Nora Webster

by Colm Tóibín

From one of contemporary literature's most acclaimed and beloved authors comes this magnificent new novel set in a small town in Ireland in the 1960s, where a fiercely compelling, too-young widow and mother of four moves from grief, fear, and longing to unexpected discovery. Toibin's portrayal of the intricacy and drama of ordinary lives brings to mind of the work of Alice Munro.
     Set in Wexford, Ireland, and in breathtaking Ballyconnigar by the sea, Colm Toibin's tour de force eighth novel introduces the formidable, memorable Nora Webster. Widowed at 40, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world she was born into. Wounded and self-centred from grief and the need to provide for her family, she struggles to be attentive to her children's needs and their own difficult loss. In masterfully detailing the intimate lives of one small family, Toibin has given us a vivid portrait of a time and an intricately woven tapestry of lives in a small town where everyone knows everyone's business, and where well-meaning gestures often have unforeseen consequences. Toibin has created one of contemporary fiction's most memorable female characters, one who has the strength and depth of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. In Nora Webster, Colm Toibin is writing at the height of his powers.

Genres: Fiction, Ireland, Historical Fiction, Irish Literature, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

373 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Colm Tóibín FRSL, is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Tóibín is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of us lead lives of quiet desperation, knocked about every so often by rude shocks or lifted up by brief, brilliant joys. But our quotidian troubles and triumphs rarely create ripples beyond our own little ponds.

As readers, we often gravitate toward lives played out on a grander scale—adventures, dalliances, crimes, and misdemeanors far more colorful than our own. But reader, if you haven’t experienced the transcendent storytelling of Ireland’s Colm Tóibín, you may not know what it’s like to feel the earth tilt with the most subtle of emotional tremors.

The story unfolds in rural County Wexford in 1969. Nora Webster, mother of four, is mourning the recent death of her husband, Maurice. She hasn’t worked outside the home in twenty-five years, has neither savings nor higher education and cannot look to extended family to support her, her two daughters pursuing University, or the two boys still at home. The outlook is grim.

She cherished her husband, and her anguish, though closely guarded, is breathtaking. But grief has coated Nora’s emotions with a thin sheen of ice. She longs to escape the endless parade of neighborhood mourners, to simply be left in peace. She regards her young sons, Donal and Conor, with a clinician’s distance and her older daughters, Aine and Fiona, with cautious exasperation. It occurs to her belatedly that she did not once visit or call the boys in the two months they stayed with an aunt while she remained at Maurice’s bedside. She accepts her neglect as a fact, but her remorse is slow to come.

Nora’s reawakening is the found treasure in this elegant, softly spiritual story. Tóibín writes without judgment. His Nora is fierce, stronger than she has any idea of or experience with, but it takes her time to figure out how to straighten her formidable backbone. She also must learn how to accept and adapt to others’ grief, namely that of her children, for she is a jealous guardian of her husband’s memory and love.

There are so many rich moments that show a woman coming into her own: the book’s opening scenes when Nora decides to sell the family’s modest summer home; the simple acts of having her hair done in a new style, purchasing a hi-fi, or deciding to update the “back room” where the family spends most of its time. Nora deftly steers her way through office politics, using her connections and the sympathy her husband’s death elicits to secure her position at the largest business in town, and she rediscovers her singing voice, which makes a lovely metaphor for the discovery of her voice as a grown, independent woman. Her response to Donal’s meltdown when he is denied access to a television to watch the moon landing, her decision not to rescue him from the boarding school where he is so miserable, and her grudging respect for her daughters show a mother relearning compassion.

There are cultural touchstones that keep the reader grounded in place and time, reminding us that just as Nora is awakening to her independence and power, so too is Ireland wrestling with its political and cultural boundaries. The Troubles of early 1970s Ireland, where violence erupts across the border and closer to home, arrive on the Webster’s doorstep in ways you don’t expect from this portrayal of anonymous domestic life.

Nora Webster caused me to reflect on another Nora who entered my literary life this year: Nora Eldridge from Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs. What emotional bookends they make to my reading year: one Nora, driven by lust and longing into a state of rage and self-loathing; the other, slowly awakening to her own keen possibilities. Both Noras are compelling, their stories crafted by superb writers. And each is a reminder that the quiet lives, the secret lives, are often the most astonishing of all.

I recall what Tóibín said about his writing after the publication of his last novel, The Testament of Mary. He stated that he writes the silence; the space between words. God, but I love that. For Tóibín is a master of the quiet dramas that unfold in kitchens and bedrooms, in back offices, in church naves and cafés. He takes the ordinary, and with sublime writing and rich characters, changes our way of perceiving the world.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another admirable book that I wish I could say I enjoyed more than I did. I understand that Nora is grieving and that we can only assume she loved her husband, although there’s scant evidence to support this. I have no idea why seemingly perfect Maurice would ever have married Nora, but let’s assume she was a vivacious, engaged spouse before grief took away any semblance of personality. But the Nora we spend 373 pages with is one passive, emotionally estranged individual. I suppose she’s let grief, fear of coping on her own, and embarrassment at having to reenter the work force stifle her better nature, but gosh, being supportive of Nora is like trying to tack jello to the wall – there's no substance to her. She’s so empty and distant that she’s zombie-like. No, that’s wrong, most literary zombies I’ve read about have more zest and joie de vivre in their big toe. Nora seems mystified by the lives of her children. She’s so intent on not irritating them the way her parents (and their parental involvement) irritated her that she almost loses contact with them altogether. And yes, I got it, she’s grieving, but it all annoyed me nonetheless. And it really gave me the creeps when she buys the dress and then is in denial about wanting to impress her daughter’s beau. Ugh. Where’s the big slap and the “Snap out of it!”? Instead we get, “I see dead people.” And how did three years pass by? Well, I’m sure this is a worthy book that I would recommend to my more patient, literary-minded reading friends, but Nora is not someone with whom I wanted to spend another moment.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colm Tóibín’s most recent book was about a grieving woman, too. But she was the mother of Jesus Christ, so the stakes seemed somewhat higher. In his new novel, “Nora Webster,” the Irish master has posed an entirely different challenge for himself: Rather than imagining the angry rant of the Virgin who changed human history, he describes a mother who never accomplishes anything unusual, never claims any position in the affairs of the world at all.

It’s far more believable and, ultimately, more miraculous.

Like some of his earlier novels, “Nora Webster” takes place in Wexford, Ireland, where Tóibín was raised. He started the book more than a decade ago but set it aside, intimidated, he says, that it was “so personal.” Over the years, he added scene after scene, recalling the life of his widowed mother in the late 1960s and early ’70s. The result is a strikingly restrained novel about a woman awakening from grief and discovering her own space, her own will. There’s no reason — except for Tóibín’s extraordinary skill — that this should be any more interesting than watching clover wilt. It arrives as though in response to Alice McDermott’s call at this summer’s National Book Festival for more literary novels about ordinary women, women who are not avenging angels or bludgeoned victims but fully realized characters who become “someone” through the force of a great writer’s insight.

So readers in search of flaming buildings and libidos should turn the page now. In this incorrigibly subtle novel, Tóibín is writing for “people on whom nothing is lost.” The story eventually includes references to the Troubles, but those frightening confrontations are mostly far away, spotted on television, considered in worried conversations over tea. Instead, the action of “Nora Webster” is composed of tender moments of quiet triumph and despair: the drama of a thoughtful family emerging from bereavement.


