Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

The Heather Blazing: A Novel
The Heather Blazing: A Novel
The Heather Blazing: A Novel
Audiobook8 hours

The Heather Blazing: A Novel

Written by Colm Toibin

Narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

Colm Tóibín’s “lovely, understated” novel that “proceeds with stately grace” (The Washington Post Book World) about an uncompromising judge whose principles, when brought home to his own family, are tragic.

Eamon Redmond is a judge in Ireland’s high court, a completely legal creature who is just beginning to discover how painfully unconnected he is from other human beings. With effortless fluency, Colm Tóibín reconstructs the history of Eamon’s relationships—with his father, his first “girl,” his wife, and the children who barely know him—and he writes about Eamon’s affection for the Irish coast with such painterly skill that the land itself becomes a character. The result is a novel of stunning power, “seductive and absorbing” (USA Today).
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 4, 2012
ISBN9781442359963
Author

Colm Toibin

Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and has been named as the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Three times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Tóibín lives in Dublin and New York.

More audiobooks from Colm Toibin

Related to The Heather Blazing

Related audiobooks

Literary Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for The Heather Blazing

Rating: 3.766467152095808 out of 5 stars
4/5

167 ratings11 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Every year at the end of the term, an Irish judge goes to his vacation house on the coast. Over the course of three such visits, the events of his life unfold, both in the present and in long flashbacks that take the reader from his childhood to the earlier part of his adult life. From growing up with a single father during World War Two to difficulties connecting with his own children years later, the reader gets an in-depth view of his life and the events that shaped his character.This book is very slow in the beginning and depends on your interest in the setting and the characters and your taste for the writing style in order to keep you going. Personally, I didn't really get into the book until the second of its three parts, but once I did it kept me going to the end.I don't want to spoil any of it, but I will say it helps to have a certain amount of familiarity with Irish history before you read, especially the events of the early twentieth century, the Irish Civil War, and the position of the country during World War Two. A basic understanding of the Irish judicial system and political parties would also make a good contribution. If you don't live in Ireland or otherwise have the background knowledge, you might want to do a bit of research upfront to save yourself from Googling as you go.That being said, if you do have an interest in Irish history or if you love/love to picture the Irish coast, I think you'll find this book appealing in terms of those elements. You're also likely to enjoy it if you like reflecting on the development of characters such as this one over the course of their lives. It does have some explicit sexual content, so skip it if that's not your thing. Apart from that, it's a very quiet read. No violence, no particularly exciting plot developments, just scenes from a life. Feel free to pick it up, read a chapter or two, and decide if it appeals to you.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A quietly beautiful novel about family, intimacy and the passing of time, the slow rhythms of a life, the simple but moving stories. Little happens, but a picture builds up with Toibin skilfully using narratives from two periods of Eamon Redmond’s life as youth near Wexford and High Court judge in Dublin, including the significant silences. It then looks like it might all be washed away, but there is still life and life goes on.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An elderly judge Eamon Redmond lives with his wife Carmel and travels to the fair city of Dublin everyday to fulfill his high court role. A quiet, thoughtful, deeply intellectual man Eamon often reflects on his life in the present and moments of his childhood that helped shape and create the person he is today. His childhood was a time of order, daily chores, and routine but always under the auspices of the only binding force in the community; the catholic church. A church that demanded allegiance and in return for such devotion and faith man could be saved from the evils of the world, but "without God’s help, we will all die in our sinful condition and remain separated from God forever". The truth of the situation was that the church offered few answers for a young man exploring his sexuality, trying to make sense of the often painful passage from boyhood to manhood. However politics and the allegiance to a particular party played a much more prominent role in the life of the citizens with its constant reminder of past struggles and romantic leaders most prominent of which was Eamon de Valera and the famous Easter rising of 1916 against British rule. As Eamon Redmond becomes immersed in the politics of the age he meets and falls in love with a young party worker Carmel who is equally smitten by her admirer's oratory skills and his ambitions within the political arena.The story is told in two parts a reflection, often romantic, view of childhood with its warmth and sadness at the passing of close relatives, and in contrast adulthood, responsibilities and complex decisions that constitutes the daily routine of a high court judge. To me The Heather Blazing celebrates the importance of family and how the youthful formative years impress and influence our decisions and mindset into adulthood. Colm Toibin is a great observe of daily routines and the Ireland he describes reminds me, as an Irishman, of my own childhood with simple family routines embedded forever in my mind....."They all settled around the fire, the women with glasses of sherry, the men with beer, the three boys with glasses of lemonade. Eamon watched as his father tipped his glass to the side and poured the beer in slowly, letting it slide softly down the edge of the glass"....The harsh beautiful untamed Irish landscape with wild unpredictable seas somehow compliments the simplistic yet deeply moving narrative of one of Ireland's finest authors.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I understand why the main character was fairly emotionless and somewhat arrogant. I felt the story ended well, but it took an awfully long time getting there. He spent an enormous amount of time walking.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “He went out to the shed to get coal. The night was pitch dark: with no moon or stars. Back inside, he sat at the window and looked out at Tuskar and the fierce beam of light which came at intervals. He watched for it, it was much slower than a heartbeat or the ticking of a clock. It came in its own time, unfolding its light clear and full against the darkness which was everywhere outside” (p. 157).


    Colm Toíbín isn’t a stylist in the traditional sense of the word. There’s no single sentence you can point to in this novel and call it ‘lyrical.’ Rather, his entire oeuvre has a quietly lyrical quality. He paints his prose in minimalist brushstrokes.


    If there’s something to be learned from Colm Toíbín, it’s that mood, setting, dialogue, drama – even the national character of an entire people – can be gleaned, at least intellectually, from the barest of brushstrokes.


    That – at least to my way of thinking – is no mean accomplishment.


    As I sit here now in Brooklyn, New York on the cusp of winter, I’ve had the advantage of chilly, drizzly, gray days as background to my reading of The Heather Blazing. It couldn’t have been staged any better! God knows, this is not a beach book. It’s not really a spring or summer book of any kind. An occasional crackle from a fireplace – together with a cup or two of tea – might enhance my reading experience, but neither of them is really necessary to complete the picture of Colm Toíbín’s portrait of contemporary Ireland.


    ‘Bleak’ is the word that first comes to mind – but not ‘bleak’ in the traditional sense. That kind of ‘bleakness’ has been done to death in Irish, British – and more recently, in American – literature. Colm Toíbín’s ‘bleakness’ feels as natural to this story as unremitting sunshine would feel to most stories about Southern California. And it’s the ‘bleakness’ of Ireland in the mid-twentieth century that sets the tone of the entire novel.


    But the novel is also about a marriage – starting with a courtship at the time of a political campaign in which both characters are engaged in a supporting role of the Fianna Fáil national party – and about growing old together and dying, all of it told in Toíbín’s singular, minimalist style.


    Highly recommended – not for the fireworks, but for the admirable restraint.


