It’s great to see Maeve Binchy’s hugely popular novel Circle of Friends go on stage next month, first at the Lime Tree Theater in Limerick, and then at the Gaiety Theater in Dublin.
His novel has never been out of print, or out of demand, since it was published in 1990, and it depicts an Ireland that now seems so far away in the past that it’s so close. as could have been described a century earlier. So I sometimes wonder if, and how, a younger generation can determine the plot and the plot in the story.
Firstly, this is a story about the lives of young people who are virtually genderless. The rare mention is elegantly described as “making love” – or, referring to the only young woman to do so, as “going all the way”.
It begins in the 1940s, when two young friends, Benny – short for Bernadette – and Eve are naively trying to figure out “the truth of life”, and come to the completely wrong conclusion about events. really. (I think this is partly based on Maeve’s own experience: she told me that when her enlightened parents carefully described how the babies were conceived, she thought they had lost their minds when create such a fantasy.)
This is an Ireland, where the local shop closes for lunch, so that its operator (usually a man) can go home for lunch: an Ireland where a careless husband may object His wife goes to work because she won’t be home to give him a hot lunch, then called for dinner.
This is an Ireland where well-off parents, when they want to meet their son’s friends, invite a group of young adults to a sherry party. This is an Ireland, in which the middle class often has a servant in common who keeps the family running smoothly.
And in Benny’s household, the servant, Patsy, is a girl from the orphanage, and says, all too precisely: “Where do I come from… I have no background, no life before, you see.” She worries that if she “doesn’t have a resume” she can make a friend. (She does.)
This is an Ireland where attending University College Dublin is a huge deal, and your parents not only have to pay the £65 a year fee but they have to be able to afford to put you out of work for a while. when you study for four years. (It made no sense to convert £65 in 1958 into modern currency, because all monetary values have changed, but £10 a week was considered a good salary at the time.)
The students either go home every evening, or else they go “digging” where the landlady keeps an eye on them – even though the landlady in this case is kind.
This is Ireland where attending your first big ball is a huge event, and a lot of planning and preparation has gone into the occasion.
This is an Ireland where students cheered when the archbishop announced a ban on eating on Fridays – fish is barely mandatory on Fridays – so they could eat chicken at the big ball in question. .
This is an Ireland where having an only child is a rarity – a point of unease for Benny, our heroine.
She feels so wrapped up and protected in her all-too-rare condition.
This is a Dublin of social landmarks that have disappeared: the Dolphin restaurant, the Royal Hibernian hotel, the Golden Orient in Leeson Street offer a taste of curry.
This is an Ireland, in which a nun is portrayed as a kind, caring and protective mother to Eve’s character, outcast by class differences in her parents’ late marriage. .
We are so used to seeing nuns now portrayed as brutal, cruel, and cruelly punishing young girls – as in the recent RTÉ documentary Ireland’s Dirty Laundry – that a nun as a source of human benevolence must certainly seem far from today’s audience and readers. (Meanwhile, priests, living in churches are available in a group and are used harmlessly in an evening’s game of Scrabble.)
Maeve’s World in Friend Circles Overall, it’s comforting, even when tragedy strikes and everyone gets bad news.
But most people are kind and the community, whether it’s a village, or a group of school friends, supports each other and solves each other’s problems.
In the story, young people are more interested in relationships than engaging in sex – which, of course, shows that there is a heavy price to be paid, especially for women, if having sex out of marriage leads to pregnancy. It may be a cozy world, but it’s a conservative world.
Perhaps that’s part of its fascination, though: Planet Binchy is a much less threatening planet than the noisy real world we know.
The fascination is fueled by a deep empathy for the human character, and the desire – always a theme of Binchy – of individuals striving to be the best version of themselves and loyal to you. their friends.
And it’s an aspiration that never goes out of style.
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/yes-planet-binchy-is-a-cosier-ireland-of-yore-and-maybe-that-explains-its-appeal-41451597.html Yes, Planet Binchy is a greener Ireland than yours – and maybe that explains its appeal