In the opening pages, Nora is growing impatient with the bossy sympathy and “hectoring tone” of her well-meaning neighbors. “You must be fed up of them,” one drones on cluelessly as Nora tries to get away. “I don’t know how you put up with it.” For this 44-year-old widow, so determined to maintain her dignity and privacy, it’s a struggle to grieve in a village where people remember your birth and know the plot in the graveyard where you’ll eventually be buried. She feels cramped by everyone’s pity: “It was solid, as the outer wall of a vault is solid,” she realizes, “built to withstand rather than support.” The recent death of her husband — a beloved schoolteacher — has transformed her and her family into a simulacrum of their old selves. “They had come to behave,” Tóibín writes, “as if everything were normal, as if nothing were really missing. They had learned to disguise how they felt. She, in turn, had learned to recognize danger signs, thoughts that would lead to other thoughts. She measured her success with the boys by how much she could control her feelings.”

But, of course, that control is elusive; many things are missing now, including her husband’s income, and no one in the family knows exactly what to do. Nora is still traumatized by her husband’s agonizing illness and death, shockingly mismanaged by the local doctor. “When she asked herself what she was interested in, she had to conclude that she was interested in nothing at all. . . . She wondered if she would ever again be able to have a normal conversation and what topics she might be able to discuss with ease and interest.” Her younger son has begun wetting the bed. Her older one — based on the author’s 12-year-old self — has grown withdrawn and developed a stammer.

Tóibín knows the claustrophobic dimensions of this world, but he also appreciates the vanished courtesies and intimacies it offered residents. That culture existed — and exists again in these chapters — far removed from our therapeutic age. “It will be all right,” an old nun tells Nora. “It is a small town, and it will guard you.” Nora doesn’t load up on advice books or whisk her sons to urologists and speech therapists. They rely, instead, upon their own kindness and determination. Given a little peace and space, Nora knows “she would work out how she was going to live.”

And so she does, slowly and without tears, across pages that never succumb to a single melodramatic or sentimental phrase. Much of the plot involves Nora going back, after 21 years away, to her first employers, a ridiculously imperious couple who pretend they rule the village. “Returning to work in that office belonged to a memory of being caged,” Tóibín writes, but Nora is not one for self-pity or shame. When a rude co-worker must be put in her place, she does it. Other challenges follow, some of them gently comic. Determined to reenter the world, she gets her hair dyed for the first time: “When it was finished, she knew that anyone who saw her on the way home would think that she had lost her mind.” No matter. Again and again, Nora finds herself more capable and resilient than she ever realized. When her son’s headmaster makes an unfair decision, she rises up like an Irish mother bear and threatens to hurl down “a widow’s curse.”

An autobiographical novel about one’s emotionally rigid mother sounds like an opportunity for psychic revenge. But there’s nothing like that in this story, which portrays Nora with tremendous sympathy and understanding. Here is a woman doing the best she can, learning to care for her children even as she begins to think of herself as possessing her own interests, giving herself permission to pursue artistic pleasures for their own sake. Tóibín would probably cringe at the idea, but there’s something implicitly didactic about this novel: Its barely undulating plot and exactingly modulated tone serve as a kind of guide to living without excess drama. Nora never breaks down; her children never lash out; none of them spray their grief on Twitter (they don’t even have a phone in the house). It’s a poignant reminder of a time when people responded to hardship with dignity instead of indignation.

One evening, Nora lets the boys stay up late with her to watch Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight.”

“What’s the film?” the younger one asks.

“It’s about a woman in a house,” she tells them.

“Is that all?”

Yes. But in the right hands, that’s enough.

This review first appeared in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently, Colm Tóibín wrote the first chapter of 'Nora Webster' in the spring of 2000, but didn't get to complete it fully until September 2013. Saying - "I thought about it every day in between, and wrote sections of it every year". This was a project that was clearly dear to him, and written in a way that shows a great love for his country. Sadly, all that time spent over one novel didn't result in the read I thought it would be. It's a personal, intimate story, the portrait of a grieving woman (Nora Webster) going through the process of finding herself again.

The novel is set in an Irish town in the late 1960s, with the political turmoil that plagued Northern Ireland beginning to rumble away like distant thunder beyond the horizon,.It focuses on Nora, a tough-minded Irish mother living in a country morphing dangerously towards the later Bloody Sunday. Explicitly, it is a powerful study of widowhood and grief, of a woman in her prime years, working out how she is going to live without the love of her life, her late husband, Maurice Webster, a schoolmaster. She would eventually find some comfort in music and singing, a path towards brightness, or some sort of new beginning seems to await her. Her life is never easy, with job problems, trying to stay strong whilst raising her children, and wondering whether love could ever blossom again. She finds that friends become a bigger part of her life than ever before. And slowly starts to become more outgoing, like quiz nights, and weekends away.

Nora is like most of her people, stuck in a world of priests, petty small-town rivalries and the kind of provincial boredom that is almost redeemed by the torments of frustration. Tóibín shows with a deft touch how Nora, imprisoned in her grief and her widowhood, becomes maddened by the tyranny of neighbours condolences and stifling behaviour, and is increasingly desperate to escape.
The sad thing is, not a lot changes throughout the novel, she is stuck, only slowly gaining some sort of happiness or relieve towards the end.

The narrative is definitely in the slow-burning category, with the tone being a sombre one.
For the most part, I was impressed with his writing, but he did tend to lean slightly into the walls of sentimentality more that it warranted. Aside from the little things, the biggest problem I has was it felt too long. Seemed to linger on moments here and there that didn't feel necessary. One good thing I will say, is that the character of Nora herself is somebody you can easily understand, and take to heart. She is the heart of the story, and makes it all the more worthwhile.

I can't compare this to any other of Tóibín's work as this is my first. It's probably 50/50 as to whether I read him again. A sad and heartfelt novel, but far from being anything to remember in the long run. This could be film material, and follow 'Brooklyn' to the big screen. Whether it would gain enough interest though remains to be seen.

[Laura McNeal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how he does it. The sentences are deceptively plain, and at first the novel feels almost colorless, odorless, mute. If you tried to explain the plot to someone, and you said, "It's about an Irish woman with four children whose husband dies while she's in her 40's," and you said that she didn't meet anyone or fall in love again, and there's no adultery, no startling revelation, no reversal, no trip to India or the Appalachian trail or the Outback, the book might sound as if it has nothing to reveal. And yet it reveals the complex inner world of Nora Webster. Like the novels of Alice McDermott, this book illuminates the life lived in obligation to others. It examines what happens when you stay, when you work things out with people who have known you since you were a child and have varying degrees of faith in you. The most moving passages are those that describe Nora's transformative love of music, which is her only selfish passion (it says a lot about Nora's life that taking singing lessons and buying classical music records are acts of rebellion), and the slow, agonizing steps her oldest son Donal takes toward independence. Not colorless but shimmering and profound, like the sea on a cloudy day.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

In plain and unsentimental prose, Toibin gives us the story of a woman, Nora Webster, whose husband of many years has died. Leaving her alone, with two younger boys and two older daughters, she must find her way through life for herself and her children.

I enjoyed this quiet and unassuming novel, watching Nora and the boys change as Nora learns to live her own life. I loved the moment, three years later, when she realizes she can do what she wants now, that there is no one who can tell her she can't. In this case, it was about redecorating her home. I loved the two boys, they too change in many ways, but the youngest watches closely everything that goes on. It takes great skill as a writer to make the most common events interesting and for me this author did just that.

