Boekverslag Edna O'Brien

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Datum ingestuurd:	5 november 2001
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Titel:	August is a wicked month
Auteur:	Edna O'Brien
Jaar van uitgave:	1965
Aantal pagina's:	176

Auteur:	Edna O'Brien
Geboren:	15 december 1930
Populaire titels:	1960The country girls (8) 1962Girl with green eyes (6) 1965Girls in their married bliss (2) 1965August is a wicked month (1) 1994House of splendid isolation (1) 1971Zee & Co (0)

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Title: August is a wicked month.
Author: Edna o’Brien.
Year of publication: This book is publiced in 1965.
Number of pages: There are 169 pages in this book.

Characters:
-Ellen Sage : She’s a divorced woman, and has a 8 years old child. She’s a lonely woman and goes alone on vacation to forget all her troubles. She’s a main character.
-Hugh : He’s the ex-husband from Ellen. He goes on vacation with Mark, their child. He’s a flat character.
-Mark/rock : He’s the 8 years old, and the son of Ellen. He goes on vacation with his dad and at the and of the vacation Mark died. He’s a flat character.
-Bobby de Niro: He’s an actor, and is at the same time and same place where Ellen is. He invites Ellen for party’s and passes much time with her. A round character.

Setting:
The story is set in England: London and in France: Cannes. The biggest part is set in Cannes.
In London it’s set in and around Ellen’s house. In Cannes the story is set on the beach, hotel, pub’s and in the house from Sidney.
The story takes place in1965, but the book doesn’t point out when the story takes place. But it’s written in that time.

Duration:
The story dures about a month. It isn’t exactly discriped in the book, but on of the last chapters the hotelmanager says to Ellen: ‘you are already for 20 days here’. And after the manager said that she wend to the airport to go home. And before Ellen go to France, the story tells a couple ofdays. And when Ellen is back, the story ends after a couple of days.
So the duration is about a month.

Perspective:
It’s a writers perspective, she describes the feeling from Ellen and decribes also her happenings.

Chronology:
The story is chronological, but there was once a little flashback to Ellen’s son Mark and his family.

Theme:
It isn’t as easy to go alone on vacation in search of sun and sex to escape the loneliness.

Structure:
The book is divided into seventeen chapters.


Summary:
Ellen met a man who liked the nursemaid in her, married him in a registry office, threw away the faith, one son soon after. Over the years the love turned into something else, but then she broke up with him.
Ellen is right, but not in the way she intends. She means she is not "nice" any more because, after a year of separation from her husband and longer than that without a man, she wants sex.

Ellen's husband has taken their son on a camping trip through Wales. After a brief and shattering affair in London with a man too quickly frightened by reality. The man already have a relationship, then she get mad and sad and go to the travelbureau and seeks for"pleasure trips" for the lonely, the sexual "adventure."

What follows is a painful comedy of errors. Almost from her arrival she is pursued by a bellhop who interprets her every rebuff as a coy invitation. She lay much time at the beach and looks at many people.
She steels herself at last for a midnight meeting with the hotel violinist, only to discover he is more isolated that she thinks. Because he takes pictures of her breasts, then insists she tell him dirty words to record in his private notebook.
When she’s sitting lonely on the bar in the hotel, she’s sitting next to a woman, Denise. They start to chat with eich other and Denise tells Ellen about an actor who’s staying at the same place as the girls.
Then Bobby come in with his knowledges and friends, and ask the two girls to join a house party. But first they go to bars and pub’s, but when they are at the house party, Ellen doesn’t like it and goes early that morning away.
In a telephone call to her husband, Ellen learns of the accidental death of their son. Should she return to England? No; it's too late, there would be nothing for her to do. Gradually the shock eases off; anger, guilt and loss, unreal because so pointless and so far away, are put aside.
But sudden she discovers an infection, from Bobby, sad experience during which she felt more nurse than lover.
Then she finelly still go home. She returns to London, to her empty house and broken life. Her ex-husband isn’t home when she wants to visit him, but a couple of days later she meet him. And start her ‘new-old-life’, without her son but with her ‘ex-husband’.

Personal comment:
Ellen is the most important person in the book, because the book discribes her occurences, and thoughts.
The most important happenings in this book was the meeting with bobby. I think that’s the one of the two most important happenings, because she spend the longest time of her vacation with him, and she was in love with him.
Another important happening is that her son Mark died. So she wend home and got in contact with her ex-husband again. at the begin of the book, Ellen was very unhappy that she divorced, and when she came back of vacation she fell in love with her ex-husband again.

I read the book with pleasure because it was a very interesting subject. And it were the thoughts and the occurences of a woman, and I like to read that.
But sometimes the book was a bit boring, when the scenes dures too long.

But learned from the book that a vacation not always helps to forget trouble.