The Country Girls

The Country Girls (The Country Girls Trilogy #1)

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67  ·  rating details  ·  661 ratings  ·  87 reviews
Meet Kate and Baba, two young Irish country girls who have spent their childhood together. As they leave the safety of their convent school in search of life and love in the big city, they struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. Kate, dreamy and romantic, yearns for true love, while Baba just wants to experience the life of a single girl. Although they...more
Paperback, 175 pages
Published June 25th 2002 by Plume (first published 1960)
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Elizabeth Quinn
For the longest time, I didn't get Edna O'Brien. Her writing was so highly praised, but I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. Her characters were all so repressed and their interactions so brittle that I found her stories difficult to get into and generally boring. But as I embarked on my ongoing Irish tear, I was determined to try again. This time I had no trouble becoming interested in Kate and her childhood friend Baba or their lives in rural Ireland, in convent school and in Dub...more
matt

At first, I didn't think very much of The Country Girls. It's sort of your standard coming of age story, the locus here being female and Irish and from a rural, rather down-at-hell background.

O'Brien, who admittedly wrote under the inspiration of Dubliners, said herself that the novel came almost as if unbidden. She said something to the effect that her hand wrote it, she just guided the pen. Very interesting not only to hear this, which has to indicate something really important and personal an...more
Vanessa Wu
I have been listening to Edna O'Brien read the unabridged version of this novel. It is quite short. She reads it in a state of holy awe, as if she is filled with wonder at the world. This very much suits the narrative, which tells of the unholy dramas that befall a fourteen-year-old Catholic girl in a little Irish town. It is told in unadorned, elegant English. There is a purity about it, which means you have to quieten your mind and let Edna's voice fill up your senses in order to appreciate it...more
Kirsten

I really, really enjoyed reading this book. I think the most delicious aspect of it is that O’Brien marries intimate and personal details of a girl’s early teenhood in the Irish countryside with the horribly dark realities of human existence. Furthermore, O’Brien does this very subtly. She describes the girl, Kaithleen, getting out of bed in the early mornings and seeing frost on the hedgerows outside, and skimming the cream off a bucket of milk to put in a glass bottle to take to a best friend’...more
Mark
Edna O'Brien admitted later that with her novel, 'Country Girls' she had unwittingly created a storm ( her books publicly burned after scandalising her native Ireland !) as clearly she had touched a nerve and offended the sensibilities of so many in Ireland by describing a deeply gender-divided socio-cultural brutalised rural Ireland where men were omniscient and their women submissive as they cowered beneath their oppressive demands, physical and emotional. As if viewed through a sepia photogra...more
Trisha
When The Country Girls (1960), The Lonely Girl (1962), and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964) were published they were promptly condemned by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and banned by the Irish Censorship Board. Most likely because of what this trilogy had to say about the truly dismal lives of girls who grew into womanhood under the shadow of a darkly repressive church and a rural culture filled with narrow-minded ignorance, mistrust and helplessness. Nevertheless, today Edna O’Brien is reg...more
Frank
Caithleen is a bit of a wimp, brow-beaten as she is by her best friend, Baba, and under a cloud of physical and emotional terror from her alcoholic father. Her one outlet is a fantastic (as in "fantasy") relationship with an older man, a neighbour, "Mr. Gentleman". Still, O'Brien's prose is compeling, and I've started on the next volume in the trilogy.

Reading these was brought on by seeing an interview with the now 79-year-old O'Brien on Gay Byrne's programme on RTÉ; she has a new play in produ...more
Paige
Oct 03, 2011 Paige marked it as to-read
"The Country Girls, published in 1960 by Hutchinson, London, was the first novel by Edna O’Brien and the first of her trilogy of the same title (also including The Lonely Girl, later called Girl with Green Eyes, and Girls in Their Married Bliss). It was banned in her native Ireland for its sexual content. Altogether, six of her novels were banned there, and sometimes burnt. But her work has always had both big sales and critical acclamation for the lyricism and unflinching nature of her writing,...more
K.D. Oliveros
Mar 05, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 2 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006-2010)
Shelves: 1001-core, series
First published in 1960, this is the first novel of Ireland-born novelist Edna O'Brien (born 1930). This is also Book 1 of her trilogy called the same, The Country Girls Trilogy. The other books are entitled The Lonely Girl (1962) and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964). After the publication of the third book, all of them were banned in the repressive Ireland in the 60's because of the frank portrayal of the sex lives of the characters. Well, there is nothing frank in the first book except that...more
Cathy
Feb 04, 2008 Cathy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who likes a good read
What a sad, gorgeous book this turned out to be. It follows young Caithleen and her best friend/bitterest enemy Baba from their rural adolescence to a convent school, and then on to big, bad Dublin to make their way as young women.

Their small town is portrayed as heartbreakingly beautiful, but the people are ugly -- Caithleen's alcoholic father, the creepy inkeeper and would-be poet who pursues her, and Baba's beautiful addled mother. O'Brien is a powerful descriptor of both the physical world a...more
Paul
A beautiful probably-autobiographical wee slip of a novel which reads more like a memoir about two Irish girls between the ages of 14 and 18 in which nothing much happens except ordinary poor country life stuff, the girls being bored witless and trying to grow up, the girls being righteously disgusted about what's on offer in the back of the Irish beyond in the early 50s before Elvis and rock & roll rewrote the rules, the girls putting up with drunk parents, bitter adults and useless boys. C...more
J.J. Toner
Excellent book. The narrator's voice is strong and consistent throughout, and possesses a light quality of dreamy innocence. It has the feeling of a personal diary, looks unedited, and is the better for it. I could imagine how an editor might spoil this work.