Taking place in Ireland against the backdrop of the Catholic protestant violence and the burning of the embassy, but also against the backdrop of wonderful music, Nora eventually finds her way forward. It takes the help of family, a wonderful ex-nun who is a music teacher and another nun who watches out for Nora from afar.

A wonderful and unassuming read.

ARC from publisher.

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín, but in the end I was left disappointed by the book. This was one of those books that from the start I never got into. Disconnected would be the word I would use to describe my feelings on the story. I was reading the story but I never felt anything towards it. The end result was the complete opposite of what I was expecting from the book when I read its synopsis.

I wanted to feel something for the title character, Nora Webster. I was looking to read her life after the death of her husband, Maurice, and how it impacted her both as a widow and a single mother of two young boys, Donal and Conor. As it was, I didn’t get the sense of where she was mentally and emotionally. The story was missing the heart, emotions. To me, the story was just telling us what Nora was doing in terms of the day-to-day errands. I didn’t get a feel of her as a person, as wife, a widow, and mother. In fact, I was surprised at how hands off and at times even ambivalent she was towards her sons. I think that just encompassed my issue with the book, is the disconnect and the flatness of the story. There wasn’t anything regarding the characters and the story that grabbed me. Perhaps there was something there with Donal that could’ve been touched more upon with his stuttering (possible cause or trigger mechansim), his love of photography (although it did focus some time on it but it was from the perspective of Nora which didn’t lend any intrigue to the matter) and his and Conor’s distance with their mother. Unfortunately, it didn’t go into too much detail which I felt could’ve added some depth and interst in the story. As I was reading the book, I kept hoping that some switch will turn on and the story will be infused with some passion or some sort of spark that will liven up the reading. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen and by the time the last few pages were coming up I was hurriedly reading through to get to the end.

Perhaps the fact that the story took place in Ireland during the ‘60s may have affected how the characters and story were perceived by me. It could be that I just didn’t understand how things were back then there and therefore is the reason why I feel the way I do about the book. Either way, in the end I didn’t enjoy the book. The writing was good but the story as whole didn’t make me feel anything.

*Received Advance Reader's Edition from Goodreads First Reads giveaway

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Virtually nothing of interest happens in this book. It is a long slog of a widow's daily life and her trials and tribulations which don't amount to much. Nora has no notion of grace and appears ungrateful for all the efforts of people around her who try to help her through her endless grief. The other characters come and go leaving little impression at all.

Then we discover that during her husband's two-month illness, she left her two minor boys with an aunt and never once visited them or talked with them the entire time. She seems entirely void of outside influence in her life -- just wondering around in her own head undisturbed.

Then there are little mini-plots that spring up that lead nowhere and have nothing to do with anything else in the story.

I waited for something, anything, of significance to happen, but this was just too plain and dull. Nora gets new carpeting. Nora sells a house. Nora buys a book. Nora buys a dress. Nora thinks about her mother's corpse. Nora buys a record player. Nora buys records. Nora stands up to the headmaster. Nora gets a job. Nora takes singing lessons. Nora talks with her children. Nora puts me to sleep. You end the novel hoping her singing and new love of music will allow her to begin a new life but - to be honest - you don't really care what she does. It is bleak, depressing and tedious.

In the end, I was reminded of the song by Peggy Lee “Is That All There Is?”

This novel doesn't begin to compare to the other novels I have read by this author.

[Paula K · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderfully written book. Nora Webster takes you on a journey of an Irish woman who looses her husband and rediscovers her love of music. During this journey, she starts to understand her children and others with more compassion and interest in their lives.

Colm Toibin, short-listed twice for the Man Booker prize, did not disappoint with Nora Webster. One of the Washington Post's five Best Audiobooks of 2014, Nora Webster is a wonderful listening experience. The lovely voice of Nora is read by Irish actor Fiona Shaw and done so well.

Highly recommend by audiobook.
5 out of 5 stars.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A subtle portrait of a bereaved family in late 1960s Ireland. Nora, 40, has lost her husband Maurice to sudden illness. Repressing her own grief, she helps her four children move on. She will sell the summer house, get a job, and try to maintain a semblance of normality: vacations in Ireland and Spain, hobbies, and the school year’s rhythms. But how to keep going when life has lost all purpose? “When she asked herself what she was interested in, she had to conclude that she was interested in nothing at all.”

Nora’s daughters, Fiona and Aine, are away at university and prep school in Dublin, respectively, and her two sons, Conor and Donal, still live at home. The two boys, especially, seem to be suffering from post-traumatic stress. Conor wets the bed; Donal has nightmares, develops a stammer, and starts to make trouble for his teachers. Although Nora tries to attend to her children’s problems, she has enough of her own. There’s the shame of having to go back to her old office job at Gibney’s, under the supervision of a woman she once behaved snobbishly towards. As is common in many British novels, there are subtle class distinctions to where people work, what they wear, even how they do their hair. Everyone stares at Nora and thinks she’s putting on a younger woman’s airs when she dyes her hair to cover the gray.

I thought of Nora as a bit like a female Stoner, meandering through a world that seems to be against her. In two excruciating (but very well written) scenes, others set her up for failure – distracting her while she’s computing pages of figures, or confusing her with a new piano arrangement so she doesn’t know when to start singing. “You’ve left it too late,” her voice teacher tells her; that bitter aura of defeat hangs over the novel, as does the background rumble of the Troubles.

In some ways Nora is a memorable, even a formidable, figure. In one of the most striking scenes of the novel, she visits Conor’s school principal to protest at the boy being relegated to a lower class. She threatens the man – “You will be hearing from me…And you will find that when I am crossed I am very formidable” – and very nearly follows through on her promise to picket outside the school, until the other teachers convince the principal to relent.

Tóibín’s writing is unfailingly serene and precise, especially when describing Nora’s internal monologue: “So this was what being alone was like, she thought. It was not the solitude she had been going through, nor the moments when she felt his death like a shock to her system, as though she had been in a car accident, it was this wandering in a sea of people with the anchor lifted, and all of it oddly pointless and confusing.” Yet Nora’s story is so circumscribed that it should only have been a novella. At 373 pages, it feels dragged out, with minor incidents piling up just to fill space.

Like Arnold Toynbee once said about history, the plot sometimes feels like just one damn thing after another. Nora visits her sister, a rich and snobby farmer’s wife; she keeps score for a village quiz; Fiona borrows money to buy new clothes in London; Nora goes on vacation to Spain with her aunt Josie; Donal goes to boarding school and has trouble fitting in; Nora embarks on house renovations and decides to paint the ceiling herself; and so on. Some of these events, separately, might make for a fine short story, but all together they just feel like a boring litany of everyday life. Sometimes this even plays out at the sentence level:

She made herself a cup of tea and came and sat in the armchair beside the fire. She turned on the radio but they were reading sports results and she turned it off. On going upstairs, she found that the boys were sound asleep and she stood watching them before closing the door and leaving them to the night. Downstairs, she wondered if there might be something interesting on the television. She went over and turned it on and waited for the picture to appear. How would she fill these hours?

Clearly, the repetitive sentence structure is deliberate, a way of expressing – visually and sonically – the tedium of Nora’s days. But it can be equally tedious to read.

Nora Webster is such a determinedly realist novel that there is something very strange about the late scene when Nora hallucinates that she sees her dead husband in her room. Although she’s taking both painkillers and sleeping pills at the time, it still seems an unusual and rather out-of-character incident. As the novel ends, Aunt Josie and the rest of the family perform an intervention of sorts to pull Nora out of her grief. It is 1972; Maurice has now been dead three years. They convince her it’s time to get rid of his clothes, and she independently decides to burn his letters – again, strangely unsentimental of her, but it’s a powerful symbol of relinquishing her firmly held, daily grief.

