Reimagined Greek Tragedy: House of Names by Colm Toibin

In House of Names, Colm Toibin, author of Brooklyn and Nora Webster, retells the ancient Greek story of one of the most brutal and murderous families ever imagined. Blood is paid with blood: a wife murders her husband, a parent sacrifices his daughter, children murder their parents.

Tobin's his beautiful, clear writing allows four central characters to speak for themselves.

Clytemnestra was claimed by hero Agamemnon when he slew her husband. She has born him daughters Iphigenia and Electra and son Orestes.

Agamemnon's brother's wife Helen has been kidnapped. They plan to attack the Trojans and bring her back. But the gods have prevented them from setting sail. Agamemnon asks Clytemnestra prepare Iphigenia for marriage; in reality, he sacrifices her to the gods, an expiation for his sin, so the soldiers at last may go to war.

Betrayed by Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and plots her revenge with help from Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returns with war trophy Cassandra, his wife welcomes him home, then slits his throat. She has arranged to have Orestes and other boys taken to 'safety.'

Orestes relates his story of exile and return only to learn his mother had murdered his father.

Electra learns her mother murdered her father and plots her revenge. Upon her brother's return, she instructs him to commit matricide.

Leander, who was Orestes friend in exile, has discovered Clytemnestra murdered his entire family, and he raises an army.

The novel has wonderful characterization. I was compelled to continue reading. But I was left wondering, why? Why bring this story, now, to a new generation? What can we learn?

Obviously, it is a revenge story, on the human level and on behalf of the gods. Agamemnon is part of the cursed House of Atreus. Here is how it started:

Zeus' son Tantalus murdered his own son Pelops to feed to the gods. The gods arranged to have Pelops brought back to life. Later Pelops and his house were cursed by a son of Hermes.

Pelops' children Atreus and Thyestes killed a half-brother and were banished. Atreus discovered that Thyestes was having an affair with his wife, so he murdered Thyestes's sons and dished them up in a stew to their father.

Atreus's children included Agamemnon  and Menelaus. Thyestes also had a son with his daughter, Aegisthus, and that son killed Atreus.

Agamemnon kills his daughter, his wife kills him, and their son, encouraged by their daughter, kills his mother.

You see a pattern here? Once you start murdering there is no end. One may see the story as a metaphor with unlimited applications.

I received a free ebook from the pubisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

House of Names
Colm Toibin
Scribner
Publication May 18, 2017

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Eilis is a smart girl. She wants to be a bookkeeper but the only job she can get is working Sunday mornings at the local grocery shop. She wishes she were as beautiful as her sister Rose, but feels snubbed by the 'rugby set' at the parish dances. When she realizes her older sister has arranged for her to leave their village in Ireland for better opportunities in Brooklyn she is not excited but neither does she voice her reluctance. She us a girl who is used to doing what is expected of her.

...she was going to lose this world for ever...she would never have an ordinary day again in this ordinary place...the rest of her life with be a struggle with the unfamiliar.

In Brooklyn everything is arranged for her, the room at the boarding house, the job on the floor of a fancy shop. What no one has warned her about, including her brothers who left Ireland for England, was that overwhelming homesickness also awaited her in Brooklyn.

She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything...Nothing here was part of her. it was false, empty, she thought.

She takes evening college classes to fill her mind and nights. She goes to the local dances with the other boarding house girls and meets an Italian American boy, Tony. He is a nice boy, a cheerful lad, a respectful beau. And he loves Eilis. She begins to believe she loves him when she learns that Rose has died. She arranges to go  home, planning to be away a month before returning to her new life with a promised bookkeeping job and a husband. But once home, Eilis becomes entangled and is faced with a terrible choice.

The book is quiet, Eilis is passive, the writing elegant and beautiful. In an interview Toibin said he used the memory of his own homesickness when abroad to inform Eilis. I felt her homesickness, something I know quite well. I love Toibin's writing, nothing flashy and loud, but poignant and grounded in shared, real life experiences.

Nora Webster is mentioned in the book; Nora had her own novel last year, which I reviewed here.

Brooklyn has been made into a movie! See the preview here:
https://youtu.be/iWgCwrJ5Jzc

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Brooklyn
Colm Toibin
Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780141041742

"Nora Webster" by Colm Toibin, A Novel About Grief and Self Discovery

Nora Webster has lost her husband of 21 years. Maurice had been a beloved school teacher in a small Irish village. She had stayed at his side watching him die, their children sent off with relatives for four months. The Catholic doctors withheld the morphine that would have eased his pain, for it would also have caused his death. Now she must face life alone without the love of her life.

Intelligent, independent, and strong willed, Nora is disconnected to her family and neighbors. Her sisters talk behind her back of how difficult she was before marriage. Her children confide to her sisters and aunt, and Nora hears second hand of their inner life. After months of being an object of pity Nora can barely stand to let her well meaning neighbors in the house.

Nora has an inner strength and one admires how she stands up for herself. She is offered work by her employer before marriage. Her nemesis from her teen years is her manager and makes her life miserable, and her co-worker, the boss's daughter, is vacuous and self-absorbed. When the workers gather to unionize she joins them, alienating the boss and his family.

Her children grieve in isolation. Nora alone understands the myth of children's resilience, remembering how she never recovered from the loss of her parents. The Troubles in Northern Ireland dominates the news and draws her eldest daughter into Irish protest groups. The younger daughter is away at school, and her eldest son become obsessed with photography and the Space Race. Her youngest son developed a stutter during his four months apart and is a source of concern for Nora.

Nora's decisions make her stand out in the village. She colors her hair, buys new clothes, redecorates. People invite her to a gramophone society, take her on as a singing student. Late in life she learns the confidence that comes from making decisions for oneself.

The book has a quietness about it, a solemnity. The narrative is straight forward, even in mystical scenes when Nora senses Maurice's presence. There is a sense of majesty, that this particular life illuminates universal experiences.

Nora's grief recall to mind memories of my own. When my mother had terminal cancer she asked for morphine even when the nurse warned her she would not wake up. She did not want any more pain, a lifetime of Psoriatic arthritis had been pain enough. I saw my dad flounder after her death before building a new life without her. He had to make decisions about things that Mom had always handled. When my father was dying  I was at the hospital every day for two months. Yes, death is the only universal experience. We don't recall our birth, we don't all procreate, but we all lose loved ones.

This is not a depressing book. It is an intimate tale of how one woman grieves and rebuilds. Her new life offers Nora something she never had before: the opportunity for self discovery, to test her wings, to become something more. Her life is not perfect, for this is a novel of realism; instead she achieves something better: a growth into a wholeness she had never before enjoyed.

Nora will quietly wait in the back of your mind long after you have finished the novel.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin
Scribner
ISBN: 9781439138335  
Publication date: October 7, 2014
$27.00