Edna O'Brien

Edna O'Brien0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty seven, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:29

A Castaway is an internationally renowned novelist. Born in Ireland, she wrote her first novel, The Country Girls, in 1960. It immediately gains her widespread acclaim, and her reputation has grown with each new book. On television and radio, she projects an intriguing personality. I've always thought of her as a beguiling witch. She is Edna O'Brien. You smile at the description, but that's really accurate. That's what I do feel about you.

Edna O'Brien0:53

Ah, well, I'm very pleased. Particularly m many people would be afraid of the word witch. I I am not at all. One of my great friends and somebody whom I admired very much as a poet was Robert Graves. And uh he was quite obsessed with uh goddesses, w witches, anything I suppose to do with psychic quality or something that's beyond

Edna O'Brien1:17

The norm and the rational. I know that even saying that, many people will say, Oh.

Edna O'Brien1:23

How silly, you know, let's deal with the rational. But I I always think let's have a little

Edna O'Brien1:29

access to magic and to the unknown, because life is primarily quite boring.

Presenter1:36

This is true. Did did Graves call you a witch as well then?

Edna O'Brien1:40

He did, he did, yes. He

Presenter1:41

Yeah.

Presenter1:42

I'm a good company.

Edna O'Brien1:43

You're in good company. He didn't, however, put the beguiling before it.

Presenter1:48

What about let's talk about music that you're going to take to this desert island of yours. Now, has music been an important part of your life?

Edna O'Brien1:55

It has become more important as time goes on. I mean, I constantly listen to what I call the third programme, but I understand is Radio Three.

Edna O'Brien2:05

And but my tastes in music have changed. When I was young in Ireland,

Edna O'Brien2:14

There was really uh classical music, I I never heard it, or opera, but there were two kinds.

Edna O'Brien2:21

Uh two contrasting kinds of music, which I still love, of course, because we never escape our beginnings, nor should we, I think.

Edna O'Brien2:30

The first kind was was the the singing of the Mass and at Easter particularly, you know, uh during Lent and Easter Saturday. And I can still hear it and be uplifted by it.

Edna O'Brien2:48

The the Kyria, the Sanctus, and that so that was choir music.

Edna O'Brien2:54

And then on maybe Easter Sunday night

Edna O'Brien2:58

Through the open windows of the dance hall.

Edna O'Brien3:02

to which one was not allowed to go on the grounds of being too young, one would hear some crooner or other, who one could imagine as being the most handsome man in the world, singing

Edna O'Brien3:14

Quite soppy songs like um Jealousy. That was a great one. It's all over mine jealousy. So those were my first two um

Edna O'Brien3:24

Context if or introduction, if you like, to music. And then there was the other thing.

Edna O'Brien3:30

Which is the Irish Pipes.

Edna O'Brien3:33

The Illin pipes, which have these beautiful, beautiful music. And I love airs. I don't mean airs and graces, but airs in the head.

Speaker 43:44

Hmm.

Edna O'Brien3:45

You know, something that you hear a tune.

Edna O'Brien3:48

And it does, without doubt, summon up a whole flotilla.

Edna O'Brien3:55

of emotions more than prose or paintings.

Presenter3:58

What about the first choice, then, of record?

Edna O'Brien4:01

Well, this is one of my f truly favourite Irish songs, as is the voice of the girl who sings it from the Johnsons. It's called in this version The Lambs on the Green Hills.

Speaker 34:14

The lambs on the green hills, They sport on, they play.

Speaker 34:25

And many strawberries Grow on the south sale.

Speaker 34:35

I'm many strawberries.

Speaker 34:41

Grow on the souls.

Presenter4:45

The Lambs on the Green Hills, performed by The Johnstons. Edward Brian, let's go back to your childhood now. What kind of a an upbringing was it? I mean, was it a happy childhood?

Edna O'Brien4:55

No, no, I don't think so. Um I have talked about it before, and really I'm always in dread of ever repeating myself. I'll try and think of some particular aspects of it that

Edna O'Brien5:10

that maybe one hasn't said before. It was certainly a childhood.

Edna O'Brien5:15

in which I fastened.

