The Green Road by Ann Enright

 

Ann Enright’s The Green Road, eventually, is a family saga, but its characters cover a large part of the globe before joining forces in the grist of events back home. But this microcosm that is the Madigan birthright becomes by association something much broader, not only a mirror of contemporary Irish society, but also linked to some of the grander issues that characterize our time.

The poem, “This be the verse” by Philip Larkin, comes to mind, not only because of its portrayal of the role the mums and dads play in family life, but also for two other reasons. First, its title alludes to readings in church, to verses that are perhaps Biblical as well as secular. In contemporary Ireland, the role of the Roman Catholic Church, once unquestioned and unquestionably served, once paramount, has diminished. It may not have diminished as a source of guilt and underlying neurosis as much as the general society will admit.  But things have certainly changed. Secondly, Larkin‘s poem bids farewell with the instruction, “And don’t have any kids yourself”. Fortunately for the plot of The Green Road, Ann Enright has her matriarch, Rosaleen Madigan, turn a deaf ear to such advice, or perhaps she simply never heard this command. She had four and they shared the family life that was created for them, went their own separate and individual ways, and then returned, long after their father died to share a Christmas together.

We first meet Rosaleen undergoing a hospital procedure, a biopsy on something that has appeared. Her years are advancing, and she feels the need for change. Perhaps she should sell the house… She muses on the past, present and future and hopes to see her children, now dispersed a class across the globe. At one stage, Dan was destined for the priesthood, a life in the missions, ministering human kindness to those in need. He did finish with his girlfriend, but never took the route that would have led to Holy Orders, thus unwittingly leaving the global charitable acts to a sibling, who acted in an official capacity.

What happens to these children is crucial from the for the book’s plot. From their diverse lives and distant places they return to the family home for a Christmas get together. There are now children, Rosaleen’s grandchildren, children of her own children, doubly corrupted, perhaps, in Larkin’s terms. There are partners as well. There is alcohol. There are stalled careers. There are the hopes and aspirations of modern people involved in a modern world which seems to have left Rosaleen behind, now alone in her County Clare house that is filled with memories. Amongst her children, there are drinking problems, failed relationships, and quite a lot of sex. They are a pretty normal lot, if normality applies to anyone in particular.

“And half at one another’s throats” is a final line in one in the particular stanza of Philip Larkin’s “this be the verse”. But when the Madigans meet for their communal festive celebration, it is the other half that shines through, the half that Larkin did not describe. At least on the surface…

Notwithstanding the tension caused by differing economic status, the need to advertise public happiness via possessions, decayed Catholicism and known but not advertised sexual preferences that a generation before would have produced public damnation, the siblings cooperate via festivities and compete via interests as Rosaleen, their enduring mother, pursues the sale of the family house. It is worth quite a bit, especially in the Ireland of today where people might carry around four hundred euros in their wallet as small change. And so, the siblings compete, differ, recognize the paramountcy of their mother’s needs, but cannot escape the pressures of their own lives or the need to find solutions to problems they have dreamt up. And so together, they prepare their Christmas dinner, with most of the work falling on the sibling that always takes the load.

The Green Road of the title refers to a journey that Rosaleen undertakes unannounced, thereby causing panic amongst those left behind. She does not go far, but rediscovers an unmade track with old houses, yes, in ruins, nearby. All this, this mess of family life, must have happened before, to other families in the past, and will be repeated in the future with different actors, in different places, with different scripts. It is what we are and, despite what Philip Larkin might opine, we are all part of the process, for if we weren’t, there would be no one to write the verse. And we must all be thankful that Anne Enright has the vision and skill to create this moving and surprising tale.

Light of Evening by Edna O’Brien

The Light of Evening by Edna O’Brien is a deceptively complex book. It deals with relationships between two women, Dilly and Eleanora, who live very different lives some years apart. They are both women, but they come from different generations. They are both Irish, but they seem to belong to different countries, as well as different eras. They both leave their homeland to seek fortune, but on wholly different terms and to different places. They both seem to stumble into relationships with men, some of which involve marriage, and cope in partially successful ways with the challenges posed by maintaining the terms of engagement. The complications in the relationship between the two women, Dilly and Eleanora, arise because they are mother and daughter.

At the start, we meet Dilly, the mother, who is in hospital in Dublin. Her years have advanced. She is seriously ill and about to undergo a procedure. Her youth flashes before her sedated eyes. She travels from Ireland to the United States and we follow a developing life in New York as it moves from promised opportunity to promised opportunity, only to find that reality usually imposes its surprisingly mundane results. Wiser, but only marginally richer, Dilly soon finds herself repatriated for family reasons.

We meet Eleanora via scenes from her marriage. She too has left Ireland, but she has personal reasons and she has pursued education. She seems to be in control, at least potentially in control of her life options. She is apparently free to choose and we see her relocate for professional rather than menial reasons. But she seems to spend as much of her time and energy analyzing her relationships with men as pursuing her professional goals. The turns in her life are unpredictable, often unfathomable. They have a gloss of normality imposed by obvious consumption, personality created by likes and dislikes and achievement realized through opportunity. It is a life that presents a vivid contrast to the life of Dilly, whose own journey was imposed by a need to make a living first and a personal space second.

But the real complication arises because these two women, doing what women do a generation apart are mother and daughter. Letters exchanged form a major part of the book’s substance, specifically letters between mother and daughter. These letters often do not appear to say very much, but then that becomes a crucial point in the narrative. Deceptively simple, they can also deceive by not saying what the writer wants to say, by not communicating what the reader wants to hear.

Overall the plot of Edna O’Brien’s novel dwells almost exclusively on the nature of the relationship between mother and daughter, the difference and similarities that make their lives. It travels the world that surrounds their different generations, drawing sharp contrasts but also recognizing remarkable similarities. It’s a book that walks well-worn paths, but arrives at new experiences for the reader. Rather than the substance of life, it is the spaces between, whether large or small, that captivate. And, by the end, we realize that for all our complications, we individuals are generally ruled by self and can often be driven by quite mundane, but devastatingly relentless material concerns.