Maeve Binchy 1939-2012

Maeve was born in 1939, in Dublin, to a comfortable middle class family. Her relatives were lawyers and historians and teachers, and in a sense she was a new breed of Irish writer.  Mostly , previous writers had had a rural background.  Maeve was a Dubliner, like James Joyce but unlike him her family were form the well to do professional classes.

She started out as a teacher but then started to write light journalism and progressed to writing saga and romance type novels.

She attended University College Dublin and then became a teacher in various Schools including a Jewish school.  In the 1960s, she went to Israel to work on a kibbutz and wrote home to her parents about the work and life there.  Her parents were so impressed by her letters that they sent them to a newspaper.  She began to write more travel articles.  She travelled a great deal during the summers when she wasn’t teaching.  She lost her Catholic faith in the 60s when disappointed by the bare cavern she saw in Israel which was supposed to be the site of the Last Supper. 

Gradually she moved into full time journalism.  She had always been a large lady, tall and somewhat overweight.  She had painful osteo-arthritis, which began to limit her traveling and make it more difficult for her to work, but she was always a prolific writer.  In the 70s she met her husband Gordon Snell. They married in 1977 and moved to Ireland to settle down.  Because of her weight problems she had always lacked self-confidence and believed that she would not be likely to marry.  However her marriage to Gordon was a very happy one; they had no children…but they lived together until her death in 2012.

Her weight caused other health problems such as heart trouble, but she always had difficulty dieting.  She was very well loved because she was a warm, kindly sunny natured person, and was sadly missed.

In 1982, she began to write fiction well as her light journalism.  Her articles were mostly jokey ones about people. She would listen to people talking; everywhere she went... and write light but kindly pieces about them.

 Her first novels, such as “Echoes” and “Circle of Friends” were set back in the Ireland of her childhood and teenage years, and were mostly about young girls growing up in rural or seaside towns.  While boyfriends were part of their lives, there was also an emphasis on finding work, managing family problems and female friendships.  I never liked her later novels so much as the first few.  I think I preferred the older Ireland.  After the first 3 or 4 novels, Maeve began to set them in present day Ireland and I found them duller and the characters were less likable.  Another theme was betrayal... Usually men having affairs often with their partner’s female friends.  This theme started to become very depressing!

 She has had some of her books made into TV movies or films, most notably Circle of Friends.  This film came out in 1995 and was a very bad adaptation and completely negated the point of the book… which was that Benny the rather fat heroine grew in confidence and did not depend on a boyfriend, to make her happy.

Glen Campbell

 Glen Campbell was born in the town of Delight, Arkansas in April, 1936 to a poor share cropper family.   He was one of many children. From an early age, he loved music and showed great talent, particularly at playing the guitar. He had his first guitar when he was about 5.

In the 1950s’s he joined his uncle’s small time country band and then formed one of his own.

In 1960 he moved to California to become a session musician, and became part of a group known as the Wrecking Crew, who played on recordings by the most famous and brilliant singers, such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Bobby Darin and many more.  He was such a talented musician that he could always find work.

He made connections through this work and eventually became a solo singer…He had a smooth sweet voice and as the 60s’ progressed he had a string of hits. It was what some call “soft” country pop, and many of them achieved success in the pop charts.  They included Rhinestone Cowboy, Dreams of the Everyday Housewife, Southern Nights, Gentle on my Mind, and By the Time I Get to Phoenix.  One of his biggest hits was Galveston, which was popular with the troops in Vietnam at the time.  His talent at playing multiple instruments and his songs made him a fortune.  He had his own TV show, and gave a helping hand to other singers such as Jerry Reed and later Alan Jackson.

But increasingly in the 1970s he turned to cocaine and alcohol, and went through a series of marriages.   He later said that as a session musician, he was working too hard to use drugs, but later, he became addicted.

He was difficult and sometimes violent and he had an affair with Tanya Tucker which made headlines in the tabloids.

He had some success as an actor, particularly in the John Wayne classic True Grit, but as the 70s went on, the hits dried up. He abused cocaine all the more and it began to take a toll on his health and his personal life.