Edna O'Brien5:18

On to both fantasy.

Edna O'Brien5:22

and things of the imagination.

Edna O'Brien5:25

And I think we always do that. People always do that when.

Edna O'Brien5:30

there is darkness or gloom or unhappiness. I don't any longer, as I might have had we been doing this programme fifteen years ago,

Edna O'Brien5:42

really want to throw stones or blame anyone in so far as I think uh we expect of our parents to be very happy, wholesome, protective

Edna O'Brien5:57

people and sometimes they're not able to be because they themselves

Edna O'Brien6:03

are living out unfinished business of childhood. So that it wasn't there wasn't much laughter.

Edna O'Brien6:10

Or there wasn't um

Edna O'Brien6:12

a great harmony.

Edna O'Brien6:15

What there was, though, was, I can now see, the material and the whetstone to become a writer.

Presenter6:26

How old were you when you start when you started?

Edna O'Brien6:28

I wrote a little novel when I was probably nine or ten, and I had it in little notebooks. And it's funny about the things in this world that you lose. It happens in adult life too. I don't know what happened to it. I certainly wrote it, and it was I suppose quite absurd and gushing. But one of my favourite books of that kind of genre is The Young Visitors. You know, it's a lovely little book.

Edna O'Brien6:53

And this was uh it wasn't as funny as the young visitors, but it had that same spryness.

Presenter6:59

Another choice of record, please.

Edna O'Brien7:02

Nabucco, and uh it's the chorus of the slaves, and uh this particular one is conducted by Claudio Bardo.

Presenter8:14

There was a chorus of the Hebrew slaves from Verdi's Nabucco, the Ambrosian singers and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abado.

Presenter8:22

End of Brian, what about religion? I mean, what part did that play in in the creative impulse?

Edna O'Brien8:28

A very strong part, actually, more and more. Religion, particularly the Catholic religion, which is the only one I have living experience of.

Edna O'Brien8:37

suffuses you and drenches you in all its imagery and in its story. I mean, uh I took religion to be as as much part of everyday life as part of eternal life, so that it had a very uh profound effect on me and still has.

Edna O'Brien9:00

slightly altered way.

Edna O'Brien9:03

Um as a young girl I was extremely devout and was forever bobbing into the chapel and geneflecting and saying the stations of the cross and

Edna O'Brien9:13

praying. I was going even at the times, you know, when nobody else went because

Edna O'Brien9:19

I had this um

Edna O'Brien9:21

I have these saintly aspirations.

Speaker 49:22

Sydney

Edna O'Brien9:24

Sounds a bit conceited, but I promise you it wasn't conceited. It was silly, I suppose. And

Edna O'Brien9:33

I also have to say that a great

Edna O'Brien9:36

And indeed, um

Edna O'Brien9:39

On

Edna O'Brien9:40

alterable fears were denned into me by

Edna O'Brien9:45

uh the Catholic Church, by the sermons, by the nuns. I was educated by nuns when I went away to a boarding school.

Edna O'Brien9:53

And uh

Edna O'Brien9:55

It was in the nineteen forties, and it's uh almost unbelievable to look back on it now, this absolute uh fear that everything one might do

Edna O'Brien10:07

was a sin.

Speaker 310:08

Mm.

Edna O'Brien10:08

Or was an occasion of sin?

Speaker 310:10

Mm.

Edna O'Brien10:10

So that that dreaded shackle which we all try to stave off but can't the dreaded shackle of guilt

Edna O'Brien10:18

uh is as, I think, inherent in me as my bloodstream.

Presenter10:22

Yeah, it's still with you now.

Edna O'Brien10:23

I don't think uh

Presenter10:23

I don't

Edna O'Brien10:26

I don't think we change in this too much. The only change that comes about is a recognition of what it is that's going on. I would not, I hope.

Edna O'Brien10:37

Ever be frightened again.

Edna O'Brien10:39

By Priest, Nun, Bishop or Monsignor.

Edna O'Brien10:43

Because very often

Edna O'Brien10:45

Bare reason for uh correcting or abjuring one.

Edna O'Brien10:50

was not to do with faith or religion at all, but to do with their own little piece of power. And uh when you are young, and even when you are not so young,

Edna O'Brien11:02

You sometimes omit to recognize how many people want power.

Edna O'Brien11:07

Either domestic power in the home, or power in the office, or power in the pulpit.

Edna O'Brien11:13

Well, I don't want them. I don't want that manipulation ever again. But I do yearn.

Edna O'Brien11:20

For

Edna O'Brien11:21

A spiritual

Edna O'Brien11:24

peace and a spiritual entity.

Presenter11:27

Another choice of record, please.

Edna O'Brien11:29

Oh, my third choice is olotangi and it's African drums and it's called the drums of passion.

Presenter12:07

That was Olotanje, African Drums, of Passion.

Presenter12:10

Edmund Bryan, you you once said, describing th th this life you've been talking about, that you said that life was catastrophic.

Presenter12:19

What do you mean?

Edna O'Brien12:21

Well, I must have meant it if I used the word. I also

Edna O'Brien12:26

I don't know when I said it, but I won't deny it. I think what I mean is that.

Edna O'Brien12:32

I have in me.

Edna O'Brien12:34

A rather continuous sort of fear of

Edna O'Brien12:40

Catastrophe. I I think I'm a very anxious person. Mind you, I don't know a writer who isn't, but that's neither here nor there. And catastrophe is a very strong word, I know, but it's always being

Edna O'Brien12:54

On the alert for some outburst or some danger, which makes me.

Edna O'Brien13:02

uh physically a rather frightened person.

Edna O'Brien13:06

And it's a contradiction. But morally

Edna O'Brien13:09

I don't feel afraid of people, but physically I do. And that's why certain things I mean, people say to me, for instance, Are you afraid of flying? I say, Don't be ridiculous. I'm afraid of crossing the road or being in a motor car'cause f flying is I rather like because you're up in the air. But it's it's something, I think, that was instilled in me both by my own disposition and by my own upbringing, where there was, you know, they used to talk about ghosts and

Edna O'Brien13:39

people putting curses on people and

Edna O'Brien13:42

Animals getting foot and mouth disease that was really sent by God. There was a lot of primitive.

Edna O'Brien13:49

qualities in my growing up, which seem maybe laughable, speaking in nineteen eighty seven now here in London, but they're all there inside one, the little brain, that little magic computer.

Edna O'Brien14:04

It has stored everything. And we don't know why it is. We don't know why it is, for instance, you might go to an exhibition and love a Picasso, let's say, his blue period, and your wife or someone might like Guernica, which is a m all the things that we think we're being logical uh when we judge them or when we react to them are to do with so many components that we don't know about.

Presenter14:30

Let's have another choice of record.

Edna O'Brien14:32

It's from Mozart's Requiem. I love everything of Mozart, so I put penny tossed coins in the air and came with the Requiem, and uh it's the Sanctus.

Presenter15:44

That was the sanctus from Mozart's Requiem, the chorus and orchestra, Paris conducted by Daniel Barrenboim.

Presenter15:50

Edward Brian, let's continue with your career now. I mean, when you left home, you went and worked in a drugstore.

Edna O'Brien15:56

Yes, or pharmacy, as we call it.

Presenter15:57

Why?

Presenter15:58

As we call it.

Edna O'Brien16:00

Oh yes, I always say that it was there I learned how to cook.

Speaker 416:04

Uh

Edna O'Brien16:04

And it's true for a very simple reason.

Speaker 416:04

And it's

Edna O'Brien16:08

That the medicines, a lot of the medicines, there were some patent medicines, but a lot of the medicines were still made up by hand. So I learned how to make emulsions, and I learned how to make suppositories, and I learned all those things which teaches one how to make a good source and so on.

Presenter16:29

Suppository source.

Edna O'Brien16:30

A suppository source, yes. Origentian violet source.

Presenter16:32

Let's see.

Presenter16:35

And I mean, what was your ambition then at this point?

Edna O'Brien16:38

Oh, it was always to be a writer, but my family uh

Edna O'Brien16:42

quite understandably thought that was both

Edna O'Brien16:45

uh profane and unwise occupation. My mother in particular, it's very strange, she had a dread.

Edna O'Brien16:54

of writing and of literature. I mean a dread of it. She had this notion not from having read any books,'cause she didn't read any, but she had this notion

Edna O'Brien17:04

That it was the ticket to sin.

Edna O'Brien17:07

And I went home on holiday once with

Edna O'Brien17:10

You know, a suitcase that didn't close properly and so on. And I had a part of Sean O'Casey's autobiography.

Edna O'Brien17:18

And I never forget my mother bringing it down to me in her hand and saying, What is this?

Edna O'Brien17:24

She she she knew that, like the like the Russian censors, the Irish censors know that writing and literature is dynamite.

Presenter17:33

Sub highly subversive.

Presenter17:36

But I mean in the face of all this b well, in fact you you were in more trouble with your parents, weren't you, than than just uh wanting to be a writer, because you eloped, didn't you?

Edna O'Brien17:44

That's true.

Edna O'Brien17:45

I was always true to these songs like the lambs in the green hills and so on. Yes, I did elope. I never had.

Presenter17:45

I was

Edna O'Brien17:53

a proper wedding and uh

Edna O'Brien17:56

Don't know that I probably ever will, but uh I yes, I allow.

Presenter18:00

And that caused a a huge rift in the family, one imagines.

Edna O'Brien18:03

Yes, it caused a

Edna O'Brien18:05

understandably a great rift. I mean, years after, when I heard um the Beatles singing She's Leaving Home I thought why couldn't they have taken it like that? It did cause a great rift. It also caused m me myself a quite uh untoward amount of unhappiness and angst because I was obviously very divided about doing this and very um

Edna O'Brien18:30

guilty, and then I sort of hid for a long time.

Edna O'Brien18:33

So that it wasn't the best way to start on so-called marital bliss.

Presenter18:39

Let's have another record.

Edna O'Brien18:41

Ah my favorite, favorite voice in the world is that of Maria Callas, and it's from Bellini's La Sanambola.

Presenter19:55

From Bellini's La Sonambula A Non Credea Mirati, sung by Maria Callas.

Presenter20:02

Eden Brian, so we're at the situation now where you've you've eloped and and the family are are not speaking to you. And it was in fact at this time that you you you wrote your first novel, wasn't it? Hmm, the country girls.

Edna O'Brien20:12

Yes. It was um I had actually had my little sons and um

Edna O'Brien20:20

I was given by an English and American publisher it was Ian Hamilton of Hutchinson's and Blanche Knoff, God rest her of Knoff.

Edna O'Brien20:29

Between them they gave me fifty pounds to write a novel.

Edna O'Brien20:34

And I was so exalted by this huge sum of money that I immediately spent it. I bought things for my children, and I bought a sewing machine, because I thought my husband would think that was a sensible thing. Anyhow, I spent I blew this money.

Edna O'Brien20:48

and then had to write the novel. But the novel it was the easiest novel I ever wrote, The Country Girls, I often say, and it's true, that it wrote itself.

Edna O'Brien20:58

Uh I was uh

Edna O'Brien21:00

I came to London and it was my first time that I'd ever been away from Ireland or away anywhere. And I had this and I often think it still applies to people who come from other countries this indescribable

Edna O'Brien21:15

Loneliness that's both

Edna O'Brien21:17

An internal loneliness of emotion, but also a quite physical the other landscape, you can't adjust to it. Waterloo station seemed to me oh, such a you know, gloom.

Edna O'Brien21:29

So I wrote it in a sense about my country.

Edna O'Brien21:34

And about my childhood, Arab and my family,'twas a farewell.

Edna O'Brien21:40

Uh to many things. But I tried, or hoped, through the character of Baba.

Edna O'Brien21:47

uh to to inject a bit of life and buoyancy into it. Because um I think it was Brendan Beer who once said, he said, If ever you're going to get tragedy in, get it in the back door.

Edna O'Brien21:59

And I uh loved writing it, but I used to f write it in my son's bedroom, and they used to knock on the door, put little notes under the door, and say, Are you ready? Are you ready? because they wanted me to be

Edna O'Brien22:11

you know, playing with them. And my younger son, Sasha, had a lisp at the time, and he used to say, Have you finished your novel?

Edna O'Brien22:19

Because they thought it was, you know, if I got another fifty pounds that some more presents would be uh

Presenter22:19

I

Edna O'Brien22:24

would be coming up.

Presenter22:25

It's more than a success, of course. It's it's had stamina too'cause it's lasted and you just brought the trilogy out of the Call the Country Goes with the epilogue.

Edna O'Brien22:33

So

Presenter22:34

So I mean it's it's stood the test of time, because we're talking back now in the sixteen years.

Edna O'Brien22:37

Twenty yes, twenty five, twenty seven years, in fact.

Presenter22:40

So it's had that uh that wonderful stamina, or indeed the the three books have too.

Edna O'Brien22:45

Well, I suppose I've been lucky in that. I also.

Edna O'Brien22:50

On for on I don't have to defend myself to you because you're very nice to me, but I suppose I can also say that

Edna O'Brien22:59

Any book

Edna O'Brien23:00

It's like a person.

Edna O'Brien23:02

The real test is the re reading, and it's the test of time. Everything when it comes out is a kind of novelty, and indeed the word novel is no accident. But the real litmus test is the test of truth. And people might say, Well, what do you mean by truth? And I think I know I can pick up any book.

Edna O'Brien23:24

or poem or play and

Edna O'Brien23:26

and know whether it has

Edna O'Brien23:30

That in our

Edna O'Brien23:31

hum of life, or whether it's just a flash in the pan.

Presenter23:35

Another choice of record, please.

Edna O'Brien23:38

Ah, the great, great Elvis Presley. I know you're dismayed, are you? But I love Elvis Presley.

Presenter23:44

I'm not an Elvis Presley fan, but there you are.

Edna O'Brien23:47

Well, it's this song in particular which I love,'cause it um well, it says a lot, and it is Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Speaker 423:58

Are you lonesome tonight?

Speaker 424:03

Do you miss me tonight?

Speaker 424:07

Are you sorry we drifted apart?

Speaker 424:17

Does your memo restrain?

Speaker 424:21

Too bright a summer day

Speaker 424:26

Oh and I kiss

Presenter24:27

Elvis Presley, are you lonesome tonight? Edna Brown, I was about to ask you, have you ever considered writing your autobiography? And then I thought, well, no, I mean, you've already done it in all your novels, haven't you?

Edna O'Brien24:37

That's not true, Michael. That's not true. You try writing fiction in your autobiography and you'll see there is a great difference. Because what fiction is, is fantasized and imaginatized autobiography, but it ain't the same thing. If I wrote my autobiography, it would be quite different, and the style would be different. So what is Henry Higgins? What it says? Just you wait, Henry Higgins.

Presenter25:03

You're going to do it, you think?

Edna O'Brien25:04

I don't know, maybe.

Presenter25:06

Have you ever thought of it? Have you thought of a title?

Edna O'Brien25:10

Are you lonesome tonight, Phabs?

Presenter25:14

That's another choice of record.

Edna O'Brien25:16

Uh It's Carmina Burana by Karl Off.

Speaker 426:01

Oh, Totus Laurel Yama.

Presenter26:20

That was part of Camina Burana by Karl Off, a performance conducted by Riccardo Mutti.

Presenter26:26

Edinburgh Brian, one thing that intrigues me about you is is that you're not just a novelist, I mean you're a you're a star actually. I mean you're a star. I mean you're a star novelist. I mean you you're the kind of person to see on chat shows and you're interviewed all the time and I mean people ring you up for quotes about what do you think about the Queen's Corgis and all that sort of thing.

Edna O'Brien26:43

But if they do, they get a negative answer.

Presenter26:43

If they do

Presenter26:44

Uh

Presenter26:46

But I mean what what I'm getting at is, I mean, does that change the perspective of the novelist to to get the kind of fame and the the accolade that you've had from your

Edna O'Brien26:55

Well, I I I'm being genuine when I say this to you. I feel very hard worked and sometimes over oppressed with cares and calls, and I hate the telephone. But I don't feel a star. I feel, thank God, that I've managed to continue.

