Colm Tóibín has a direct way of going directly through the most painful and deep feelings a human can experience: lost, loneliness, regrets. He is not suggesting them, but is building the tension of the novel - or, in the case of my latest read The Empty Family, the short stories - around that feeling which is reproduced and on the other side of the book, experienced by the reader itself.
Even if there is a limited amount of feelings that are exemplified in the stories - lost, return, loneliness, lost occasions, coming at terms with regrets - the stories do have diverse characters and ways to express and experience them. The pace is slow but calculated, in a way that serves the aim to be revealed later, mostly at the end of the story.
I loved Brooklyn because in general immigrations stories do teach us a lot about our own immigrant story too, but the micro-universe of those stories from The Empty Family are a different level of realistic writing. Those stories will stay with me for a long time, both as emotions and chain of events.
Rating: 4.5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment