The Country Girls. Edna O'Brien

THE COUNTRY GIRLS is an original "coming of age" story that traces the transit of its narrator, Caithleen, from the end of her childhood years in an Irish village to independent young adulthood in the city in the 1950's. It honestly follows the natural roll of life through comic and tragic circumstances of growing up. It is episodic with one overarching motif supplying the tension and plot points, Caithleen's naïve idea of love and romance supplied by the increasing attentions of a melancholic married man from the village, the aptly named Mr. Gentleman. Caithleen's village is a carefully balanced world unto itself where life is so precious that no one will forfeit an alcoholic parent or a friend like Baba, another school girl who can be maddeningly self-interested. Life is not perfect there, but there is much to love, and when several events occur nearly simultaneously--the accidental death of her mother, the loss of the family farm to debt and a scholarship to boarding school--Caithleen is wistfully forced to move on. The middle of the book concerns life at a hellish convent school with Baba, who eventually schemes their way out and into life in Dublin. O'Brien is a master of character development and is attuned to the rhythms of youth and life within a community. I really knew next to nothing about this novel or its author when I came to it. The Plume edition's back cover refers to the narrator as "Kate." Her name is never spelled that way in the book. I understand that this book became the first in a trilogy and was made into a movie several years ago.

Written at a very young age, THE COUNTRY GIRLS established Edna O'Brien very early as an important Irish novelist, and in later books she would continue the adventures of her two heroines here, Caithleen (Kate) and Birdget (Baba), in their search for love and a place in the world. This comic novel is very much in the tradition of number of other much-loved comic Bildungsromans by other twentieth-century women novelists: I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith, THE PURSUIT OF LOVE by Nancy Mitford, and (perhaps surpisingly) GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES by Dorothy Parker. As in all those other novels, the central two characters are used as contrasts: Kate, the narrator, is bookish and romantic, while the hardedged Baba is out for experience and novelty. The settings of ruined country estate, convent school and Dublin boarding house add to the novelty of o'Brien's work (as does the simple lilting prose), but the greatest treat here is the character of Baba: pragmatic, mocking, alternately cruel and sentimental, she is one of the funniest characters in this subgenre of fiction , and one of the most memorable.

Caithleen Brady and Bridget(Baba)Brennan are friends in a poor rural area in Ireland. Written in the first person by Caithleen we see through her eyes a poignant portrayal of friendship, family, first love and disappointment. Edna O'Brien writes in what could only be described as a haunting manner. A gentle coming of age story which follows the girls through the death of Caithleen's mother, the shiftlessness of her father, a scholarship to a convent and their expulsion. The gentleness of Caithleen is a foil to the bright sharpness of Baba, who manages to mislead Caithleen against her better judgement; though she is her friend and anything they do they do together. There are numerous wonderful unique characters: the endearing Hickey, Baba's parents, Joanna the German boarding house proprietess and the enigmatic Mr Gentleman (though that is not his real name - he has a difficult French name so the neighbours changed it to Mr Gentleman). "The Girl With The Green Eyes" continues the adventures of Caithleen and Baba and is as good as "The Country Girls"