#memoirs of first exile

[microcosme11]

Ce ne sont pas là les soldats de papa.

Baron Vincent (engineer who accompanied Napoleon many times on Elba) wrote:

Napoleon said, speaking of his son: "We took it into our heads to present him with Austrian soldiers; he observed and said right away: ‘These are not papa's soldiers.’"

Mémoires de tous : collection de souvenirs contemporains tendant a établir la verité dans l'histoire., t.3. (link)

[empirearchives]

“It is generally said that there are certain wounds, to which death seems preferable; but this is very seldom the case, I assure you. It is at the moment we are going to part with existence that we cling to it with all our might. Lannes, the most courageous of men, deprived of both his legs, would not hear of death.”

— Napoleon on the death of Marshal Lannes

(Source)

[urmomsstuntdouble]

not to be political but I've seen a lot of people saying that those who call Israel an apartheid don't know what they're talking about and um. As someone who has studied South African apartheid as well as grown up in a Jewish community. This claim has more merit than you think

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Historians having takes on frev women that make me go 😐 compilation

Sexually frustrated in her marriage to a pompous civil servant much older than herself, [Madame Roland] may have found Danton’s celebrated masculinity rather uncomfortable. Danton (1978) by Norman Hampson, page 77.

The Robespierres sent their sister to Arras because that was their hometown, the family home, where they had relatives, uncles, aunts and friends, like Buissart who they didn’t cease to remain in correspondence with, even in the middle of the Terror. There, among them, Charlotte would not be alone; she would find advice, rest, the peace necessary to heal her nervousness and animosity. Away from Mme Ricard, who she hated, away from Mme Duplay, who she detested, she would enjoy auspicious calmness. It is Le Bon that the Robespierres will charge with escorting their sister to this neccessary and soothing exile. […] If there is a damning piece in Charlotte Robespierre's case, it is this one (her interrogation, held July 31 1794). She seems to be caught in the act of accusing this Maximilien whom she rehabilitates in her Memoirs. She is therefore indeed a hypocrite, unworthy of the great name she bears, and which she dishonors the very day after the holocaust of 10 Thermidor. Charlotte Robespierre et Guffroy (1910) in Annales Révolutionnaires, volume 3 (1910) page 322, and Charlotte Robespierre et ses mémoires (1909) page 93-94, both by Hector Fleishmann.

Elisabeth, as she was popularly called, was barely past her twelfth birthday, younger even by three years than Barere’s own mother when she was given in marriage. On the following day the guests assembled again in the little church of Saint-Martin at midnight to attend the wedding ceremony of the handsome charmer and the bewildered child. Dressed in white, clasping in her arms a yellow, satin-clad  doll that Bertrand had given her — so runs the tradition — she marched timidly to the altar, looking more like a maiden making her first communion than a woman celebrating a binding sacrament. Perhaps the  doll, if doll there was, filled her eye, but certainly she could not fail to note how handsome her husband was. Bertrand Barere; a reluctant terrorist (1962) by Leo Gershoy, page 32.

The young nun who bore the name of Hébert did not hide her fate. She did not wish to prolong a life stifled from her childhood in the cloister, branded in the world by the name she bore, fighting between horror and love for the memory of her husband, unhappy everywhere. Histoire des Girondins (1848) by Alphonse de Lamartine, volume 8, page 60.

Lucile in prison showed more calmness than Camille. Before the tribunal, she seemed to possess neither fear nor hope, she denied having taken an active role in the prison conspiracy. What did it matter to her the answer they were trying to extract from her? They said they wanted her guilty? Very well! She would be condemned and join Camille. This was what she said again when she was told that she would suffer the same fate as her husband: ”Oh, what joy, in a few hours I’m going to see Camille again!” Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un couple dans la tourmente (1986) by Jean Paul Bertaud, page 293.

What did it matter to Lucile whether she was accused or defended? She had no longer any pretext for living in this world. She was one of those heroines of conjugal love who are more wife than mother. Besides, Horace lived, and Camille was dead. It was of the absent only that she thought. As for the child, would not Madame Duplessis act a mother's part to him? The grandmother would watch over the orphan. If Lucile had lived, she could have done nothing but weep over the cradle, thinking of Camille. Camille Desmoulins and his wife; passages from the history of the Dantonists founded upon new and hitherto unpublished documents (1876) by Jules Claretie.

Having been widowed at the age of 23 [sic] years, Élisabeth Duplay remarried a few years later to the adjutant general Le Bas, brother of her first husband, and kept the name which was her glory. She lived with dignity, and all those who have known her, still beautiful under her crown of white hair, have testified to the greatness of her sentiments and austerity of her character. She died at an old age, always loyal to the memory of the great dead she had loved and whose memory she, all the way to her final day, didn’t cease to honor and cherish. As for the lady of Thermidor, Thérézia Cabarrus, ex-marquise of Fontenay, citoyenne Tallien, then princess of Chimay, one knows the story of her three marriages, without counting the interludes. She had, as one knows, three husbands living at the same time. Now compare these two existances, these two women, and tell me which one merits more the respect and the sympathy of good men. Histoire de Robespierre et du coup d’état du 9 thermidor (1865) by Louis Ernest Hamel, volume 3, page 402.

Fel free to comment which one was your favorite! 😀

[fahye]

book recs: august '23

(I want to try and do these posts more frequently because I DEARLY miss yelling about books, txitter is [poop emoji]-ing, and bluesky is promising but I don't have much of an audience there yet)

ok! stuff freya has read recently and enjoyed:

A FIRE BORN OF EXILE by aliette de bodard -- did you enjoy nirvana in fire? this is for YOU. it's a revenge story set in aliette's xuya space opera universe, with a pile of complicated characters with mixed or obscured motives, a sapphic romance, and just really incredible use of worldbuilding and politics.

THE SLEEPING SOLDIER by aster glenn gray -- I am an enormous sucker for aster's historical m/m romances, and this one was incredible. a union soldier goes to sleep in 1865 and wakes up in 1965, and his new college roommate has a series of gay crises about it. sweet, exuberant, well researched. both a wonderful romance and an absolutely fascinating examination of male friendships and homosexuality in two different historical time periods.

A DEADLY EDUCATION by naomi novik -- doing a reread of the first two scholomance books before I dive into the third. these books are so disgustingly tailored to ME, a huge fan of magical academia stories with a truly deliciously unnecessary level of worldbuilding detail about how the magic works (and how the school is trying to kill you).

BATH HAUS by p.j. vernon -- a man goes to a gay bathhouse, cheating on his partner, and narrowly escapes being murdered. things get worse from there. I can only recommend this to you if you enjoy thrillers that STRESS YOU THE FUCK OUT, which I normally don't; I nearly put it down a couple of times, but I HAD to know what was going on. it's a masterclass in propulsive tension and does some really cool things with unreliable narration.

HAVEMERCY by jaida jones and danielle bennett -- seven hundred years late to this party, but OH MY GOD. this is the completely gay political/military fantasy of my dreams (the YEARNING), plus there are magical-mechanical dragons. I will be devouring the other books in this series in short order.

