Brian Moore (1) (1921–1999)

This is a raw, powerful account of a lonely life. In Judith we have a middle-aged woman in straitened circumstances, who lost her youth to caring for an aged and difficult aunt. Once her aunt died, she had rather missed the boat. A career, the prospect of marriage have all vanished, together with her confidence. She moves from boarding house to boarding house, and teaches a few - a very few - hours of piano. Her only social life is to visit the O'Neill family on Sunday, after Mass. And they dread those visits. This is the story of her disintegration. Inept at reading social clues, she imagines a fellow resident at her current boarding house is interested in marrying her. He isn't. And things go from bad to worse ...

It's excruciating. It's depressing. It's sad. But it's compelling too. Here's a man who remembers the torments that most of us go through as teenagers, re-enacted in the mind of a middle-aged woman. Somehow, Brian Moore has passed me by till now. No longer.… (more)

Other reviewers here have mentioned that "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" is an extremely sad book, and they're hardly wrong to say so. What I really enjoyed about this book, though, was that Judy -- though she herself might not appreciate our overly familiar tone -- is that she isn't merely the victim of a cold, unwelcoming world. Yes, the author portrays Belfast as a small, rather boring place riven by social divisions, and Ms. Hearne herself is the product of an idea of upper-class femininity that was, as of the fifties, was rapidly becoming outmoded. Her ladies' education hasn't gotten her too far in life. While forgoing marriage to take care of an ailing aunt turns out to be a disastrous choice, the author is understanding enough of his protagonist to make clear that there were few good options available to Judy's only close relation. Even so, Ms. Hearne herself has her faults. She's inherited the biases natural to her class and refused to examine them. She seems stuck in mental and emotional patterns that she's either unwilling or unable to break. She daydreams but refuses to act. You can call the characters in this novel who find her dull or faintly ridiculous unkind, but they're handly wrong. Judy, and her life, are terribly boring, and she doesn't really do enough to change it. Predictably enough, things end badly.

Mary Gordon suggests that "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" was written, as was much of the Irish literature of this period, under the star of Joyce, and while there is the stray free-flowing description here along with a few thematic similarities, I think that Moore's novel is really an altogether different sort of creature. His prose here is economical, almost cutting: a far cry from Jim's more lyrical moods. Lovers of period slang will enjoy returned Yankified returned Irishman James Madden's New York dialect, which is rendered so perfectly it often seems like he just stepped out of a film noir. His own truncated, spectacularly unsuccessful courtship of the titular character is, by way of closing, another one of this novel's principal attractions. Less a folie a deux than a dramatic mismatch of mercenary personal interests, it provides the perfect opportunity for the author to demonstrate what can happen when you remain trapped in your own badly calibrated perceptions. A rom-com in reverse, Judy and Jim's attempt at a love affair ends badly, too. It's not for the clinically depressed or the unshakably optimistic, but this one's a very good novel nonetheless.… (more)

Interesting enough novel that seems to have been constrained by the true story upon which it has been based. There is no stylistic attempt to exaggerate here.
The greatest magician in Europe is cajoled by Napoleon III to impress the marabouts and tribal leaders of Algeria in a cynical attempt to prove the superiority of Christian Europe, in this case, in the realm of divine influence through magical powers.
The most perceptive of the characters is Emmeline, the magician's wife, a woman who is relegated at home taking second place to her husband's work on improving his repertoire of deceptive skills and his inventions.
It is she who is not deceived by the French calculation in improving their prospects at an outright subjugation of all Algeria, nor by the naked ambition of the political and military personnel involved in the ruse.
It is not a spectacular novel, but it is well written, it is unflagging in pace and historically interesting as a footnote to Algeria's troubled relationship with her former colonial overlord.… (more)