Rating: 
Summary: I am confused by the accolades this book received
Review: Though this book didn't inspire a passionate response from me (I thought it was fine, at best) I am stunned by the unanimous raves it has received. I like the person, Nuala, very much, but as far as the literary attributes of the piece, this is no "Angela's Ashes." There is no comparison between this work and any great intensely rich autobiography. Unfortunately, because I wanted to love it, I must lump this book with other reading 'lite' and suggest that it would be good summer beach fare or for a plane trip. It requires very little attention and contemplation to breeze through the passages. I know I am practically alone in my opinion, but as a seasoned reader I would suggest that if reading is your most beloved pastime this will probably disappoint.
Rating: 
Summary: A particularly Irish life, but not just for the Irish
Review: I found this book intensely moving -- but not for the reasons I thought I would. It's everything the reviews say: a brutally honest picture of the author's chaotic and emotionally starved childhood, a memoir of literary Dublin in the 60's, a melancholy tale of her search for a lasting love, and a chronicle of her journalism career, and on that level it's a fascinating (and beautifully written) story for anyone.
But I'm only about 5 years younger than Ms. O'Faolain. I was raised in a (partly Irish) Catholic family, went to Catholic schools all the way from kindergarten through college, then went to graduate school at Berkeley in the late '60's. Time after time, her observations chimed with my own: the cruelty masquerading as love (or maybe it's the other way round) in Catholic schools; how living in an intensely Catholic environment blinds you to any other viewpoint; how matter-of-factly women were consigned to invisibility in our era, even (and especially) the well-educated; and how the assumption of male superiority lingered on throughout the supposedly "liberal" sixties and seventies.
As the author points out in "Afterwords," her book became a best-seller in Ireland because she articulated what many of her fellow-countrymen felt but couldn't say about their lives. But I think her experiences have a far wider relevance for any woman who grew up in the same time period -- and who's now struggling to make sense of her life.
Rating:
Summary: I understand me by meeting Nuala
Review: One of the most powerful books I have ever read. I came away with a richer understanding of my own Irish Catholic background. Even though I was raised in the USA by parents of Irish descent, the cultural influence was strong. Being taught by nuns from an Irish order also had a tremendous impact on who I am. I think many women would see a part of themselves in Nuala's story--so many women are driven by a need to feel love and for many of us, it's because we didn't feel love even though our Irish parents claimed to have loved us. As an adult I now understand like Nuala that my parents were just ordinary people who were the products of their own unaffectionate families. They gave me what they themselves were given. I do love myself and believe I can recognize love and share it with another human, so i must have gotten some from my family.
Rating:
Summary: Looking for love in all the wrong places.....
Review: I grew up in that same country where drink was often the substitute for love. But its a vicious circle. While the drink makes it easier to bear the misery of lonliness, its effect drives love farther away. Like all great Irish memoirs, this book features "the jar" as a leading character. Nuala O'Faolan writes an honest and agonizing account of her life thus far. Being Irish of course, I manage to forget the bad parts and dwell on the good, thus romanticizing the past. Nuala has her year in the cottage in the woods - and what a time that must have been. The real treasure here is missing. In the copy I bought in Ireland, there is a collection of her writings for the Irish Times. It is here that you witness the true talents of this lady. With compassion and an eye for detail, she brings meaning to the lives of ordinary people; people striving to cope with their own trials and tribulations. Apart from this egregious omission, her memoir will hold its place in the pantheon of other angst ridden Irish writers.
Rating:
Summary: A story of defeat and survival in a dysfunctional family
Review: If you were a neglected child, had alcoholic parents, were sent away to boarding school, reared a Roman Catholic, and had lots of love affairs that did not work out, you will understand this story. If you are a woman coming into your own in midlife, and pausing to take stock of your life, you will see the courage it took to tell this story of the human condition and longings of the heart inside a family. While this story takes place in Ireland for the most part, it could take place any where in the world where women are overburdened with too many children, have no support systems, have unfaithful husbands, and lack their own finances to take charge of their lives. One can see the effects all of that has on their children for the rest of their lives. Nuala O'Faolain's mother's sad, lonely life really affected me.
Rating:
Summary: If You Loved Angela's Ashes, You'll Love This.
Review: I'll be honest, I was hungry for more after recently reading Angela's Ashes. Someone mentioned this as a worthy follow-up, and they were right. It has much of the same honesty of Frank McCourt's story. The same but quite different. Reminds us that beneath our exteriors we often hide sadness and failed dreams. Hidden from view until someone like Nuala O'Faolain shares her memories.
Rating:
Summary: Heartfelt and heartwarming
Review: This autobiography of one of Ireland's most respected TV commentators is an unreserved look into both the country and the person. Ms. O'Faolin goes back to her unhappy childhood filled with pain as one of nine children, whose parents drifted apart. Like her siblings, Ms. O'Faolin had to raise herself. Later on she attends the university and becomes a professor. Ultimately, she becomes an esteemed reporter. ARE YOU SOMEBODY? The Accidental Memoirs of a Dublin Woman is quite a gut wrenching, extremely honest look by the author at herself and her country. Nuala O'Faolin's story centers around her unhappy childhood and its later impact on her quest to belong as an adult. Now in her middle age, the author admits that she still searches for love in her lonely life. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Gutsy, Articulate, Pensive & Poignant!
