Her style of writing is different from a traditional narrative but it soon captured me and the story was enveloping. ( )

Another of my favorite Irish writers is Edna O’Brien born in 1930 in County Clare. She is a novelist, a poet, a playwright, and short story writer. Her first novel, The Country Girl, dealt with woman and their repression during the period following World War II. The book was banned, burned, and denounced from the pulpits. As a result, she left Ireland, and now lives in London. Among her admirers, she counts Philip Roth and the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson.

Wild Decembers, published in 1999, continues the all-too-frequently told sad story of woman in Ireland. Joseph Brennan owns a sizeable piece of land adjoining that of Mick Bugler. Mick left Ireland to open a sheep station in Australia, and he made a nice fortune in the process. He met Rosemary there, and promised to marry her once he established a farm back in Ireland. One of the first things he does is buy a tractor, which, aside from the noise, aggravates a lot of the local farmers – partly through jealousy and partly through their cantankerous nature.

Joseph Brennan runs a prosperous farm with his sister, Breege. He also rents land from surrounding owners for grazing and cutting of peat. When Mick offers more money for access to these lands, Brennan’s ire slowly rises to the boiling point. A series of lawsuits threatens to bankrupt Brennan. To complicate matters, Breege has fallen in love with Mick, and they begin an affair. Joe tries to keep the two apart without much success. Then, one day, Rosemary appears at Mick’s farm.

Bugler hosts a dinner at his farm, and it falls to him to be “the mother” and serve the stew. O’Brien writes, “Sleeves raised, he ladles the stew onto the upheld plates. Says he can’t be too particular as to who does or does not like onions. Give them to your neighbor. Old Bill Muggavin with no teeth walks around looking for a place and tells the floating streamers that he lost his clock fifteen years ago. Words of praise for Bugler’s expertise. Comes from being on a sheep station. Fifty men in the mess. Half and hour at most for lunch or dinner. Lambs and sheep in their thousands, waiting. Funny you never got hitched up, Mick. From Josephine. Doesn’t answer. Rosemary’s face becoming fainter with the passing days. Not able to summon her up the way he used to, lying in his quarters at night, her photograph falling out of the last letter. Rebuke” (31-32).

O’Brien does it all here, the quirky characters, pub fights, jealous neighbors, scheming men, and woman, and always the story which takes a conversation off on a tangent. Edna O’Brien has written dozens of books, including a biography of Joyce and a fictionalized account of the great romantic poet, Lord Byron. But Wild Decembers is a wee book, and fine, fine place to start your exploration of this first rate Irish writer.

--Jim, 11/9/13 ( )

The story takes place in the west of Ireland. On a windswept mountain, Mick Bugler has come to claim his inheritance - land left to him by an uncle who has recently died. The land borders on that belonging to Joseph Brennan and his sister Breege. What starts out as having the beginning of friendship soon deteriorates as Bugler claims more and more of the adjoining land as rightfully belonging to him. Feuding has been the lot of the Buglers and the Brennans for over a hundred years, and as the story unfolds the reader knows that things are not going to change. In Romeo and Juliet fashion, Bugler and Breege fall in love, adding fuel to the hatred growing within Joseph.

This is my first book by O'Brien. I thought the writing was lovely, and I found the book hard to put down once I got into it. I didn't love the book, but will definitely try another by this author.

Read May 2014 ( )

I couldn't get into it at all. I gave up. ( )