Word: faolain
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...artist Sean O'Faolain has the good fortune to be obsessed by a single idea. Readers of "Midsummer Night's Madness" will recall how the formally unrelated short stories in that book all elaborated a central theme; the change--usually a disintegrating change--wrought upon its characters by the stress of a hopeless political revolt. In "A Nest of Simple Folk" the pattern of a family chronicle extending in time from 1854 to 1906 is woven about a similar theme. By tracing the fortunes of three generations of Irish men and women, Mr. O'Faolain has been able to realize...
...Simple Folk" is as carefully studied as a novel could well be. Almost every relevant aspect of Irish life is built about the brief scaffolding of a plot outlined above. The book as a whole reminds one forcibly of the fortunate position which the Irish writer enjoys. Sean O'Faolain belongs to a culture which has felt intensely the impact or modern social unheavals, and simultaneously enjoyed the revival of rich and ancient national culture. As an artist he has profited by the great achievement of James Joyce in creating a mature racial conscience, while as an individual...
...NEST OF SIMPLE FOLK-Sean O'Faolain-Viking...
...Nest of Simple Folk's 398 sensitive, homegrown pages Author O'Faolain spreads with slow care the history of three generations of an Irish family, from 1854 to 1916. Since Ireland is going downhill, so does his family, but theirs is not a political story. Judith Foxe was what passed for a gentleman's daughter in those parts. When she married one of her father's tenants her father never spoke to her again. But Judith schemed to get her youngest son Leo raised to the noble status of gentleman and, by hook & crook, a better...