| Are You Somebody? |  | Author: Nuala O'faolain
Publisher: audible.com
Category: Book
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ASIN: B0000544SO
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Amazon.com
Self-preservation did not come instinctually to Irish journalist Nuala O'Faolain. One of 9 children--her mother had 13 pregnancies in all--she grew up in the 1940s and '50s in a defeated Dublin household. Her reporter father seems to have spent his time and money, and even love, elsewhere--and as the family grew more isolated and unable to cope, alcohol became her mother's only way out. "One of the stories of my life has been the working out in it of her powerful and damaging example in everything," the author admits, "Nothing mattered to her except passion." Some of O'Faolain's siblings emphatically didn't make it, but she was lucky to find refuge in books. They have been a defense, a comfort, and a delight. Does her memoir then follow the standard rags-to-self-acceptance trajectory? Are you wondering if perhaps you can give it a miss, and in fact send the entire genre on a well-deserved vacation? Don't. Are You Somebody (the title unaccountably lost a question mark somewhere between the Irish and American editions) offers a wrenching account of childhood and a highly provocative take on the sexual and professional situation of Irish women. Though literature made O'Faolain, the male-dominated literary life and industry certainly didn't, and she now gives it more than a few body blows. It was a world in which writing and drink mattered far more than women: "The 'literary Dublin' I saw lied to women as a matter of course and conspired against the demands of wives and mistresses.... Women either had to make no demands, and be liked, or be much larger than life, and feared." Irish women didn't seem to know to look for, let alone demand, equality. O'Faolain miraculously avoided pregnancy; but others were not so blessed. "Lives were ruined at that time, thousands and thousands of them, quite casually.... They were hotly pursued, and half longed to yield, but they were not able to defend themselves against pregnancy, and they were destroyed if they got pregnant." For all her energy and ambition and good fortune (and she needed this trio to jump her family's "sinking ship" and avoid getting pregnant), O'Faolain fell for the cant that she must marry, have children, and serve. Some will be initially shocked by her assertion that she was lucky never to have had a child. "Childbearing, along with bad education, relationships that managed to be simultaneously all-absorbing and rewarding, and financial dependence--these were the enemies of promise. But that's not why I'm glad; I didn't think of myself as having promise. I'm glad because under the old system it was so easy to rear children badly. The child wouldn't have properly survived." Yet the '70s enabled her to break out of the assumptions and realities of Irish women's lives, not to mention her yearning to be like "the troubled, rich, English upper-class people in books." At the end of her memoir, O'Faolain knows she finally is, in fact, somebody. Still, those who don't recognize her see her only as a single, middle-aged woman. Like children, such individuals "aren't supposed to kick up." Thanks to this bracing book, the author gets to permanently do so. The writing exercise has answered some of her questions and some of her fears, but O'Faolain is too honest not to admit that for others there is no response or cure. She leaves us wanting to know more about her life but grateful that she has allowed us in.
Product Description
Are You Somebody is a moving and fascinating portrait of both Ireland and one of its most popular and respected commentators. This gem of honesty and insight had its first life as the introduction to a collection of Nuala O'Faolain's Irish Times columns that became a number-one bestseller in Ireland. It now stands alone. Ireland has fallen in love with this memoir of an Irish woman of letters, and now this country will too.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 75 more reviews...
 What's all the fuss. July 12, 2008
I heard an interview with the author and decided she was quite an interesting individual. Although this book has received many over-the-top reviews, I was disappointed. The book has sections which are long lists of people she met, worked with, or admired. But often she provides no information about the individual. She clearly accomplished a great deal but how? There is a tone of self-pity throughout the text and she seems loathe to give people, including herself, credit for their achievements. Very Irish that way.
joyless July 3, 2008
This was a slow read for me; I had to force myself to pick it up each night. I found the writing fragmented with references to many people (particularly writers) I had never heard of. The subtitle "An accidental memoir" is fitting becomes the book seems to be constructed of disjoint notes and memories (many involving drinking). A recurring theme is Faolain's disappointment with her parents' behavior (particularly her mother's alcoholism). I felt that Faolain was a bit self pitying (which she acknowledges in the book). It wasn't until the end when she discusses her surprise at being alone and her loneliness that I became more engaged in her story. Until that point, Faolain's story was a whirlwind of working, drinking, and traveling interwoven with criticisms of her parents. I am surprised that this book was a best seller and I wonder what I am missing.
