The Lonely Girl is the second novel in Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls trilogy. The trilogy is quite autobiographical without matching the details of O’Brien’s life exactly. I did a little reading about O’Brien lately and was interested to learn that her books were originally banned in Ireland because of their frankness about sex and other women’s issues.
If you haven’t read the first volume, you may not always understand what’s going on at first. It is very short, so I recommend it.
Caithleen and her friend Baba are still living in a rooming house in Dublin at the beginning of the novel. I was happy to learn that Caithleen has broken with Mr. Gentleman. However, the girls are living a giddy life, crashing parties, trying to find men to buy their drinks, and hanging out with people Caithleen disapproves of. They are happy to be thought fast but still very innocent and silly.
We saw in the first novel that Caithleen is attracted to older men, and early in the novel, she meets Eugene Gaillard, a documentary film maker, who is older. He is obviously attracted to her, but it is she who takes the initiative to see him. Although he is attracted by her freshness and innocence, he doesn’t understand how innocent she is. Eventually, she finds out that he has been married, and although they are separated, they are not divorced. Caithleen is still very Catholic, so there would be a problem even if he were divorced.
Some ill-wisher gets involved and sends anonymous letters around, including to her father, which makes a difficult situation even worse. I was struck by how everyone assumes these letters are true (they are not) without asking her.
Although I think Caithleen is very silly at times, she is struggling with a lot considering her total ignorance of sex, her uncertainty with Eugene, her jealousy of Eugene’s wife, and so on. She is kind of a wet noodle in this one, always in tears, but I still want to find out what’s next.
What? Me Read? 