Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín (Feb 16 Group Fiction Read)

[Portia]

I' about one third through and really enjoying it. I'm particularly interested in Nora's new resistance to doing things she is expected to do or as they have always been done. I'm curious to see if she sticks with it and if so, how resistant her family is to her changes. t this point, I'm cheering her on.

[Markie]

I just starred reading this!!! Last weekend I read Brooklyn and really enjoyed it!!! At the end of that book was an excerpt of Nora Webster!!! My plan is to read this one this weekend!!!

[Shirley]

Markie wrote: "I just starred reading this!!! Last weekend I read Brooklyn and really enjoyed it!!! At the end of that book was an excerpt of Nora Webster!!! My plan is to read this..."

That's great, Markie, hope you enjoy it!

[Evelyn]

I have just finished and was completely enthralled with this story. Nora seems adrift without her anchor (Maurice). She is going through the motions of life, but she has stopped living. I agree with an earlier poster that she was unable to take on her children's grief in addition to her own. When Nora does make a decision she seems inwardly defiant about it, sort of like "take that, all you people who think you know what is best for me".
That said, personally I would have lost patience with Nora long before the end of this story. It sounds harsh, I know, but with younger children at home I feel she should have been more concerned about their emotional well-being.

[Petra]

I just started listening to the audio. I hope to be able to comment on the story soon and will go back to read the comments when I'm more into the story.

[Portia]

I am so glad that I decided to join in this read. The only other book of his I tried was The Testament of Mary and, try as I might, I couldn't get into it. Now I've got Brooklyn on my table to read before I see the movie. I may even give The Testament of Mary another try.

This is what a good book group is all about, IMHO ;-)

[Portia]

I finished the book last night and am really glad ABA gave me the opportunity to read it.

I supported Nora all the way through. I can understand why some readers thought she didn't take the grieving of her children into account as I see that, after a while, her resistance to being who her family and friends expected her to be got a bit tiresome. But, as I've read, changing oneself isn't always the hardest part of moving forward. Often, one's family and friends resist those changes so much that a person gives up and goes back to behaving as expected because it's just plain easier. (As I guy I know as Drew told me recently, " I was Andy in high school.") It's not unlike a drug addict being returned to the very environment s/he came from after getting clean and then falling back into drugs.

I gave it five stars.

[Evelyn]

Portia, you made such a good point about friends and family sometimes being the barrier to change. Very thought provoking

[Petra]

I'm quite enjoying the audio of this book.

I agree, Portia. Changing oneself, or finding out who we are & what we want, is difficult and often leads to strife & resistance from those around us. There's an uncertainty about a change that those around us don't like, for understandable reasons. However, change is important and necessary for growth and those around us just have to roll with the punches as much as we do.....that's the hard part, I suppose.
If I make a change to myself, that's hard work and requires taking chances and making mistakes, etc. It's chaotic in my life but the benefit is for me.
To others, my changes or attempts at change are chaotic to their routines and expectations and yet there is no benefit to them (that they can see), so they resist and, perhaps in some ways, sabotage the efforts.

[Petra]

I'm at the part where the Grimleys (? the name may be wrong) may propose a job for Nora.
Nora contemplates that possibility and finds that she's rather annoyed at the idea of a job. She likes being home, doing what she wants, when she wants after the kids are taken care of.
This situation is something I've thought on and off on for years. I married late and we weren't blessed with kids, so I've worked full-time through the years. I've often thought of what it would be like to have the freedom to enjoy leisure around the chores & kids for a stay-at-home mom & wife. I realize that keeping a home and family is time-consuming; I don't mean to imply anything else. Yet it seems that there are pockets of time where one could sit down with tea and a book, or go to the gym, or take a class, etc. These small pockets of time do seem to offer a freedom that a working person (male or female) doesn't have. I may be completely wrong in these thoughts, never having lived it, so it's all just musings for me.
Not having been on the stay-at-home end of it, it's an interesting topic to think about occasionally.
Nora seems to think that working outside the home is confining and would rob her of some sort of freedom.....perhaps even, the freedom to be taken care of by another.
There are pros and cons to all situations. Is Nora correct in thinking that a job would curtail her freedom and confine her in some way? If so, is she right to believe that someone should/could/will take care of her and that she shouldn't lose that freedom? Does a working life in any way enhance oneself? Or does it hinder one's growth?

