geography of your psychology or psyche your solidity absolutely imaged in that in those terms of the details extraordinary details recollected apparently perfectly from a perfectly remember childhood it's like like George's recollection of Dublin yours of Clare is comparable you find the images there that just give a presence to the feelings that you're expressing that makes your work so distinctive so distinctively Irish as well as so distinctly artistic yes I think the childhood as we know forever anyone in this room are in the world the childhood is the stamp that stamps you it's like branding an animal for better and for worse the entire sensibility your way of looking at things your way of feeling your religion or your revolt against your religion it's everything it's absolutely and the history of the country in this case Ireland the geography the rain the climate that melancholy the daring singing that this that is all I would say it's in my bloodstream yes and I don't you know it's strange I don't for instance say coming in the train here I don't think of images of Ireland I think of Ireland but in a general sense when I'm writing something happens that I suppose happens to writers but it's a bit of a mystery a bit of Road or a bit of a bed of nettles let's say with half of them lodged where they've just been cut and the smell comes to you it's like a visitation this this imagery and I always thank God that I grew up in the country I don't think you see there's nobody like choice which we'll come to in a minute but I don't think if I'd been born in a city that I would have been able to pull together the myriad images of city because they are much harder to do somehow or maybe it is as well that I love the country like last night here the frost and trees and everything so spectral it's so beautiful you know after New York and Ireland is in my bones and in my brain right for which I'm you know they always cross with me that I don't live there but to me I actually it's it's technicality I don't think it's only betrayal of a country not to live in it Samuel Beckett didn't live in it Joyce didn't live in it but they still wrote about their process with them and brought it to the world that's right in a way that people who stayed there didn't and I suppose that's one of the reasons yourself had to leave I'm continuously impressed with the way you wrote your first book I hope I read our viewers realize that I'd never off her first book or in three weeks after you got after after the boat train a nuisance station it really Rose itself it was the easiest book I cried all the time rising it I'd had torture my children were born then I was in my 20s and I was writing this book and they would put because I got in advance for it I got the Nobel sum of 50 pounds $100 from two publishers which I spent immediately I bought domestic things which I thought would please the man I was married to and I brought my children some toys so now I had to write the book and I didn't know what I was going to write just began i wakened quickly and sat up in bed abruptly does only when I'm anxious that I awaken easily for a minute I could not remember what it was that worried me then I remembered the old reason he had not come home my father and in a sense it sets the tone I suppose for all my writing we all long for either a mother or a father or a mother land or a fatherland regardless of what we have had we long for the ideal one but when I was writing it my children who were about four and five at the time used to put notes on I wrote it in their bedroom by the window on a jot are they mr. wood no it's under the dough a little blackmailing notes like we miss you we are lonely for you and all that and it was it was so easy to write because it was as if it had been lying in wait how do you know a first book is always the easiest actually they get harder and you have to discipline yourself more as you go along do your duty write talks like that anymore or still plan I just finished time and tide took me three years and I put the last I did the last word at fairest rose on on Thursday evening I went down with the proofs and in the taxi I'm changing changing and there was one word I hope this doesn't bore you I was trying to think it's a rather distraught woman in this book but there's lots of other things as well but I was trying to think of its of what it is that the word for the thought if you're disturbed the thought and I was trying to think you know the fist of thought I wanted a hard word the kernel of thought and I suddenly this lovely girl fill it I brought in a whole lot of dictionaries and I opened one of the words sediment and it was the perfect word this sediment of thought so that took me three years to do they take longer first of all it's a longer book but also the style the style of the country goes was a very natural simple confessional style that's right but you have to advance from that you have to I still like lucidity in style but I like complexity as well because its complexity that makes everything go well you certainly have I mean your subsequent novels I'm thinking especially of night is clearly a significant change very much more lyrical and and I think in many ways be more mature and powerful work always say to me because in life I think are they think that I'm sort of funny or can be when they called me back here they always say Becky why when you put pen to paper does this terribly gloom take over well in in your early books you had the two that have eternal is that were two sides of yourself I'm imagining you're you're you're extroverts it and you're introverted side and they play against one another beautifully yeah of course that's a wonderful way to deal with with the conflicts yourself mr. Phelps yes with what you felt would be people would perceive as a betrayal of loyalties yeah and it's a struggle between the suicides yourself yeah