EVERY VERSION OF YOU by grace chan -- a beautiful and fascinating literary scifi book about humanity and family and love, and being given the choice to upload your consciousness to a digital paradise as the planet dies around you. unsurprisingly it deals with some heavy stuff, but it's fantastic. and australian!

A THIEF AND A GENTLEMAN by arden powell -- another m/m romance in arden's flos magicae series. the title alone is probably enough to tell you why I enjoyed it, but I especially liked the way it kept subverting my expectations in favour of more chewy emotional honesty and complexity.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER by fern brady -- a memoir by a scottish comedian about being diagnosed with autism in her thirties, and her life up to that point. funny and chaotic and an all-around amazing read. I loved fern on taskmaster and I love her even more now.

[girlactionfigure]

“Her silence is mine, her eyes mine. It is as if she knows everything about my childhood, my present, my future, as if she can see right through me.”

Chagall’s feelings for his beloved wife resonate with anybody who has ever truly been in love. He openly adored his wife and she adored him right back. Bella was Chagall’s muse, the vision behind his seminal paintings of characters floating around in a blissful state.

From the moment they fell for each other in 1909, Marc Chagall and his wife, Bella, seemed to share a particular way of seeing the world. Bella was a talented writer and her description of their first encounter is like a Chagall painting in words: “When you did catch a glimpse of his eyes, they were as blue as if they’d fallen straight out of the sky. They were strange eyes … long, almond-shaped … and each seemed to sail along by itself, like a little boat.”

Famously, he often depicted himself and Bella flying together, as if their shared joy had such physical force it countermanded the law of gravity itself.

The Chagalls’ story is also remarkable because they experienced so much 20th-century history first-hand. In 1911, leaving Bella in Russia, Marc made it to Paris, then the centre of the modernist movement happening in western art. He soon added something revolutionary. “Under his influence, metaphor made its triumphal entry into modern painting,” André Breton, who credited Chagall as the father of surrealism, later said.

Marc returned to Vitebsk in 1914 to marry Bella, and they were trapped in Russia by the outbreak of the first world war. They moved to St Petersburg, and found themselves ringside spectators to the Russian revolutions. Then, for a brief, heady moment, the avant garde became the new establishment in Russian art and Marc was invited to be commissar of visual arts. Bella sensibly advised him to say no, but he accepted the offer to start a new art school in Vitebsk. Official opinion, however, quickly hardened about what was proper proletarian art, and Marc was forced to resign from the school. Apart from a brief, joyful stint designing sets for the Moscow Yiddish theatre, he now found his work unwelcome in Russia.

He, Bella and their five year-old daughter, Ida, left Russia in 1922, never to return. They watched in horror from afar through the 1920s and 30s as the Jewish homeland of their youth was systematically destroyed first by the Communists then by the Nazis. Bella had long neglected her writing to support Marc in his painting, but during the last few years of her life in exile in New York she was moved to write a lyrical memoir in Yiddish, Burning Lights, about her childhood in Vitebsk. In 1944 she died of a throat infection that would now easily be cured with antibiotics.

Rabbi Yisroel Bernath 

[nalyra-dreaming]

Is there any sort of supporting vampire index? I read the first five books back in high school and have been slowly making my way through the entire series (currently mid merrick) this year. But recently it feels like every other day someone brings up an important character from the later books that already appeared, or was implied in the show.

Nonny, you're in luck :)

Anne herself provides us with one in "Prince Lestat" and in "Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis" :) Obviously the short descriptions refer to the book versions. I would take note of Sevraine (who is Gabrielle's implied girlfriend later on!), Seth and especially Fareed, and definitely Rhoshamandes and Amel here. Gregory, too. And Viktor (whose summary does not contain the reveal btw) and Rose. These at the very least :) - let me know if you want to know more details!

I'll paste the character list from PLatRoA here! SPOILERS though - so under the cut!

Characters and Places in the Vampire Chronicles

Akasha—Queen of ancient Egypt six thousand years ago, and the first vampire ever created, through a merger with the spirit Amel. The story is told in The Vampire Lestat and in The Queen of the Damned.

Allesandra—A Merovingian princess, daughter of King Dagobert I, brought into the Blood in the seventh century by Rhoshamandes. First introduced in The Vampire Lestat as a mad nameless vampire living with the Children of Satan under Les Innocents Cemetery in Paris. She also appears in The Vampire Armand in the Renaissance where she is named, and later in Prince Lestat and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis.

Amel—A spirit who created the first vampire six thousand years ago by merging with the body of the Egyptian Queen Akasha. The story is told in The Vampire Lestat and in The Queen of the Damned. Prince Lestat and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis continue the story of Amel.

Antoine—A French musician exiled from Paris to Louisiana and brought into the Blood by Lestat around the middle of the nineteenth century. Referred to as “the musician” in Interview with the Vampire. Later appears in Prince Lestat and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis. A talented violinist and pianist and composer.

Arion—A black vampire of ancient times introduced in Blackwood Farm. At least two thousand years old, perhaps older. Possibly from India.

Arjun—A prince of the Chola dynasty in India, brought into the Blood by Pandora around 1300. Appears in Blood and Gold and also in Pandora.

Armand—One of the pillars of the Vampire Chronicles. Armand is a Russian from Kiev, sold into slavery as a boy, and made a vampire in Renaissance Venice by the Vampire Marius. He is introduced in Interview with the Vampire, and appears in numerous novels in the Vampire Chronicles, telling his own story in The Vampire Armand. The founder of the coven at Trinity Gate in New York. Armand maintains a house in Paris in Saint-Germain-des- Prés, which functions as the Paris Court for Prince Lestat.

Avicus—An Egyptian vampire who first appears in Marius’s memoir, Blood and Gold. Appears again in Prince Lestat.

Benedict—A Christian monk of the seventh century in France, brought into the Blood by Rhoshamandes. Benedict is the vampire from whom the alchemist Magnus stole the Blood, a theft described in The Vampire Lestat. Appears in Prince Lestat and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis as Rhoshamandes’s companion and lover.

Benji Mahmoud—A twelve-year-old Palestinian Bedouin boy, brought into the Blood by Marius in 1997. Benji originates the vampire radio station heard round the world in Prince Lestat. Resides at Trinity Gate in New York and sometimes at the Court of Prince Lestat in France. First appears in The Vampire Armand when he is living in New York with his companion, Sybelle.

Bianca Solderini—Venetian courtesan brought into the Blood by Marius in Blood and Gold around 1498.

Château de Lioncourt—Lestat’s ancestral castle in the Massif Central in France, splendidly restored and the home of the new dazzling and glamorous Court of the Vampires with its orchestra, theater, and frequent formal balls. The adjacent village, including an inn and a church and several shops, has also been restored to house mortal workers and visitors to the Château.

Children of Satan—A network of medieval vampire covens, populated by vampires who sincerely believed they were children of the Devil, doomed to roam the world in rags, accursed, feeding on the blood of innocent humans to do the Devil’s will. Their most famous covens were in Rome and in Paris. The coven kidnapped many of the fledglings of Rhoshamandes until he finally left France to get away from them. And the Children of Satan in Rome spelled catastrophe for Marius and his great Venetian household in the Renaissance. Armand told of his experiences with the Children of Satan in The Vampire Armand.