I'll be interested in seeing what Nora decides, if a job is offered to her, and how her life goes on. One can see already that she's in a personal storm and has to find her way. I feel for her; that's such a difficult situation and a hard & uncertain time.

[Sara]

Nice points, Petra. I find life is a two-edged sword. For everything we gain we give up something else. It isn't possible to lead all the lives we might, and without doing so how can we know if one would be better than the other. I guess the best we can do is make the best of the one we have chosen. Nora is afraid of change in the same way most people are...kind of the "devil we know" theory of living.

[Petra]

There's a lot happening in the background here. I can imagine that Nora would be overwhelmed at times.

There's a disconnect between Nora and her kids that was put into place by her husband's illness and the separation this caused in the family unit at that time. None of the kids has gotten over being isolated from their father's situation. This isn't being addressed (and has just come into her consciousness).
By trying to save them the pain and agony of their father's demise, the kids feel isolated, unimportant and perhaps lied to in some way. This has caused a rift between kids and mom that is just coming to light.

This story is showing how hard it is for a parent to act. There are things they don't know (ie: one son lording it over the other while Nora is at work), confidences that they aren't a part of, pressures from work, personal adjustments/issues that they need to deal with, finances, etc.
The balance would be incredibly hard to find and perhaps impossible to find for all the facets. Some things will have to fall. If/When this happens, does one's own self or the family or work or finances or something else be what falls? How does one decide?

How important is the Self in terms of all else in one's life? I'm not far along in the book yet but this may be one of the key questions being asked in this book. Nora, at some point, will have to decide where she stands in her life and the life of her kids, friends, work, etc. situation. I like how these issues are coming forth in the story.

[Sara]

I agree, Petra, that one of the themes here is how difficult it is for any individual to wear so many hats and get it right for themselves as well as all the other people they affect in life. I find Nora to be very believable exactly because she isn't handling things well. to lose your husband and be left to make all those decisions alone while trying to deal with your own grief and loss would be overwhelming.

[Portia]

Here is something else I thought. My impression is that family and friends were willing to watch her children when Maurice was dying and at other times, but it seems to me that they blamed Nora for anything that went wrong. Example, Josie took the boys but, when the stuttering began she neither mentions it to Nora nor tries to help (or get help for) the boy on her own. She just repeats that he developed the stutter when Nora left him with her, "Not that I'd ever turn a child of yours away, Nora, my dear." Major guilt laid on with trowel. I wanted to shake Josie. She could have at least said something to Nora. I don't consider her behavior fair or correct. (Whew! Bandwagon from Portia there :P ! )

[Petra]

I thought so, too, Portia. Josie was unfair to the boys and to Nora by not helping or mentioning something at the time and then stating things as if Nora was to blame. I thought that conversation was almost an attack on Nora.
I can see how the kids would feel left out of the most traumatic time in their short lives and that they didn't get their chance to say good bye to their dad. I can also see that Nora and Morris were in shock and despair; needing time to adjust to the situation and then time ran out. It's a no win situation.
On the other hand, Nora has been pampered throughout her married life and didn't seem to have the ability to juggle much, so Morris' condition was all she could cope with at the time.
Or perhaps the family had always been rather segregated and apart. Perhaps they didn't move as a single group but as smaller groups (mom-kids, kids-kids, kids-dad, mom-dad). We don't know what the past was for this family.
It makes Nora's progression in this novel more interesting because we don't fully know where she started. It's as if she's waking up not only from her grief but from her married life and starting to intermingle with the world again & become aware of issues outside of herself. It is somehow hinted or possible that Nora's married life kept her isolated and secular; that she lost contact with the outside world in some ways.