In 1982, he married his fourth wife, who helped him to get off drugs.  He had a religious conversion, started a new family (he had 8 children in all), and was clean for some years but relapsed very publicly some years ago, when he was arrested for drunk driving.  He said that he wasn’t drunk but that he had been “over served.”

However he checked into Betty Ford and got clean again.  But he was beginning to forget things, and his family were worried about his health.  He eventually was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease.  He went on singing as long as he could, though he had trouble remembering lyrics.  He could still play and seemed to remember chords and music.  Like most country singers, the passion for his work was his life.  As long as he could go on singing and communicating with his fans, he struggled to do so.  Backed by some of his children, he did a series of farewell tours.  However, he eventually had to give up, and in 2014 went into a facility to be cared for.  He has grown worse, and is now very ill and in the last stages of his disease.

Marital breakdown, A snippet from Rough Music

"He yawned and got up from the couch. It was easier to go on pretending, and just stay away a lot, without facing the fact that they were so far apart. He knew that almost everything he did irritated the woman. She hated his visits to his family. She hated his sloppy home habits and his being away. He liked to live in jeans and shirts, she liked to dress up. He wanted to stay home, and eat while watching TV. She wanted to go out or eat formally. He found socialising exhausting, as he was meeting people all the time and he needed a break when he came home. If he’d found Lacy more congenial, he’d have been happy to stay home with her, on his down time. Even as things were, he preferred to stay in, watch TV, slob around the house. Lacy complained and tried to get him to have dinner with her friends…"

Anne Boleyn

I’ve recently completed my “Anne Boleyn” story... Dark Lady, about her possible romance with Thomas Wyatt... who referred to her as “Brunet” in his poetry.  I’ve always wanted to write about Anne and ever since I was about 12 I’ve read numerous novels about her. 
Mostly however they have tended to be very much full of inaccuracies but I still enjoy and re read many of them.  A few are “Brief Gaudy Hour” by Margaret Campbell Barnes, “Murder Most Royal” by Jean Plaidy, “The Concubine” by Norah Lofts, “The May Queen” by Margaret Heys, “Anne Boleyn” by Evelyn Anthony, “Dark Rose” by Cynthia Harrod Eagles. 

There are many new ones which have come out in recent years and I find that they are even more prone to historical inaccuracies than earlier works.

I know that the idea that Anne had a step-mother of lower rank was believed many years ago, but is now proven to be wrong.  But in some ways it can be a good dramatic device for introducing Anne, or showing the Boleyns through the eyes of a woman who is not as rich or grand as them. I had thought of having Anne with a stepmother who was a knight’s widow, who had a daughter... and the daughter would be Anne’s lady in waiting and narrator of the story.  But in the end I felt I had to go with a historically correct set up... I am hoping at a later stage to write some other short stories on Anne, perhaps detailing her later life.

More about names

I am blogging again today on names and names invented by writers.  

With my most recent stories, I have found that I didn’t do as much name changing as I used to. “Beds and Blue Jeans” has the 2 lead characters, Pattie and Sam.   Rather simple names which didn’t have any particular meaning for me, but they seemed to fit.

For my first gay story, “Lovers of the Road” I wanted an Irish sounding name for my young Irishman, so I went with Connor which is a favourite.  Garth Clayton just sounded “American” to me.  (I Love American bible and other names).

In my latest “band” story, “Rough Music”, I was more particular about the names; Jefferson Randles was named after “Jefferson Davis”, because he was a southerner from a poor farming family.  Brandon, from California, had a name that would have been unusual in the UK at that time.  Jeff’s second wife, Claudelle is a name I invented; I wanted something unusual to make Jeff remember her... It was a variant of “Claudine” and sounded French.  Brandon’s wife is Boston Irish, and had a Catholic –sounding Name, Angela, and their two children were called Patrick and Catriona.

I sometimes have chosen names for characters by closing my eyes and poking my fingers into a names book…which is hopeless because then I start reading the things...