Chrysanthe—A merchant’s widow from the Christian city of Hira, brought into the Blood by Nebamun, newly risen and named Gregory in the fourth century. Wife of Gregory. Introduced, along with Gregory, in Prince Lestat.

Cimetière des Innocents—An ancient cemetery in the city of Paris until it was destroyed near the end of the eighteenth century. Underneath this cemetery lived the Coven of the Children of Satan, presided over by Armand, which is described by Lestat in The Vampire Lestat. Referred to in the novels as “Les Innocents.”

Claudia—An orphan of five or six years old, brought into the Blood around 1794 by Lestat and Louis in New Orleans. Long dead. Her story is told in Interview with the Vampire. Later appears as a spirit in Merrick, though the appearance is suspect.

Cyril—An ancient Egyptian vampire, maker of Eudoxia in Blood and Gold, and named for the first time in Prince Lestat. Age unknown.

Daniel Molloy—The nameless “boy” interviewer in Interview with the Vampire. Brought into the Blood by Armand in The Queen of the Damned. Also appears in Blood and Gold living with Marius. Also in Prince Lestat.

David Talbot—Introduced as an elderly member of the Talamasca, an order of psychic detectives, in The Queen of the Damned. Becomes an important character in The Tale of the Body Thief, and also solicits Pandora’s story from her in Pandora. A pillar of the Vampire Chronicles.

Davis—A black dancer from Harlem, a member of the Fang Gang, brought into the Blood by Killer sometime in 1985. Introduced in The Queen of the Damned. Further described in Prince Lestat.

Eleni—A survivor of the Children of Satan who helps found the Théâtre des Vampires in Paris in the eighteenth century; corresponds with the Vampire Lestat after he leaves Paris to travel the world. A fledgling of Rhoshamandes made a vampire in the early Middle Ages.

Enkil—Ancient King of Egypt, husband of the great Queen Akasha, the second vampire to be brought into existence. His story is told in The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned.

Everard de Landen—A fledgling of Rhoshamandes from the early Middle Ages who first appears in Blood and Gold and is named in Prince Lestat.

Fareed—Anglo Indian by birth, a physician and researcher, brought into the Blood by Seth to be a healer and researcher of the vampires. A major character introduced in Prince Lestat.

Flannery Gilman—An American female medical doctor, biological mother of Viktor, and brought into the blood by Fareed and Seth. Part of their medical and research team working with the Undead.

Flavius—A Greek vampire, a slave purchased by Pandora in the city of Antioch and brought into the Blood by Pandora in the early centuries of the Common Era.

Gabrielle—Lestat’s mother, a noblewoman of breeding and education, brought into the Blood by her own son in 1780 in Paris. A wanderer who dresses in male attire. A familiar figure in the background throughout the Vampire Chronicles.

Gregory Duff Collingsworth—Known as Nebamun in ancient times, a lover of Queen Akasha and made a blood drinker by her to lead her Queens Blood troops against the First Brood. Known today as Gregory, owner of a powerful pharmaceutical empire in the modern world. Husband of Chrysanthe.

Gremt Stryker Knollys—A powerful and mysterious spirit who has created for himself over time a physical body that is a replica of a human body. Connected with the founding of the secret Order of the Talamasca. Introduced in Prince Lestat.

Hesketh—A Germanic cunning woman, brought into the Blood by Teskhamen in the first century. Now a ghost who has managed to produce a physical body for herself. Also connected with the origins of the secret Order of the Talamasca. Introduced in Prince Lestat.

Jesse Reeves—An American woman of the twentieth century, a blood descendant of the ancient Maharet and brought into the Blood by Maharet

herself in 1985 in The Queen of the Damned. Jesse was also a mortal member of the Talamasca and worked with David Talbot in the Order.

Khayman—An ancient Egyptian vampire, made by Queen Akasha, and rebelling against her with the First Brood. His story is told in The Queen of the Damned.

Killer—An American male vampire, founder of the Fang Gang in The Queen of the Damned. Of unknown history or origin.

Lestat de Lioncourt—The hero of the Vampire Chronicles, made a vampire by Magnus near the end of the eighteenth century, the maker of a number of vampires, including Gabrielle, his mother; Nicolas de Lenfent, his friend and lover; Louis, the narrator of Interview with the Vampire; and Claudia, the child vampire. Presently known as Prince Lestat by one and all.

Louis de Pointe du Lac—The vampire who started the Vampire Chronicles by telling his story to Daniel Molloy in Interview with the Vampire, an account of his own origins, which differs in some ways from Lestat’s own account in The Vampire Lestat. A French colonial plantation owner made a vampire by Lestat in 1791. Appears most prominently in the first Chronicle, and in Merrick, and in Prince Lestat and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis.

Magnus—An elderly medieval alchemist who stole the Blood from a young vampire, Benedict, in France. The vampire who kidnapped and brought Lestat into the Blood in 1780. Now a ghost, sometimes appearing solid, and at other times as an illusion.

Maharet—One of the oldest vampires in the world, twin to Mekare. The twins are known for their red hair and their power as mortal witches. Made at the dawn of Vampire History, they are rebels leading the First Brood against Queen Akasha and her Queens Blood vampires. Maharet is beloved for her wisdom and for following all of her mortal descendants through the ages all over the world, whom she called the Great Family. Maharet tells her story—the story of the twins—in Queen of the Damned. She also figures in Blood and Gold and in Prince Lestat.

Marius—A pillar of the Vampire Chronicles. A Roman patrician who is kidnapped by the Druids and brought into the Blood by Teskhamen in the first century. Marius appears in The Vampire Lestat and numerous other books, including his own memoir, Blood and Gold. A vampire known for reason and gravitas. Much loved and admired by Lestat and others.

Mekare—Maharet’s twin sister, the powerful red-haired witch who communed with the invisible and potentially destructive spirit Amel, who later went into the body of Queen Akasha, creating the first vampire. The story of Mekare and Maharet is first told by Maharet in The Queen of the Damned. Mekare figures in Blood and Gold and in Prince Lestat.

Memnoch—A powerful spirit claiming to be the Judeo-Christian Satan. He tells his story to Lestat in Memnoch the Devil.

New Orleans—Figures prominently in the Vampire Chronicles as the home of Louis, Lestat, and Claudia for many years during the nineteenth century, at

which time they resided in a townhouse in the Rue Royale in the French Quarter. This house still exists and is in the possession of Lestat today, as it has always been. It was in New Orleans that Lestat encountered Louis and Claudia and made them vampires.

Notker the Wise—A monk and a musician and a composer brought into the Blood by Benedict around A.D. 880, maker of many boy-soprano vampires and other vampire musicians yet unnamed. Living in the Alps. Introduced in Prince Lestat.

Raymond Gallant—A faithful mortal scholar of the Talamasca, a friend to the Vampire Marius, presumed dead in the sixteenth century. Appears again in Prince Lestat.

