Virago Monthly Reads: December 2018 : Kate O'Brien

I haven't yet seen a December author thread, so checking back our original list I see we are reading Kate O'Brien this month.



From Wikipedia:
Kathleen Mary Louise "Kate" O'Brien was born in Limerick City in 1897. Following the death of her mother when she was five, she became a boarder at Laurel Hill Convent. She graduated in English and French from the newly established University College, Dublin, and she then moved to London, where she worked as a teacher for a year.

In 1922–23, she worked as a governess in the Basque Country, in the north of Spain, where she began to write fiction. Upon her return to England, Kate O'Brien worked at the Manchester Guardian. After the success of her play Distinguished Villa in 1926, she took to full-time writing and was awarded both the 1931 James Tait Black Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for her debut novel Without My Cloak. Kate O'Brien is best known for her 1934 novel The Ante-Room, her 1941 novel The Land of Spices, and the 1946 novel That Lady.

Many of her books deal with issues of female agency and sexuality in ways that were new and radical at the time. Her 1936 novel, Mary Lavelle, was banned in Ireland and Spain, while The Land of Spices was banned in Ireland upon publication. In addition to novels, she wrote plays, film scripts, short stories, essays, copious journalism, two biographical studies, and two very personal travelogues. Throughout her life, O'Brien felt a particular affinity with Spain—while her experiences in the Basque Country inspired Mary Lavelle, she also wrote a life of the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila, and she used the relationship between the Spanish king Philip II and Maria de Mendoza to write the anti-fascist novel That Lady.

O'Brien wrote a political travelogue, Farewell Spain, to gather support for the leftist cause in the Spanish Civil War, and it has been argued that she was close to anarchism in the 1930s.2 A feminist, her novels promoted gender equality and were mostly protagonised by young women yearning for independence. Kate O'Brien's determination to encourage a greater understanding of sexual diversity — several of her books include positive gay/lesbian characters —, make her a pioneer in queer literary representation. She was very critical of conservatism in Ireland, and by spearheading a challenge to the Irish Censorship Act, she helped bring to an end the cultural restrictions of the 1930s and 40s in the country. She lived much of her life in England and died in Faversham, near Canterbury, in 1974.

I have That lady, Without my cloak and Mary Lavelle on the TBR pile, so I will try and read at least one of those this month.

What about you?

Thanks for creating the thread, Claire. The weekend kind of got away from me and I forgot to do it.

I'm planning to read That Lady.

Thanks ladies! I actually own no Kate O’Brien but we shall see if that’s the same at the end of the month and if I’ve managed to read anything by her... 😉

I have five novels by her and will attempt to tackle either The Land of Spices or As Music and Splendour (possibly both).

>5 europhile: I liked both of those.

I intended to start reading Mary Lavelle on the train this morning, but was foiled by having to stand in a packed carriage. I'm looking forward to comparing this one with No more than human, which is also about the Irish women who went to work as governesses in Spain.

I just finished Mary Lavelle (4****). I don't know if I'm going to get to anything else by her before year's end. I've got The Land of Spices around somewhere and I'd really like to give it a go, but I have some other reading to get to in the next couple or three weeks.

I enjoyed Mary Lavelle, though a bit less than O'Brien's other books that I've read. The depiction of Spain is wonderful, and I loved the secondary characters of the Irish governesses who Mary comes to know, but I would have liked a bit more of the daughters who are her charges rather than the in-depth study of the father and son of the house. Mary's own growth is well developed as she journeys from innocence to experience. It was quite different in tone to No more than human, which was quite humorous with the heroine frequently falling into misadventure, whereas Mary Lavelle is a serious book - although the governesses provide humour in their scenes.

I'm now reading That lady which is set in C16 Spain at the time of Philip II. Ana de Mendoza, Princess of Eboli is our heroine and she makes the perfect observer of the politics and society of her day.

That Lady was my pick for this month as well, but I've fallen behind in my reading and haven't gotten to it yet. There's still hope, unless a library request comes in right after Christmas.

I’ve succeeded for once and have just finished Farewell Spain! It was certainly interesting but I have slightly conflicted feelings about it. I’ll ponder a bit and link my review here when it’s up! 😁

My review of Farewell Spain is now up:

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/but-this-is-the-twentie...

Comes with a gratuitous picture of my shelf of Virago Travellers! 🤣🤣🤣

> 12 Lovely photo and an excellent review! The anti-Moorish attitude was thankfully missing from the two of her Spanish novels that I've read, although Mary Lavelle does contain some bullfighting scenes.

I finished That lady and was very impressed by it. The story of Ana De Mendoza, Princess of Eboli, is a fascinating one, and she comes across as a woman of strong character and high principles. She is a widow when the book opens, retired to her estates and planning to enjoy watching her youngest children grow up in peace. However, since childhood she has had a strong friendship with the king, Philip II, and he draws her back to Madrid, the centre of high society and politics at that time. She meets again one of her husband's close friends and colleagues, Antonio Perez, and they begin an affair. When Philip inevitably finds out he is enraged - although he has never really wanted Ana in that way himself, he wants to believe that she is devoted to him alone. Complicating matters further is the murder of a senior political figure that was carried out on the king's orders, and these two plots entwine to change Ana's life in a way that she could never have predicted. Ana, Philip, her devoted maid Bernardina, her youngest daughter Anichu, even most of the minor characters, come to life in the book, as do the landscape and culture of Medieval Spain. This novel is generally considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and I can see why. I'm very glad to have read it.

>12 kaggsy: Brilliant review, Karen. My favourite sentence is this one: If she decries the colonisation of parts of Europe by the Arabic world that’s a heap of steaming hypocrisy from an author from a European world which colonised left, right and centre.

I was inspired to read That Lady this month after traveling in Spain last summer. Prior to that visit, I knew very little about the cultural/religious development of Spain (Moors, Jews, Catholics), only that the Inquisition and the Civil War happened so obviously considerable context was lacking. I found the history fascinating. This sounds like an interesting book, however, I haven't succumbed to collecting the Virago Travellers as of yet!

>13 Sakerfalcon: Claire, I got as far as the murder of the senior political figure, but now I have a book group deadline looming so I've had to set it aside to read another book instead. Having read your thoughts on That Lady, I'll keep it on my nightstand as a reminder.

>13 Sakerfalcon: Thanks Claire! O'Brien certainly knows her Spanish history, as this is often on display in Farewell Spain, so I'm not surprised her novel captures it so well. Maybe I *will* read one of her novels at some point! :D

I've been a bit slow to post but I finished The Land of Spices about a week ago. I hadn't realised it was set in a convent school until I started it. This made comparisons with Frost in May, which I had only read in November, somewhat inevitable. Although it took me quite a while to read, this was no reflection on the quality of the writing. In fact I liked it a lot, particularly the portrayal of the two main characters and their occasional interactions. As it was first published in 1941, it counts for this year's 1940s read also so that's a bit of a bonus!

I would very much have liked to read That Lady and Farewell Spain also, given the comments above, but they will have to wait for another opportunity.