Tóibín has written (for instance, in this Guardian article) that his widowed mother’s grief was the inspiration for Nora Webster. It is a very personal novel for him, then, perhaps with autobiographical touches that most readers won’t recognize. The novel takes place between 1969 and 1972, but it is only possible to determine the time period through small clues, such as Donal’s obsession with television footage of the Moon landing, and an upcoming choir recital of German music to commemorate 25 years since liberation from the Nazis. Apart from these tiny shreds of evidence, the book feels like a timeless evocation of grief.

With thanks to Maya Lang, and Kara Watson of Scribner, for arranging my free review copy.


(This review originally appeared at Bookkaholic.)

[Darlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I became a fan of writer, Colm Toibin, after reading his novel 'Brooklyn' several years ago. If you are a reader who prefers a story filled with action, then Mr. Toibin's writing is probably not for you. But if you are a reader, like me, who falls in love with characters, I think you will enjoy Mr. Toibin's latest novel, 'Nora Webster'.

In 'Nora Webster', Colm Toibin returns to his Irish home and the story takes place in Wexford, Ireland. The year is 1969 and against the backdrop of the lunar landing and the tensions beginning to come to a boil between Catholics and Protestants, we meet Nora Webster. Nora, a 40 year old wife and mother of four, has become widowed. Maurice, her husband of many years, has died after months of illness and Nora is shellshocked.

'Nora Webster' is a story about… simply put Nora Webster. Mr. Toibin has created Nora and then proceeds to dissect her character…. not in a clinical way; but instead in a way which almost lovingly demonstrates the true complexity of human nature. Nora's story is perhaps a common one… a woman married for many years becomes accustomed to having her life flow in a particular rhythm. Maurice, Nora and their children comprised what was in 1969, a typical family. Maurice was the breadwinner and Nora was the homemaker. Each relied on the other to perform particular duties and responsibilities… until Maurice died and Nora was left, not only filled with grief over the loss of the person she considered the 'love of her life' ; but also filled with fear… how would she be able to handle the doubling of her responsibilities… handle her life without her husband and partner?

Just as human beings are complex and multifaceted, Mr. Toibin has created a complex and multifaceted character in Nora Webster. At times, Nora wants to withdraw from society… from her life.. and simply focus on carrying out the routines that she and her two young sons are accustomed to…. almost as if nothing had happened… wishing that the mourners and well-wishers would leave her alone. At other times, she seems to desire to relinquish her responsibilities and decisions to her sister and brother-in-law, wishing for them to make decisions regarding her finances, her daughters' higher education and her sons' daily activities. Nora vacillates between completely focusing only on herself and her own feelings of fear and grief; then focusing on her sons' grief and obsessing over their behaviors. She seems almost clueless at times about what is happening in her children's lives; at other times, however, she is highly involved in what they are doing and seems full of insight into their feelings.

Through his use of simple, plain and yet exquisitely eloquent language, Mr. Toibin demonstrates his comprehension of the nature of grief. Nora is at times self-centered and absorbed completely in herself… but really, isn't that the true nature of grief? Does it not, at least for a time, cause a person to turn inward… toward her truest self? Nora is both overwhelmed and carried away by her grief and is at the same time, struggling to regain some control over her life. Mr. Toibin demonstrates, through Nora, that grief really IS a process which won't be rushed. Nora, over the course of the three years of this novel, turns inward to acknowledge all that has been lost to her; but then slowly turns outward again, realizing her life must continue. We see NOra evolve with every sentence … she begins as a woman full of self-doubt and afraid to make any decisions.She impulsively sells the family's vacation/summer home and then immediately worries what Maurice would think of her decision.. what her family and neighbors will think of her decisions, But ever so slowly, Nora begins to make decisions based on her OWN judgment and what SHE wants and what will be good for her children…. simple decisions such as dying her hair… to more weighty matters such as returning to the workforce. We see Nora slowly gain confidence and Nora's evolution is demonstrative of Mr. Toibin's ever-present sensitivity and his ability to truly understand human emotion. Through Nora Webster , Mr. Toibin demonstrates his understanding his understanding that grief is not a process which occurs in a straight line; Nora experienced the very real 'two steps forward, one step back' in her grieving. Through her grief, she allowed herself to look inside and pull up those qualities that she had forgotten she possessed and in doing so, she literally 'found her voice'.

Although Nora Webster was not always a likable character, she WAS always understandable and sympathetic.. proof once again of Colm Toibin's remarkable talent for creating realistic, 'flesh and blood' feeling characters.

[Peter Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe it took me so long to get around to Colm Tóibín. Within a few pages I was fully immersed in this tale of love and sorrow in a small Irish village.

The story is set in 1969. Nora Webster, the mother of two girls and two younger boys, has just lost her husband Maurice. His death has left a huge hole in their lives. She worries about money and how she's going to provide for her family. Most of all, she's concerned about how her children will cope without her father. Her neighbours have been helpful and sympathetic, but she feels nervous when they approach her after Mass, finding their pity "intrusive and hurtful." Nora's predicament forces her out of her comfort zone, and she gradually begins to fill the emptiness in unexpected ways.

We are left in no doubt about the feelings Nora had for Maurice. She thinks back to a happier time, when she was so proud to be standing at his side: "She loved that she had Maurice beside her, she loved how they were out together at a wedding wearing new clothes and that everyone in the party knew that she was married to him." Without him, she feels so lost, like she is "wandering in a sea of people with the anchor lifted." Nora has her own way of coping but she still worries about how his passing will affect the boys:

"She was aware now that the changes in their lives had come to seem normal to them. They did not have her sense of watching every scene, every moment for signs of what was missing, or what might have been. The death of their father had entered into a part of them that, as far as she could see, they were not aware of. They could not see how uneasy they were, and maybe no one but she could see it, yet it was something that would not leave them now, she thought, would not leave them for years."

I loved the way the story explored grief, it felt so honest and so perceptive. Things like how self-conscious it can make a person feel, the effort it takes to appear dignified and balanced when your whole world is falling apart. And I liked how there was no magic fix for Nora, she just battled through it all with courage and determination. It is a work of such compassion and elegance. If every Colm Tóibín novel is this good, I can't wait to read more.

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no end to the world as we know it , except that it feels this way to Nora Webster and her family as they suffer the loss of a husband and father . There is no violence here in Wexford, except there is in the cities around them . There is no major dramatic event in this place , except for what it seems to this family , but in the world at large a man is landing on the moon.

What I did find here was a quiet reflection on the everyday lives of people from the mundane of Nora's work in the office to the wonder of the music she rediscovers and how it helps her find herself in this time of grief . A reflection reminiscent of Alice McDermott's stories , although I have to admit that I am partial to her beautiful writing . I found here the love of a mother for her children, even though at times it seemed there was a distance between them .

Toibin has created in Nora , an equally strong woman as he did with Ellis in his novel Brooklyn . It's a beautiful story of about overcoming the depths of grief .

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a modest elegance that pulls you along in this story of 40-ish Irish widow Nora Webster and her family in County Wexford, in Ireland. The gulf between wife and widowhood is daily captured by Nora's inscrutable, withdrawn demeanor and period of emotional turmoil. She is struggling to adjust without her husband, Maurice, who died three months ago. He was a fine teacher and a capable, loving partner, although he didn't share her love of music. It begins circa 1969; no dates are mentioned, but one can assign it by historic events and people, and the story closes three years later.