The edition I had must have been prepared with the aid of OCR. Lots of words misinterpreted: bad for had, Declaim for Declan, Flickey for Hickey, flyers for fivers, lip for up, fiat for flat, even time for the at, one point.

David
Two girls growing up in an age with many more taboos than todays kids are fenced by and in a society which had many more taboos than others in Europe of that time. These mix in with the influences of the 'modern' world and with the usual things that happen to young girls (and boys), dipping a toe into the waters of independence, first love and its uncertainty. A book I remember enjoying but may need to read again to refresh the memory of.
Audrey
The Country Girls is a coming-of-age story about naive pushover Caithleen and her asshole friend Baba. They leave their little village outside of Limerick to go to convent school, where they get expelled, and then they try to live the life of free-spirited teenagers in Dublin. It was nicely written but the story left me wanting something more. I'm guessing the stuff that got Edna O'Brien's books banned left and right came later.
Alex
Well enough, and brisk enough. I thought O'Brien did a fine job of portraying the various forces pulling on Caithleen without overstating, politicizing, or idealizing them. Even better, though rather sad, is the way these simply fade away as the end of the novel approaches: we're left with a girl who doesn't want to be where she came from but equally doesn't want to be where she is.
Jacqueline
ive read this book twice,once when i was younger and then again this summer, and the second time i read it i really did appreciate how good the book actually is!i find it an amazing insight into the ireland my aunts and father lived in compared to what its like for me now,and i would really like to find the second book of the trilogy so i could see how they get on!
Megan
Quite well written and enjoyable to a point, but quite depressing. I spent most of the book hoping for Caithleen just to break away from Baba and her bad influence. I think I might have liked the interview I read with O'Brien about the effects of censorship and the way her community reacted to this book better than the story itself.
Jennifer
I found this book sitting on my father in law's book shelf and i picked it up and read it. I really liked it. it held my interest throughout the book, and I really enjoyed the characters and the situations they found themselves in. I don't think this book is for everyone, but I enjoyed it.
Elizabeth (Alaska)
This is an enjoyable book written as if it were an autobiography. It is a debut novel and the first of The Country Girls Trilogy.

The descriptions focus on the girls going to convent school. The story is so much more than that. A small portion of the book takes place at the convent, but only a small portion. Sometimes I wonder if those who write the descriptions ever read the book.

Unlike a book I read a week or so ago, I would classify this as a coming of age story. Caithleen is young at the begi...more
Jackie
Not the biggest fan of this novel, though I can appreciate its literary merit. Very melancholy and morose, reminds me of Atwood's Lady Oracle minus the fantastical. While the characters are rounded, the world feels flat and suffocating, perhaps O'Brien's aim. 99% chance I will not finish this trilogy. Too depressing. Read for Contemporary Brit Women Writers.
Iria
A partir do primeiro tercio, non o soltas. Iso si, ó final, pregúntaste se a rapaciña ten arreglo ou non, e para iso tes que le-la segunda novela desta triloxía irlandesa.
Dee Byrne
I was dying to read this famous banned book!!it was a nice read but don't know what is the huge drama was all about for it to be banned!!!
Simple and so easy to read!!!
L
I always enjoy novels about Ireland, Edna O'Brien gives us a realistic portrait of the "farm girls" fleeing to the city and all is not "happily ever after"
Anne
Very quick read, beginning is a bit confusing, but it picks up. The girls, Cait & Baba are very clearly drawn out through the course of the story.
Kathleenjcsp
It really was a book of it's time. Hard to believe now that it caused such upset when originally published. I did enjoy reading it though.
Gail Toda
Did not finish this book. I did not care for the writing style and found the interaction between the characters aggravating.
Elaine
Really enjoyed the writing style and gave me an insight into my mothers era, very sad for women.
Stephanie "Jedigal"
Okay, this was strange. I liked the story and characters, but again, I am apparently much more plebeian than I like to think, because this book too went right over my head. At least, whatever makes it worthy of special acclaim goes right over my head. To me, just a good story. I do note that my sense of Irish history is woefully lacking, being a plebeian American and all, so maybe if I were Irish this would seem more significant to me, as it might be a great reflection on a certain part of their...more
Kim
Definitely like her later work better. This feels extremely thin in its character development. I know it's the 1st in a trilogy, but I could care less about the two characters (one of whom had no redeeming qualities at all).
Jenni Eustace
Loved this book.The language is so vivid you can almost hear her voice
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The Country Girls
The Country Girls (Paperback)
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The Country Girls
The Country Girls (Paperback)

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Edna O’Brien (b. 1930), an award-winning Irish author of novels, plays, and short stories, has been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the twentieth century. She is the 2011 recipient of the Frank O’Connor Prize, awarded for her short story collection Saints and Sinners. She has also received, among other honors, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the Ulysses Me...more
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The Country Girls Trilogy In the Forest House of Splendid Isolation Girl With Green Eyes Down by the River

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“There was I, devouring books and yet allowing a man who had never read a book to walk me home for a bit of harmless fumbling on the front steps.” 4 people liked it
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