Completed: August 29, 2024
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody
Review:
Tóibín is pretty amazing. This book is very well written, but it was hard for me to come to like any of these characters. They all are fundamentally flawed--I guess, like Shakespeare; nobody really likes Hamlet. Having said that, also like Shakespeare, these characters all suffer from a fundamental character flaw that then moves the story forward. At the end of the book, Buckley comments that the most important part is what is not said and that all these characters seem to get in their own way. That is characteristic of the Irish. I don't really know what to think about that, but there is no doubt that reading this is kind of like watching a slow-motion boat capsize. I looked Brooklyn better and should there be a sequel to Long Island, I'm not sure I'd want to go back into the swamp of character flaws to read more.
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