A few names I came across lately, invented by writers.  One I like was “Lorna” by the Victorian writer RD Blackmore. His most famous novel is of course Lorna Doone, and he seems to have been inspired by the Scottish place name Lorne.  This was in the news at the time since the Marquis of Lorne, a Scottish nobleman, was marrying Princess Louise, Queen Victoria’s daughter. 

The male names in Wuthering Heights seem to have been invented by Emily Bronte, but they are not much used in real life.  Heathcliff is the anti-hero, and his name is suggestive of his northern background and harsh character.  Hindley and Hareton are the other two names, but I don’t believe I have ever heard anyone using them in real life. Heathcliff is occasionally used, such as by the late film actor Heath Ledger.

Another name is Amanda which means “worthy to be loved”, and seems to have been invented by Colley Cibber the late 17^th Century playwright.

James McPherson, the poet invented some Scottish or Gaelic sounding names for his Ossianic cycle.  He claimed that they were translations of authentic ancient Gaelic poems by the son of Finn McCool… but they were written by himself.  He created some names including Malvina (possibly meaning Smooth Brow”) Fiona, Selma,

Antony Trollope had some pretty awful names, for his characters!  Like Thackeray he followed something of the 18^th Century tradition of giving symbolic names to his characters and they tended to be clunkers.  There is Sir Omicron Pie, Trefoil, for someone interested in Botany, the Quiverfuls who have 14 children.   Mrs Proudie is the name of the arrogant lady who is the “she Bishop” of Barchester.

Plantagenet is the unusual name for his most prominent political character in the Pallisers series – denoting the family’s ancient origins and relationship with the Royal family.   He also seems to have created the name Glencora, for Plantagenet’s wife.  She is Scottish, and it’s possible that Trollope found some kind of similar name during his time in Ireland, when he worked as a civil servant for the Post Office.  He loved Ireland and its people, and gave an Irish name to Glencora’s “true love”, the gambler Burgo Fitzgerald.  Burgo comes from the Anglo-Norman “De Burgh” which the Irish Gaelicised later as “Burke”… and Fitzgerald is also a Norman Irish name.  Other rather weird names he came up with for his women characters include Pomona and Aspasia, which he would have picked up from Latin and Greek in his classical education.  While many of Trollope’s names are awful – no other word for them- I have always liked Glencora.  And his other Palliser women have pretty and conventional names such as Violet, Laura, and Alice…

names invented by writers

I have an absolutely crazy passion for names. I read endless books about them and when writing, I often change the name of my character 3 or 4 times before I feel I have the right one. 

So I’d like to bore my readers with a few words about names invented by writers.  So far I haven’t tried to invent a new name for any character.  But other writers have or have adapted a name they have found and popularised it.  These are just a few, and I’ll possibly write some more later.

The name Corisande has been taken from a character in the Amadis de Gaul, a collect of chivalric romances.  It was used as a poetical name for Diane De Poitiers, the mistress of Henri II of France... Later Disraeli used it for a character in one of his novels... and while it never become popular, it was in occasional use.  

The name Pamela which was very popular in the 20^th century was apparently invented by the Elizabethan Poet Sir Philip Sidney.  It probably means “all sweetness”. 

Vanessa, now very well known, was invented by Jonathan Swift, who used it as a pet name for a lady friend and correspondent... Esther Vanhomrigh…Van from her surname and “Essa” from her first name.

The name Geraldine was invented by the poet, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, as a name for Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a lady he was in love with.  Geraldine was obviously derived from her surname.  Coleridge used the name in his poem “Christabel”, making the last syllable rhyme with “mine” rather than the “Gerald-een” sound that most people use.  The name has always been popular in Ireland.  It can be abbreviated to Gerry, or Dina...

Lucasta, a rarely used name, was invented by the poet Lovelace for one of his loves, a member of the Lucas family.  But the meaning can also be seen as “Lux Casta” or “chaste Light” in Latin.

Review of Beds and Blue Jeans by David Russell

"I think Nadine has achieved something really significant and substantial here. One fundamental thing about it is its high moral tone. Much attention is devoted to the realities and problems of work and becoming self-supporting; whether or not to lean on parents. All this would be totally approved by any social work agency. The story does not flinch from the domestic difficulties with Pattie.

