The South: Colm Toibin Paperback – 1 Jan. 2015

I read this book thanks to the excellent review posted by Susie B and would like to thank her for leading me to it! Colm Toibin's first novel is a beautiful account of the life of a woman painter. In her early thirties, Katherine Proctor abruptly abandons her Irish farm, melancholic husband and young son, and escapes to Barcelona. There, she begins to train as a painter, discovering that she has real talent. After a while she becomes the lover of another painter, Miguel. In a Barcelona bar, they meet up with another painter, an Irishman called Michael Graves, who comes from Katherine's home town. Michael Graves becomes a regular visitor first to Katherine and Miguel's room in Barcelona, and later, when they move to a remote cottage in the Pyrenees, stays with them there often. Years pass and Katherine begins to regard Spain as her home. She and Miguel have a daughter, and Katherine struggles to continue with her work as an artist while caring for the child and her lover. She is content, and believes that she has found tranquillity. But trouble is not far away. Miguel was a prominent Republican fighter in the Spanish Civil War and, quite unexpectedly, his past catches up with him. When tragedy strikes, Katherine is left alone, first to return to Barcelona, and then to Ireland. There, over the years, her friendship with Michael Graves develops and changes, she forges a tentative peace with her son, and continues to evolve as an artist, gradually gaining recognition.Toibin's writing style is absolutely stunning. He brings Barcelona, the Spanish countryside, Dublin and rural Ireland wonderfully to life, in economic and elegant prose. He is also brilliant at getting inside the minds of his characters. Katherine is a truly original character - not a traditional heroine, perhaps - but very sympathetic, and very believable. Toibin writes well about her art, with none of the tendency to dryness that can creep in when describing artworks (a problem in Francesca Kay's otherwise excellent 'An Equal Stillness'). Michael Graves, once tubercular, working-class to Katherine's middle-class, Catholic to her Protestant, was a fascinating figure; I particularly liked the scenes where Toibin wrote about his love of music, and when he talked about his past. The historical material about Spain and Ireland was also good. I would have liked to know more about why Katherine was so drawn to Miguel (clearly a sexually compelling figure, but someone who didn't really support her as an artist) but I suppose her feelings here were deliberately meant to be slightly mysterious. I thought the structure of the book - several parts each dealing with a separate period of Katherine's life - worked well, and the ending gave me a feeling of great hope. Altogether a wonderful book - I can't believe it was his first - and I really look forward to reading more Colm Toibin.

Although this book is a novel about the life of a painter escaping from a loveless marriage in Ireland to freedom and poverty in Franco era Spain it could be rewritten for different countries today. It is almost impossible to understand the pressures on the characters in Modern Europe. Very sparse elegant writing but very hard to understand the restrained emotions of the characters who were all damaged by the civil wars of these formerly intolerant pious countries.

Given the blurb on the back of this book, I rather expected something better. I found the writing slightly wooden and had to overcome my dislike of the writing style to get into the plot of the novel, which was quite interesting, if a little incredible at times.I have enjoyed Toibin's other work and understand that The Master is a very good book. But I would not recommend The South unless you feel you need to review the author's oevre completely.

There are tremendous insights in this slightly surreal story of an Irish wife transplanted to a hut in the Pyrenees. Tobin is an astounding writer who is one of the few who can write as a woman without sounding as if he's trying too hard. I know little about the troubles in Ireland nor the Spanish Civil War but this story has piqued my curiosity and I shall read and learn more.

I really wasn't liking this book to begin with but I'm so pleased I kept going, a gem of a book, beautifully written, well worth a read.

Spare, beautiful writing. I had been searching for an author with intelligence and subtlety and definitely found what I was looking for. This novel contrasts the effect of the unique and particular histories of twentieth century Ireland and Spain on the individuals who lived through them. Toibin traces how their backgrounds affect their personal relationships, but does not inflict stereotypes on the reader. Its hard to believe this accomplished work is a first novel, so I shall definitely look for more works by the same author.

Just my level of both excitement and international nexus. Subsequently his writing has improved in terms of litrature, but South was had sex and bathos in about the right amounts.

As was to be expected, Colm Toibin's novel "The South" was a anything but a disappointment, although it is one of his earlier books. I enjoyed reading it, though it is by no means a par for what I regard as Toibin's greatest novel so far, i.e. "The Master".

Lo compré para una clase se inglés y ni fu ni fa. El escritor sabe crear ambiente, pero la historia no me llamó mucho...

Dies ist das dritte Buch von Colm Toibin, das ich gelesen habe. Es geht um eine Frau, die versucht, ihren Weg zu gehen, mit einer schwierigen Vergangenheit in ihrer Heimat und die in ihrer neuen Heimat von der dortigen schwierigen Vergangenheit eingeholt wird. Colmar Toibin entwirft und schreibt die Geschichte mit schlichter Klarheit und Simplizität. Es ist kein Wort zuviel oder zuwenig und er gibt damit dem Leser viel Raum für eigene Gedanken. Er beschreibt, ohne zu werten. Das war sicherlich nicht das letzte Buch, das ich von ihm gelesen habe.

The South is author Colm Toibin’s first novel, and it was an auspicious arrival in 1990. Brooding and anxious, his protagonist Katherine Proctor seeks a new future even at the cost of abandoning her husband and child in Ireland. She is motivated to get far away, to remove herself from small town values, from the deeply ingrained “troubles” in Ireland, and the low expectations for success that prevail like the cold, heavy mists over the sea and fields. She appears in Barcelona and wanders uncertain and listless in a city and country every bit as haunted by its fractious past as Ireland. How she struggles forward and seeks resolution through painting pulls readers into her predicaments to the end.Interiority defines this story as Toibin explores the internal musing, questioning, fantasizing, and circular thinking of his primary character. At times the story feels claustrophobic, other times it induces a kind of dream state like being lost in the mountain fog above Barcelona. A predominant theme here is abandonment, and Toibin presents it from the perspective of those leaving and those left behind. It tears at the soul and leaves yearning and questioning. A mother abandons her daughter who later leaves behind her son. There’s never a full resolution but sometimes an earnest attempt to understand and bridge the rifts of the past.Toibin is one of our greatest English-writing authors, and it’s a pleasure to explore his early writing with this novel of The South.\Michael Helquist, MARIE EQUI: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions

Toibin is one of my favourite authors and this is one of his best books. Loved it.

The South, the story of an Irish woman who falls in love with a Spanish anarchist in 1950's Barcelona, is captivating but tragic. Katherine Proctor, the Irish woman, was a well developed character and, throughout the novel, I was interested in herand cared about her. Often I wondered at her decisions because her chosen life with Miguel is poverty stricken, at timesviolent and sometimes impossible to continue. The most fascinating aspect for me was the revelation of the complexevents of the Spanish Civil War and, especially, the way Franco continued to hunt down those who had fought againsthis Nationalist army. The plot moves slowly, but that was not a problem for me. Overall,though, the book is a sad one; it beginsthis way and only becomes more so. Yet, I still feel it was valuable to read.