....perhaps this is why Josie was so harsh? Over the years, Nora (and Morris) had distanced themselves in some ways from family (and friends), maybe they told or indicated to family that their input was unwelcome in some way; then they (N&M) depend on them in a time of need. That may be rather jarring to the family; to be distanced for years, then expected to be there at a moment's notice (illness happens quickly). Perhaps Josie felt she couldn't say anything about the boy's situation because the past prevented her from speaking out?
I'm just thinking aloud here. There are so many aspects of Nora's life that we don't know anything about.

[Sara]

I totally agree, Portia. Everything is being laid at Nora's feet and you have cited a perfect example. People seem to care more about Maurice than they do about Nora. She has a strained relationship with almost everyone around her. Maybe that is her fault, but it makes trying to deal with all these high emotions almost impossible.

[Petra]

LOL! Is his name Maurice? The audio makes it sound like Morris. LOL!......

[Petra]

My heart goes out to Donal (sp?). I've thought that he has a story behind him re: his stutter and the few odd things that have come to light about him.
On today's commute home, he's having a fit about not being able to watch TV in the local hotel. The whole photography hobby has been creeping me out a bit. It seems much too intense for a hobby. It's not like he's having fun with it; he's merely obsessed with it.
Just as I got home, Nora remembered how close Donal was to his father, how he went to his workplace after school to be near him. No wonder the poor child is so obsessed and strange! His heart is breaking. It may be how/why his stutter started, as well.
Poor child!

[Shirley]

Petra wrote: "LOL! Is his name Maurice? The audio makes it sound like Morris. LOL!......"

I would pronounce them the same!

[Portia]

My fil's name was Maurice and we only called him Mo Reese to joke with him. But then, mil was English;-)

[Portia]

Petra wrote: "I thought so, too, Portia. Josie was unfair to the boys and to Nora by not helping or mentioning something at the time and then stating things as if Nora was to blame. I thought that conversation w..."

You make excellent points, Petra. I remember reading ( the book jacket blurb, perhaps?) that Nora was indeed protected by her marriage to Maurice, that she had partially married him to escape. But you are right, we don't get much of a backstory on Nora or any of the characters.

[Portia]

Petra wrote: "My heart goes out to Donal (sp?). I've thought that he has a story behind him re: his stutter and the few odd things that have come to light about him.
On today's commute home, he's having a fit a..."

I feel sad for both of the boys. I'm not getting that they have any support from any quarter -- not even other boys at school. This happens more than we realize. Children are called "resilient" which often, IMHO, is just an excuse for not addressing their concerns.

[Portia]

Sara wrote: "I totally agree, Portia. Everything is being laid at Nora's feet and you have cited a perfect example. People seem to care more about Maurice than they do about Nora. She has a strained relationshi..."

Makes me wonder if Maurice married outside of family recommendations, somehow more than the usual " no one is good enough for my [supply relative]."

[Sara]

Another reader told me that Nora appears in some of his other works as a background character. We might get more insight into her prior life from those other stories. This was my first.

[Petra]

That's interesting, Sara. This is my first by him also. It would be interesting to read what else he adds about Nora in his other books....also, what makes Nora so special to him that she keeps reappearing (or are his books all set in the same setting).

I was thinking that reading about Nora is like meeting someone new in one's life: the person has a background and history but we don't know it (yet), so we have to decide our feelings and thoughts about the person rather blindly, from surface/immediate interactions.

[Portia]

I like that way of looking at Nora, Petra. Clever you!

[Sara]

I do think he sets most of his books in the same town. In Brooklyn, I think he is writing about someone who is leaving that town for America. Sort of Maeve Binchy with a lot more angst.

[Portia]

I'm glad you mentioned Maeve Binchey, Sara. I was thinking of her as well.

[Petra]

I finished listening to this today. I enjoyed it. I liked the narration and pace of the audio version and the story was interesting as well.
I didn't really like the part where Nora was taking meds for the pulled/strained muscles. For heaven's sake, woman.....stop taking the drugs if you're reacting to them! That's all I was thinking at the time.
That whole part didn't flow well. Nora starts reacting to the drugs and the cure is to go to Josie's, take more drugs and sleep a lot for many days.....then things go back to normal. Not a fan.
But, other than that spot, I liked this book and will look into more by this author.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I couldn't finish it. Very dull to me.