 Both Chloe and Amber show a really high ethical level. Indeed, they want to have their flings and adventures (who doesn't?). But they are both incredibly up-front and responsible with Sam when putting any potential relationship with them in the context of his domestic responsibilities. They lead him on a little, but then firmly put the brakes on. There is further psychological subtlety in the portrayal of Chloe's repressed longings for Sam (I am always grabbed by the theme of childhood playmates/sweethearts growing up. There are similar inclinations, less pronounced, in Amber.

The story ends with Sam and Pattie's convenience relationship gaining real depth and passion; something truly, validly long-term. "

Emily Bronte again

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is in my opinion one of the greatest novels of the Victorian age.  Some critics and readers find it too Gothic, overblown and with violent sadistic characters.  There is a lot of violence and some of the dialogue and action is “hammy” and overdone.

But the novel is true to Emily’s vision of life, which was that the world and universe were harsh and frightening places and that love and hate were fierce passions that were very close together. Like her sister Charlotte, she was drawn to men who were “macho” and capable of passionate love and violent hatred.  (At least Charlotte was attracted by that sort of man in real life and fell in love with a “realistic” version of such a man, Heger, who was domineering, occasionally bad tempered but kindly, whereas Emily perhaps intuitively knew that no real person could come up to her visions so she never seems to have been involved at all with any man.)

 In the second part of the novel as in some of Shakespeare’s plays, a new vision of life is seen to be growing out of the wild and passionate early years.  Emily’s younger characters, Hareton and young Cathy, are less exciting than their parents and Heathcliff, but gentler and more civilised and lovable.  They gave some of the good qualities of the Lintons, but some of the passion of the Earnshaws.

  The novel isn’t a social comedy of manners or a conventional romance; it is more like a dramatic poem or a play so characters are not completely realistic – they are symbolic of various emotions and ways of thinking.  As one critic has said the book is about love, but it is about the painful difficult aspects of love.

Cathy and Hareton have some of the quality of the young lovers in Shakespeare’s later plays, Like Ferdinand and Miranda or Florizel and Perdita…They are touched by the tragedies and drama of the first part of the book and the older characters -but they are able to rise above it and find a new happiness together.  She teaches him to read, civilising him and helping him to learn what he needs to know, in order to take back his inheritance as owner of the Heights and Thrushcross Grange.  Living in Wuthering heights, Cathy has had to become more practical and learn to work, so she has grown from the experience of being with him too.

Irish Names a snippet

Coming from Ireland, as I do, I have always enjoyed looking at Celtic names and in particular Irish ones.
A few favourites, in no particular order are Clodagh, Cliona, and Reiltin...Of men’s names I like Conor, Ciaran, and Ronan...

When I was a kid -mostly, children were named after Catholic saints and almost all girls had the name Mary somewhere in their set of names. There wasn’t much into the way of native Irish names, which were thought of as pagan or new-fangled. However that was starting to change as I grew up… In the 1980s or so, more people wanted give their children an authentically Irish name... And they began to look up meanings and adapt Irish words, to make a pretty and new name. 

So all sorts of new names seemed to crop up. People looked into Irish history and folklore and found names  like Aoife (Beautiful), Cliona (Daughter of a poet in Legend), Reiltin (little star).  Maeve (originally Medbh) meaning “She who makes drunk” – was the name of a queen in Irish legend and has become well known.   In America and Australia, people of Irish descent did the same, often adopting odd spellings to make name seem more “Irish”.  Names of Rivers like Shannon or Slaney or Clodagh became popular- but Megan which is a Welsh name is sometimes re spelled Meaghan because it’s believed to be Irish. Another name which has been popular in Australia is Colleen which is rare in Ireland.

Of male names, Sean, Brian, Brendan and Liam have now become popular enough in the UK for them to be no longer really seen as Irish names... but other male names that are becoming very popular are Conor, Ronan, and Fergus.  These respectively mean “High desire”,   - “Seal” and “Valorous man”.

Dark Lady full version

I have now finished Anne Boleyn's Story, Dark Lady...and it is available here as a separate page on my blog.