‘Belonging without Belonging’: Colm Tóibín’s Dialogue with the Past
Tóibín is not the archetypal ‘revisionist’ intellectual that some have made him into, but rather a sort of in-between, making a virtue of his own ambivalences towards notions of tradition, community and nationhood. In this essay some of these ambivalences are scrutinised with special reference to tw...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Asociación Española de Estudios Irlandeses
2005-03-01
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| Series: | Estudios Irlandeses |
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| Online Access: | http://www.estudiosirlandeses.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/MichaelBoss.pdf |
| Summary: | Tóibín is not the archetypal ‘revisionist’ intellectual that some have made him into, but rather a sort of in-between, making a virtue of his own ambivalences towards notions of tradition, community and nationhood. In this essay some of these ambivalences are scrutinised with special reference to two essays from Tóibín’s Walking along the Border (or Bad Blood). The assumption is that, intellectually, Tóibín’s ambivalences are rooted in a humanism which may partly be ascribed to his personal attachments, affections and loyalties: to family, place and community. It is argued that his personal need to reconcile himself with the loss of his father, when he was a young boy, is connected with a theme of more general significance: how to come to terms with the loss of the “certainties” of the past —nation, family, church— while defining and asserting personal autonomy in a new order of things, bereft of paternal authorities. |
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| ISSN: | 1699-311X 1699-311X |