Seán O'Faoláin (1900–1991)

This set of stories is more "contemporary" than the last set -- I read earlier this year, those were set in childhood, youth, Cork. These are stories of emigrants and Cork folk relocated to Dublin. Love stories, many of them. In a word, they felt dated in that way the work of many men who wrote in the first half of the 20th century does. An effort of some sort is being made to view women as fellow travelers, but not a very serious one. There are unvarnished moments: "Love, my dear, poor boy, is a sedative disguised as a stimulant. It's a mirror where man sees himself as a monster and women as a thing of unvarnished beauty,. If it wasn't for that all men would, otherwise, and normally, fear all women. You fear women. I fear women. But because we need them we have to have them. And that's where they have us, in the great and final triumph of women over men, called--by them not by us, and well called--Happy Wedlock. Love is a prison staffed by female warders . . . " Now this speech is given by a friend and the narrator, in the story, ends up in a sturdy friendly marriage, yet, in story after story in the collection this first sentiment is present. Or there are two sorts of men (and to be fair, women)--the dull and faithful and the fun and untrustworthy. He's a good writer, O'Faolain, knows his craft, but I did find myself skim-reading by the end. Several stories have an homage to Joyce feeling to them, especially the very short final story, "Passion." In his preface O'Faolain makes a distinction between story and tale (think blunt and incisive versus wandering and intuitive) that was perhaps the biggest takeaway for me. ***1/2… (more)