Rhoshamandes—A male from ancient Crete, brought into the Blood at the same time as the female Sevraine, about five thousand years ago. A powerful and reclusive vampire obsessed with operatic music and performances, and the lover of Benedict. Lives in his castle on the island of Saint Rayne in the Outer Hebrides, traveling the world from time to time to see different operas in the great opera houses.

Rose—An American girl, rescued as a small child by Lestat from an earthquake in the Mediterranean around 1995. His ward. Lover and later spouse of Viktor. Introduced in Prince Lestat.

Saint Alcarius, Monastery of—The secret residence of Gremt, Teskhamen, and other supernatural elders of the Talamasca in France, near the Belgian border.

Saint Rayne— The island on which Rhoshamandes lives. Santino—An Italian vampire made during the time of the Black Death.

Longtime Roman coven master of the Children of Satan. Presumed dead.

Seth—The biological son of Queen Akasha, brought into the Blood by her after a youth of roaming the ancient world in search of knowledge in the healing arts. He is introduced in Prince Lestat and is the maker of Fareed and Flannery Gilman.

Sevraine—A remarkably beautiful Nordic female vampire, made by Nebamun (Gregory) against Akasha’s rules. Sevraine maintains her own underground court in the Cappadocian Mountains. A friend to female vampires. Introduced in Prince Lestat.

Sybelle—A young American pianist, beloved friend of Benji Mahmoud, and Armand, brought into the Blood by Marius in 1997. Introduced in The Vampire Armand.

The Talamasca—An ancient order of psychic detectives or researchers, dating back to the Dark Ages—an organization of mortal scholars who observe and record paranormal phenomena. Their origins are shrouded in mystery until they are revealed in Prince Lestat. They have Motherhouses in Amsterdam and outside of London, and retreat houses in many places, including Oak Haven in Louisiana. First introduced in The Queen of the Damned and

figuring in many Chronicles since. Vampires Jesse Reeves and David Talbot were mortal members of the Talamasca.

Teskhamen—Ancient Egyptian vampire, the maker of Marius as told by Marius in The Vampire Lestat. Presumed dead until modern times. Connected with the origins of the Talamasca. First named in Prince Lestat.

Théâtre des Vampires—A boulevard theater of the macabre, created by the refugees from the Children of Satan, funded by Lestat, and managed for decades by Armand, who had once been the coven master of the Children of Satan.

Thorne—A red-haired Viking vampire, made centuries ago in Europe by Maharet. Introduced in Blood and Gold.

Trinity Gate—A coven dwelling made up of three identical townhouses just off Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of New York. Armand is the founder of Trinity Gate. And it functions now as the American Court of Prince Lestat.

Viktor—An American boy, biological son of Dr. Flannery Gilman. His story is revealed in Prince Lestat. Lover and later spouse of Rose, Lestat’s ward.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

"Miserable Prince Harry wants his old life back & is planning a royal return after crapping all over his family."

After years trashing the Royal Family, Prince Harry is reportedly working on at least a partial comeback:

According to a report from The Daily Mail, Harry has become dissatisfied with life as an American Hollywood liberal and is consulting experts on how he can rehabilitate his image in Britain and the wider world.

The Mail reported: Prince Harry has sought advice from trusted former aides in Britain on how to mastermind a return from exile in the United States, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Sources said the Duke of Sussex is consulting people ‘from his old life’ as a working royal after allegedly growing dissatisfied with advice from American-based image experts.

The overtures signify the first stage in a strategy to ‘rehabilitate’ Harry that would involve him spending more time in the UK to repair his relationship with his father and potentially initiate a partial return to the royal fold.

Sources stressed that Harry and Meghan, who have spent the past four years living in self-imposed exile in California with their two children, are not seeking a permanent return.

This newspaper can also reveal that the couple have parted company with yet another American PR adviser. Christine Weil Schirmer joined the Sussexes in 2020 as head of communications but left quietly late last year.

Since marrying Meghan Markle in 2018, Harry has given up his duties as a working royal and has sought to build a life in California dedicated to left-wing advocacy and making huge sums of money.

Among Harry’s various projects have included a Netflix documentary series where he and Meghan dished the dirt about their supposed mistreatment by the Royal Family and a memoir in which he trashed his family members and complained about the struggles he faced growing up in the limelight.

While details of Harry’s plans for a return to the royal fold have not been revealed, it remains unclear whether his family members would forgive him for his betrayal and allow his return.

The state of Harry’s fractured relationship with his brother, Prince William, was once again underlined this week following reports that the two men had “kept their distance” from one another while attending a funeral service for Lord Robert Fellowes, the brother-in-law of their late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

[librarycards]

do you have any book recs on relationship abuse? feel free to discard this question or point me elsewhere

hello anon - i read your other message to and am sending both of you much love. thanks for reaching out.

first and foremost, i am still very much a student of the literature in relationship abuse, not an expert. here are some books that may be helpful, with annotations:

Banu Khapil, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers. Khapil interviews women from the South Asian diaspora using a set of guiding craft/storytelling questions. i found this book immensely useful for my writing, which is to say, for transmuting the unlanguagable experiences of trauma - including relationship abuse and sexual violence - and restorying them in ways that worked for me.

Eli Clare, Exile and Pride. Clare is a trans survivor of CSA, and writes about the intersection of disability and survivorship.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, and their other work. They're a decorated writer, performer, and activist deeply invested in a disability justice + femme-of-color oriented approach to community care, and speak frankly and often about intimate partner violence, CSA, and the aftermath, as well as TJ-based approaches.

I have not read Beyond Survival, but tentatively recommend taking a look, alongside my friend's astute commentary about the book's metatext.

Maggie Smith, You Could Make this Place Beautiful. Smith is a brilliant poet, and has written this memoir about her divorce. As we dig deeper, we uncover a context of abuse, exploitation, infidelity, and dangerous envy on the part of her husband; and watch her carve a life beyond him.

Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House. A classic in the category of abuse memoir, and for good reason. Machado's insights into the onion of abuse culture in which we currently live –– ownership rhetorics around children, the subjugation of women, the silence around abuse by and of queer women –– are crucial.

Erin Elizabeth Smith, Down. My dear friend and colleague's book of poems that speak to the insidious process of grooming and its downstream effects, as well as the process of finding one's freedom.

And a few works of fiction to offer solidarity & new ways of thinking in this time:

Sayaka Murata, Earthlings

Tiffany D Jackson, Grown

Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina

Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats

Tiffany McDaniel, Betty

i hope this is helpful. i don't necessarily know if these are the kinds of narratives your friend needs rn, but these are the ones that have helped me begin coming to terms with my own experiences (i have a long way to go) and have afforded me the chance to think critically about relationship dynamics and cultures of abuse that refuse to absolve abusers of responsibility for their behavior.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Linehan views his life through the prism of someone who has been, in modern parlance, cancelled – a pariah whose dogmatic beliefs have supposedly exiled him from the liberal dinner party circuit. “Some time before I lost everything” begins the book’s very first sentence. His life has been “smashed to smithereens”, he laments. When formerly sympathetic journalists turn on him, it’s a “prison stabbing”. And all this at the hands of the “terroristic” trans rights lobby, which he brands the “gender Stasi” and likens to “nascent Nazis”. (Linehan sees himself as a “campaigner for women’s rights” rather than an “anti-transgender activist”, and is infuriated by Wikipedia’s refusal to allow him to edit his own page accordingly.) In Tough Crowd, Linehan denies being bigoted – and in fact takes great pains to emphasise his support for same-sex marriage, and insists that he “know[s] more trans people than some of the people calling me transphobic”. In my view, and that of his critics, some of his online remarks have been plainly and unapologetically transphobic: Linehan has characterised the trans rights movement as “paedophilic” and called trans activists and allies “groomers”. It’s true enough that his former life is in tatters: the controversies led to the end of his marriage, the abandonment of a planned, lucrative Father Ted musical, and his agent dropping him. He has been cancelled, he writes in his new book, which has been serialised in two major newspapers.

