![]() It is still a well written book (I wouldn’t expect anything else from Edna O’Brien), but I do think it’s the weakest book in the series. Already from the very first page, as a reader you think ‘Not again!’ and you doubt this will end well. After reading the last book in the trilogy, it seems that Edna O’Brien read a lot of Thomas Hardy growing up. If ever there was a sarcastic book title – this one is a winner. Edna O'Brien created two lovely, curious, spirited characters in Baba and Kate. This is The Country Girls trilogy, for goodness' sake, not The House of Mirth (another ironic title!). What is going ON here, I wondered, in puzzled disappointment, turning the pages of the darkly depressing epilogue. The fates are far grimmer, the outlook far bleaker than O'Brien had led me to expect. While Baba's brash perspective does provide some levity, the story plunges into depths (melodrama?) I hadn't bargained for. The couples barely even know one another, are unspeakably cruel at times, and at best, tolerate each other. O'Brien does a good job of depicting marriage as more of a religious and societal construct than a loving partnership. Instead, the conclusion to this otherwise balanced series was extremely dark and pessimistic. Maybe not winning the battle, but forging their own ways, or at least trying. but I did have expectations of their countering what they were up against. It's not that I expected them to come through intact and unscathed, and that I could read this book while laying on the beach, giggling and sipping a margarita (ha!). ![]() I felt disappointed because in the first two books, Kate and Baba broke the mold of what was expected from good Catholic girls in the 1950s. That moment when you realize your spouse is your deepest disappointment, and the knowledge that you are theirs. Instead, this story, in a decidedly minor key, tells the carnage of marriage and infidelities. No harmless flirtations going on to amuse and interest. And I knew, with a sinking heart, this wasn't the sure thing I hoped it would be. However, when I noted the decidedly dark direction this was going, it became apparent to me that O'Brien might have had other reasons for using bad-girl-Baba as the main narrator. Not long ago Kate Brady and I were having a few gloomy gin fizzes up London, bemoaning the fact that nothing would ever improve, that we'd die the way were were - enough to eat, married, dissatisfied. She's the irreverent, thick skinned rebel of the two, the one you love to hate, or is it the other way around? Anyway, I sure did enjoy seeing things from her point of view for once, right from the first sentence: Baba starts off as narrator, which is a notable switch. Right away though, I sensed something was different. ![]() Oh, to be in Kate and Baba's world again, what a salve! So when I reached for Girls in Their Married Bliss it was with a knowing smirk. I was thrilled by the natural ease in which they are written, and was taken in by the compelling journey of two best friends making their way through life in 1950s Ireland. The Country Girls and The Lonely Girl are two delicious, delightful literary treats. Lately, I've been reaching for "sure things" in my reading life. The consolation is that it has, by far, the best title. So when This novel, the third in Edna O'Brien's trilogy, is my least favourite of the three. This novel, the third in Edna O'Brien's trilogy, is my least favourite of the three.
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