Kate O’Brien An Irish writer

Apart from Joyce, Ireland has not produced that many novelists. It is a land of writers, but usually they wrote poetry or plays or short stories. Kate O’Brien, who came from a middle class family in Limerick, was born in 1897, and she is one of the best known women writers of her time. Generally, the novel is a middle class form of writing, usually giving a semi realistic picture of society and romance.. and so it isn't that popular in a society that lacks a middle class. Ireland was divided between a large and impoverished rural working class and an upper class who were Protestant and of English origin and usually isolated from the poorer people. In the later 19th century, however, the farming classes began to buy out their farms, and the Catholic middle class of professionals and business people began to expand. (Kate's father had risen from poverty to running a successful horse trading business). Kate moved to England as a young woman and started a career in journalism and writing. Her novels were usually about young Irish women. They were usually love stories and many of them turned on some kind of illicit love. Kate O’Brien was brought up Roman Catholic but as a young woman, although she retained an interest in the faith, she became agnostic. But she was sympathetic to Catholicism. She married, in England, but her marriage was not a success and ended in divorce. Kate began to engage in relationships with women. So in some ways, her novels may have used illicit affairs as a coded way of dealing with her own socially unacceptable sexual feelings. Most of them were banned in Ireland, because their shocking subject matter. She lived in Ireland at times, but she spent much of her life in England and died there at the age of 76. In “Mary Lavelle”, her novel about Spain, she writes of a love affair between Mary, a young Irish woman and a young Spanish man who is married. Another reason why novels were not all that popular among Irish writers was that novels in the 20th century often turned on adultery as a plot point. (They still do.) In Ireland at that time, the rigid Catholic ethos meant that sexual misbehaviour was considered utterly outrageous. People were simply very naive about sex and sexual issues. Books which mentioned it were usually banned. Kate had a couple of novels banned, sometimes because of adulterous storylines and sometimes because of references to homosexuality.

Johnny Cash (1932-2003)

