Great works are imperishable. The Country Girls Trilogy transcends from its original publication in 1960 to today with the same depth and validity.
It is about the human, about friendship, about the feminine perspective of the world, with its obstacles and why not, also with its moments of splendor.
Kate and Baba are two friends who have shared everything since childhood, with that feeling of fulfillment that comes with advancing along a path of life that is alien to the artificial, filled with the primary sensations of the human being in a basic environment such as the Irish countryside, a terroir that they find oppressive but that also achieves that feeling of necessary integration of two souls towards survival.
The autobiographical tinge of the work cannot be ignored, and its negative repercussion on that own land that I referred to earlier. The dark Catholicism prevailing in those parts did not take on anything well the fierce criticism from the literary point of view, from the images and symbols.
Because Kate and Baba relate their imperative need to escape from this open country prison. They, as women, took advantage of mutual support to seek new horizons beyond the endless days of recollection in the deepest Irish homeland.
Dublin was not the promised land they could have imagined either. Only in London did they find glimpses of freedom, despite the fact that their marriages years later gave off a similar sense of disenchantment with their role as married women.
The world appears to be a closed book to Kate and Baba, an argument of their lives drawn in structured lines without marginal notes or draft. But neither of the two will give up facing life with all its edges.
Enjoy love and your passions, accept pain as part of a struggle towards liberation ...
Kate and Baba, when they are mature, will know they are ready to undertake any new alternative life. Marriage, children, the maddening feeling that the will of being is captive to the consideration of the feminine as something subsidiary.
Literature in abundance with a vindictive intention. O'Brien jumped into the literary arena in the 60s with this vital story that, despite reluctance, was prolonged in the next two parts that make up the volume. And beyond the will to claim a space always denied, O'Brien also knew how to write great novels with a dose of humor as a palliative placebo for disenchantment. A story brimming with humanity, authentic friendship and absolutely captivating characters.
You can now buy the Country Girls Trilogy, the great book of Edna O'Brien, here: