Rating: 
Summary: anti-human
Review: "What happened to me?''
-Nuala O'Faolain, Are You Somebody ? : The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman This was, without a doubt, the most depressing, anti-human book I've ever read (well, actually, listened to). Kathleen de Burca, a travel writer, has fled an unhappy childhood in her native Ireland, only to find an unhappy adulthood in England. She has almost no friends and seems never to have loved or been loved. Instead she engages in innumerable casual couplings, fueled by nothing but physical desire : I believed in passion the way other people believed in God: everything fell in place around it. But now, as she approaches fifty, she faces the possibility that even this sexual consolation will dry up :
But then I thought, Isn't it some kind
of good, that a person can be shocked into truthfulness, even if it's only for a
few hours and only with herself? I sat in the thick night air of the plane and I
thought, If anyone had said to you, all these years, are you interested in sex?
you'd have said, haughtily, No. I'm interested in passion. Passion. I murmured
the word half out loud. What passion? It was never real excitement that got you
into bed; it was hope, like some stubborn underground weed. Look at the way
you've believed every time, at the first brush of a hand across a breast, that the
roof over your life was sliding back and a dazzling, starry firmament was just
coming into view. When it never happened. When a one-night stand has never,
in all the years, done what you wanted it to do. What's more, the whole thing is
getting more and more pathetic. The truth is, I said to myself, that the older you
get, the more grateful you are for being wanted on any terms, by anybody. But if I stopped all that, how would I ever meet anyone? If I didn't have this
kind of sex life, I'd have none! Then I thought, But should it even be called sex?
Look at the businessman in Harare. You're not even giving them any pleasure
anymore, never mind getting any for yourself. Pathetic ? Pathetic doesn't even begin to cover it, sweetie. Finally becoming dissatisfied with her utterly meaningless existence, and shocked out of her torpor by the death of a gay male coworker, Kathleen returns to Ireland. But things go no better there as she squabbles with sisters, gets involved with a married man, and rages against the country's anti-abortion laws. Apparently, the lot of Ireland's universally unhappy women would be infinitely better if only they could terminate their unwanted pregnancies. In fact, it's not merely the children who are wrecking their lives, I lost track of how many women in the book have some kind of disease of the womb; their very womanhood is killing them. A whole lot of other nonsense goes on, but by then I plunged deep into a suicidal fugue state... Lest you think I'm overstating the case here, allow me to submit in my defense this quote from a profile of O'Faolain in The Guardian : 'I can't wait to be an old lady,' she says. 'I'm dying to wither up so I can stop hurting.' For God's sake, someone put the old girl out of her misery, or at the very least out of ours. This one has Oprah Book Club written all over it. GRADE : D
Rating: 
Summary: A Symphony of Passion and Emotion
Review: An elegantly composed symphony of passion and emotion. A coming of age in middle age book. A historical novel. A story of a hard scrabble traditional Irish Family, melding into the present day. Coming to terms with the sudden death of a companion, a middle aged Irish immigrant heads back to Ireland, to solve a 150 year old mystery of passion. Along the way, her own personal mysteries begin to unravel. An amazingly candid look at mid-life, romance, where we come from and what it makes and takes of us. As well as a picturesque vision of Ireland juxtaposed against the unglamourous and merciless Ireland of the potato famine and religious oppression. A fascinating and utterly bewitching story that will stay with me always. Some of the best writing I have ever encountered.
Rating:
Summary: Irish Dreams
Review: Kathleen deBurke, a middle-aged travel writer working in England, returns to Ireland after the death of Jimmy, her co-worker. Here she faces the dysfunctional aspects of her family life, embraces her Irish identity, and reviews her very unhappy life that has been one humiliating sexual experience after another. As Kathleen researches a scandalous divorce from the past, she examines her own choices and lifestyle while the reader gains important knowledge about Irish history, the famine, the lives of the Anglo-Irish gentry and Irish immigration. Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes may have received a Pulitzer, but this book is much better written with more depth, meaning and complexity than the title indicates. Kathleen's spiritual, emotional and physical journey is a painfully contemporary nightmare relevant to too many of us. That the author refrains from the obvious and the sentimental is as refreshing as the smell of clean, cold, fresh Irish air.
Rating:
Summary: Best Irish author I've read
Review: I really love this book - I've sat and read a lot of Irish fiction and have never found any I've liked as much as this. The author steps outside the expected stereotypes of the Irish in her development of her main character. She boldly faces the topic of internalized racism/prejudice that propels the main character at times. Best of all, she addresses that the prejudice and problems still exist, that it didn't all end when the famine was over or Southern Ireland was free. Great work!
Rating: 
Summary: Reflections
Review: One can tell the narrator is a single woman. She has much time to dwell on her life - past and present. Much of the time she is as an outsider looking in, it seems to me, which is rather sad. She expresses herself in a thoughful, honest and courageous way, asking herself questions which many women ask themselves. I could understand, when in a certain mood, her having a need to read a poem by Rilke for comfort. Reading this novel, for me, was a gratifying experience. I also liked her first novel and the manner in which she writes.
Rating:
Summary: What a keeper
Review: Following on the heels of Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif, I read My Dream of You with an on-line book buddy. I could not believe the similarities of the two novels and enjoyed the possibility of making comparisons between the two. In My Dream of You, Kathleen Burke, and Irish woman living and working in England, is in her fifties and facing serious changes in her life. Her best friend, co-worker and confidante, Jimmy, dies of a heart attack, and immediately, she begins asking questions about her own life. A failing love life, a lackluster career and unsuccessful family relations result in her decision to start a new career as a writer. With a curious nature and a judgment decree from an 1800s divorce, Kathleen travels back to Ireland to investigate the specifics of the divorce and the alleged affair that led to the split. As she begins her research, Kathleen finds a new cast of characters to surround herself in and discovers the possibility of love in the bargain. A sometimes melancholy read, My Dream of You is a remarkable (albeit late) coming of age story. I highly recommend the book as well as Map of Love!
Rating:
Summary: a long and disappointing read
Review: If you like books about extremely self-absorbed people wondering why their lives are so meaningless, this is the book for you. I kept looking for a transformation in Kathleen, but as she jumped from her landlord's bed to many more, she only remained the Irish tramp so stereotyped in England. O'Faolin's historical narrative detailing the famine was fairly good. I finished the book but it was really a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't work for me either
Review: I bought "My Dream of You" because the advertisement that I read described it as an historical novel that takes place in Ireland. I am making a trip to Ireland and thought it would be good preparation. I was greatly disappointed. There is only a smattering of Irish history in it, and what is there is strictly secondary to the "soap opera" that is the rest of the book. It was O.K. pool side reading but for me, that was about it. Wish I'd waited for the paperback!
Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful book!
Review: With the skill of an old world craftsman, Nuala O'Faolain creates a story that engages the imagination and soothes the rumpled psyche of this disgruntled reader. It is fresh. The language is deliciously crisp and real. The characters, so startlingly genuine, interact with such ease that I found myself disinclined to stop the tape. Dearblah Malloy narrates this book for audio. Word choice and pronunciation- enunciation- produce the most pleasing sound and bring the story even more to life. One of my favorite things about the book, is the issue of Kathleen's (the main character) sexuality. Her honest and unselfconcious description of longing for, enjoyment of, and dread of living without the most basic of human needs is brilliant. But it is only one of many human interactions she is able to examine so insightfully. It is- a wonderful and wonderfully written book.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't work for me
Review: I love Nuala O'Faolain and Are You Somebody? was a very touching book, I thought. It was so honest and from the heart. My Dream just doesn't have that authenticity. The main character rambles on about a scandal from the past but it never clicks with me or interests me enough. When O'Faolain writes from her deepest self, there is none better. I hope she will do another book soon but, perhaps, fiction is not her strongest genre.
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