the onward journey of a Dublin woman
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- O'Faolain, Nuala
- Publish Year
- 2003
- Shelfmark
- B5258 - B
- Thesaurus
- relaties, emoties, liefde, schrijvers, ouders kindrelatie, biografie
- Description
- A memoir can be a summing-up of a long, interesting life, O'Faolain opens by listing what she doesn't have, as she enters her mid-50s: someone to love, someone to love her, money, a workplace, a pension. But it's clear love is her biggest problem. Her early boyfriends were apparently unremarkable, her 15-year relationship with 'Nell' ended awfully and her subsequent affair with an elderly married man was mostly imagined. Toward the book's end, she's almost ditching her relationship with a divorced father, resenting his intimacy with his daughter. Her anger at her dysfunctional parents seethes throughout, culminating in a fantasy of joining her (now deceased) mother in a bar, and walking out just when Mom's ordered her a drink. By ending on that note, O'Faolain hints that her parents' lovelessness made it hard for her to love, an unsatisfying conclusion to such a nuanced account.