Johnny was born in Arkansas in 1932, and originally named “JR Cash”. He was one of a large family of poor farming people. When he was a child, the family moved to Dyess, Arkansas to take part in a government project. His family took on a cotton farm, during the Great Depression and made a bare living. Johnny was devoted to his older brother Jack, who wanted to become a preacher. He was deeply traumatised when Jack died in a horrible accident at a sawmill, at the age of 15. Johnny’s relationship with his father was always difficult. His father was a man who had lived a hard life and he was often harsh with his son. Johnny went into the army at the age of 18, and served in Germany. He got engaged to a young woman called Vivian Liberto, and maintained their relationship by correspondence. He was a prolific letter writer. He was extremely fast at sending and translating Morse Code, so he worked as a signal operator. During this time in Germany, he began to toy with the idea of a musical career. He had a strong voice and his family, like many of the rural community, sang gospel songs at home….and in the Army he sang and took part in a band. On his leaving the services, he returned to America and married Vivian, but he still longed to have a career as a singer. Vivian was never as keen on the idea. He found a job as a salesman, in 1954, in Memphis Tennessee, and they started a family. They had 4 daughters, Roseanne, Tara Kathy and Cindy. Johnny began to sing, with a new band, the Tennessee Two, and got a contract with Sam Phillips and Sun Records. Increasingly, country singers had begun to write their own material and he was a brilliant and prolific song writer. His songs spoke of his family background, about poverty and marriage, about love and hate. He had a deep and powerful voice. He and the Two gradually went on from being a small time band to greater success. But he was working extremely hard and spending time away from his wife and children. To keep going, on long drives, like many touring musicians, he took to using pills, which were not illegal drugs, but which were highly addictive. He was tempted by other women, and he and his wife became unhappy and estranged. She didn’t like the musical career, which entailed separations and made it easier for Johnny to justify taking drugs and flirting with other women. His drug use began to affect his performances. He was a no show for concerts or was so drugged that it affected his voice... He was banned from singing at the Opry, for kicking out a line of footlights. In spite of his faults, of wild behaviour, and drug abuse and marital problems, Johnny was at heart a decent man. He never abandoned his Christian faith and struggled to overcome the problems in his life that made him act badly. He became involved in a relationship with June Carter, who worked with him, and was a talented singer, in her own right. She was a member of the famous Carter music family and was married… but the relationship became the most important in his life. His wife didn’t want to give him a divorce but eventually she did let him go. June, who had tried over the years to help Johnny to quit drugs, became his wife in 1968. She and Johnny had a stormy marriage. June was devoted to him but he occasionally flirted with other women and he never overcame his dependence on drugs. June sometimes left him to stay with her daughters, to get a break. She and Johnny had one child, a son, John Carter Cash, and between them, they had a family of 7. There were Johnny's four daughters by Vivian and June had had 2 daughters, Carlene and Rosie, by her previous husbands. (Both of June’s daughters used the name Carter professionally and both were singers). He also had a career as an actor, taking part in TV movies and TV shows. He played a retired gun fighter in Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, and an episode of Colombo. He made another film to draw attention to illiteracy. There was one based on one of his songs, the Baron, about a snooker player. As Johnny grew older, his health began to be affected by the drug and alcohol use, but he still worked hard. He was involved in charity works, taking a particular interest in the cause of people in prison and the Native Americans. He was famous for his prison concerts. He felt an affinity with people who had done wrong, because he was conscious of his own flaws and mistakes. He was brought up in a conservative environment, in the South, but he overcame many of the prejudices that he had learned. In the 1960s, he was unsure about the Vietnam War, understanding the views of the students who protested and feeling that the war might not be justified, but still supporting the soldiers. In the 1980’s, he teamed up with 3 other great singer-songwriters, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson to form the “super group” The Highwaymen, which toured extensively. Later on, Johnny, having become something of a “back number” in the charts, had a resurgence of interest with the general public because of his “American Recordings” and his famous video for the Nine Inch Nails song, “Hurt”. He used a new producer Rick Rubin -and recorded several albums with a very simple arrangement… In 1997, he had to give up touring abroad, because he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but he continued to work and record. He was very ill, with pneumonia but survived. He and June spent more time in Jamaica at their farm there, because the climate suited him. But he worked as much as he could. He was told that the Parkinson’s diagnosis was wrong, and that he had a neurological condition called Shy Drager Syndrome, which affected his nerves. The diagnosis was later again altered to autonomic neuropathy associated with diabetes. His eyesight was also poor because of diabetes….and he began to have to use a wheelchair. But in spite of health issues that might have made most men retire, he kept on working as best he could. June began to have some health problems. and in 2003, she died during a routine heart operation. Johnny only survived her for 4 months. He went on trying to work, in spite of everything, but he died in September 2003.

Michael MacLiammoir Gay Icon and actor

Michael Macliammoir with his partner, Hilton Edwards, were highly important figures in the history of Irish Theatre in the 20th century. The 2 men lived together as a gay couple, at a time when homosexuality was illegal in both Britain and Ireland. Like many men of that era, they were open about their sexuality, but in a discreet way that did not impinge on conservative people, so most tolerated them as a couple. They were popular figures and their talent and charm helped to make their sexuality less of an issue than it might have been. They were playwrights, actors and directors. Michael was a fluent Irish speaker who wrote several volumes of diaries in the Irish Language. They founded the Gate theatre in Dublin which attempted to bring foreign and avante garde theatre to the Irish people, while the Abbey Theatre promoted Irish works. MacLiammoir claimed that he had been born in Ireland but that his family had then moved to England. However, he was born Alfred Wilmore in the London suburb of Kensal Green, in 1899. His family were English. They were more or less lower middle class and he had no Irish connexions at all. As a boy, he became a theatre actor and worked with a young Noel Coward. He was interested in the arts and in writing, as well as acting, and as he grew older, he became aware of his sexuality. As a young man, he became interested in the Celtic Literary Revival, which had been popularised by Yeats and other Irish writers. He learned to speak and write Irish, and studied Irish literature. He changed his name to the Irish version of Michael, and translated his surname “Willmore” to MacLiammoir, a roughly Irish equivalent. Many believed that he had been born to an Irish family living in London… He moved to Ireland during the war years, partly to avoid conscription, and had formed a close loving relationship with a young woman which was platonic. She later died of TB. He and Hilton formed a partnership in the 1920’s and lived together, working for the theatre. He worked with Orson Welles, who started his theatrical career in the Gate. Later Michael played Iago in Welles’ film “Othello”. His acting style was very theatrical and might be considered “hammy” and he continued to play “young man” parts when he was well into middle age. He was talented and greatly beloved in the world of theatre and in Dublin. He became almost blind in later years. He died in 1978 and Hilton died a few years later.