    RRB
    12/05/14
    Brooklyn, NY

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Eamon Redmond’s mother died when he was a baby. Raised by his emotionally distant father, he suffers shock after shock to his sense of self as first his grandfather and then his beloved uncle pass away in one foul week. And later his father, whose eloquence and dedication as a teacher he admires greatly, suffers a debilitating stroke that renders him severely speech-impaired, the butt of jokes from his now unruly students. His father’s eventual death is perhaps the final blow. Though love, in the form of his future wife, Carmel, rescues him in part. In part, because he may be too emotionally damaged to ever fully risk himself with anyone, even his dearest love. Nevertheless life proceeds, solidifies into history, and gradually erodes to become nothing at all.Now a high court judge toward the end of his career, Eamon is given to remembrance, especially of his youth, but also of his early efforts to woo Carmel. Over the course of three years, divided between the last day of the court term and the hurried escape to his childhood retreat at a house near (ever nearer) the encroaching sea cliff at Cush, we follow Eamon’s thoughts and his muffled emotions that protect him even as they bar him from the full and warm relations he desires with his wife, children and grandchild.Tóibín’s writing here is measured, thoughtful, poignant. Through Eamon he connects us to the political and legal history of Ireland. But those grand themes are as but a backdrop to what it must be to be Eamon, the man, or the boy, suffering quietly and without relief. At times the writing achieves a stillness, even peace, that is like that which a fine poem can bring forth. Indeed the quietude is so pronounced that almost any action or intrusion of historical “events” seems harsh or clumsy. That’s a bit unfair since, at its best, The Heather Blazing surely marks a writer coming into his full powers. And indeed Tóibín’s later career fully justifies that estimation.Gently recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Eamon Redmond, the narrator of The Heather Blazing, is a middle-aged Irish judge nearing retirement. The novel opens as he and his wife return to their County Wexford family home from Dublin where Eamon works on a ruling in the controversial case of an pregnant unmarried teacher who was fired from her position at a Catholic school. Most of the novel is composed of Eamon's reminiscences of his earlier life in Enniscothy (Toibin's home town): his grandfather's and uncle's deaths, his schooldays, his father's launching of a museum and his later stroke, his first sexual experiences and falling in love with his wife, his political activities and early days as a government prosecutor, etc. These memories are interwoven with present-day episodes involving his wife Carmel and his adult children, Maeve and Donal. One repeated refrain is Carmel's complaint that Eamon seems "distant" and her unsuccessful efforts to break through his reserve. The closest he comes is early in their marriage, when he admits that, his mother having died when he was a baby, he grew up to be self-sufficient, believing that if he ever had to ask anyone for something, they would likely refuse. "No one ever wanted me," he tearfully confesses. Yet decades later, as Carmel struggles to speak after a stroke, she tells him, "We need to talk. You are always so distant. You never tell me anything. You don't love me. You don't love the children." I have to admit that I was a bit mystified by her complaint, having been privy to a lot of Eamon's thoughts, feelings, and concerns, and having seen him caring tenderly for his ailing wife, grieving after her death, and reaching out to his children in his loneliness. There are, after all, a lot of ways to express love besides talking about one's feelings, and Eamon seemed to me a good man who was devoted to his family.This is not a book with a powerhouse plot and lots of action: it's a quiet revelation of and meditation on a life. The afterward reveals, as I suspected all along, that much of it was based on episodes from Toibin's own life, although he insists that Eamon is a totally fictitious character. Toibin's writing is moving and insightful, his love of Ireland and small town Irish culture apparent. A lovely book overall.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The best description I can find for Colm Toibin's "The Heather Blazing" is that it's a quiet novel. The novel tells the story of Eamon Redmond, a somewhat cold Irish judge who spends some gloomy days recollecting his past. Being set in Ireland, the book includes a bit of politics as well as a pretty typical domestic life. There really isn't a ton happening plot wise here.I found the book to be an easy read and the characters were interesting enough to keep my attention. That said, I didn't find it especially compelling either... (it's one of those books that I'm afraid a year or two from now, I'll have absolutely no recollection about except that the title is familiar.) So, overall for me, this was just an average book for me... I honestly didn't really love it or hate it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This quiet novel is a man’s compelling reflection on his life. Eamon Redmond is a 60-odd-year-old High Court judge in Dublin. He is married to Carmel, and they have a grown son and daughter. Each year, they spend their holidays at their vacation home in Cush, a remote village by the sea. It is set in Ireland so images of the weather abound, as do magnificent descriptions of the land and sea.Eamon spent his childhood holidays in Cush, so visits there evoke memories of times gone by. As he reminisces, a portrait of a man emerges. His mother died during childbirth,so he grew up with his father and together they led a comfortable existence. He recreates that kind of life with Carmel, where they do a lot for one another, and lead a peaceful, contented life. When Carmel has a stroke, he cares for her in the most touching way – just as he cared for his father when he took ill, many years before. There were numerous poignant passages in the text.Tóibín is a hugely accomplished writer and his spare, understated prose speaks volumes. This was a well-crafted novel indeed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Heather Blazing reads as a very 'Irish' book (as one would of course expect from Colm Toibin) with themes and elements of family, memories, the sea, religion, politics and death. There's not much action or plot here as such, but who cares? I found the start a bit slow, but the final result is a poignant character study of an intelligent and 'successful' man whose need to be self reliant from a very early age leads him into his own little island of emotional isolation.The writing is deceptively simple, having a controlled quality reflecting the emotional tone of the book, and the narrative flows effortlessly to and fro between past and present.While reading, I was reminded of similarities between this book and Old Filth by Jane Gardam . . . another piece of brilliant writing with the main protagonist also a Judge, and the present being juxtaposed with memories of his past. Very different settings and stories, but remarkably similar emotionally stunted characters.A very melancholy book, but not wholly depressing. The ending has a redemptive quality, but it's just such a shame that it took his gut wrenching grief and sense of loss on the death of his wife, Carmel, to force Eamon to leave his little island.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read The Master when it was shortlisted for the 2004 Booker. I loved the cool, elegant prose and the delicate exploration of Henry James' feelings and manners. I'm not sure why its taken me 5 years to pick up another Toibin novel but I'm very gald I did. The Heather Blazing won't be for everyone. There are no fireworks here, no vampires or wizards, no sudden plot twists or amazing coincidences - nothing out of the ordinary really happens at all. Instead we get a subtle exploration of the differences between a person's public and private personas. Eamonn Redmond is a High Court judge in Ireland. Each of the three parts of the book starts with his ending a case just before summer recess and heading down to his holiday home on the east coast of Ireland. Interspersed are chapters from his early life - first as a boy, then a teenager and finally an aspiring and promising barrister. Redmond's mother died during childbirth and his father had interests in many matters other than his son. He grows up self-reliant and reserved - qualities that work well in a judge but are less attractive in a husband and father. As well as exploring the development of Redmond's character, there is some beautiful writing on the Irish landscape and sea in particular. Also interesting are the passages about the post-independence Irish civil war which is not well known about in England but was very nasty indeed (c.f. Sebastian Barry's excellent The Secret Scripture). But what really shines out is Tobin's wonderful prose. Every sentence is crafted so that there is not a word out of place. There is precision and honesty in his style reminiscent of Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea and in Orwell's later works. Not a book that you want to gobble up in one go, but worth savouring slowly.