August is a Wicked Month

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How sociable the garden was. We ate and talked in the given light. The children put their toys on the grass. All the warm wakeful August night.” – Thom Gunn Great Quotes to Celebrate the Start of August A mix of the practical, the imaginative and the philosophical: come along and treat yourself to a new beginning. Make this the month that the manuscript-in-waiting starts to become a reality. Summer, the seasons between spring and autumn, comprising in the Northern Hemisphere the warmest months of the year: June, July, and August. The period of finest development, perfection, or beauty previous to any decline. The summer of life.” – Cecelia Ahern For the rest of the vacation, there was hardly a day when they did not go up to it. Preferably in the long, smoky, delicious August evenings when the white moths sailed over the tansy plantation, and the golden twilight faded into dusk and purple over the green slopes beyond, and fireflies lighted their goblin torches by the pond.” – Lucy Maud Montgomery Short August Quotes That’ll Make You Think

Separated from her husband and young son, Ellen leaves behind the loneliness of London for a new life of excitement and sexual freedom:a ‘jaunt into iniquity’ on the gorgeous French Riviera. However, she soon discovers that independence blurs into loneliness, especially when she receives some heart-breaking news … When August days are hot and dry, I won’t sit by and sigh or die, I’ll get my bottle on the sly, and go ahead, and fish, and lie.” – Paul Laurence Dunbar Ellen in the story is separated from her husband who is an ex-army. One afternoon, the husband takes away his son to spend days with him. When she is alreadddy alone in the house, the milk boy comes and she takes fancy on him. Not contented, she decides to go to Paris with the idea of having sex from anonymous men. There, she meets all sorts of people including lesbians and gay men but she realizes that she is not really looking for sex because she does not get interested even on a good-looking actor. Also she oftentimes remembers her son and whenever she does, she loses interest on the man who is raring to go to bed with her. To all those pinning Halloween costumes and Christmas-themed recipes, let me just say, calm down! It’s August.” – AnonymousIt’s a relatively bleak tale, punctuated by moments of fleeting happiness, joy, excitement and danger, as Ellen seeks solace from her loneliness and emotional isolation. A trip to the sun

The brilliant poppy flaunts her head amidst the ripening grain, and adds her voice to sell the song that August is here again.” – Helen M. WinslowFestivals and book launches get into their autumn stride and that sense of starting anew is palpable. Extra-mural courses, seminars and workshops abound, and avid readers everywhere begin to think seriously about becoming writers. In short, the novel bored me to death. Maybe another Edna O'Brien book might be better but this one wasn't it for me. It can be summarized as: Today is the first of August. It is hot, steamy, and wet. It is raining. I am tempted to write a poem.” – Sylvia Plath I loved O’Brien’s character, Ellen. She’s not a girl though not quite a woman. She’s trying to figure out how to define herself and how to live the rest of her life. This isn’t a happy book but it’s also not maudlin. A few plot points are a bit over the top but for all that it’s still a realistic portrayal of a woman in Ellen’s predicament and at her time in life. In my opinion O’Brien is a less happy and less moral Barbara Pym, she’s a MUCH happier and sexier Anita Brookner and for some reason I want to throw in W. Somerset Maugham as well, specifically his “Up at the Villa” though maybe that’s more for the similar settings. So, I splurged and found myself a lovely first edition of this book, a hardcover which smells like the 1960s, which is just when this novel happened to have been written by Irish author, Edna O'Brian.

August brings into sharp focus and a furious boil everything I’ve been listening to in the late spring and summer.” – Henry Rollins in me, married him in a registry office, threw away the faith, one son soon after. Over the years the love turned into something else and we broke up. Exit the nice girl." Ellen is right, but not in the way she intends. She means This review is a complete spoiler, so if you have not read the book and plan to, you might want to read it first. If you don't plan to, you can read this as a plot summary.Though goodbyes are depressing, but hellos are always pleasing. So welcome August, and say goodbye to July, the lovely month of celebrating freedom.” – Anonymous August of another summer, and once again, I am drinking the sun, and the lilies again are spread across the water.” – Mary Oliver has come to the Riviera to reconnect herself to lie in the only way she feels is left, to attain that harshly promoted goal of "pleasure trips" for the lonely, the sexual "adventure."