Country Girl.

I read some extracts of Edna O'Brien's memoir Country Girl a short while ago and enjoyed them immensely. 

The book overall is exceedingly well written, it is very lyrical and Ms O'Brien has a wonderful command of the English language as well as an outstanding vocabulary. The writing is very elegant but I did find at times that there was a little too much description, which made parts of the book a little slow moving for my liking.

The book moves back and forth in time rather than depicting things in the exact order in which they happened. My favourite pieces dealt with her life as a young woman in Dublin, her marriage and life after her divorce. She has led an amazingly rich life and has met so many interesting people. I really enjoyed the parts of the book in which she told of her life in London during the 1960's and early 70's. I found them simply fascinating.

One thing that surprised me was that although living the seemingly carefree life of an artist she appeared to be very materialistic and put great emphasis on her houses and certain possessions.

  

I would have loved this book if it were a 100 pages shorter but it lost momentum for me and the last third of the book dragged on a little. However I can't fault the quality of the writing or her storytelling.