[...]

Although there are more than 100 pages dedicated to criticising the trans rights movement, the book is almost entirely devoid of data. Instead, Linehan relies on case studies – anecdotal instances of trans people who have committed crimes. Because trans people make up a tiny proportion of the general population, the sample size is too small to collect reliable data when it comes to crime. Figures last November suggested there were 230 trans people in UK prisons; 168 of these were trans women (and, despite fear-mongering headlines of women’s prisons being swarmed by those who were assigned male at birth, only six of these trans women were held in female establishments). Activists have in fact argued that it is trans women who are disproportionately at risk in prisons; a report from 2018 revealed that trans women accounted for a fifth of the deaths in female prisons between 2016 and 2018.

[...]

This is a recurring feature throughout the book – Linehan’s inability to actually provide solutions for the problems he purports to identify. He suggests that referring to trans men as men can lead to “their understanding of their own health [being] limited or non-existent”, yet elsewhere condemns the use of gender-neutral language around cervix care. He weighs in on the debate around single-sex spaces, but neglects to define how a trans-exclusionary bathroom could possibly be enforced. Would trans men who have medically transitioned be expected to use the women’s restroom? Already, there are documented instances of cis women being harassed after being mistaken for trans women in single-sex toilets; transphobia’s harm does not keep within the lines.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Hello! I found this very interesting reply of yours about Napoléon's opinion on Robespierre. Since you mentioned "Napoleon in exile", is that a more accurate version of Napoleon's true thoughts? A more faithful one compared to "The memorial of Saint Helena" and "Les Cahiers de Sainte Hélène"? I'm asking because these two works were written by other people and so their personal opinions might have influenced their respective works. Maybe it's too obvious, I'm not an expert at all about these books. I'm simply interest6in finding a collection of Napoléon's actual thoughts about people and other things...

I mean, who knows lol

Those quotes I reference are from Barry O'Meara's account of St. Helena and all accounts of the exile have their own political and personal agenda that leaks through. O'Meara just as much as Las Cases and the others had his spin.

I suspect one of the more "accurate" accounts of Napoleon's time in exile is Bertrand's diaries. Where he, amusingly, writes in third person except in moments of high emotion when he switches back to first person.

Napoleon very much used his time on St Helena to work on crafting his legacy. Creating his own self-mythology, in many respects. This doesn't mean you can't trust what is recorded of his thoughts/ feelings, it's just something to be aware of when reading the memoires. It's also worth comparing what people recorded on the same topic, as that provides some insight into what might have been a performance on Napoleon's side and what might have been a legitimate opinion.

That's the other thing to remember, too, is that Napoleon was still Performing Empire. This is where we get him saying things like "I have loved very few people in my life" (and goes on to say his brother Joseph is one of them). And I personally don't believe that. I mean, it might have been true for Napoleon in that moment - perhaps he was feeling bitter and angry - but I think he absolutely loved more than a handful of people over the course of his life. He also might have been putting on a bit of an act of "I'm the cold as marble Emperor who has No Tender and Vulnerable Feelings".

In any case, I'm not sure this is super helpful of a reply but basically - read everything critically, know that there was a lot of legend making happening on Saint Helena, and there is still truth in what is said but you might just have to do some comparing/parsing etc.!

[genericswordsmaiden]

I finished reading Buster Keaton's memoirs and honestly I loved this book so much that I miss it (it's been only two hours)

Highlights from the last two chapters include:

the way he defines his marriage to Eleanor as the best thing that happened to him in 1940

some anecdotes about Chaplin and thoughts on the situation he was facing at the time, since he was basically exiled from the USA

the way he narrates the reunion with his two sons, and the joy that transpires from reading about the regular visits he receives from them and their respective families - and being called grandpa (dear god it is so heartwarming)

and last but not least, the memory of being on a ship in the city of Genova where the sailors recognized him and called him "Booster". At first I laughed and thought "ah, typical compatriots in the '50s, greeting a foreigner and getting their name wrong" - then I remembered my own language's rules and realized that "oo" corresponds to the pronunciation for the letter "u" in Italian. They were calling him by his name, only using the so-called "pronunciation of a word as it is written" and that made me smile so much so much for some reason.

I wonder if he ever knew that we referred to him as "Saltarello" (I don't know if it can be translated, but it derives from the word "salto", that is "jump").

Anyway I strongly recommend this book for every fan out there if they haven't already read it. Beyond being parts of a life that changed cinema, it also contains a first-person point of view of what the film industry was like in the '20s and '30s, how it changed, as well as some comments about that slice of society.

10/10 would gladly erase this from my memory just to read it the first time again

[empirearchives]

Napoleon to Las Cases:

“The truth is that I have never been master of my movements; I have never been entirely myself. I had plans: but I never had the freedom to carry out any of them. I have always been governed by circumstances. [...] I was not the master of my acts, because I was not mad enough to try to twist events to my system: on the contrary, I adapted my system to the events.”

Source: Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène

[scotianostra]

On November 21st 1835 James Hogg, the poet known as the Ettrick shepherd, died in Ettrick.

As his date of birth is unknown and only a gueestimate, and it being so close, I will forgo the December date and concentrate on todays post.

Like Burns and Scott, James Hogg was keenly interested in Song.  He published a book of music known as The Forest Minstrel.  Originally published in 1810, The Forest Minstrel is the complete collection of songs by Hogg, featuring his first compositions as a shepherd in Ettrick and those inspired by early contact with the literary culture of Edinburgh. Hogg also taught himself to play the fiddle, and rapidly began to make a name for himself as "Jamie the Poeter", a singer of traditional ballards and reciter of the rich folklore of the Scottish Borders, he could also draw, as seen in the pic which shows The River Esk in Roslin Glen, a body of water I know very well.

James Hogg was born on a farm near Ettrick Forest in Selkirk and baptized there onor around December 9th. The house that James Hogg was born in was at Ettrick Hall, a few miles from St Mary's Loch. Here a statue commemorates his birth. He lived here for the first seven years of his life. James Hogg had little education, and became a shepherd, living in poverty. His father was a shepherd and he too took on the title, hence his nickname, The Ettrick Shepherd. His employer, James Laidlaw of Blackhouse, seeing how hard he was working to improve himself, offered to help by making books available. Hogg used these to essentially teach himself to read and write. He had achieved this by the age of 14. In 1796 Robert Burns died, and Hogg, who had only just come to hear of him, was devastated by the loss. He struggled to produce poetry of his own, and Laidlaw introduced him to Sir Walter Scott, who asked him to help with a publication entitled The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. In 1801, Hogg visited Edinburgh for the first time.

