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There's an essential similarity between this and Tóibín's Brooklyn, which story was referenced early on. Both deal with the interior lives of flat, affectless, passive women, but I thought Brooklyn superior.
I think my reaction suffered from having listened to it. It was harder to appreciate the prose as I was distracted by what I thought was Fiona Shaw's overacting the voices. I was reminded of a criticism I read long ago of Huston's marvelous last film, The Dead; the critic said that the lively and engaged characters belied the notion of the dead of Joyce's title. I think he was right; it was still a great movie, but a different story from Joyce's.
I'm not one who cares about to what extent characters are likeable or I can warm to them, but that said, I was irritated not by Nora in her grief, but by the devices in the storyline. Her passivity was understandable, but unlike Eilis in Brooklyn, there were no negative consequences for Nora. Everything went her way. She needed to sell the beach cottage? A buyer walked in the door. She needed a job, with 20-year old qualifications? Ditto. When she disliked said job? She got to work half-time and avoid the manager she detested. The private room at no charge on holiday, the free singing lessons, everyone in town, it seemed, falling over themselves to help her - it got tiresome. Her only setback was the botched audition.
Poor Donal, of course was another story as he suffered lasting damage; Nora's inability to exert herself to help him was unsettling, even as she was able to act for Conor. Her abandonment of the boys as their father was dying was chilling; if I were going to dislike Nora, that in itself would have provided the justification.
So while the prose is beautiful, the technique of using random incidents suits the exploration of grief, and Ireland circa 1970 is effectively and economically invoked, I found the story itself largely hollow and I reacted inappropriately. Nora was damned lucky, I thought.
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