Over the course of the novel, we settle deeper into the conventions and conceits of Nora's provincial family, and especially Nora herself, as she strives to emerge from her quiet despair and well-meaning but stifling cadre of support. She wants to be left alone with her inner life and her sons (she chose not to have a phone), but the visitors, while trickling to few now, continue to politely intrude. Tóibín's exquisite examination of the quotidian reveals a masterpiece of character and reflection. Reading this was like listening to movements of classical music in a minor key. Many are mentioned in the book, such as Schubert's hymn "To Music;" I was drawn to listen to it. The text, or the context of the novel, would fit neatly inside the hymn.

Nora's two nearly grown daughters, Fiona and Aine, and her two young sons, Donal and Conor, are her primary concerns. The two daughters seem to be confident and established, on to their own futures (although Fiona teaches close to home). Conor, the youngest son, and Donal, a few years older, (with a significant stammer) worry her the most. She wants to provide a steady life for them, but feels periodically inept. Her widow's fee is small (which increases), and the idea of going back to work after twenty years of marriage is grim. Then there's the idea of reconfiguring her social life, a tough one for the widow.

Nora seeks structure, a soothing coping strategy that provides consistency and limits. Every summer now, she takes her children to the beach at Curracloe for two weeks. When she starts working, Nora comes home for lunch (or tea), when the boys do, and is also there to prepare dinner at the end of the day. It's as if she is trying to protect others from experiencing her grief. Her sisters and other family members observe her anxiety, and she knows that they do. She just wishes everyone would leave her alone, and stop coming to visit her with their obligatory condescension.

When Maurice was dying at a TB clinic at the edge of town, she had left the boys with her Aunt Josie while she was at her husband's bedside for several months. After revisiting her aunt again early in the novel, Nora is wracked with a tremendous but nebulous psychological strain and fear. She feels something unsaid in the air, and a crushing suffocation from her thoughts about it. This ongoing duel with her inner self and the temporal world mounts with tension, and Tóibín's delicate distillation of prose down to its most spare essence allows the reader to meditate on the blank spaces, which corresponds to Nora's "world filled with absences." The voids threaten to topple over into discord at times; at other times, eloquent stillness. But she is rarely meek, just restrained by custom.

Nora is as bordered as a button, with deep-seated zones of repressed desire. There's no grand heroics in her baby steps toward spirited liberation, which makes her that much more relatable. Her private moments listening to music, close to trance-like in her enjoyment--even that has its limits for Nora. I held my breath at times, watching and waiting (hoping) for Nora to emerge from her shell, more fully realized.

As Nora gradually moves toward active engagement with the present, the music I hear picks up, and I hear a confident capriciousness at intervals. I was installed in Nora's rich, inner life--one that is stifled, boundless, and hesitantly optimistic. In an inner life, the contradictions are more congruous, spoken only to the self. That's not to say that Nora didn't have her outspoken, laconic wit; she also had moments of fierce independence and what others may think of as eccentric behavior. She wanted release from being everyone else's idea of a widow. Along the way, a nun, a music teacher, and a selfish young woman indirectly guide the taciturn widow forward toward her vocal talent.

Nora's doubts and mourning are expressed superbly in her response to music by Beethoven:

"The energy in the playing was sad, and then it became more than sad, as if there was something there and all three players recognized it and were moving towards it." "...she was sure someone had suffered, and moved away from suffering and then come back to it, let it linger and live within them."

[Snotchocheez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm just not understanding the raves on this one at all. The catch words from fellow Goodreaders that drew me to read Colm Tóibín's Nora Webster were poetic, understated, gorgeous, elegant bereavement, Olive Kitteridge (huh? Really? In what alternate literary universe could this hold a candle to Ms Strout's short-storied delight?)

I felt no connection at all to the titular Nora, a Wexford, Ireland (circa late 1960s) mother of four whose husband passes away from heart ailments. And I was totally in the mood for some well-written weepy goodness, too. Alas, this just didn't deliver.

Forgive me for being cheeky, but from Page 50 onward, I was hoping Colm (in this, my first encounter with his prolific body of work) would "buy a U" and morph into fellow Irishman Colum (McCann) to breathe some life into this moribund clunker. As much as I'd hate to admit it, I'd rather read Maeve Binchy's schmaltzy goo than read anything like this again. Very disappointing.

[Margarita Garova · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Смятаха, че е време да престане да тъгува и да започне да мисли и за други ��еща. Но други неща просто не съществуваха. Съществуваще единствено случилото се.”

Фактите за Нора Уебстър - майка е на четири деца, живее в малък ирландски град и е наскоро овдовяла. Морис е бил любовта на живота й, та спускането по заешката дупка не изненадва никого.

Отвъд грубите факти (фактите винаги са груби) Колъм Тойбин подхожда много нюансирано и деликатно, дори плахо, към вътрешния свят на една обикновена жена, която се опитва да оцелее психически и финансово. Оказва се трудно да държиш главата си изправена в малката общност, в която всеки е силно зависим от мнението на другите, и в която трябва да поднасяш смирено оправдавание за всяко свое действие. Така де, от голямо значение за благото на всички е въпросът дали вдовиците могат да ходят с прясно боядисани коси и дали е редно да си купуват грамофони.

Втрещяваща е и началната атмосфера на книгата, която носи отглас от прастари времена и миризма на утвърдени традиции – дотам, че ако не беше анотацията на задната корица, щях да си помисля, че действието се развива в началото на 20 век, а не през 60-те години на същия. Докато някъде по света жените слагат минижупите и тежката очна линия ала Бриджит Бардо, докато светът се тресе от младежки бунтове и хипарски фестивали, читателят попада в свят, в който хората ходят на литургия всяка неделя и редовно се среща изразът “тя напусна работа, за да се омъжи”.

Нора Уебстър живее в среда, която е кошмарът на всеки индивидуалист. И въпреки че не е точно бунтар и че също, както и другите, е загрижена за социалния си капитал, Нора е трудна, вироглава, обидчива, лаконична жена. Жена, която е отчаяна от натрапчивите опити на околните за съчувствие и помощ, но които понякога й се налага да приеме с пестелива благодарност. Която не може да живее в пълна степен според разбиранията си, защото общността никога няма да й го позволи. Която се лута между стремежа си да се уедини и скрие от света, и възродения си интерес към музиката и пеенето, който предполага някакво взаимодействие със същия този свят, все пак.

Междувременно идва октомври 1968 г. и в Ирландия започват “Смутните времена”. Насред прогизналия провинциален пейзаж Нора остава сравнително недокосната от вълненията. Но това е работа на следващото поколение – на нейните екстровертни дъщери активистки. Задачата на Нора е някак си да продължи напред и тя го прави, връща се към живота с неравномерни стъпки, къде органично, къде насилствено, благодарение на същите тези околни, които се бъркат в чуждите работи.

Хубава книга. Хареса ми, че героите са обикновени хора и въобще съм забелязала, че ирландските писатели обичат да пишат за обикновени хора, да разказват техните истории с дистанцирана задушевност и ирония. Усещането от такава литература е много особено, в добрия смисъл на думата.

