One of the attractions of the Bargain Book Table is that it sometimes entices me to read authors I’ve never got around to reading, but who I feel I should have read. Edna O’Brien is one of those authors. When I saw one of her later novels, The Little Red Chairs on the bargain table sometime last year I automatically picked it up, and after reading the blurb on the back, I was intrigued enough to decide it might be time to rectify my omission. Having finally got around to reading it, I’ve been struggling to get to the bottom of what I felt about this book until I remembered a conversation I had with my older brother many, many years ago (as in the 1980s years ago). We had rented One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on VHS from the local video store (ah remember VHS!). I’d seen the film before and read the book, but my brother hadn’t. At the end (oh god, that ending…) I remember asking my brother what he thought of it. After a pause he said that he thought it was a brilliant film, ...