The novelist and playwright died on July 27th, aged 93
Irish novelist, playwright and poet Edna O'Brien
Jul 31st 2024
They burned her book. Priests denounced it from the pulpit; in her hometown they burned it in the parish grounds, after the rosary. Some people, Edna O’Brien’s mother told her, had even fainted as it was burned. That must have been the smoke, she had retorted. There was no shortage of people telling her how angry everyone was. Some said they wanted to lynch her. One said there would be a stoning next. The local postmistress said she should be kicked naked through the town. Later, she wished she had queried that one: why “naked”?
The Catholic Church wasn’t much of a one for nudity in the 1960s. Or for her books, which also had nudity in them. Not to mention sex and breasts and gussets and sinful black knickers—and sinful married men who slipped their hands into them. “The Country Girls”, one archbishop said, was “filth” which “should not be allowed inside any decent home”. It was “a smear on Irish womanhood”, while she herself was “corrupting the minds of young women”. The Irish Censorship Board banned her novel upon publication. She even had her own books confiscated from her: when she arrived in Dublin Airport, customs officials seized the copies that she had in her suitcase. She was furious; less at the prudishness than the price: she’d just lost £5-worth of books.
There hadn’t been many books at home. Her mother thought that the written word was sinful. The only real books in the house were prayer books and a cookery one: “Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management”. It had recipes for boiled cabbage and an egg-yolk stain on the pages. Growing up in her small Irish village she managed to get hold of only one novel: a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” which had circulated around Tuamgraney—but by the page, and not in order. One day you might get page 204; and the next day, the first: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” She herself dreamed of writing—much to the distress of her mother. When her first book came out, her mother had blacked out the rude words in good, thick ink, then hidden it.
Catholicism would steal words from her—but first it steeped her in them. In the beginning, for her, were its words. She grew up with the Bible and with the psalms; with Church Latin and with “amo, amas, amat”; with Ave Marias and with the words of the monthly Irish Messenger. The Messenger cost three pence and had a picture of the blood-red, sacred heart of Jesus on the cover. It brought the Good News of the world to come to the people of Tuamgraney, and bad news from the world beyond. It warned of the influx of “hot rhythm dance bands” and of the red ruin of communism. She liked it because it had a “Thanksgiving” column (“Bleeding from nose stopped, Success of school in needlework examination…Gangrene averted”). The local mothers liked it because if you rubbed Jesus’s sacred heart with a wet finger, the ink came off and could be used as rouge (another red ruin).
Its words would rub off on her own fingers, too. For the rest of her life whatever she wrote would be filled with a similar blend of the sacred and profane; with convent-educated girls who prayed to the name of Jesus then swore with it; who said “Christ” and “eejit” and “arse”; who handled wicked black brassières with pale, pure, rosary-bead fingers; then used those fingers to do very impure things with older men.
Her mother was appalled by her writing. She had always feared bodily defilement in all its forms: after male guests left, she used to smell the cushions to see if they had farted, then aired the seat covers all night if they had. She had lived in fear of hell, which was as real to her as the turf in the fire. Sometimes, if a sod fell from it, her mother would catch it with her bare hands, to test her strength for the future flames of eternity.
She feared her daughter would end in them. She had always wanted her to put the harness on her imagination and on her heart. But Edna did neither. First she fell in love with one of the nuns at her school (she too, she vowed, would become a nun and sleep by her beloved in a hair shirt, on iron springs, immune to passions). Then she fell in love with the works of James Joyce (she too would write such luminous, labyrinthine sentences).
And then she fell in love with her future husband, another writer. They fled from Ireland—that land of strange, throttled, sacrificial women—and eloped, ending up in a mock-Tudor house in London. She made him toast and Earl Grey tea and sponge cakes, and made herself look like a happily married wife. In the quiet moments, she wrote her first novel and wondered how long her own throttled, sacrificial life would last.
The answer came when she gave him the manuscript of “The Country Girls” to read. When he finished it he said: “You can write and I will never forgive you.” Nor, after it was published, would many others: she was a “Jezebel”, said some; she was a “nymphomaniac”, said others.
But she was feted as well: Philip Roth was an admirer; Richard Burton rang the doorbell and popped in to recite Shakespeare; Marlon Brando dropped by one evening for a glass of milk. That evening was chaste—but there were affairs, too. Male writers leered: a Vanity Fair profile called her the “Playgirl of the Western World” and noted in prose less good than hers that “her breasts abound” (in what, was not clear). The women’s libbers tutted: all this writing about love and mistresses was not liberating.
She did not care. She didn’t feel strongly about the things that they felt strongly about. She felt strongly about childhood and truth and lies and about the real expression of feelings and about love. Her loves didn’t last—but her love of writing did. To the end of her life, she would retain that urgency to write; to make out of nothing some little thing. Perhaps the two were related. For who would go through the terrible purgatory of writing if they were not lonely? In the end, for her, was the word.