[Sandra]

I see that many people here didn't really care for this book for one reason or another but mostly because it was dull or slow. And while I would have to agree somewhat because this is not really a plot based book, rather a character study of an everyday type of stay at home mom, in a small town in Ireland, in the 1960's early 70's who is depressed after the death of her husband and emotionally exhausted... Not exactly a riveting subject!

It felt very true to me, very much a snap shot of what it was like back then in the 60's when moms predominantly were stay at home moms, forfeiting a career and personal goals and desires to play a supporting role to the rest of the family. I can imagine the death of a spouse to be very emotionally traumatic in and of itself, but doubly so when that spouse is the sole breadwinner and there are children to feed, cloth and educate for many years to come... When you've kind of aligned your personality with that of your spouse and ceased to really think about yourself as number one, a separate entity, suddenly finding yourself alone with major decisions to be made, the whole rest of your life stretching out before you, is probably very disconcerting to say the least!

Some of you felt that Nora was not concerned enough about the emotional well being of her children, but here again, I gotta say this seems very true to life for the times. My mom died suddenly when I was 6 years old in 1968. Truthfully, I don't recall ANYONE, EVER asking us how we kids were doing, or anything like that. We just had to suck it up, not cause more problems and just go to school the next week as if nothing had changed. I mean here it was, our world had been knocked of its axis forevermore and we just had to get on with it. That's just how it was for us working class kids. There was no therapist or soft and fuzzy anything. We dealt with the pain ourselves. So yeah, I can see Nora being preoccupied and neglectful because her world, also had been altered so irreparably, so suddenly. She was floundering.

I liked how Nora slowly, slowly emerged from her shell, woke up to her true self she had lost track of because of family demands and life in general. She slowly gained confidence in her own judgement, her own likes and dislikes her own power.

So yeah, kind of slow but overall I liked Nora, I am much like her, very caught up in my own little world, very stubborn and protective of myself. But I was forced to be that way at age 6!

[Petra]

Sandra, I like how you put Nora's transformation. You put it in context with the times, as well as with Nora herself. I hadn't thought about the times and how that itself would have taken away from Nora's sense of self and confidence. Nice insight.

I'm sorry about your loss of your mom. I know what you mean about kids being expected to keep going. We (my brother and I) were expected to always just be in the right place at the right time and no one ever asked us how we felt or what we needed/wanted. Hugs to you.
I enjoyed the pace of the story. Changes take time and realizations come slowly, so I thought this was naturally paced.
I'm glad you enjoyed the story and enjoyed your thoughts. You added to my interpretation.

[Sara]

Sandra, I also appreciate the context you have added to the story. I thought it was a good character study and quite realistic. I think those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s came from another world with a different way of dealing with the problems of life. I try to imagine what it was like for the pioneers. Women on the trail who lost children or husbands and had to keep pressing on for a place they had never seen before. Every age has its own challenges and sometimes people are geared to just face the next one without stopping to deal with the present one. We have a leisure they did not have.

I see a lot of commentary from younger women that is dismissive of how women dealt with life in previous eras, but I think that is to miss the strength and determination that lies just beneath the surface. Their struggles are the reason we are able to make the choices and decisions we make without suffering the consequences they faced. Nora is not unfeeling, she is strapped. She has to learn to be independent and she has to learn what her children need in this new situation. I found her very real indeed.

[Luci]

Enjoyed this book very much. The author's restraint leads to some very interesting highlights of everyday life. One of the widow Nora's credos: “You learn, no matter what age you are, to keep things to yourself,” rings true for the character. The historical setting, 1960s-70s was also interesting. Just a very well crafted story, I thought.

[Portia]

I agree with both Sandra and Sara. Children weren't ask how they felt in the 1960s but rather were told what was expected of them to fill in for the lost parent. Nora does not do that. To me, it seems she somehow, if only subconsciously, tries to keep her children from, "Now that your father is gone, you are the man in the family."