Emily and Wuthering Heights Part 1

Emily is famous for one novel and her poetry, unlike her sisters, she only wrote this one work. Charlotte, who lived almost to the age of 40, wrote and published four novels, many stories and some poetry. Anne, who died around 30, also wrote poetry and 2 novels, Agnes Grey and Tenant of Wildfelll Hall. It has been said that critically speaking there is only one Bronte –Emily. Many critics feel that Charlotte’s novels are uneven and that Anne’s works are slight. But Emily’s one work is a great novel. I tend to agree. I think that Anne’s works are slight and overly moralistic and that Charlotte (while she has real talent) was often preposterous. Jane Eyre has wonderful early chapters about Jane’s childhood, but the later plot shows her lack of knowledge of the upper classes. The bigamy situation, which is probably meant to make Rochester more sympathetic, only makes him ridiculous. Her experience of the world was limited, but she chose to write novels that demanded such knowledge. She never mixed in “high society” except for a brief time, after her first novels were published. As a child, she wrote from imagination and reading the newspapers. In Shirley, she made an admirable attempt to write about the Luddite riots earlier in the century, which meant researching into the industrial and social history of Yorkshire. However her mixing of stories based in “society” and “real life” with the passionate and wild emotions that were very much part of her character tended to create very uneven works. Emily’s one novel is more unified. Unlike her sister, she didn’t bother very much about “normal” social life. She lived contentedly as a recluse, only mixing with her own family… and knowing little of the world other than what she had learned from her short times as a teacher or in Brussels. So there is not the same divergence between 2 different sorts of writing, in Wuthering Heights. The novel is “Gothic”, but it is not set abroad in some exotic location, but firmly rooted in Yorkshire. Charlotte said that Emily knew nothing of the “world” but she heard old stories of life in Yorkshire. At that time, rural Yorkshire was very isolated. People lived in a small circle, and were often obsessed by family feuds going back for years. So the fact that the Earnshaws and Lintons were the only 2 “well to do” families of any social standing, around Gimmerton, is not unrealistic. By setting her novel in the late 18th century and in the rural wilds of the county, Emily avoided having to deal with “society” which she knew very little about.

Rough Music, sex and drugs and rock and roll

I have now published “Rough Music”. It is not a romance; it’s about people who are a bit older than the “very romantic” age, who are 30-ish and trying to sort out problems in life, rather than looking for a perfect love affair or marriage. Jeff and Brandon are two guys, who are good friends, and work together. They are both trying to work out how far they compromise in their work lives and how they try and manage a music career, with its frequent traveling and still maintain contact with their wives and families. They want to do real music that they love, rather than concentrate on commercially successful stuff, but they also need to earn a living. This is in its way a historical story, set in the late 1970s, so attitudes are not the same on many issues as they are now, but there’s fun, sex and I hope some real life in there! I find writing about older people, who are not at the age when love and finding the perfect partner are all important. Jeff and Brandon are married, they have children, they have work problems and problems with friendship. I know that some readers wont like their attitudes, but they were of their time..