Edna O'Brien27:14

the talent that was given me and to be very

Edna O'Brien27:18

serious and obsessive about it. But for the most part I lead a fairly hidden and secluded life. I mean, obviously I have been and you have interviewed me and Russell Harty and people in the past, but that's like once a year or something. Uh the bulk of my life is lived alone.

Edna O'Brien27:39

Trying to write or writing, I see a lot of my sons whom I dote on.

Edna O'Brien27:45

And I see a few people, but the notion of fame, you see, doesn't happen unless you make a lot of money, and that I never have done.

Edna O'Brien27:55

Uh my books sell quite well, but I've never made uh large sums of money or have staff or anything like that, so that I'm still uh

Edna O'Brien28:04

you know, carrying home my own shopping and uh cooking the dinner. And perhaps, perhaps, I I I I would like to make a bit more sure, who wouldn't, but perhaps that having to, you know, lead ordinary, if you like, a housewifely life has um kept me my feet are on the ground, perhaps my head is not as f focussed o as it should be, but I don't feel any different.

Edna O'Brien28:33

when I publish my first book, I'm still as apprehensive, and still I rewrite and rewrite maybe ten, twenty times, still wanting to get it

Edna O'Brien28:45

Perfect. And that has nothing to do with fame or anything. That's an inner need, like

Edna O'Brien28:51

Prayer, really.

Presenter28:52

And has it been then and it must have been from what you tell me of the life of a of a writer have you found that totally satisfying?

Edna O'Brien29:00

Um no, no, I haven't. I uh often wished that I had um a job that brought me into contact with people. I mean, one of my great heroes is Chekhov, and Chekhov was, as you know, a doctor, and he used to retire into the country to his house to try and write, and when he'd opened the door in the morning, there were thirty or forty Russian peasants, all of whom needed medical attention.

Edna O'Brien29:29

and he railed against it, but it was the sap for so many of his great stories and plays. So I am glad that I am a writer and wouldn't in any other incarnation want it altered. But to counteract it, I would love

Edna O'Brien29:48

um a a much more physical life uh and and contact. I'd love to I'd actually love to have been a dancer. And I said this once to my great friend Jerome Robbins. He said, You wouldn't like to be a dancer, you wouldn't like to be practising eight hours a day at the bar.

Edna O'Brien30:04

And I said, well,

Edna O'Brien30:06

I do that anyhow with writing. He said exactly. You can't have everything.

Edna O'Brien30:10

So I like it, let's say sixty percent of uh it keeps me.

Edna O'Brien30:15

Ah, hap is a big word, but glad that I am it.

Presenter30:19

Uh final choice of record, please, Edna.

Edna O'Brien30:22

Is a Pacabelles canon in D.

Presenter31:27

That was a Cannon Indeed by Pacca Bell, played by the Payar Chamber Orchestra. Edna O'Brien, you're now on your desert island. Uh imagine a wave comes along, seven of your records have are washed away, you're left with one. Which shall it be?

Edna O'Brien31:40

It would be that one. Would it? Pacca Bell, because I think it's the most beautiful and harmonizing. It just makes me feel so calm.

Presenter31:50

And what is the book that you take? Assume you've got the Bible and you've got the works of Shakespeare.

Edna O'Brien31:53

Which we're glad of, aren't we? Very glad. I would bring uh I was once given by Senator Benton a present of the all the volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Edna O'Brien32:03

I would bring all them and improve my knowledge, which needs improving.

Presenter32:08

And what about the luxury object inanimate?

Edna O'Brien32:11

Well, it isn't a luxury. I think it's a necessity. It would be champagne.

Edna O'Brien32:15

And uh I have to say I like all champagne, but I'd like crystal.

Presenter32:20

A limitless supply.

Edna O'Brien32:22

Yeah, well just enough per day, you know, just in the evening at sundown.

Presenter32:26

Edinburgh Brown, thank you very much indeed.

Edna O'Brien32:28

Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael.

Edna O'Brien32:38

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