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The Temptation of Eileen Hughes

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The late, great Irish Canadian writer Brian Moore wrote 19 anguished and profound novels in the middle third of this century. During his life, Graham Greene, no mean writer himself, referred to Mr. Moore as the greatest living writer in the English language. Despite this and similar encomiums, few if any appear to read his novels now -- as witnessed by the fact that I seem to be the first reviewer for this book on Amazon.com.

The temptation of Eileen Hughes is told from her perspective, even though it is narrated in the third person. Eileen has been working as an assistant to a young, extremely wealthy woman barely older than herself, Mona McAuley. Eileen appears to be Mona's protégé. She has been working in Mona's shop, and over the past several months, has been slowly promoted to a position of some authority and is apparently destined to be Mona's second in command. When Mona and her husband Bernard go on vacation to England, Eileen is invited to company them, apparently on Mona's whim. As the novel begins, the trio have just arrived in England and Bernard is displeased that Eileen has to stay in a small maid's room, because of a mix up over their reservations . Only as the novel unfolds do we realize that it is Bernard who is infatuated with Eileen, and who has forced Mona to invite Eileen to join them, much to Mona's dissatisfaction. Brian is an elusive but interesting individual and we learn about him slowly, but never completely and always filtered through the prism of Eileen's perspective. At the beginning of the novel, she knows him only distantly, as Mona's successful husband -- the richest man in town, the owner of a prominent business, the only Catholic in an exclusive residential neighborhood in Lismore and sporting the requisite exquisitely beautiful young trophy wife.

Before long, we learn the reasons for Mona's displeasure over Eileen's presence on the trip. For Mona has her own agenda. We learn that Brian has not had conjugal relations with Mona in a long time, apparently seeking satisfaction in masturbation alone in his own room, surrounded by his books and work. This has resulted, on an earlier occasion, in Mona having an affair with someone in Lismore. Despite their sexual incompatibilities, Mona is completely under Bernard's control for economic reasons. Bernard finds the possibility of scandal resulting from Mona's affairs within their own town unacceptable, and the couple have come to tacit agreement that she will conduct her affairs only when to away from Ireland on their business and vacation trips. Eileen witnesses Mona's sexual escapades early and is appalled by them.

The husband Brian is an ascetic, withdrawn from people aside from his business contacts. He is obsessed with religion and we learn that before returning home to his father's business, he had sought to join the seminary and the priesthood. He has had a nervous breakdown in his search of God. In one of his anguished speeches to Eileen towards the middle of the book, he accuses her of spurning him just as God had done earlier. His return to settle down into the mundane business of making money has clearly been a hiatus in his grander quest. Something in Eileen's beauty, purity and innocence triggers his more profound and deeply ingrained spiritual quest. He merely seeks to adore her, to construct a new, grand house as a shrine to her and to worship her from a far. He has not meant to reveal to her his infatuation with her. However, on one of their trips to a grand house in London, she tells them how wonderful it might be to live in a grand house such as the one they have just visited. This causes him to blurt out to her his own plans of building her a large house where he, Mona and she can live together. The surprised and distracted Eileen thinks to herself that this is the kind of declaration that she would like to hear her from some boy her own age, not this man old enough to be her father. The innocent, inexperienced and unsophisticated Eileen does not realize that Bernard's feelings for her are not ones that could be expected from a boy her own age. His longing for her is not sexual, it is of a neurotic nature, and it is the displaced passion of the religious fanatic. Later, Eileen appreciates the level of despair that Bernard must feel, to realize that the object of his adoration does not reciprocate his passion even an iota. This appreciation makes her go looking for him and finds him in what could well be his second attempt at suicide. Her refusal has caused Bernard to slide into a depressive episode similar to one that he has clearly experienced on earlier occasion. Eileen and her transient and somewhat ludicrous American boyfriend save him. The anguished longing that Brian feels for Eileen is in stark contrast to the superficial but far more successful interest that the American young man feels for her. For him Eileen is a beautiful young woman suitable for a quake romp in the hay. He seduction of Eileen is both comical and highly unrealistic. We had been told that Eileen is 20 years old and has never had boyfriend or any sexual experience. And yet, her very first sexual experience is so casual and her seduction by this young American she has met for the very first time so effortless that it causes the reader to question the plausibility of the whole sequence.

When the Temptation of Eileen Hughes first appeared, it was reviewed as one of Brian Moore's lesser works. In a review in the New York Times Book supplement, Joyce Carol Oates suggested that anyone introducing himself or herself to the Brian Moore ouvre should choose a more profound book than this. More recent overviews of the Brian Moore canon in the London Times book supplement barely mention the Temptation of Eileen Hughes in passing, noting its structural defects. There is little doubt but that there are problems with this book. For one, the book is told from the viewpoint of the least interesting character. Eileen, apart from her apparent innocence and great beauty, has little if any personality. Her reflections and thoughts are banal and her resistance to the temptations offered by her rich patrons appears to be based more on a childlike obstinacy than any deeply felt philosophical or principled point of view...

I love how Moore flings us headlong into the abrupt mid-action opening sentences of this story... "What do you mean there's no room for her?" Bernard said. "Didn't you get my letter?"

It's like that old television quip: "We now return you to programming already in progress..." The opening scene here is the front desk of a prestigious London hotel, within sight of Buckingham Palace. 34 year old Ulster businessman Bernard McAuley is straightening out what seems to be a screw-up in the reservations. Eileen Hughes, twenty years old and never before out of Northern Ireland, has just arrived with Bernard and his wife Mona, who are not only her employers but also, (she believes) her greatest friends. They've invited her on one of their jaunts. The worldly-wise Mona seems to have adopted the virginal-innocent Eileen as her special pet. Bernard is obsessed (in opposite ways) with BOTH of them... and for the time being, Eileen is completely unaware of the extent of Bernard's posessive love of her - expressed in his wish to give her everything she desires. She will not be unaware for long. Bernard soon goes against his better judgment and confesses that he wishes to posess her as one would posess a religious icon or aesthetic artefact.

The action of the book is compressed into two days (with an introductory day and a few brief scenes on later days) and during this time Bernard's excessive (and oddly platonic, or as Bernard refers to it "courtly") devotion to Eileen leads her to a sharp recognition of the madness in which she is trapped... and leads Bernard to drunken, suicidal despair. And what of Mona? Goodness... she's too busy shopping and courting her own lovers to be concerned with either of them!

Eileen discovers that nothing between the McAuleys, or between the McAuley's and herself, is as she imagined it to be. She is tempted... in many ways, and in many directions in the course of this vacation. She is bombarded with new experiences... including the initiation into marijuana and sex by a casual American stud/hippie whom she meets in the hotel.

What will she choose in regard to her temptations? The intoxicating adventure and glamour represented by European cities... held out to her on a platter by Bernard? Or a return to her dreary life in Lismore, Northern Ireland where she lives with her widowed invalid mother? How will her decisions affect her, and the other people involved? A great story, economically told. (only 200 pages). Ends before you want it to.