“There were birds singing in the convent trees as we crossed the tarmac driveway to the chapel. The birds reminded us both of the same thing. Home was“There were birds singing in the convent trees as we crossed the tarmac driveway to the chapel. The birds reminded us both of the same thing. Home wasn’t such a bad place, after all.”
This story, set in 1950’s rural Ireland, tells of friendship and family, of Catholic repression and developing sexuality. I liked it so much, and can give three reasons why.
First, the character of Caithleen. She is compelling, initially for her awkwardness, then for the tragedies that befall her, but mostly because her personality is developing and we get to see that happen.
Next, for the depiction of life in Ireland for those of humble means. It’s a way of life similar to what I remember hearing about from my parents when talking of their childhoods in the American Midwest. They told of simple pleasures amid the back-breaking work of farming and the constant worrying about survival and whether you “would be able to keep the place.” They told how some people carried all the weight on their shoulders, while others, the ne’er-do-wells, “brought shame on the family name.” Oh, and there was the other category of folks, the ones who “got out,” who dressed up one day in their Sunday best and went off to the city and never came back. These are such familiar stories to me, of a time that was so different than the time we live in now, and I loved revisiting them in The Country Girls.
Last and most important, I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style. Short, simple sentences describing just what you need to know to carry the story forward, and no more. Yet the details included! Each situation we meet with Caithleen is brought to life by evocative descriptions like this that put you right in the scene:
“The windows of the drapery shops were dressed for Christmas with holly and Christmas stockings and shreds of tinsel. I couldn’t see them very well with my flashlight but inside in the shops there were countrywomen buying boots and vests and calico. I looked in the doorway of O’Brien’s drapery and saw Mrs. O’Brien, under the lamplight, measuring curtain material. There was a country man sitting on a chair fitting on a pair of boots, and his wife was feeling the leather with her hands and searching to see if his toe came to the very tip of the boot.”
The Country Girls is the first of a trilogy, and while you could say her girlhood ends in this one, I will definitely read on to the next chapters in Caithleen’s path to maturity....more
“'When man is silent, the stones must speak,’ they said.”
Perhaps Selma Lagerlöf could hear the stones. A quiet book-loving child, she grew up in the b“'When man is silent, the stones must speak,’ they said.”
Perhaps Selma Lagerlöf could hear the stones. A quiet book-loving child, she grew up in the beautiful lake country of western Sweden. After reading her first novel at age seven, Selma wanted to become an author, and it appears she absorbed all the colorful folk tales of her region, blended them with the wisdom of nature around her, and created this remarkable saga of the very flawed hero Gösta Berling.
“But there stood Gösta Berling, the gay cavalier, greeted with joy for his cheerful smile and his pleasant words, which sifted gold-dust over life’s gray web.”
Selma’s father was an alcoholic, which may be the reason drinking is behind almost all the evil that befalls the characters here. (The coming of better times in this story is actually marked by “And no more brandy is made now.”)
Reading this felt a bit like looking at someone else’s family album though. You know what I mean, where the photos are lovely but don’t carry the emotional heft or back story that exists for the family, so you can’t appreciate them in the same way. I can only imagine what the experience would be like if I knew the country well and had heard versions of the tales as a child.
There were places where the story dragged a bit, but others where it glittered with intensity, like in these gorgeous passages:
“Terror is a witch. She sits in the dimness of the forest, sings magic songs to people, and fills their hearts with frightful thoughts. From her comes that deadly fear which weighs down life and darkens the beauty of smiling landscapes. Nature is malignant, treacherous as a sleeping snake; one can believe nothing.”
“If dead things love, if earth and water distinguish friends from enemies, I should like to possess their love. I should like the green earth not to feel my step as a heavy burden. I should like her to forgive that she for my sake is wounded by plough and harrow, and willingly to open for my dead body. And I should like the waves, whose shining mirror is broken by my oars, to have the same patience with me as a mother has with an eager child when it climbs up on her knee, careless of the uncrumpled silk of her dress.”
In the end, I was enchanted by the way this remarkable author wove traditional tales into a satisfying story, full of magic and morality, giving me a glimpse into a long-ago Swedish landscape....more
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