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 The gulf between wife and widowhood is daily captured by Nora's inscrutable, withdrawn demeanor and period of emotional turmoil.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

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

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...

"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 a...

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 t...

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 gri...

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 mir...

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 no...

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 h...

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...

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 Toi...

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 andcarrying 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 descriptionsof the times which happen to be the times when i would have been the same ageas Nora Webesters sons and even have spent summer holid...

Although 'Nora Webster' showcases some of Tóibín's signature vivid writing, the novel is written under a very thin plot. For the most part, it is a dull account of one woman's stoicism following the death of her husband. Firstly, I think that Tóibín should have given the protagonist of Nora Webster a wider range of emotion; her frequent passiveness and taciturn nature make her come across as apathetic a lot of the time. Secondly, the narration is not thought-provoking or profound enough to compe...