His own collection, The Mountain Bard, was published in 1807 and became a best-seller, allowing him to buy a farm of his own. Having made his name, he started a literary magazine, The Spy, and his epic story-poem, The Queen's Wake (the setting being the return to Scotland of Queen Mary after her exile in France), was published in 1813 and was another big success. Yesterdays subject of a post, William Blackwood recruited him for the Edinburgh Magazine, and he was introduced to William Wordsworth and several other well-known literary figures. He was given a farm by the Duke of Buccleuch, and settled down there for the rest of his life.

Hogg had already made his reputation as a prose writer with a practical treatise on sheep's diseases; and in 1824 his novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, was another major success. He became better known than his hero, Burns, had ever been.

Hogg's poetry and essays were not as widely read as in his contemporary era. However "Justified Sinner" remains important and is now seen as one of the major Scottish novels of its time, and absolutely crucial in terms of exploring one of the key themes of Scottish culture and identity: You might be surprised to know that the Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh cited Hogg, especially "Justified Sinner" as a major influence on his writing.

Hogg published mainly poetry until he was in his late forties. A particularly notable poem from this period is The Queen's wake, a book-length narrative in which the poets of Scotland assemble at Holyrood Palace for a bardic contest to celebrate the return of Mary Queen of Scots from France. A notable series of novels followed. Hogg's alternative version of James Macpherson's Ossian poem, Fingal. Many of Hogg's best later poems were collected in A Queer book.

Hogg's writings explore the supernatural with great power and sophistication, as in The Justified sinner, which is regarded by many as the greatest of all Scottish novels. Equally powerful is The Three perils of Woman, which explores the terrible aftermath of Culloden. The Three perils of Man is Hogg's version of a Medieval romance. Overflowing with vivacity, this novel is full of devilry and witchcraft. Much of the action takes place at Aikwood in the Ettrick valley, where Gibbie Jordan witnesses a wedding between a demon and a witch.

Aikwood Tower was until recently the home a Hogg exhibition that was open to the public during the tourist season. The Hogg exhibition has since moved as Aikwood is no longer open to the public.

Many of you will know by now I prefer shorter poems, I will leve a link below where you can find more of his work, but for now here is one of his shortest poems.

O, love, love, love! Love is like a dizziness; It winna let a puir body Gang about his biziness!

[stephensmithuk]

The Hound of the Baskervilles: The Curse of the Baskervilles

CW for discussion of crimes against humanity.

Devonshire is a historical alternative name for the county of Devon, these days not seeing that much use. Devon and next-door Cornwall have a friendly rivalry going over various things, including the order in which you put cream and jam on a scone. Cornwall does jam first, Devon cream. Getting it the wrong round in the relevant county can attract disapproving looks.

Mainstream Christianity believes that the only sin that cannot be forgiven by God is "blaspheming against the Holy Spirit", which is a continuous and arrogant rejection of it. It is generally deemed impossible for a Christian to actually do because if you worried that you've done it, you're not rejecting the Holy Spirit.

The Great Rebellion is the then standard name for what is commonly called the English Civil War or less commonly, but more correctly the War of the Three Kingdoms - England, Scotland and Ireland all being their own kingdoms under a single monarch, Wales is a principality. Lasting from 1639 to 1653 and including a whole bunch of conflicts, including two English Civil Wars. Various videos explaining the whole rather complex affair with varying degrees of comedy can be found on YouTube, but the popular version is that a bunch of republicans (Roundheads) with short hair fought a bunch of monarchists with long hair (Cavaliers). To quote Arnold Rimmer, it ended "1-0 to the pudding-basins" and King Charles I ended up losing his head in public.

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, a key member of the governments of Charles I and Charles II wrote some memoirs of the whole period. Initially written between 1646 and 1648 as a defence of the former, his fall from power and exile in 1667 (he was made to carry the can for the English defeat against the Netherlands in the Second Anglo-Dutch War despite having little involvement) resulted in a massive expansion and re-write of The History of the Rebellion, which generally runs to no less than six volumes. One can compare it to Winston Churchill's The Second World War it seems - interesting, but watch for bias.

A yeoman in this context was a commoner who owned the land that he farmed, as opposed to being merely a tenant. Indeed a third of all farmland remains run by tenanted farmers; including much of Dartmoor, which is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the land holdings of a (male only) heir to the throne.

A maiden is traditionally an unmarried girl or young woman, with a strong implication of virginity to boot.

Michaelmas is a Christian festival held on 29 September in honour Saint Michael and all the other angels. It was traditionally associated with the end of harvest and a bunch of other stuff, including the legal calendar. The Lord Mayor of London (not to be confused with the Mayor of London) is elected on this. Traditionally the meal eaten here included goose, but it has very much fallen out of fashion in modern Britain.

A carouse (also a verb) is basically a long drinking and dancing event; "Carouse" turns up as a skill in some RPG systems i.e. the ability to do this effectively without ending up on the floor next to your vomit.

"Terrible oaths" here mean foul language.

A league is three statute miles, so she's got to get nine miles or 14.9 kilometres. That's a rather long way to go, especially in the dark.

A flagon is a large vessel for containing drink, about 2 imperial pints or 1.1 litres in capacity. You can either use it for pouring (in which case it will have a spout) or drinking from directly.

Trenchers were flat wood or metal plates used for serving food. In medieval times, they would be made of stale bread. After the meal, these and the juices, leftovers etc. would be generally given to the poor. Eating the trencher yourself was considered rather vulgar.

"Wench" has had various meanings over the years. In Shakespeare's time, it was a neutral or even endearing term for a young woman. It then evolved into a female server, particularly at a tavern (with the associated sexy costume, although I am not sure when that became a thing) and from there to being a term for a prostitute, with "wenching" becoming a verb to mean using the services of them. With an associated meaning of a promiscuous woman. It is not clear whether the writer is using the term or Hugo is here. I can see the latter using it in a rather venomous way.

A kerchief is another name for a bandana.

The pistols of the period were single-shot weapons requiring reloading with powder, wadding and shot. Even with regular practice like in an army (where this was a major part of drill), you'd be looking at a 15 to 20 second reloading time. It was commonplace to carry two pistols (a brace) as a result, at which point the fight was either over, or it was time to get your sword out. Some went still further - Blackbeard, who was going progressively crazy with syphilis, is recorded as carrying six loaded pistols on him.

There were 16 fatal dog on human attacks in the UK from January to September 2023; a sharp rise blamed on the American XL Bully breed, which was promptly banned in England and Wales as a result.

Providence means God's intervention in the universe.

"Which would not forever punish the innocent beyond that third or fourth generation which is threatened in Holy Writ" is a reference to the Commandment about not creating graven images or idols, either the Second Commandment or part of the First depending on your denomination; Anglicans put it as the Second.

"The probable Liberal candidate for Mid-Devon" is going to form part of a post discussing late Victorian elections, because I could go on all days about those. Central Devon was a narrow Conservative hold in 2024, by the way.

Nouveaux riches is French for "new rich", commonly rendered as "new money". The "aristocracy" on both sides of the Atlantic (see The Gilded Age) looked down on the new millionaires who were being created by the Industrial Revolution, such as railway tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867, followed by gold at Witwatersrand in 1886, led to a vast boom that turned what would become South Africa from an agricultural economy to a wealthy industrial one... most of that wealth ending in the hands of white people, of course. Indeed, it led to the actual creation of South Africa in the first place.

Inquests are held in England and Wales after any death that is violent, unnatural, a possible suicide or in custody. These were at the time conducted with a jury, but this has become much rarer since 1927, when a coroner can do it on their own in many cases. In the case of a murder, an inquest will be opened and adjourned to allow the police to investigate. This process can take quite a while; after the Manchester Arena bombing of 2017, a full public inquiry into the event was held and following the end of that in 2003, the same judge then conducted an inquest into the death of the bomber himself, as was legally required. No public hearings were held in this case to avoid attention and save public money. The conclusion was officially logged as "suicide while undertaking a terror attack that murdered 22 innocent victims and injured many others", Sir John Saunders clearly that merely putting "suicide" was insufficient.

The Gypsy and Traveller community have long been associated with horses, with the Appleby Horse Fair being held every June in Cumbria. The RSPCA have a large presence at the event to deal with any animal welfare issues, issuing warnings and will take animals away or prosecute people if required. The 2024 event saw two horses worked to death, the official website posting the RSPCA's request for information on those responsible.

I've discussed Bushmen/San in one of my posts on The Sign of Four.

"Hottentot" is a now-offensive term for the Khoekhoe nomadic pastoralists of Southern Africa, often grouped with the San. Its use in the 1964 Mary Poppins film has seen that movie reclassified in the UK from a U (universal) to a PG.

They are split into the Northern Khoekhoe or Nama, located in Namibia and Botswana, and the Southern Khoekhoe or Cape Khoe found in the SW coastal regions of South Africa. At the time this book was set, these were, respectively:

German South West Africa

Bechaunaland Protectorate (de facto independent until 1891 when the British took active control)

The Cape Colony

Two years after publication, separate Nama and Herero rebellions in the former against colonial rule (the German aim being ethnic cleansing) were brutally defeated, with the peoples either shot dead, driven into the desert or placed into concentration camps. They were subjected to medical experiments, skulls being taken to Germany for use as demonstration of "racial inferiority". The similarities between this genocide and the Holocaust are clear, although the precise connections are debated by historians.

It is estimated that up to 80% of the indigenous population died as a result.

Germany has in the last decade offically recognised this as a genocide, agreed to pay €1.1 billion to the affected communities and has returned the human remains held in German universities or teaching hospitals.

On a final note, Mortimer failing to mention the footprints around the body might be considered perjury.

[justforbooks]

Edna O’Brien

Novelist who scandalised her native Ireland with The Country Girls, and explored the lives of women who love and suffer

Before Edna O’Brien, Irish female writers tended to come from the preserve of the “big house” or enjoyed the kind of privilege that made a life of writing possible. And by and large, their books dealt with genteel themes and conformed to recognisable genres and narrative forms.

When O’Brien’s first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, all that changed. As her friend and peer Philip Roth remarked: “While Joyce, in Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist, was the first Irish Catholic to make his experience and surroundings recognisable, ‘the world of Nora Barnacle’ had to wait for the fiction of Edna O’Brien.”

Written in exile in London, The Country Girls brought O’Brien, who has died aged 93, to international attention.

The reception in Ireland was largely hostile due to the book’s frank portrayal of female sexuality and desire. It was denounced as a “slur on Irish womanhood” and banned, as were several subsequent books. The notoriety established an enduring public persona – the glamorous and worldly, convent-educated libertine – which sometimes worked to the detriment of O’Brien’s reputation as a serious and committed writer. For decades, her name operated as a byword for transgression and subversion, particularly for women.

In addition to more than two dozen novels and short story collections, O’Brien produced numerous plays, a couple of memoirs, children’s books and a collection of poems. The largely first person, linear narratives of her early novels evolved into a consciously experimental style in the 1970s and 80s. A Pagan Place (1970) is written in the second person singular: Night (1972) is a single sustained monologue.

The debt to Joyce, whom O’Brien revered and was able to quote at length from memory, was obvious. Like Joyce, she understood how the cadences, rhythms and syntax of English as it is spoken in Ireland could be used to liberate narrative from its empirical impulse and, among other things, give voice to female subjectivity. But her themes were entirely her own.

In 1983, the writer and journalist Nuala O’Faolain wrote: “Edna O’Brien is not a writer within a conscious literature. She owes nothing to any predecessor or to any tradition. She is a writer with one theme, women who love and suffer.”

From the 90s onwards, O’Brien consciously expanded her range in a quartet of books that dealt with the massive social, political and economic changes that were sweeping through Ireland, themes largely ignored by other Irish writers.

The first of these, House of Splendid Isolation (1994), dealt with the Troubles via the relationship between a fugitive Republican, McGreevy (based on the Republican paramilitary Dominic McGlinchey, whom she interviewed at Portlaoise prison), and an elderly woman, Josie, whom he takes hostage. In the same year, she interviewed Gerry Adams for the New York Times and in 1995 published an open letter in the Independent calling on the then leader of the Labour party, Tony Blair, to open up a dialogue with Republicans.

In Ireland and England, O’Brien’s involvement in political activity and her perceived sympathy for the Republican movement led to widespread criticism – in the Guardian she was described by Edward Pearce as “the Barbara Cartland of long-distance republicanism”. By insisting that dialogue is the necessary first step of any conflict resolution, O’Brien did no more than anticipate the zeitgeist.

In subsequent books, O’Brien fictionalised divisive events that an increasingly prosperous Ireland would sooner have ignored. The real story of a 14-year-old rape victim who had been stopped, by law, from leaving Ireland for an abortion became Down By the River (1996). Generally speaking, these books were poorly reviewed in the UK and Ireland. Many of O’Brien’s severest critics were the same people who found her intervention in politics offensive and she was routinely accused of being out of touch with modern Ireland.

Her 2002 book, In the Forest, was based on a notorious triple murder in County Clare. O’Brien’s fictional killer, O’Kane, descends into madness and violence via a life of exclusion and abuse. Writing about the novel in the Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole painted the actual events as beyond human comprehension while at the same time excoriating O’Brien: “...(the events) did not and do not have a public meaning... there is simply no artistic need for so close an intrusion into other people’s grief.”

There is an irony here: the Ireland that had been scandalised by the antics of Baba and Kate in The Country Girls was still unable to confront the ugly underbelly of a society in which poverty, the degradation of women, violence and routine abuse had been endemic for decades.