[Невена Дишлиева-Кръстева · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Нора Уебстър" е осмият роман на Колъм Тойбин и четвъртият, който съм чела (плюс два сборника с разкази и един прекрасен non-fiction за Барселона). Обожавам бавното му, умозрително писане, наблюдателността, покоя, наситените с емоция и смисъл пролуки между фразите. Действието в "Нора Уебстър" обхваща трите години след смъртта на Морис - съпругът на героинята. Краят на 60-те е - времето, в което бих искала да съм живяла и което по някакъв неартикулируем начин отговаря на вътрешния ми ритъм. Турбулентността на епохата с политическите движения и кризи в Ирландия са не просто далечен фон, а контекст на цялостното поведение на героите, на отношенията между тях. Мястото на действие е любимият на Тойбин роден Уексфорд. Някои от героите познаваме от "Бруклин" и това е дребен, но важен детайл - подсилва усещането за завръщане в познат свят. Повествованието тече спокойно, стилът - типично за автора - не е разкрасен от ефектни литературни похвати, нито изпъстрен с драматизъм, въпреки че загубата на Нора несъмнено е травма не само за нея, а за децата и близките й, за роднините на Морис. И оказва своето влияние върху всеки от тях. Тази загуба е невидимата сила, която движи всяка нейна стъпка и решение. Красотата и силата на романа са в онова напоително потъване в болката, в автентичността на преживяването, в способността да вкараш жестоката трагедия на един човешки живот в детайла на почти незабележимата реакция или обрания жест. Облечено в думите на автора, това звучи така: "Значи това е да си сама, помисли си. Страшна бе не самотата, която я задушаваше, нито миговете, когато смъртта му за пореден път я разтърсваше, сякаш я връхлиташе кола, а ето това – реене с вдигната котва в морето от хора, докато наоколо кипи безсмислен и неразбираем живот." Сякаш светът на Нора след смъртта на Морис е terra incognita, в която тя, четиресетгодишната жена, пристъпва за пръв път, предпазливо и колебливо, и й е трудно да разбере. Свят, "изтъкан от отсъствия".
Освен тези опити за дисекция на болката, най-силните моменти от романа за мен са свързани с музиката - уроците, на които Нора се решава, и където си позволява да последва музиката, да се откъсне от Морис, от спомените си, от всичко. "Не само защото Морис нямаше ухо за музиката и защото музиката бе нещо, което никога не бяха споделяли. А заради наситеността на времето, което прекарваше тук – беше сама със себе си на място, където Морис никога не би я последвал, дори в смъртта."

Книгата ще я има на български в края на август, в чудесен превод на Елка Виденова, с корица на Живко Петров.

[GTF · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although 'Nora Webster' showcases some of Tóibín's signature vivid writing, the novel is written under a very thin plot, and for the most part, is a dull account of one woman's stoicism following the death of her husband.

[Ailsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This might of been what Maurice dreaded the most when he was dying, that there would come a time when he would not be missed, that they would all manage without him. He would be the one left out."

An unbearably intimate portrait of a woman grieving over the loss of her husband. Disconnected from her children and family she faces her neighbours' suffocating pity and struggles to find contentment. Nora is a nuanced character, sympathetic but not entirely likeable. It's almost painful to read her attempts to create normalcy for her children who have been deeply traumatised by the death of their father.

Vulnerability, loss, nostalgia. Everything simmers under the surface. Lots of subtext, not a lot of plot. The critical moments of the novel are in the mundane events of Nora's life, when she threatens to curse and picket the Christian Brothers school for unjustly sending her son Conor to the B class or when her daughter, who earns more than Nora does, asks to borrow 100 pounds for a holiday. The tension created between a mother and her children who resent her despite her best efforts is pitch perfect.

Tóibín is such a beautiful writer. It's such a shame that I don't enjoy his books more. The Master is still my favourite of his and the one I would recommend to someone who's never read anything by him before.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book settled on to me, and so I settled in to it.

You know when you’re younger, you think that - wherever you are - nothing happens here. Things happen elsewhere. But never here. It’s just regular stuff here. It’s just regular, plain old life. And you itch for the big L ‘Life’. When will that start?
Oooohhh, look, a bit of drama here, aah that wrinkle smooths out into the everyday fabric now, moving on.
Tragedy strikes, such a blow, how can one possibly cope, get over it, pick up with life’s bits and routines again? Impossible, it can never happen, but bits and routines are starting to happen again anyway, it just goes on.
You catch up. You find things you didn’t know you had, or thought you had lost. And now are found again.

[Diana Stoyanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Трогателна интровертна творба, насочена към вътрешния свят на героите. Кротко нанизани емоции, които тлеят вътре в душата. И всичко това на фона на прекрасна ирландска атмосфера.

[Maria Yankulova · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Нора Уебстър” е вторият роман на Тойбин, който чета и съм супер щастлива, че издателство ICU продължават да го издават. Страшно харесвам спокойното му и почти “обикновено” писане. Както и с “Бруклин” и тук се почувствах част от историята и харесах всички изградени от Тойбин образи.

За всеки, който не е чел Колъм Тойбин - моля ви дайте му шанс и съм сигурна, че ще ви спечели.
Ирландската атмосфера, героите, човешките истории, просто няма какво да не ви хареса.

[Tsvetelina Mareva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Чудесен Тойбин! С фино психологизиран почерк и живо обрисувани герои. В този роман няма сензации, тежки обрати и равносметки. Животът си тече тихо и непринудено, докато героите на ирландския разказвач се учат да го живеят.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

bu kez olmuş colm tóibín. bir kadının kırklı yaşlarda dul kalmasından sonra özgürleşmesini ince ince detaylarla dantel gibi işlemiş.
irlanda gibi kapalı ve tutucu bir toplumda 60’lı yıllarda 4 çocukla bir başına kalmak… romanın başlarında tek başına sokağa çıkmaktan, kasabalılarla karşılamaktan bile çekinecek kadar tedirgin bir karakter nora webster.
araba kullanmayı biliyor ve arabası var, evi var, bekarken çalışmış, yani bizdeki dul kalmış mağdur kadın tiplemesinden epey farklı gibi gözüküyor değil mi? hiç değil. sevilen bir öğretmen olan kocasının yanında ki kocası cidden iyi bir insan, silikleştikçe silikleşmiş, erkekler politika konuşurken susmuş, çocukların okulunu, tatile gidilecek yeri, evin işlerini hep kocası yapmış. o gittikten sonra sudan çıkmış balığa dönen nora hem çocuklarını hem kendisini zümrüdüanka kuşu gibi yeniden yaratıyor.
en başta korka korka saçını boyatması, işe girmesi, kurallarını kabul ettirmesi, sendikalı olması (bu detay çok önemli), dublinde protestolara katılan küçük kızını desteklemesi, yazlığı satması, koroya katılıp şan dersleri almaya başlaması, erkeklerin yanında konuşacak fikirlerini belirtecek kadar kendine güveninin geri gelmesi ve sonda boşa geçmiş bir hayat diye pişmanlık duymadan, depresyon çukuruna düşmeyip yeniden toparlanması.
2 büyük kız, 2 küçük oğlanın tek tek karakterlerine kadar işlemiş yazar. roman bittiğinde oğlanları da kızları da tanıyor gibiydim. bence en büyün başarılardan biri bu. üstelik dördünün de apayrı sorunları var.
arka planda her zamanki gibi irlanda-ingiltere sorunları var. kanlı pazar yaşanıyor romanda. nora hep sessiz kaldığı bu konuda bile en sonunda kayınbiraderine öldürülen çocuklardan birinin annesi olsaydım elime silah alıp sokağa çıkardım diyor. queen.
yeşim teber ustalıkla çevirmiş ki çok akraba var, teyzeler halalar hep doğru :))

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second Toibin book and I had the same issues this time around: I mostly enjoyed it and wasn’t too bored, but when I finished I was just sort of 'meh' about the whole thing. I read that Toibin writes about silence and the subtle ways people interact with each other and deal with their pain. Those with families who suppress emotions will likely relate to this; those with fiery, door-slamming families will be left frustrated by the emptiness. I also read that Nora was partly based on Toibin’s mother coming to terms with his father’s death (and one of the stuttering sons is partly based on himself). Nora isn’t just a bland and lifeless character, she’s downright cold and uninterested in her children’s lives, and reading about her daily activities was a bit tedious.