true and to be to what you to be a nice door sure and to say listen this is a nightmare that's right now I say if I feel it's a nightmare I say it's a nightmare because that's very important because I think fiction great fiction like Proust is a great example and indeed Joyce is a great example although Joyce's prints thing is his language more than his psychology great right sing Tolstoy I mean the psychological delving in Tolstoy and Chekhov and I think when I read a book that I loved it meets many of my needs it meets needs on many of many levels and indeed one of them is psychological of how people are with people of compassion of rage of obstacle of mean it's all it's all part of it I would like you before we go our time is within in torn out and not to read a few sentences or a paragraph from one of you're sure because you read so wonderful we have five minutes I thought we were going to talk about James Joyce Joyce but I think we would love to hear you read because you read so your own works so wonderfully you know the great line I love in Ulysses I love it all and I will wait there the red line is Leopold Bloom in this pub writing to Martha Clifford and aloud to himself he says to his dead son he says love hate these are words Rudy so when I am old now time-wise I wonder if I should only read half of her a little bit a little bit less than we thought okay midnight the great clock and the whole struck the pauses between the chimes are naturally long then the dog barked outside a whole series of yelps growing fiercer fiercer reaching a frothing crescendo and then suddenly stopping as if overwhelmed this dog Tara had never been known to be silenced by any about its master where a stranger now entering the dog even on its fetters would be uncover Noble it must be its master who else could it be it would be awfully inconvenient now if it was him said Betty his wife loudly the knife still poised in the birthday cake the icing beginning to shed from the impact of the blade and yet everyone hoped that it was him John the wandering Odysseus returned home in search of his Penelope you could feel the longing in the room you could touch it a hundred lantern slides ran through their minds their longing United them each rendered innocent by this moment of supreme suspense it seemed that if the wishes of one were granted then the wishes of all others would be fulfilled in rapid merry succession it was like a spell miss lawless felt it too felt prey to a surge of happiness what with Abelard watching her with his lowered eyes his long phone eyelashes soft and sleek as a camel's yes It was as if life were just beginning tender spectacular all embracing life and she she like everyone else were jumping up to catch it catch it Joyce is your we have a minute or two and I would mean it when to leave here without asking you about the figure who enables I think every Irish fiction writer including yourself James Joyce well he's a mountain he's a tabernacle he's a mountain he's a cave he's a woman he's a man he's a child his genius and what he did and the the pain and trial he caused to his own psyche what he did has no match he sent himself into vertigo as you know and escalations of language for which he got very little reward I mean custard make that journey he made as he said himself when he came down into the room where his wife and children were he said I have come back from the Azores I love Joyce I love him as a man I love him as a writer and I think our debt to him whether we're Irish or not but it affects us more when we Irish because it's wonderful to have had such a Godhead right he is a model of what excuse me as a model in every respect I think as a giving us not only his command of language his his his commitment to this artistic vocation Oh exclusive honesty he crucified himself his his courage his faith in his own oh and his belief in his own power so that's something that I see in new to its god-given it is it's not an ego trip you see him some writers I think a ego trip sure it's nice if someone says I like your book but in the moment and duration of creation whether it's an hour or a month it's like being visited and he knew that he went out into the but it's still very where it's hardest actually is combining it with what is laughingly called ordinary life because you're longing to meet someone on that level and in that place an ordinary life isn't like that it can't be so I would think Joyce was excruciating ly lonely as well although he loved you know his wife Nora Barnacle and adored his children the the the the icebergs and crags of his mind would meet no mate they couldn't they couldn't so that he's courage and he's everything one of the things that surprises me about him he was quite shameless about accepting money was very tough about money and felt people should give him money but there's a lovely story I was in Zurich and went to his grave but I met an old woman by now old woman a waitress who knew him she said he was the most generous man with tips to those who needed it well I'm sorry to see that our time is almost gone I'm delighted to have this chance to chat with you and I'm afraid we'll have to end it here but on behalf of all of us here I'd like to thank you for coming today to talk to us thank you you had the hard job a blessing Thanks [Music] among and no Brian's many books are the country girls trilogy a fanatic heart night the highroad lantern slides and tales for the telling these books are available from Farrar Straus and Giroux and Penguin Books

Channel: hocopolitso

Views: 8,340

Rating: 4.8095236 out of 5

Keywords: Edna O'Brien, Coilin Owens, Irish literature, Lantern Slides, Tales for the Telling: Irish Folk and Fairy Stories, The Country Girls Trilogy, A Fanatic Heart, Night, The High Road, Ireland, fiction writing

Id: zBVYp6W_zGk

Length: 29min 44sec (1784 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2018