Friends, lately I went on holiday to the Country Of Great Writers, aka the Republic of Ireland. Would highly recommend, 10/10 experience! It should go without saying that I was in a book shop as soon as possible upon landing in Dublin, and was determined to get my hands on a book by an Irish author, preferably also set in Ireland. I’ve been reading lots of truly amazing Irish books lately (blog post coming soon), so was very excited to find a little Irish gem and keep exploring the truly vast and astonishing Irish literary heritage.
Enter: Edna O’Brien. A name I had heard and read many a time, without ever having picked up a book by her or knowing much about her at all. As is so often the case, what draw me to House Of Splendid Isolation, which is the book I ended up buying that day, was the cover. I am a sucker for a hard-hitting cover and let me tell you, when I saw that black and white image of a house by the sea with the washing blowing in the wind, I knew I had found exactly what I had been looking for. Because what the Irish excel at when it comes to writing, is to write the kind of stories that will have you feel things.
And I love those kind of stories! The more existential and close to sobbing I feel after having read the last page, the better. Let’s just say Edna O’Brien understood the assignment. House Of Splendid Isolation is set in western Ireland during the Troubles and I would say it is as much a thriller as it is an exploration of Ireland at a highly violent and political time. It follows Josie, an elderly widow who is living in a big house in a remote part of the country. Her abusive husband has died some time ago and she is just minding her own business, when a fugitive IRA terrorist comes into her house and seeks refuge there.
It is clear to her that this man will not hesitate to kill her should she provoke him or try to alarm anyone, and so they live side by side, slowly getting to know each other a little and perhaps more importantly, starting to see each other’s point of view. To Josie, McGreevy is a terrorist, someone who has killed innocent people and wants violence. McGreevy says he is fighting for a free Ireland that is not being dominated by the British. There are no easy answers here, their differences cannot be explained away. But slowly, as they endure this bizarre situation, it becomes not only clear how complicated this part of Irish history is, but also that both of them are deeply human, flaws and dreams and all.
I chose this book partly because I am forever trying to understand how the Troubles came about, how a nation ended up tearing itself in two in this way, and all the hurt that has been caused because of it. Now, I think we should be careful with coming to fiction for answers to history, but I do think that novels are exceptionally good at helping us understand the emotional angle of such issues. And I think this is exactly what House Of Splendid Isolation excels at. It shows two sides of a conflict that is complicated and bloody and incredibly scary, but it focuses on some of the humans at the heart of it and thereby reminds us of the most important part: the human suffering but also our shared emotions and our humanity.
I do think this worked so incredibly well because Edna O’Brien was an outstanding writer. She was obviously very gifted and talented, and reading her writing was a joy. It was both beautiful and addictive. I wanted to keep reading, to know what would happen to McGreevy, and in that sense the novel sometimes felt like a thriller. But then there would be all these quiet moments in there too that would bring the story back down to earth and remind you of all the hurt caused by the violence.
The book asks a lot of questions about national identity, about what makes a home, who belongs to a place, and how our differences can make us do cruel, horrible things. I think the opening pages of the story do a very good job of encapsulating the essence of the novel:
“History is everywhere. It seeps into the soil, the subsoil. Like rain, or hail, or snow, or blood. A house remembers. An outhouse remembers. A people ruminate. The tale differs with the teller.” (p.3)
It’s a reminder of the power of storytelling, and what stark difference it can make how we tell our histories. Edna O’Brien does not judge in this book, she simply tells a story and lets the readers come to their own conclusions.
The way the story is told can be a bit confusing at times, as there are several different narrators and also some time jumps, but it is worth sticking with the book if you end up a bit confused at first. It does come together neatly and as you get further into the story, it gets much easier to differentiate the different voices.
I’m so glad I picked up House Of Splendid Isolation on that rainy afternoon in Dublin, and to have read it while in Ireland. That felt very special and it reinvigorated my interest in Irish history so much that I ended up also buying a nonfiction book about the Troubles. I love when novels make us more interested in the world around us, and I am absolutely going to read more of Edna O’Brien’s books!
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