"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
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
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Book Description Softcover. Condition: new. New Ed. In Blackwater in the early 1990s three women Dora Devereux her daughter Lily and her granddaughter Helen have come together after years of strife and reached an uneasy truce Helens adored brother Declan is dying Two friends join him and the women in a crumbling old house by the sea where the six of them from different generations and with different beliefs must listen and come to terms with one another. Seller Inventory # DADAX0330389866
Book Description Condition: New. This is the most astonishing piece of writing, lyrical in its emotion and spare in its construction . Toibin has crafted an unmissable read' Sunday Herald Num Pages: 288 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 196 x 130 x 19. Weight in Grams: 208. ****Signed by the author***** Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # S9780330389860
Book Description Condition: New. This is the most astonishing piece of writing, lyrical in its emotion and spare in its construction . Toibin has crafted an unmissable read' Sunday Herald Num Pages: 288 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 196 x 130 x 19. Weight in Grams: 208. ****Signed by the author*****. Seller Inventory # S9780330389860
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.45. Seller Inventory # Q-0330389866