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Set in Ireland in the 1990s, the The Blackwater Lightship tells the story of the Devereux family. Helen doesn't get on with her mother Lily, and Lily doesn't get on with her mother Dora. Three generations of women, tetchy with recriminations and memory, are forced together when they discover that Helen's younger brother, Declan, is dying from an AIDS-related illness: "It was like a dark shadow in a dream, and then it became real and sharp."
This novel is an intense examination of Colm Toibin's signature themes: death, loss, illness and morality. However, if the themes are a continuance from his previous books, the style is a distinct departure from the lyrical prose of The Story of the Night and The Heather Blazing. In The Blackwater Lightship Toibin strips his style down to spare sentences, and what is said is bleaker: "It was clear to her now that it did not matter whether there were people or not--the world would go on. Imaginings and resonances and pains and small longings, they meant nothing against the hardness of the sea." It is almost as if he is writing us and himself, as the novelist, out of the picture. The familiar poetry of landscape: "the sudden rise in the road and then the first view of the sea glinting in the slanted summer light", is all that is left.
There is not much plot, the book concentrates on the gradual unfolding of talk between the Devereux clan, and two friends of Declan's, who have fine lines of catty commentary. Dora asks: "Is there a need to rake over everything?" But words, even bitter ones, are shaky constants, when everything else is crumbling. This puts a lot of pressure on the prose; when it works well it's charged with suppressed emotion, strangely lulling in its determination to be quiet and ordinary. But sometimes its simplicity makes the book a little static, threatening to becalm the reader. The Blackwater Lightship is a book about the frailty of human experiences, in the face of indifferent nature: "soon they would only be a memory, and that too would fade with time." Toibin deals with the tricky balance between hopefulness and hopelessness with elegant economy, and very few stumbles. --Eithne Farry
Amazon.com
In the opening pages of The Blackwater Lightship, a stranger drives up to Helen O'Doherty's Dublin house to tell her that her brother Declan is in the hospital and needs to see her. At his request, she joins him at the creepy seaside house of their grandmother--where, as children, they awaited news of their dying father. What's more, they're not the only guests. Paul and Larry, friends of Declan who have known about his HIV diagnosis far longer than his family, are the next to arrive. And then comes Helen's estranged mother Lily, whom she hasn't seen in years. Still angry over the emotional abandonment she suffered during her youth, Helen had refused even to invite Lily to her wedding. Now she must come to terms not only with the imminent death of her beloved brother but also with her mother and grandmother--all at once.
Colm Tóibín (The Story of the Night) delivers this unsentimental account of a troubled family in spare but suggestive language. He does allow his characters a few high-spirited remarks and the occasional outburst. Otherwise, though, he keeps his tone even, allowing for the perfect integration of a light, unforced symbolism. For Lily, broken hopes and dreams are bound up with the Blackwater Lightship, one of two lighthouses that once stood in the Irish Sea near Ballyconnigar. As a child, she believed that these would always be there:
Tuskar was a man and the Blackwater Lightship was a woman and they were both sending signals to each other and to other lighthouses, like mating calls. He was forceful and strong and she was weaker but more constant, and sometimes she began to shine her light before darkness had really fallen.For Helen, on the other hand, it was the house itself that prompted her deepest, happiest fantasies. But now Lily has sold the property and shattered Helen's dream that "it would be her refuge, and that her mother, despite everything, would be there for her and would take her in and shelter her and protect her. She had never entertained this thought before; now, she knew that it was irrational and groundless, but nonetheless ... she knew that it was real and it explained everything." What Declan has done by drawing them all together at Granny's house is to enact this potent, poignant fantasy. Whether it has the power to reconstruct his family is another matter, but in any case, The Blackwater Lightship remains a gripping narrative, deftly delivered by a master storyteller. --Regina Marler -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
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3 von 4 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Format:Taschenbuch
Colm Toibin ist zweifelsohne einer der genialsten Schriftsteller unserer Zeit. Mit diesem Buch ist ihm aber tatsächlich ein Meisterwerk gelungen. Die psychologischen Dynamiken innerhalb einer nicht ganz einfachen Familie, in wunderbar atmosphärischen Schilderungen beschrieben - ein Buch für alle, die bei einer Tasse Tee einmal der stressigen Zeit den Rücken kehren und sich auf die schönen und melancholischen Seiten des Lebens besinnen möchten!
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
Helen's brother Declan is dying of AIDS. Together with their mother, their grandmother, and 2 friends of Declan's, she takes care of Declan in what might be his final days. These 6 separate worlds collide into and reconfigure the estrangements of the past years. Toibin's potent rendering of these people coming to terms with themselves and each other is incredibly moving and highly evocative. He skilfully shows the power personal stories have on healing rifts between people. This is one of the most beautiful novels I've read this year.
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
This was my first amble into the world of Colm Toibin and it was a plesent surprise. Faced with a less than thrilling title and grey cover, I didnt think it would make my heart ring.
Colm has created a book that I like to call a touch and smell book. From the opening I can feel the home and emotions like they are my own. From the warmth of the traditional Irish party to the love Lilly feels for her childern and husband, all so very real. Not the romantic view of family love but the true nature of love. Even Lillys estranged mother is not painted as a black character here. The complexity of the mother daughter relationship is so well written that one wonders if a male writer has ever painted this portraite so well?
Her brother is dying of AIDS but this is not the issue here. The issue is he is dying, for anyone who has ever coped with losing a loved one this drives into the very heart. If you are a wife, a mother a husband or a lover, or indeed just a man or woman who has loved, this book is one you take with you. Enjoy
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