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Mothers and Sons: Stories by Colm Toibin
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Mothers and Sons: Stories (original 2007; edition 2008)

by Colm Toibin

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7141431,600 (3.74)40
A sequence of nine short works explores the intricate bonds between mothers and sons as reflected at pivotal junctures that shift the way each sees and understands the other.
Member:TurboBookSnob
Title:Mothers and Sons: Stories
Authors:Colm Toibin
Info:Scribner (2008), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 304 pages
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Mothers and Sons: Stories by Colm Tóibín (2007)

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English (12)  Swedish (1)  German (1)  All languages (14)
Showing 1-5 of 12 (next | show all)
Com Toibin's beautiful prose is the standout feature of this collection. He writes with precision and delicacy and evokes emotion with patience and restraint. However the plotting, characterisation and themes are somewhat inconsistent. The settings are very Irish, all dead mothers and villages where everybody knows your business, which I struggle to relate to unless there are more universal themes addressed.

The first two stories, "The Use of Reason" and "A Song" left me cold, as they described situations that were neither familiar nor interesting to me. I decided to persist and was glad I did when the subtle realism of "The Name of the Game" was up next. I wavered again in "Famous Blue Raincoat", but from there the stories alternated between wonderful and disappointing.

One of my great frustrations with short stories, and one of the reasons I don't often read them, is that by the time I've decided if a story is any good, it's almost over. There's rarely the chance to settle into a story knowing that the next pages will be worth savouring. Obviously this collection doesn't do anything to change that reservation, but the rewards - in the form of moving, emotionally true stories - are worth the frustrations, in my view.
( )
  robfwalter | Jul 31, 2023 |
Por primera vez en castellano, los mejores cuentos del autor de Brooklyn, ganador de los premiosImpac yForster. Cólm Tóibín se ha consolidado como uno de los grandes narradores contemporáneos de la literatura anglosajona. Comparado a menudo con Henry James, uno de sus grandes referentes, en nuestro país empieza a obtener el reconocimiento que ya tiene en Europa y en Estados Unidos. En este volumen, que recopila sus mejores cuentos, Tóibín aborda los grandes asuntos de su universo literario: las relaciones entre madres e hijos, la sociedad de Dublín, la imagen del hogar, el exilio y la inmigración e incluso nos ofrece un retrato espléndido y en absoluto convencional de Barcelona, una ciudad que conoce muy bien porque vivió en ella durante los años de la transición. Dueño de una prosa precisa y armónica y de una gran capacidad de penetración psicológica, Colm Tóibín es ya, gracias tanto a sus novelas como a sus relatos, un nuevo maestro.
  llibresantjoan | Jun 30, 2021 |
Some works by the Irish author Colm Tóibín are great, particularly those set in Barcelona where the Tóibín lived in his young years. These short stories did not seem very inspired. ( )
  edwinbcn | Nov 13, 2018 |
Colm Tóibín's writing never fails to move me in its quietly powerful simplicity and these wonderful short stories are every bit as satisfying as his novels. The exploration of relationships between mothers and sons is full of insightful reflections and the quality of the writing is, at times. quite breathtaking. This is a collection of stories which needs to be savoured and I know that I will be returning to them in order to enjoy the beauty of the prose. ( )
  linda.a. | Dec 17, 2017 |
The stories collected here are muted, almost stripped of emotion despite some highly charged events occurring. It is as though Colm Tóibín wants the reader to take a step back and view these events calmly, dispassionately, perhaps forensically. And for some stories that works great. I like it especially in “The Use of Reason” and “A Priest in the Family”. Perhaps not so much in “Famous Blue Raincoat” or “A Summer Job”.

Most of these stories are straight-ahead short stories, narrow in scope and character, limited to a short time period, realistic both in terms of psychology and locale. In short, however much they mine the thematic connections between mothers and sons (which they all do), they do not breathe new life into the short form itself. I suspect that is probably a sign that Tóibín is more comfortable in the longer, novel form.

Inevitably different readers will prefer one or another of the stories here (they are all worthy), but for me it was “The Name of the Game” that stood out. Not unusually, a death initiates the action, which again not unusually, involves a life struggle, or, perhaps better, a struggle for survival. Class difference, which is not a major issue in most of these stories, is front and centre here, and because the action takes place at a distance from Dublin, Dublin can stand as an ideal, however misplaced, for the female protagonist, Nancy. Nancy’s struggle to transform the economic mess she has been left in by the untimely death of her husband reveals hidden strength in her, and no small amount of cunning. That I would gladly have seen the story expanded into a novel may just reveal my own preference for Tóibín’s longer, leisurely paced, novels. Well, to each their own, I guess. Gently recommended. ( )
  RandyMetcalfe | Oct 22, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 12 (next | show all)
From Publishers Weekly
Nine stories from the author of The Master, The Blackwater Lightship and three other novels explore what happens when mothers and sons confront one another as adults. The sons include a middle-aged petty criminal, a young alienated pub musician and a regular guy whose drug-fueled mourning takes him into new sexual territory. The mothers include a widow who married above her class, a woman whose son's depression hangs over her and her husband's lives and a woman whose son is a priest being charged with abuse. In "The Name of the Game," the widowed Nancy Sheridan finds herself saddled with three children and a debt-ridden supermarket. In "Famous Blue Raincoat," former–folk-rock sensation-turned-smalltime-photographer Lisa is distressed by her son Luke's interest in her band, but refuses to tread on his curiousity, which forces her to reconfront the band's painful end. Longing, frustrated expectations and an offhandedly gorgeous Ireland run steadily throughout—except in the concluding, near-novella-length "A Long Winter," set in a Spanish village, and featuring Miguel, his younger brother, Jordi, and their mother, whose drinking may not be the only secret Miguel discovers during preparations for Jordi's departure for his military service. Wistful, touching and complex, these stories form a panoramic portrait of loss. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
 

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For Michael Loughlin and Veronica Rapalino
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The city was a great  emptiness.
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A sequence of nine short works explores the intricate bonds between mothers and sons as reflected at pivotal junctures that shift the way each sees and understands the other.

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