"Nora Webster" Post Two

It is difficult for me to know what to say about “Nora Webster.” Every blurb uses superlatives and highly complimentary comments from well-known writers, praising everything about the novel in glowing terms. Even the very slow pace seems to be turned into a cause for praise—“its very slowness results in bright moments of beauty.”

“About as perfect as a book can get,” is one comment. So, if you have time, it is a book you should probably try.

It all depends on what you are looking for in a book. If you want something extraordinary to happen, some strong developmental arc that leads to a major change or epiphany, I expect you will find this book far too slow. The progress of Nora recovering from the death of her husband is drawn out over three years—late 1960’s to early 1970’s--with a succession of small victories as she grits her teeth and, with much soul-searching, decides on behavior that moves her away from the person she has been for a couple of decades and embraces a new life. She has to learn to look after her money, to reassess her relationships with her four children (two boys, Donal and Conor: two girls, Fiona and Aine) and with other members of her family, to return to office work, make new friends, take singing lessons, enjoy classical music, buy a record player, and so on. There are minor crises, major set-backs, but slowly Nora reveals her strengths, and the narration leaves her contented and at peace with herself on the day her sisters clear out Maurice’s clothes, which is also the day she burned Maurice’s letters. “She thought how much had happened since they were written and how much they belonged to a time that was over now and would not come back. It was the way things were: it was the way things had worked out.”

Just as a footnote. Nora’s relationships with her two boys are a major feature of the novel, in particular her problems with Donal, who has developed a stutter since his father died. One wonders how much autobiographical material has been incorporated by Toibin. He was born in Enniscorthy, where the novel is set, his father was a school-teacher who died when Toibin was twelve years old, and Toibin himself had a bad stutter. How much, then, is Nora a portrait of Toibin’s mother?