 Why all the great reviews? May 6, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am astonished at the 5 star reviews for this book. Pay attention to what other readers are saying. I read this book because it was our book club selection of the month. Out of many years in book club, this was the worst book we have read. I am writing this review so others may be spared by the glowing marks of 'professional' reviewers.
It's difficult to describe how rampant the name-dropping was in this book. There were parts of the book in which 10 or more names would appear per page for dozens of pages. I don't care if the names are notable authors, it's boring to read lists of names! This was not writing, this was 'list making'.
The book couldn't hold a theme for more than a couple sentences. (spoilers next)... The author has a miscarriage, which gets just 2 or 3 sentences of attention. The author is raped. Apparently something as life shattering as that gets only a brief mention as well. There are many traumatic and life-changing events that are barely explored in the book, because the look is too busy name-dropping every person she has met.
This memoir should have been exciting, it should have been a great book. What an amazing life she has led, against tragedy and great odds. Yet somehow she manages to make this story sound boring.
An interesting development is the 'Afterward' after the book has ended. It's so well written you can't help but wonder if it was done by the same author? The first 20 pages and the Afterward of this book are great, the 200 pages in the middle are a mess. Do yourself a favor and pay attention to the reviews here. Life is short and there so many great books to read, I regret I'll never get the time back I spent reading this disappointing book.
 the struggle to overcome pain, find love and meaningful work March 21, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a splendidly written autobiography, unbelievably rich in detail and raw emotion. While other reviewers have ably described her life's journey - from a chaotic household with alcoholic parents to a very good job as TV producer and then columnist - this is also a beautiful and vivid evocation of a changing Ireland. O'Faolain provides the grittiest of portraits, of a stalled society that is emerging from centuries of repression and excessive religiosity to a modern society. She herself embodies much of it, journeying (across class lines) from desperate loneliness (seeking love as a panacea) to a self-empowered feminist writer who has the strength to keep going. It is deep and gets you to reflect on your own predicament, particularly middle age.
Warmly recommended.
Another classic case of denial December 16, 2006
7 out of 17 found this review helpful
Nuala O'Faolain writes reasonably well. She has developed her craft enough to be labeled lucid, although inspired isn't a word I would use. When she writes about the shift in the concept of family that has taken place over her lifetime she can hold my interest. But what she did with whom over the course of her life, without a deeper examination of why, falls more in the category of vaccuous gossip, and won't hold any serious reader's interest.
Most disappointing of all is the absence of the story that Nuala can't relate, the one she has yet to understand herself. Ms. O'Faolain tells us all about her upbringing as a child of alcoholics, complete with a horrific description of seeing her mother dead drunk on the floor of her home. She even laments the alcoholic demise and early death of her younger brother. But she never admits to alcoholism herself despite a book-long description of irrefutable symptoms. Aside from a borderline flippant remark about what she refers to as a brush with alcoholism and a one-line mention of "addiction" to pills in her younger years, Nuala never conveys any grasp of the nature of the disease that killed her mother and brother, and shortened the life of her father.
For those of us with more than a casual relationship with alcoholism, Ms. O'Faolain's present condition of relative isolation is revealing, as well. It's another predictable phase in the inevitable progression of the disease. She also talks (writes) like a "dry drunk," and has the dysfunctional relationships to prove it. When she writes about retiring alone to read - with a bottle of wine - it is painfully obvious that she is living in denial of her own condition, that she has missed perhaps the most important revelation available to her. As she left us at the end of her book, it appears that the lessons her ancestors paid such a terrible price to impart have escaped Ms. O'Faolain.
Alcoholics and their families and friends are among the many who would want to read "Are You Somebody?," and they want to read it with the hope that an understanding of alcoholism was reached by the author, especially after such a traumatic lifetime experience with the disease. Nuala has yet to absorb that lesson. When she does, the story she can relate will acquire a depth that escapes her present version.
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