traceculture's reviews
380 reviews

Nearing the end of this book I kind of got the feeling the author wanted it to be over as much as I did. Slow, dreary and tedious to say the least. Hore's time-slip abilities are about as competent as a giraffe on ice. I had such little interest in Lucy Cardwell and I resented having to persevere but I'd heard good things about this author. It's a 'daughter delves into dead Dad's past' kind of story, with a deep dark secret that isn't all that deep or dark when you consider the cruel malevolence of our world today. I did like Beatrice, she had some depth at least. Her character spends time with the wealthy Wincanton's who are like a family of reticent vultures, shadowing Beatrice's life from youth, through the war years, picking away until ultimately taking that which was, supposedly, most precious. The inscrutable Angelina - who did make me a little uncomfortable - reminded me of the sinister Adeline and Emmeline twins from Diane Setterfields' Thirteenth Tale. This book is readable but I wouldn't be writing home about it.

Once upon a time I would have believed in a book like this. The same sort of new age spirituality as explored in James Redfield's 'Celestine Prophecy'. In order to establish a greater connection with the divine, the protagonist, Paulo, must embark upon a journey. For his arrogance, he has failed his initiation into the sacred 'tradition' and now must walk the strange road, alongside the common man, to regain his humility and faith in the simplicity of life. The strange road is the Camino de Santiago and his companion is his guide Petrus who teaches him about 'agape' the purest form of love and a variety of different rituals and meditations that I don't care enough about to remember. No, that's unfair - I did actually try a few of them out. The story is progressive however many of the key questions remain unanswered. That said, this is the ultimate spiritual-growth novel for lovers of the mystical and philosophical and for anyone interested in the pilgrim trails en-route to the shrine of the apostle St. James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia in northwestern Spain.

You know, opening up the front cover of a new book is like slipping your head under a Circus tent for a look at what’s going on inside. If you like what you see you might stay and maybe even buy some candyfloss on the way home after the performance. So when I had a look under Nora Webster's tent, it absorbed me enough to make me see it through, but I didn’t hang around afterwards for candyfloss; I just went straight home. This novel did not move me in any great way. Nora Webster is an inoffensive read, written in plain prose, character driven, a little like John Banville only less cerebral. Essentially it gives us an insight into one woman’s grief and her struggle to survive it. The story follows the dull everyday life of a recently widowed mother of four living in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. Nora is a difficult character to reconcile: we meet a meek and unassuming character, dealing with sympathisers calling to her home, at the start of the book; a surprisingly assertive Nora back in the workforce; a force of nature with the religious head of Conor’s school; shy and timid with her music teacher Laurie; faltering with Dr. & Mrs. Radford; intimidated by her daughters and distant from her sons. I just couldn’t read her or relate. That said, I did look forward to going to bed to pick up the story where I’d left off but only in anticipation of the twist, the climax, the big reveal - that never came. It was a disappointing end. Would I recommend this book? Yes: for its deep scrutiny of the grieving process; its exploration of the silence that loss creates and the reality that the death of a family member does not always bring that family closer together. I've not been discouraged from reading more of this Irish novelist however, I have another Colm Tobin waiting in the wings - The Blackwater Lightship - and am very much looking forward to that one.

The jury is out on this one. I don't want to be disrespectful to one of Ireland's best-loved literary son's but I'm not sure I get what all the hype, the lauding and the praise is about.
This is an average novel. It's also one of those titles that reel you in but have little to do with the narrative. It may as well have been called 'The Trouble With Slippers' or 'The Fountain At Fanore' for all the relevance it had to the dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships, the suffering of a young man from AIDS and the attitude of the Irish Church to homosexuality that this book portrayed. Toibin's style is stripped-back and at times I felt I was reading one of his other novels, 'Nora Webster' within which the child characters and their maternal relationships seemed analogous to Helen & Declan's.
That apart, this is a story about the search for unconditional acceptance by a family that has grown apart. When Helen's brother Declan asks to spend his final weeks at his grandmother's ramshackle cottage by the sea, three generations of women are forced to confront each other after many years apart. It's a clash of country versus city when they're joined by two of Declan's friends from Dublin who've been caring for their dying friend for years, unbeknownst to his family. Thrown together for a week in a small house, things are bound to kick-off: tempers fray, old wounds are gouged open, prejudices are thrashed out and everything finishes as flatly as it began.
However, readers will relate to this novel and its characters. Despite the inherent isolation both metaphorically & geographically, there is humour, high-drama, sadness, regret, love and a tentative resolution.
Moreover, I'm not giving up on you Mr. Toibin! I've got 'Brooklyn' in my sights and I'm sure I'm going to love it :)

Superb. Neruda is unrivalled as a poet and as a love poet unsurpassed. Stephen Tapscott's translations are about as good as it gets. This book will appeal to a world of hearts, souls and lovers. I read something from it most mornings and was even inspired to write my own sonnet about Neruda's impact on my little life. It's

Breakfast With Neruda
By Tracy Gaughan

Open on my breakfast table, your book
of Sonnets. They bear the aroma of warm grain
from the Black Island, a measure of romance
and oats, milled with the buhrstone of your tongue.

Spoons of sand in an ocean of moon; I draw in
the perfumes of your labour: earth, chaff, threshing
de-hulling; sweet carnal desires ripening
under the hot Chilean sun.

You transform this cereal ritual
Into an impassioned banquet of words
From your heart to my mouth - before sonorous steel
Pilfers me from our constellation of breath.

I return each morning like thirst, unquenchable.
Refill my empty nets with your shoal of syllable.

Firstly, this is a brilliantly written first novel by new Irish author from Kildare - Niamh Boyce. Inspired by a 1940's newspaper clipping about a herbalist arrested for crimes against young girls, Boyce deals with the hypocrisy and closed-mindedness of early twentieth century Ireland. Actually you could argue, that where the treatment of women is concerned, things haven't progressed as much as one would have hoped. One only has to read the UN's review of Ireland's compliance with the ICCPR where committee members severely criticise Ireland’s treatment of women and children, in the past and now; how Irish women are being denied human rights and how they are being abandoned by a State that stigmatises them, treats them as criminals and forces them to leave their country for health services denied to them. Damning yet true. Anyway, in Boyce's novel 1930's Ireland was a dangerous place for our four leading ladies, all of whom become consumed in some way by the dark stranger who moves quietly into their town, their heads and in some cases, their bodies. The women are a mixture of strength, resolve, resentment, suspicion and vulnerability and despite the confusion of the opening chapters, I eventually grew to understand and relate to their predicaments. There is such a sinister undertone to this novel, a reality that is disturbingly complex and hard to accept. The book is interesting and gripping but at times the prose submits to the poetic principle of 'show don't tell' so we are left hanging with incomplete and unfinished details and descriptions and more questions than answers. On the whole though - a good read - it's encouraging to see this calibre of writing coming out of the country.

Long listed for the 2009 Man Booker, I wanted this book to be good and I even saved it to take on holidays with me. Am, ok, well firstly I like Mr. Tobin. He’s a nice, erudite, well respected novelist, but this is not the first time I’ve been let down by one of his novels. I found Nora Webster uninspiring and The Blackwater Lightship a little lacklustre, however I didn’t want to give up on one of Ireland’s most illustrious writers, so I dived into Brooklyn with the conviction that Toibin’s everlasting reputation would meet my expectations. It didn’t.
Toibin is a good writer: not superb, fantastic, incredible or however else he’s rendered by an Irish media who seem to wheel him out as our foremost literary giant whenever a chat-show needs a foremost literary giant (who doesn’t need the publicity) to tell the masses of literary miniatures (who do) how unachievable literary growth is!
Oh anyway, the story features the young Ellis Lacey who can’t find work in 1950’s Wexford. With the help of her sister, Rose and a visiting Catholic priest, she emigrates to Brooklyn. Ellis works at a department store; lodges at a boarding house with other female emigrants; does some night classes, meets a guy at a dance; yada yada yada and has to make some decisions.
There’s nothing complex about this character, nothing challenging about the book or it’s subject matter and I guess in some ways that was a pleasant experience. Toibin is an old fashioned writer, a male Maeve Binchy, there's a lot of detail and he tells a simple story, simply. I guess his novels are like a place to rest, a safe harbour after the tumultuous seas of excessively complex and mentally overwhelming books on many lists these days. I would certainly recommend Mr. Toibin’s novels to anyone looking for that calm literary healing place.
Colm Toibin’s novels are not what I was expecting, that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy them, just don’t believe the hype.