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Article Text:
Obituary | The Country Girl
Edna O’Brien’s books scandalised Ireland
The novelist and playwright died on July 27th, aged 93 Irish novelist, playwright and poet Edna O'Brien Jul 31st 2024
They burned her book. Priests denounced it from the pulpit; in her hometown they burned it in the parish grounds, after the rosary. Some people, Edna O’Brien’s mother told her, had even fainted as it was burned. That must have been the smoke, she had retorted. There was no shortage of people telling her how angry everyone was. Some said they wanted to lynch her. One said there would be a stoning next. The local postmistress said she should be kicked naked through the town. Later, she wished she had queried that one: why “naked”?
The Catholic Church wasn’t much of a one for nudity in the 1960s. Or for her books, which also had nudity in them. Not to mention sex and breasts and gussets and sinful black knickers—and sinful married men who slipped their hands into them. “The Country Girls”, one archbishop said, was “filth” which “should not be allowed inside any decent home”. It was “a smear on Irish womanhood”, while she herself was “corrupting the minds of young women”. The Irish Censorship Board banned her novel upon publication. She even had her own books confiscated from her: when she arrived in Dublin Airport, customs officials seized the copies that she had in her suitcase. She was furious; less at the prudishness than the price: she’d just lost £5-worth of books.
There hadn’t been many books at home. Her mother thought that the written word was sinful. The only real books in the house were prayer books and a cookery one: “Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management”. It had recipes for boiled cabbage and an egg-yolk stain on the pages. Growing up in her small Irish village she managed to get hold of only one novel: a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” which had circulated around Tuamgraney—but by the page, and not in order. One day you might get page 204; and the next day, the first: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” She herself dreamed of writing—much to the distress of her mother. When her first book came out, her mother had blacked out the rude words in good, thick ink, then hidden it.
Catholicism would steal words from her—but first it steeped her in them. In the beginning, for her, were its words. She grew up with the Bible and with the psalms; with Church Latin and with “amo, amas, amat”; with Ave Marias and with the words of the monthly Irish Messenger. The Messenger cost three pence and had a picture of the blood-red, sacred heart of Jesus on the cover. It brought the Good News of the world to come to the people of Tuamgraney, and bad news from the world beyond. It warned of the influx of “hot rhythm dance bands” and of the red ruin of communism. She liked it because it had a “Thanksgiving” column (“Bleeding from nose stopped, Success of school in needlework examination…Gangrene averted”). The local mothers liked it because if you rubbed Jesus’s sacred heart with a wet finger, the ink came off and could be used as rouge (another red ruin).
Its words would rub off on her own fingers, too. For the rest of her life whatever she wrote would be filled with a similar blend of the sacred and profane; with convent-educated girls who prayed to the name of Jesus then swore with it; who said “Christ” and “eejit” and “arse”; who handled wicked black brassières with pale, pure, rosary-bead fingers; then used those fingers to do very impure things with older men.
Her mother was appalled by her writing. She had always feared bodily defilement in all its forms: after male guests left, she used to smell the cushions to see if they had farted, then aired the seat covers all night if they had. She had lived in fear of hell, which was as real to her as the turf in the fire. Sometimes, if a sod fell from it, her mother would catch it with her bare hands, to test her strength for the future flames of eternity.
She feared her daughter would end in them. She had always wanted her to put the harness on her imagination and on her heart. But Edna did neither. First she fell in love with one of the nuns at her school (she too, she vowed, would become a nun and sleep by her beloved in a hair shirt, on iron springs, immune to passions). Then she fell in love with the works of James Joyce (she too would write such luminous, labyrinthine sentences).
And then she fell in love with her future husband, another writer. They fled from Ireland—that land of strange, throttled, sacrificial women—and eloped, ending up in a mock-Tudor house in London. She made him toast and Earl Grey tea and sponge cakes, and made herself look like a happily married wife. In the quiet moments, she wrote her first novel and wondered how long her own throttled, sacrificial life would last.
The answer came when she gave him the manuscript of “The Country Girls” to read. When he finished it he said: “You can write and I will never forgive you.” Nor, after it was published, would many others: she was a “Jezebel”, said some; she was a “nymphomaniac”, said others.
But she was feted as well: Philip Roth was an admirer; Richard Burton rang the doorbell and popped in to recite Shakespeare; Marlon Brando dropped by one evening for a glass of milk. That evening was chaste—but there were affairs, too. Male writers leered: a Vanity Fair profile called her the “Playgirl of the Western World” and noted in prose less good than hers that “her breasts abound” (in what, was not clear). The women’s libbers tutted: all this writing about love and mistresses was not liberating.
She did not care. She didn’t feel strongly about the things that they felt strongly about. She felt strongly about childhood and truth and lies and about the real expression of feelings and about love. Her loves didn’t last—but her love of writing did. To the end of her life, she would retain that urgency to write; to make out of nothing some little thing. Perhaps the two were related. For who would go through the terrible purgatory of writing if they were not lonely? In the end, for her, was the word.
Amazing, thank you