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| Colm Toibin |
I rarely read reviews of new books before
I pen my own, but I had to check out what the great Jennifer Egan had to say
last weekend in the New York Times on
the great Colm Toibin’s NORA WEBSTER. She got it right.
The only thing she understated
is that Colm Toibin deploys the same literary technique most every time in that
he tenderly weaves a spell about his characters to slowly, gently draw the reader in.
Not so
much happens, so it seems, until you realize that a whole lot has happened in such a
nuanced fashion that the sum is exponentially greater than the sum of the parts.
Such is the case with NORA WEBSTER,
even more so than any other of his fictions, my personal favorite being THE
MASTER, a fictional telling of the early life of Henry James.
Nora is a young Irish woman
whose husband has suddenly passed away, leaving her with four children, few
assets and no sense of direction. Not a new tale, not even revelationary,
rather a mesmerizing introspective journey about a woman who learns that
aloneness is also freedom. Of a sorts. After all, we are in the early 1970’s,
just as the modern feminist movement is brewing in the industrialized
countries, and we are in Ireland, a patriarchal culture. Toibin draws the
connection between the personal and political through Nora’s two daughters, who
have left home to study and to work while she tends to her two young sons, who
have difficulty fathoming much less articulating their grief.
It is also clear that Maurice, her
late husband, was the life of the party, and Nora happily settled in his
shadow, and only as she forges ahead does she discover latent talents that
bring out her personality and her independent streak. We see this almost from
the start when the first decision she makes is to rid herself of a summer home
to shore up finances, and to distance herself from her past, with no concern
for the affect on her children. She would prefer a form of anonymity in order to begin again.
“Nora found herself wondering if
there was somewhere she could go, if there was a town, or a part of Dublin with
a house like this one, a modest semi-detached house on a road lined with trees,
where no one could visit them and they could be alone there, all three of them.
And then she found her mind moving towards the next thought - that the
possibility of such a place, such a house, would include the idea that what had
happened could be erased, that the burden that was on her now could be lifted,
that the past could be restored and could make its way effortlessly into a
painless present.”
Toibin’s affection for his title
character is clear from the onset, and his insights into her inner life
profound. Her thoughts are revealed only to the reader, as Nora keeps much to herself,
and her actions often belie her true feelings. In effect, she is searching for
her center, if such words had been part of her lexicon; instead, she meanders
through grief in fits and starts, discovering herself gingerly, as we do.
If you like smart slow character
studies, with crystal clear and elegant prose, you will want to curl up with NORA WEBSTER.
Available in hardcover and for all e-readers.
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