There’s a muted and subdued vibe to Toibin’s writing that leaves me wanting. Nora and the protagonist in the other Toibin I read, Brooklyn, were so passive and aloof that I wanted to shake them.

Torn on this one...

[Кремена Михайлова · Rating 5 out of 5]

„За това не я беше предупредил никой – че няма да може да изпитва нормални чувства, нормални желания.“

Изобщо не се позаинтересувах за какво е книгата. Достатъчно ми беше, че е на Колъм Тойбин. Толкова много бях харесала разказите му преди. А това е „чист“ роман. От най-стандартните. В най-положителния смисъл на стандартен. Положението беше точно: искам да чета роман – ето го! Включително с това: започвам втора глава и се чудя — ще ми се тупнат ли сега някакви напълно непознати и неясни герои? Не, продължават същите и се добавят нови — но ясни. Донякъде с описания от автора, донякъде с действия или спомени, от които аз да си правя изводи какви са героите. Ето я леля Джоузи. Важна е.

„Когато остарееш, тогава ще разбереш, Нора – каза – Тази смесица от задоволство от най-дребните неща и чувството на неудовлетвореност от всичко.“

Централна тема обаче е бракът. Но за вдовица – Нора Уебстър – с четири деца в малко ирландско градче.

„…не се бе появила възможност, която отговаря на интелигентността им – интелигентност, която, вече като омъжени жени, внимателно бяха култивирали.“

„Не съм пяла от години. Не съм пяла, откакто се омъжих.“

Като знам какви ирландски книги съм чела за този период – края на 60-те, началото на 70-те, направо ми идеше да благодаря на съпруга Морис (когото опознаваме индиректно), че въпреки ограниченията Нора не е била задушена напълно, както се е случвало на много омъжени жени. Все пак не виждам как положението при цялостната атмосфера в страната би могло да бъде много по-различно.

„Никой никога не питаше Нора какво мисли по този въпрос, а и тя самата не беше сигурна, но знаеше, че не е на тяхното мнение и че подкрепя много по-радикални промени.“

Те са нужни в Република Ирландия тогава, в Северна Ирландия също е много неспокойно. Но освен политиката (феминизъм, социални права), и картините от градчетата и крайбрежието са ни познати.

„Тези тесни шосета, мислеше си тя, и изолираните къщи по тях, страничните пътища, които се виеха с километри до някоя самотна ферма, която не се виждаше отникъде, обраслите канавки и надвесените над платното клони, всичко това навяваше мисли за призраци и странни звуци в нощта.“

Нора Уебстър е: „средна“ жена, в средно градче, от средна класа; средна работа е всичко, но не е скучно. Защото всичко това „средно“ не е ли преобладаващото където и да е? Но това не е съвсем където и да е. Всяка страна си има специфики, но някои сякаш са по-силно изразени. Така ми се струва и за любимата Ирландия. Без да съм ходила там, доста ясна ми се очертава от всички прочетени ирландски книги.

Много просто и основателно Тойбин е нарекъл романа си Нора Уебстър. Не е било нужно да търси други думички като загуба или семейство.

„В момента единственото, което би могла да обсъжда, бе себе си. А всички, струваше ѝ се, се бяха уморили от тази тема. Смятаха, че е време да престане да тъгува и да започне да мисли за други неща. […] Имаше чувството, че живее под вода и се е отказала да плува към въздуха. Прекалено много усилия ѝ костваше.“

„Всички“ са съгражданите и роднините. Ами даже и роднините ме интересуваха. Лесно ги запомнях. В такива „средни“ градчета няма как хората да не са по роднински свързани, да се посещават взаимно, да има и разбиране, и недомлъвки… Сравнително спокойно ми изглеждаше всичко въпреки дребните неразбирателства. Мисля, че Нора получаваше подкрепа.

„Значи това е да си сама, помисли си. Страшна бе не самотата, която я задушаваше, нито миговете, когато смъртта му за пореден път я разтърсваше, сякаш я връхлиташе кола, а ето това – реене с вдигната котва в морето от хора, докато наоколо кипи безсмислен и неразбираем живот.“

Но в романа има и деца. И юноши или младежи да са, пак са деца, когато има изгубен баща. Една сцена – когато майката и двамата ѝ сина гледаха филм и го обсъждаха – ми се стори изпипана до последния детайл. Доколко Нора може да спаси себе си и да се справи отлично и с подрастващите си деца…

„Дали и момчетата се чувстваха така? Дали Фиона и Оня се ужасяваха от новия ден?“

Наистина най-силно впечатление ми направиха отношенията между майката и децата, както и между самите деца. Братя и сестри.

Много увлекателно разказва Колъм Тойбин, но едновременно с това е и майстор на диалога. На няколко места се наслаждавах и исках да преписвам именно диалог. Ето, как да не ни стане ясна атмосферата в семейството.

„Момичетата си сложиха банските и Нора също се преоблече бавно.
- Не си ли носиш книга? – попита тя Конър.
- Писна ми да чета.
- Надявам се да не смяташ цял ден да ни се мотаеш в краката – обади се Фиона.
- И да ни подслушваш както си приказваме – добави Оня.
- За гаджета ли? – присмя ѝ се Конър. – Мамо, трябваше да ги чуеш снощи, не спряха да говорят за Адамстаун и Уайтс Барн.
- Мразя Адамстаун – сопна му се оня.
- Ама на Фиона ѝ харесва – настоя Конър.
- Млъквай, Конър – скастри го Фиона.
- Конър, някой път, като завали, ще отскочим до Уексфорд да ти купим нещо за четене – каза Нора.
- Нали си има ракета за тенис – обади се Фиона.
- Оставете го на мира – отвърна Нора.“

Връщам се отново на любовта и отношенията. Тук вече обединявам цитатите и с една особеност на романа – хумор! Лека ирония и отношения, лека ирония и религия – доста ми хареса.

„Мисля, че всички бивши монахини имат добри сърца, понеже са безкрайно щастливи, че са се измъкнали от манастира.“

„Ще ми се да имам половин Рей и половин Роджър. Но с моя късмет сигурно ще се окаже с по-скучната половина от Роджър и с онази половина от Рей, дето вечно е недоволна, ако не е на път за следващото място.“

„Правилото на Грета – да разговарят само с мъже, които владеят синтаксиса, и да не обръщат внимание на никого, който не познава граматиката - започна уж на шега, но постепенно се превърна в нещо напълно сериозно.“

Тойбин ме изненада и с музика. Какво е провинциална Ирландия без песните. Пеене видяхме и в „Бруклин“. Дали това се оказва спасителна сламка за Нора, неин скрит талант? Не мисля, че този роман е толкова от типа „да видим какво ще стане накрая“. Много се радвам, че книгата не е за дълъг период от време (основно около 3 години, макар и с връщане към спомени). В романи с няколко поколения последните вече не мога да ги възприемам като близки обикновено; тук беше неизменно – героите може да се развиват и променят, но все пак си остава една позната рамка.

Колъм Тойбин отново: език топъл, непретенциозен, плавен, естествен, точен; превод също: „Знаеш ли, мисля си че…“, „Мен ако питаш…“, „Нещо ми е хладно.“, „… небето вещаеше дъжд.“

Нора: една жена с различни качества, но аз отличих две. Колебливост и решителност. Второто с главна буква. Само исках да каже „Прибери се.“ (Как мразя някои видове „училища“…) Не видях описание на външността на Нора. Ако е така, много ми хареса този подход (както и на корицата). Всеки да си я представя, както иска; и да се фокусира над вътрешния ѝ живот.

„Усмихваше се за първи път от месеци насам и докато пътуваха мълчаливо към къщата, това беше единственото, което ѝ се въртеше в главата.“

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 4 out of 5]

“-Много си закъсняла, но това не те огорчава, нали?
-Не.
-Човек може да води множество животи, но всичко си има граници. И никога не знаем къде са тези граници.”

През 1969 г. Нийл Армстронг стъпва на Луната, пресича граница и прави малка стъпка, която е една голяма стъпка за човечеството. През същата 1969 г. Нора Уебстър, средностатистическа ирландска домакиня, вдовица, майка на четири деца, католичка, жителка на малко градче, се оказва рязко изтръгната от границите на уютния си пашкул от обикновеност и задрямала провинциална “нормалност”, и е принудена да направи първата си малка самостоятелна стъпка от много време насам.

След 21 години безбурен брак, последвани от тежката загуба на съпруга и, идва ред на Нора - освен със скръбта - да се сблъска от първо лице с външния свят (който тя недолюбва) и със...себе си. С всичко, което е забравила, че харесва, обича и я вълнува. С достойнството си. С индивидуалността си. С мъдростта си. С възгледите си. С музиката. С неизживения си друг възможен живот. Понякога е достатъчно просто да проговориш със своя собствен глас, неизползван десетилетия, за да изпееш една нежна и чиста мелодия. Музиката звучеше живо в главата ми, с мекия контраалт на Нора.

В началото на книгата с Нора Уебстър нямаше какво да си кажем, за разлика от средата и края. Тя е доброволен продукт на времето и средата си - Ирландия на непропорционално и влудяващо много католицизъм във всички сфери на живота, на еснафско благополучие и благоприличие, на дребнотемие и дребнавости от всякакъв вид (включително и дребните радости в живота, разбира се) - без грам любопитство към нещо ново, или опит за надскачане на някоя граница. Границите в началото за Нора са уютни стени и тя ги е приела за дом. Докато смъртта на Морис не ги срутва, и в малката стая не се появява истински грамофон за първи път в целия и живот.

Нора Уебстър не е плаха жена. Нито слаба. Нито ограничена. Нора просто е нереализирано и неживяло човешко същество, което в есента на живота си открива колко много красота ще си остане (почти) недокосната. Избрала е вариант на живота си, който не е най-добрият. Но не е и най-лошият. А малките, ненатрапчиви отклонения в него, водят до живописни душевни пейзажи, описани с тънко майсторство и топла симпатия от Тойбин. И Нора Уебстър го приема с достойнство.

***
▶️ Цитати:

🍂 “Кошмарите никога не се връщат, ако веднъж си се събудил.”

🍁 “Когато остарееш, тогава ще разбереш... Тази смесица от задоволство от най-дребните неща и чувството на неудовлетвореност от всичко.”

🥀 “Никой никога не питаше Нора какво мисли по този въпрос, а и тя самата не беше много сигурна, но знаеше, че не е на тяхното мнение...”

✨ “Надявам се в рая нещата да са по-прости.”

🍂 “Значи това е да си сама, помисли си. ...ето това - реене с вдигната котва в морето от хора, докато наоколо кипи безсмислен и неразбираем живот.”

🍁 “В тишината на стаята я осени, че всички имат своя миг, своето време на този свят, сенки в сенките, досущ като Морис, като майка и и всички преди нея, досущ както тя самата е сменила един дъх за друг, един звук за друг, взирайки се в непознатия свят между боята и хартията, а може би и вътре в тях."

🎼 “Заля я тъга, че е живяла толкова време, без да чуе тази музика.”

🧚‍♀️ “...тя се замисли колко лесно можеше да е съвсем друг човек, че момчетата, които я чакаха у дома, леглото и лампата до леглото, работата утре сутринта - всичко това бе просто случайност.”

[Bart Moeyaert · Rating 4 out of 5]

De Ierse schrijver Colm Tóibín heb ik ontdekt door mijn nichtje dat een hele studie aan hem wijdde. Toen dacht ik: lezen. Wat ben ik blij dat ik dat besluit genomen heb. Met ‘Het verhaal van de nacht’ ben ik begonnen, en sindsdien geloof ik dat Tóibín nooit eens een mindere dag heeft.
Ik heb nog lang niet alles van hem gelezen, maar na o.a. ‘Brooklyn’ en ‘Een lange winter’ is het met ‘Nora’ weer raak. In het Engels draagt het boek Nora’s volledige naam, ‘Nora Webster’, en dat past wat mij betreft beter. In dit boek focus je volledig op de binnenwereld van een vrouw waarvan je gaat geloven dat ze uit het Iers register is geplukt. Nora Webster, je kent haar natuurlijk. Ze is ergens voorbij de veertig. Bescheiden, maar niet zonder mening. Diep vanbinnen een tikje frivool, maar op wie ze écht is, ligt op dit moment een zwaar gewicht.
Pas onlangs heeft ze haar man Maurice verloren. In het Ierland van de late jaren zestig probeert ze overeind te blijven met haar vier kinderen, waarvan de twee meisjes in Dublin studeren, en de twee jongens nog thuis wonen. Ze moet aan een paar wetten van die tijd beantwoorden, en tegelijkertijd probeert ze de kapitein van haar schip te blijven.
‘Nora’ navertellen heeft geen enkele zin: je moet haar lezend leren kennen, op het tempo zoals je echte mensen leert kennen. Tóibín beschrijft secuur hoe ze na de dood van haar man tot een aantal inzichten omtrent haar kinderen komt, maar ook hoe de vrouw die ze is — en die ze zo’n beetje veronachtzaamd heeft — langzaam weer het vuur vindt.

‘Nora’ is uit het Engels vertaald door Anneke Bok.

[Gearóid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really lovely book to read.

Colm Toibin seems to have a great insight into human nature.
In this book he really explores grief and loss and loneliness and
carrying on with life even after a real tragedy in a young family.

His characters are just so real and you really connect with them.
It was a very moving story and beautifully written with great descriptions
of the times which happen to be the times when i would have been the same age
as Nora Webesters sons and even have spent summer holidays on the same beaches he
describes and even played "records" on my dads gramophone!

So i lot of nostalgia for me when reading this book.

But besides all that it really is a nice book to read and recommend it to anyone.

[Ivo Stoyanov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Усещах атмосферата в книгата много близко до себе си което говори колко хубаво е написана и пише Тойбин въобще живота на острова и далеч от големия град може да бъде много топъл по своему и същевременно доста неприятен и сив , за Нора света се срутва постепенно , признавам си ,че на моменти я обвинявах доста за своята затвореност, деликатност и отшелничество .Точно в това обаче е силата на романа защото отваря врата в душата на героинята където ние можем да погледнем , да усетим и духа на онова време , изключително житейска книга .