There is an urgent, heightened quality to these books – their narratives strain as they shuttle back and forth across space and time. Chapters are routinely no more than two pages long, staccato dialogue sits cheek by jowl with descriptive passages of extraordinary vividness and terseness. Reviewing O’Brien’s The Little Red Chairs (2016) in the New Yorker, James Wood described her late style as one that “mixes and reinvents inherited forms, blithely shifts from third-person to first-person narration, reproduces dreams and dramatic monologues”.

O’Brien put this style to great use in her biography of James Joyce (1999). It is still by far the best short introduction to the writer, his works and life. Such was O’Brien’s ability to weave her own words in and around those of Joyce that when the manuscript was submitted to the prickly Joyce estate for approval no changes or deletions were requested.

The daughter of Lena (nee Cleary) and Michael O’Brien, Edna was born in the village of Tuamgraney, County Clare, into a newly independent Ireland where church and state conspired to control all aspects of women’s lives and bodies. Her family had the trappings of wealth – they lived in a large house with a gate lodge, kept horses and employed farm workers – but money was scarce.

Her father’s unsuccessful horse breeding, gambling and alcoholism maintained a constant level of tension in the house, which often erupted into violence. Her mother’s love for her bordered on the obsessional – Edna was the youngest by five years of four children. Decades later, Lena’s frequent letters to her exiled daughter in London, many of which admonished Edna for her writing and lifestyle, ended with the hope that they would be buried together.

O’Brien claimed that the only books in her childhood home were bloodstock manuals and the Bible, and she often made reference to her mother’s visceral fear of writing. Her turbulent childhood remained a constant touchstone in her fiction, as did the landscape of County Clare. She was educated at the Convent of Mercy in Loughrea, where she excelled at the sciences – her English teacher found her assignments “too exuberant” – and she enrolled in a pharmaceutical college in Dublin, working part-time in a chemist shop.

She met the Irish-Czech writer Ernest Gébler, eloped with him and subsequently married him, against her parents’ wishes, in the summer of 1954. In 1960, the couple and their two sons, Carlo and Sasha, moved to London, where O’Brien was engaged by the publishers Hutchinson to undertake manuscript reports. Iain Hamilton, who ran Hutchinson, was sufficiently impressed with her efforts that he and Blanche Knopf advanced £25 each to get her to write a novel. The Country Girls was written in three weeks.

O’Brien’s success led to strain on her marriage with Gébler and it broke down in 1966. As with her childhood, it provided a rich seam for her writing. She engaged in a successful three-year custody battle for her sons – she had walked out in the middle of cooking dinner one evening – and this included making an undertaking before a court that she would never let her sons see her 1965 novel, August Is a Wicked Month. The acrimony with Gébler continued – he claimed that he had largely written her early books.

Not since Oscar Wilde had an Irish émigré in London lived such a flamboyant life. O’Brien moved in an international celebrity set and spent extended periods in the US, where she enjoyed a large following. Her friends included Jane Fonda, Jackie Kennedy, Samuel Beckett, Mick Jagger, Francis Bacon, Ted Hughes, Princess Margaret, Ian McKellen and Harold Pinter. In 1972, she was described in the Longford report on pornography as a “purveyor of insidiously pornographic and perverted views on sex”. She took LSD with RD Laing, a disastrous experiment that unhinged her mind for a year. She was a regular at the White House St Patrick’s Day party, and posed for Bill Brandt and David Hockney.

Although O’Brien’s professional career coincided with feminism, she had an awkward relationship with the movement. Her independence provided an early example for those seeking greater equality with men, but many were uncomfortable with the concentration on love in her early books and the fact that many of her female characters could be characterised as victims.

O’Brien was routinely referred to as “the Irish Colette”. It was difficult to square a statement such as “I am obsessed by love, by the need of it and the near impossibility of it …” with the impulse in early feminism for independence and activism. But, while O’Brien’s female protagonists might not provide ready standard-bearers, that was never really her project.

The fine short story The Love Object (1968) perhaps offers a deeper insight into her real motivation. An impassioned affair between a television announcer, Martha, and a “famous”, happily married, lawyer ends badly and Martha reaches suicidal depths. As she slowly, gradually recovers from the affair she finds herself falling in love with the memory of the lover more deeply than ever she had been while he was available to her. The story ends with these lines: “I suppose you wonder why I torment myself like this with details of his presence but I need it, I cannot let go of him now, because if I did, all our happiness and my subsequent pain – I cannot vouch for his – will all have been nothing, and nothing is a dreadful thing to hang on to.” More Proust than Colette.

Casual sexism is commonplace in writing about female writers and O’Brien suffered more than most in this regard. Profiles and reviews of her books concentrated on her looks, her poetic manner of speaking, her accent, speculation about lovers, often at the expense of her writing.

It is hard to imagine Seamus Heaney, John Banville or Colm Tóibín being written about in this way. As she wryly commented: “It’s assumed that in order to be a serious writer, you have to look like the back of a bus.” Because she was regarded as a scandalous woman, it was assumed that all of her female characters were thinly disguised autobiography.

This charge simultaneously relegates autobiographical writing to a secondary category and implies that women’s experience is unworthy of “serious” literature. O’Brien is on record as saying: “Whether a novel is autobiographical or not does not matter. What is important is the truth in it and the way that truth is expressed.”

Although the final decade of O’Brien’s life was marred with ill-health, she continued to write. At the same time, the critical response to her work (and appreciation of her career) underwent a significant shift. It is perhaps ironic that the wholly positive reception of writers such as Eimear McBride, Anne Enright and Anna Burns, all of whom owe a significant debt to O’Brien, created an atmosphere in which the older writer could be reassessed. In Ireland, she was given the title Saoi, the highest honour of the Aosdána, in 2015. In 2018 she was made an honorary dame and in 2021 a commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Her late novels continued to explore familiar territory – the control of women and their bodies, the treacherous and all pervasive workings of patriarchy, the impossibility of love, the violation of innocence, exile and abandonment – but with a renewed vigour and urgency.

She was drawn to ever more horrific material, and the writing style became sparer and sharper. Reviewing Girl (2019), O’Brien’s reimagining of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram jihadists in 2014, in the Guardian, Alex Clark wrote, “There is the blend of economy and lyricism, vignettes tumbling over one another to disorient and energise the reader. There is the intense focus on the emotional lives of women on the sharp end of mental and physical incarceration or constraint, broadening out to sketch in the patriarchal and theocratic structures that hold them there.”

The theme of exile is as old as writing itself. For many Irish writers, it seems to be a prerequisite but for O’Brien it had a particularity that transcended her physical separation from Ireland. From an early age, she perceived her own femininity as a form of exile. She fervently believed that true art could only be produced out of pain, rupture and displacement.

In 1976, in her semi-autobiographical Mother Ireland, she wrote: “I live out of Ireland because something in me warns me that I might stop if I lived there, that I might cease to feel what it has meant to have such a heritage, might grow placid when in fact I want yet again and for indefinable reasons to trace that same route, that trenchant childhood route, in the hope of finding some clue that will, or would, or could, make possible the leap that would restore one to one’s original place and state of consciousness, to the radical innocence of the moment just before birth.”

O’Brien is survived by her sons.

🔔 Josephine Edna O’Brien, writer, born 15 December 1930; died 27 July 2024

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