Review: "It wasn't marriage that did her in. She wanted him. It was motherhood. It was us. But we didn't make her suffer. It was love and passion that made her suffer. It was that that undermined them all: my mother, and my father, and Carmel. There was a degree of pain in their dealings with love and passion that, all unexpectedly, I realized I was coming to terms with, through my book. Not through writing it but through publishing it. It was the warmth the book met that had made me strong." -Nuala O'Faolain Memoirs are not on the top of the list of favorite reads, usually because they are full of blame, spite, negativity, and they beg for pity. This one doesn't. It's a gutsy recount of life of the eldest of nine offspring sired by a well-known Irish writer and his bookworm of a wife. It's a view of Dublin, England, Academia, and the Irish country, but it is also a journey inside the heart of an energetic and spirited woman and inside the childhood and adolescence that produced this intelligent, articulate, and compelling person. Somewhat in the genre of Angela's Ashes, this work helps to understand a culture, and makes no excuses for some past behaviors that are both dark and disturbing. It also puts forth a heart, and a culture that is sensitive, long-suffering, articulate, and compelling. There is a dark side to this book, as there is a dark side to being Irish in some cases. But there is also a courage, and a sense of survival and endurance, and a sensitivity, and it is all served up with a very articulate and well-written account of a memorable life in a memorable country. For someone who just returned from Ireland, it was a sumptious re-exploration of Dublin, and a memorable experience to see it from these eyes and a different perspective. This is a well-written, thoughtful, and courageous book about a compelling woman and her very interesting life and experiences. Highly recommended. 4 l/2 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Brutally and Beautifully Honest.......
Review: Nuala O'Faolain's memoir is not particulary easy to read. It starts slowly with the history of her young years and family. It's difficult to read about her parent's relationship and the neglect and desperation felt by the family, especially the nine children. O'Faolain is so honest about her own shortcomings and dysfunctions at first it's hard to like her but how we admire her. She chronicles the historical context of Ireland from the 1950's through the 1990's with special emphasis on the role of women and the enormous societal changes in just the few short years between those decades. It is interesting to read her commentary on the social structure and roles of men and women as it emerged through this time period. The books strength though is not in O'Faolain's ability to chronicle history, that at times is vague with alot of names and places that may not be familiar to those outside of Europe. It is within this historical context that she continually points out her lack of grounding or purpose as a young adult. She floats from job to job--relationship to relationship without much thought to the consequences of her actions. It is not until she reaches a personal crisis at her parents death that she acknowledges the destructive role alcohol plays in her life, the repeating of familial patterns and the aimless way she has existed. It is then that she begins to emerge as a different and more intorspective person. The book begins to take on a different tone and we come to love the person that is Nuala O'Faolain. We have read about her struggles and see her becoming more than the wounds she has suffered in life. It is beautiful. At the end of the story she shares the letters from so many people who were moved and related to her life story. She continues to assert that she did nothing remarkable in writing what for her simply had to come out. But we the reader know that something special has passed here and can only stand back and admire a woman as brave as Nuala O'Faolain who has put down on paper the whole truth that is her life.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Memoir
Review: I have once again made the mistake of reading the other customer reviews before writing my own review. Generally when I happen onto a one or two star review that really comes down on a book that I like, I will go to the "See All Reviews" page and order the reviews from "Lowest First". I will then read through review after review by readers who simply wanted this to be another book rather than the one it is. I suppose that my repeated exercise of this masochistic procedure is part of my own Catholic background, which was far less complete, administered twenty years after O'Faolain's and in the New World rather than isolated, entrenched Ireland. Perhaps it helps to be Catholic when it comes to understanding Nuala O'Faolain's nearly continual struggle to lead a full and worldly life and not feel badly about it. A lot of readers still seem to expect a 'Whig history' from a memoir with triumph leading to triumph, interspersed with set-pieces of 'struggle' to make it interesting. Are You Somebody? is something much braver, truer and scarier: an honest recollection. O'Faolain very clearly describes the historically maintained cultural institutions that caused her to have certain beliefs and take certain actions that led her repeatedly into disaster. Forty years before her, Virginia Woolf had described the need for women to make lives that were expressions of their own desires rather than fulfillments of the needs of men. O'Faolain is acutely conscious, looking back in middle age, that she had not internalized Woolf's wisdom and that her dysfunctional relationships with men were a direct result. She is also at pains to describe the slow awakening of her consciousness of her Irishness and she is quite frank about how her failure to think of herself as Irish, even though the BBC thought of her as an Irish woman, caused to make mediocre documentaries about contemporary events in Ireland. In chapter after chapter O'Faolain shows us how hidebound patriarchy made it difficult for a woman to enjoy or trust worldly success, how the medieval nature of Irish Catholicism made for complete confusion about sex and female independence, and how a deep-seated disinterest in Irish culture among the educated classes of Dublin made one's identity peculiarly rootless. As if that weren't enough, there is much more in this book. If you find this book pretentious and depressing, then I suggest that you stop going to Starbucks and paying $3 for a cup of coffee. Life has not always been the way it is now. A lot of things were harder for women, particularly Irish women, not so long ago. If you don't want to hear it, then you're part of the problem.
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