Emily Bronte a short post

I’ve been reading a short book on the Brontes by Margaret Lane. It is not an in- depth study, but covers talks given to the Bronte Society by Lane, who was an author in her own right. I want to write a longer piece about Emily someday but the book threw up a few ideas for me. It is called the “Drug like Bronte Dream”. Lane believes that all of the Brontes had a capacity for ignoring ordinary life and living in an imagined world, which gave them scope for their writing. In real life, they were the children of an Irishman (Patrick Brunty), from a very poor background. He had raised himself to becoming a clergyman of the Church of England and a modest success as Curate of Haworth in Yorkshire. He changed the spelling of his name to Bronte and married an English girl, by whom he had 6 children. But while he had done very well, they were still poor by middle class standards. Patrick lost his wife – she died of cancer when the children were very young. Then he lost 2 of his children when he sent them to a school which he hoped would give them a good education. The school was horrifically harsh. The two older girls - Maria and Elizabeth -were taken ill and died. He removed Charlotte and Emily and took them back home to educate them himself. Patrick's stipend was small but enough to keep him and his children frugally. He had to help his girls towards earning a living when he was gone. He had particularly high hopes that his only son Branwell would do very well and would get a good job. Branwell was clever and more outgoing than the girls, and he had talent at writing and painting. Patrick expected that his daughters might have to go out as governesses, this being almost the only form of employment allowable for genteel girls. So he was anxious to have them well educated also. The children socialised a little, with the local gentry and other clergy families but they were very shy and awkward and were happiest in their own family circle. At home, they were able to foster their imagination by writing. They created entire fantasy worlds, Gondal and Angria, and from an early age wrote stories about their characters. What was unusual about this, Lane points out, is not the creation of a world or writing and acting out stories. That had been done by other children and even other families of children who were creative. From childhood, they “wrote” books in such a way as to make them look like small print books. They wrote in tiny print because paper was so expensive, but they wanted the “books” to look like real published books. The four children spilt up into two pairs, Emily and Anne creating and writing about Gondal and Branwell and Charlotte writing about Angria. They read the papers and used characters from the news of the day, such as the Duke of Wellington, as material for their stories. Charlotte was able to “switch off” from normal life and hypnotise herself into the world of her characters, to literally “see” them, while she was busy with routine things. Emily too, was happy when helping with housework and cooking. She also could go into her private world of imagination while doing the household tasks and work out her plots and “see” the people she was writing about. Charlotte was very shy and socially awkward, but she did her best at times to mix with people. However Emily seemed to reject completely “normal real life” and to choose to live entirely in the imaginary life she had created for herself. She never worked as a governess, unlike Charlotte or Anne. She went to a school after the disastrous school where her sisters had died, but she was unhappy away from the moors. She then spent a few months as a teacher in a private school called Law Hill. Later she was a pupil teacher in a respected Brussels school, with Charlotte. She never made any friends outside the family, and lived for her writing and her rambling on the moors.

THE RIDE (SONG)

The Ride is a country song recorded by David Allen Coe, an “outlaw” country singer... It was on his album Castles in the Sand in 1983. Written by Gary Gentry and J.B. Detterline Jr, it's about an encounter between a drifting singer, hitchhiking towards Nashville, who gets a ride with a country singer who looks ghostly –half drunk and hollow eyed. They listen to the radio and as he looks at the driver, he realises that this is no ordinary ride. The driver asks him if he can “make folks feel what you feel inside”. As he lets the man out of his car so that he can drive back to Alabama, the hitch hiker thanks him. He replies “You don’t have to call me Mister, Mister; the whole world calls me Hank”. And he realizes it was the dead Hank Williams. The song has a chilling quality, helped by Coe’s delivery. I like it particularly because it hits so clearly at the appeal of country music. People who think that it is commercialized schmaltz don’t understand the deep meaning that it has traditionally had for poor “country” people. Most of the older singers, now beginning sadly to leave us, came from impoverished hard–scrabble backgrounds, sharecropping families in the southern states. It appeals in most countries where there is a rural base and where people have had to work hard to make a living… It has always been popular in Ireland and Scotland and the North of England. Also in Scandinavia and in parts of Eastern Europe. It’s usually sneered at by the well off and the sophisticated. For people of that time, music was one of the few entertainments that they had. They were too poor to go to the movies often; there were no theatres, not many books, and no TV, but most houses had some musical instrument. They could listen to the Grand Old Opry on the radio. Hank Williams wrote songs that appealed to the people he came from, whom he played for. People who were poor, struggling to live, who had stormy lives, trying to bring up children on too little pay, where a love betrayal was a tragedy... Many of his songs came from his love hate relationship with his wife Audrey and his own despairing addiction to pills and drink. And he could make people feel the pain that he suffered; make them believe that he felt their pains…-and that’s what makes a great country singer.