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I thought Nora was so real of a character this book could have been classified as a non-fictional biography. The difficulty I had with that was several:

1. Makes for a very very very dull read. As it is a fiction novel, I had to skim it to even find a motivation to pick it up after getting to the half-way mark. There is nothing to be learned here - pass on. She is a woman who is comfortable with her social 'burqa'. It didn't even chaff her. She is the type to iron it to look even more respectable.

I grew up in a restricted, no Western World women's rights time, too (for example, married women started to show up in college in strong numbers studying to be accountants, not bookkeepers, only in the 2000's! etc. Since I tried myself to break glass ceilings and keep my name and credit after marrying, I KNOW about the lack of legal, social and workplace support! BTW, I could NOT keep my own credit after I married in my own personal account in EVERY bank, phone company and department store, so I KNOW what that is like!)

2. I felt irritation, and was chaffed, even felt rage at social mores; I was NOT passive or had calm acceptance or quietly fearful (I yelled) in my real life, nor did I regret having to take charge of my life when laws were finally followed in the late 1990's through lawsuits by women's organizations forcing business and schools to follow the laws passed in the 1970's.

I did NOT think that the neighbors had any rights to make me conform to acceptable mores, especially older women, who I felt were excessively conforming and conservative in the first place to the stupid ridiculous rules of house and motherhood and how 'things were always done' no matter how painful and harmful to my life.

I never learned to cook because my mother refused to allow it when my father forced me into the kitchen (she handed me a book and sat me down at the kitchen table as soon as he left the kitchen) and I would not do 'socially polite' to people by producing milk and cookies for a stupid inane visit if I was in the middle of dealing with death, financial disasters or an emotional upset (not impolite, simply rationally upset and dealing with the chaos first).

I was 'supposed' to be a Nora and my dad tried very very very hard to make it happen. But my mom and I thought that was unjust, and crazy. We fought it wherever we could within reason and the law. I certainly seethed within myself when I couldn't fight it. I NEVER was, 'well, ok then'. It was a good thing I liked books and not breakables, but the floor certainly was scuffed by all of the shoes and books I threw down in frustration! Nora's placidity was irritating and annoying.

The book brought it all back, how it was. Exactly. Nora was reluctant to leave her 'burqa' life, though, and that made it very boring to read about her slow crawling tiny steps, within her own conservatism and acceptance of how women 'should' behave. I moved out and away to a larger city as soon as I could, happily and eager. I HATED the conformity and enforced behavior of women by women! I wanted no friends in that environment, so I missed nobody when I 'got out'. Yes, women in that place couldn't understand my 'unnatural' feelings - to me, they were the unnatural ones.

*ahem* I'm done with my rant.

This book was too boring to read, though, even while I saw it mirrored those people exactly. But for me to read it, it would have been better as a short story or a nonfiction magazine article.

[Portia]

An addition to how attitudes toward children have changed over the years.

This morning, the author Anna Quindlen was on The Diane Rehm Show as part of the tour for her latest book, Miller's Valley.

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/201...

During the hour, the fact that her mother died when Quindlen was 19 came up. As the oldest of five children and a girl, the task fell to Quindlen to take over. This was 1972. She wasn't asked how she felt about it. A male listener from Pennsylvania, where the novel is set during the Viet Nam era, called in to share the male perspective of consideration of children's feelings pre-1980s.. He lost his mother around the same time and no one asked him or his siblings how he/they felt. He stated that all sympathy/attention went to their father.

Times have changed. With the advent of artificial birth control, women have more of an opportunity to choose when or if they marry and/or have children, so today, children are more often seen as a cherished choice rather than yet another pregnancy because a woman is "fertile" and "a man has needs."

I, who was raised in the "children should be see and not heard" times, had a very had time adjusting to being interrupted by a six-year old and being told I must wait my turn lest the child lose it's self esteem.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Although I STILL get triggered by being raised up in an America that refused to see women were the same as men, thus America gave women the same rights as farm animals since men thought women had the same level of intelligence as cows, I am also amazed and grateful at the learning experience of what I saw how society came apart based on our age in 1970.

