I recently decided on a reading list that comprises novels that are linked by the Orange Prize for Fiction, simply to give some structure to my choices for a while. I will review any that particularly stand out for me.
‘Molly Fox’s Birthday’ was shortlisted for this year’s prize (2009), but didn’t win. Madden has had another novel shortlisted for the prize - ‘One by One in the Darkness’ (2003). However, Madden has won numerous other prizes and awards which you can read about here.
Madden was born in 1960, is from County Antrim in Northern Ireland and currently teaches at Trinity College Dublin.
This is the second Irish writer I have read recently, the other being Anne Enright who was born in Dublin in 1962. I read ‘The Gathering’, a few months ago which I enjoyed, but not as much as I enjoyed ‘Molly Fox’s Birthday’.
I am a latecomer to contemporary Irish writers, but have been fortunate enough to have this late discovery of excellent reading enhanced by a recent discovery of Ireland itself. I first visited Ireland a few years ago, and have returned on numerous occasions since, including several stays in Bray, where Anne Enright currently lives, and some day trips to Dublin (which I am visiting again at the end of this summer). I have, therefore, been able to engage my imagination with the settings of these novels much more rewardingly.
This relatively short novel (221 pages) is set over one day, a particular day – the birthday of one of its characters, Molly Fox, a famous actress who lives only through the reminiscences of her close friend our nameless playwright narrator, who is staying in her house while she is away. Of course the ‘day’ is heavy with meaning, a meaning which we learn as the novel progresses.
‘Molly Fox’s Birthday’ spoke to me very intimately at times. I re-lived elements of my student days and my early twenties and identified closely with some of the insights that maturity brings to the characters. Madden tackles so many weighty ideas, ideas such as students might discuss late into the night, and it rings true that her characters continue their lives ever in the wake of the conversations of these formative years.
But to speak of weight in connection with this book is slightly misleading, as the syntax is airy, almost light, especially at the start. This is another case of ‘less is more’ (see my review of ‘A Week in Winter’); the prose gathers depth and perspective while maintaining a surface effortlessness – giving away nothing of Madden’s experience of writing the book as her most difficult. There does seem to be a giveaway ‘sigh of relief’ however, in the lengthy final conversation between two of the main protagonists at the end, in which so much is unraveled and elucidated.
I do feel that occasionally the design leaks through the text, more so in the first half than the second. The time shifts between the present (the entire novel covers only one day – recalling ‘Mrs Dalloway’) and the reminiscences of our narrator about a number of quite widely separated events in the past, are sometimes made in such a way that the join is too visible, but this is a minor quibble. There is a lot of coincidence too, in both the past and the present, but this allows a ‘neatness’ which the subject matter benefits from if the novel is to be kept relatively short, especially as the theme of the novel comes to a head; after all there is only so much thinking and reminiscing a person can do in the duration of one day.
The main theme of the novel is identity, how identity is developed and also how another’s identity is perceived and how we can come to a deeper understanding of those close to us. In this case we are examining this idea through a group of closely connected people – a triangle of good friends who share a life in the Arts, and their respective families. The exploration of the mental processes of an actor in becoming someone else is quite brilliant as a way to offset other explorations of self-identity. I was quite staggered to hear that Madden has no experience of acting herself as I found some of these parts of the novel quite the most profound and perceptive.
For example, our narrator describes Molly Fox’s performance as The Duchess of Malfi: ‘I believed in her as a duchess. Her plight moved me, and yet still I knew she was an actor’…”Who is it can tell me who I am?”…(and here is Night Owl's 'pellet' from this novel): 'Is the self really such a fluid thing, something we invent as we go along, almost as a social reflex? Perhaps it is instead the truest thing about us, and it is the revelation of it that is the problem; that so much social interchange is inherently false, and real communication can only be achieved in ways that seem strange and artificial.’
After the loss of so much in her life, the Duchess had not lost herself, “I am Duchess of Malfi still”, and I feel that Madden wants to say this about her characters…I am Andrew still, I am Fergus still...and our narrator also subtly refers us back to her own sense of self, which we first start to understand from the encounter with the hare on the train that she is trying to work into her next play.
At the very end of the novel, when we are probably feeling disappointed for our narrator, and when we might expect an outburst of strong emotion, instead we are taken back to something gentle and metaphysical which helps to dissipate the situation, so that we feel that our narrator has not lost her true self in spite of her personal disappointment.
I liked the voice in this novel. I shall be reading some more of Deidre Madden’s writing.
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