I think the writing in this part of the trilogy had some of the strongest pieces. Overall a well written and engaging book about women in 60s and 70s Ireland. ( )

Novela corrosiva y llena de vida...

Esta novela no solo trata sobre matrimonios felices (mas bien lo contrario), sino también sobre el poder de la amistad a través del tiempo y de las miserias, de todo tipo, que muchas mujeres han tenido que soportar durante siglos.... ( )

This final part of the trilogy confirmed my view that Edna O'Brien is one of my all time favourites. Although based around the friendship of two women, she portrays them so thoroughly and delightfully I can only guess they are both part of her own history and personality. ( )

A mitad de los años cincuenta del siglo pasado, Kate y Baba, dos amigas tan distintas como complementarias, vivieron su infancia en los bellos paisajes rurales de la Irlanda profunda, rodeadas de un sinfín de personajes, algunos entrañables y otros maravillosamente detestables. Tras pasar por un internado y dejar atrás a sus singulares familias, se instalaron en Dublín y se abalanzaron sobre el amor en todas sus formas conocidas, no todas «convenientes», desde luego, y no siempre con fortuna… Pero han pasado los años, e Irlanda y los años de juventud quedan lejos. Ambas, casadas finalmente, viven en Londres: Kate, ya madre, con su gran amor de Dublín; Baba, con un ostentoso constructor (sí, un nuevo rico) que le ofrece la vida de comodidades y lujos a la que siempre aspiró. Dos mujeres aún jóvenes e impetuosas, dos hombres definitivamente maduros. Una nueva ciudad y unas vidas nuevas. La maternidad y la madurez al fin… Y, sin embargo, tantas inseguridades todavía. Kate y Baba parecen hablarnos desde nuestro propio presente: cómo viven, cómo aman, cómo temen. La vida se repite, y no acalla sus preguntas, esas que regresan una y otra vez, esas que no encuentran casi nunca respuesta. Nos salva, en ocasiones, la mano amiga, la persona que mejor nos conoce, la que puede hablarnos con toda sinceridad. ( )

Yes, the title is ironic - and maybe not. The third in the Country Girls Trilogy, a tale of a sometimes tortured, alternately gentle and affectionate, journey from childhood to, well, 'Married Bliss' as young women. And perhaps there's a touch of the author reflecting on experience, the sense that nobody could invent this out of thin air. And hence the satisfaction of reading (what seems by all accounts to be) a genuine story, told from a distant place and time without concession to 'modern' language or sensibilities.

I can't say how this book would seem if the reader came to it without reading the earlier, much slower paced books in the trilogy, but I suspect it might seem a little insubstantial - a sugared treat that dissolves too quickly on the tongue. The previous novels give this story much greater weight. Without that context, the reader might miss altogether the author's ironic progression from the oppression of childhood and rural Ireland to, well, the oppression of adulthood and big city life. And there is that affection for the characters built up over time. The pace itself, almost break-neck, is the counterpoint to the girls earlier life, all the more furious seeming (in many senses) because of that contrast - just as London in the swinging sixties might have seemed to someone 'up from the country', and especially country Ireland. But as the song says, the fundamentals still apply...

It's interesting to compare the work of another great Irish writer, J.P. Donleavy (Ginger Man) from the same period (and the frantic pace of '..Married Bliss' brings him to mind). His male characters are the men portrayed by O'Brien, as they might have seen themselves. O'Brien doesn't attempt in her novels to get inside the souls of men, but rather sketches their instincts and behaviour around the lives of the women in her story. She reserves her finest writing to reveal the voice of girls and young women. Donleavy does the same for men, men much more deluded in both their simple successes and failures than O'Brien's women characters, but told with the same affection and the hint of deeper things. But whereas Donleavy has to torture his characters to extremis to have them reveal these deeper possibilities, the strong currents of soul and feeling are always just beneath the surface in O'Brien's writing.

Highly recommended, after starting with the earlier novels (The Country Girls, The Girl With Green Eyes). The entire trilogy is a very rich, multi-layered gateau, and Girls in their Married Bliss is the icing on the cake. ( )