Things of change which struck me as glorious and happy, did not make happy my parents or other parental age people. There was a generational gap of enormous proportions which horrified, dismayed and even destroyed the hopes of adults, creating insurmountable rifts between parents and their children which never healed. There was a clear huge humongous divide between parents and children, a gulf as large as the Grand Canyon.

My adult nieces and nephews, and their kids now calmly accept huge social changes which in my youth caused severe relationship damage.

For example, the switch to rock'n roll music by their children in 1965 made parents froth with rage and utter terror. Rock music genuinely consumed parents with deadly unreasoning fears of unmarried sex, atheism, and actual worshiping of the Devil (who they believed in without question along with Hell and hellfire and soul loss). They thought rock music was a gateway to sexual perversions, drugs, long hair, tattoos, communism - a complete breakdown of society.

Parents and their children could NOT understand or tolerate each others' music. Playing a rock station around a parent could result in a beating or being sent to one's room (bedrooms were boring then - no electronics) or being grounded, being told to shut that off NOW, or being dragged to a church for hours of prayer or lectures - the punishment depended on the parent. Today, all generations either enjoy or tolerate the different generations of music that is produced, regardless of age or generation.

People of my parents' age went only to the 6th grade, if lucky, they graduated from the 8th grade. Most all of my generation graduated from high school after completing the 12th grade. Books were extremely rare for people like my parents. Books were and are common as dirt from my generation forward. Most people of my parents' age were born at home, on a farm with a midwife in a bedroom. Most of their children were born in a hospital in a city with doctors. Most people of my parent's age spoke a foreign language, learned English late. Most of their children spoke only English. My parents had no electricity in their childhoods, later, as adults, had radios. Neither of my parents had indoor plumbing until they were adults. Until they moved to cities as adults, they grew up with a very tiny community of people among whom they lived and knew like their own skin. My generation felt lucky if they knew someone longer than a year, and people moved around so much it was the normal to not see anyone ever again. Every year, new teachers, new friends, even within the same school. My parents went to a school that was one room, and every kid for miles went there - at most, 40 kids. My elementary school had 400 kids from a few blocks of nearby streets for a mile. I did not know about no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no tv or radio or the silence of the country. I went to sleep with the sounds of cars, sirens, drunken people carrousing, dogs, doors slamming, etc.

That is just a small idea of how profound I was different from my parents. The gulf of understanding between parents and their small turned into adult children was a huge as if we came from other planets. My dad, who was extremely religious, conservative - hated rock, long hair, tattoos, short skirts, kids being smarter than him, etc. (He went to the 6th grade.) He hated the world of women having any authority or work beyond scrubbing toilets and raising children. He did not live to see the world of computers (I studied computers in 1987 for my job as secretary), but computers would have been completely beyond his ability to comprehend.

[Sandra]

Haha, April, I think you and Nora Webster had a personality clash!

The world and social mores have changed a lot since the 50's and 60's for sure. Then again some things stay the same as in regards to some men's reactions to the thought of Hillary Clinton as president!!!

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Sandra wrote: "Haha, April, I think you and Nora Webster had a personality clash!

The world and social mores have changed a lot since the 50's and 60's for sure. Then again some things stay the same as in regard..."

I know, man, its unbelievable. Not groovy at all. As a woman raised to be a caged chicken laying eggs all day, figuratively, I am wondering if young women today, most of whom have never experienced the depths of male prejudice against them simply because they are female, are picking up on how much criticism against Hilary is based more on her sex and male fears and hatred of females with power?

[Sara]

I've enjoyed the discussion, but I will pass on the political stuff--there are a lot of reasons not to admire HIlary Clinton that have nothing to do with her sex and we have learned very little if we are making such choices (for or against) based on gender.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Sara wrote: "I've enjoyed the discussion, but I will pass on the political stuff--there are a lot of reasons not to admire HIlary Clinton that have nothing to do with her sex and we have learned very little if ..."

You are correct society has learned very little. We agree on that.

In my state, women earn 78 cents for every dollar men earn for the same work.