Brooklyn: A Novel
by Colm Toibin
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Book Reviews of Brooklyn: A Novel
Book Review: A quiet novel that makes a big impact
Summary: 5 Stars
Brooklyn follows a young woman named Eilis as she travels from her Irish home town to New York in the early 1950s. Almost without asking, her family decides that she should move to America because she is more likely to find a good job there. Eilis struggles to adjust at first, but eventually finds her way and settles down beginning a romance with an Italian-American named Tony. Eilis brushes against social issues such as the Italian neighbourhoods versus the Irish neighbourhoods in NYC, the gradual integration of African Americans into white society, her female supervisor's latent lesbianism and her Jewish night school teacher who escaped the WWII concentration camps. But she never experiences any great conflict with these issues. Toibin manages to do something very special in this humble, quiet novel. There isn't a great deal of action. The language the author uses is engaging but simple. The characters are interesting but not extraordinary. What the author does is immerse you totally in Eilis' daily life and the small but important decisions she makes along the way which lead up to a devastatingly brilliant ending where the protagonist must make a serious heartrending choice. The lead up to this final section is very subtle so it took me by surprise and completely engrossed me.
What Toibin does so well is describe Eilis' relationships with those closest to her. He conveys how deep bonds can exist between family members even if nothing is said. The love and responsibility these characters feel for each other is expressed through small actions like writing each other letters about superficial things or sorting through old clothes together. He approaches scenes filled with a tremendous emotional intensity with a very light touch so that you almost don't realist the importance of what's happening until it's over. This is when Eilis' superficially simple life takes on a magnitude of importance.
Book Review: Not one of my favorites...
Summary: 2 Stars
The author, in this particular novel, does not appear to empathize with the characters he created. Instead it seems that he composes cliche stereotypes that lack any sort of development despite the life changes he puts them through. Contributing to this lack of character development is the fact that Toibin spends a great number of pages providing very intimate descriptions of minor characters and settings which do not impact the story line. This overly descriptive writing style causes the book to slowly plod along despite the "devastating news from Ireland" which provides a ghost of a conflict.
In spite of the tedious writing I did like the story that Toibin was trying to get across: the dual life of an immigrant and Eilis' inability to fully identify with either life she had created for herself in Ireland and Brooklyn. But rather than choosing to develop this inner conflict, the author brushes it aside in favor of Eilis doing what is honorable. There were so many opportunities for Toibin to develop her into the woman Rose had intended for her to be in coming to America, but Eilis shows an astonishing lack of comprehension of the world around her (i.e. she was unfamiliar with the holocaust) and of her own self-awareness that she remains flat, uninteresting, and difficult to sympathize with.
Lastly, Toibin provides excellent descriptions of the setting in Brooklyn that seem more fitting to the 1920's and 1930's rather than the 1950's. Although I cannot speak for what Brooklyn was truly like in 1950, the absence of the impact of WWII and the constant references to ethnic segregation so prevalent during the time America was a "melting pot", make it difficult for me to believe in the time-frame in which the author chooses.
Unfortunately I would not recommend this book to a friend, although to be fair, there are enjoyable passages within the book.
Book Review: The Real Irish
Summary: 5 Stars
Not really a story about Brooklyn as much as a story <u>in</u> Brooklyn. Think how terrifying it would be for a young girl to be sent off to American on her own with only one man to count on for a home, job, friends, and a life. The man is Father Flood, a priest who said he knew Eilis' parents when they were young. Eilis' mother can't remember him or his family but still they take him at his word, trust him because he's a priest, and off she goes to find her way in the new world. Luckily, he does produce: a boarding house, a job and funds for schooling.
Eilis' is a perfect character as a passive young Irish girl, doing as she was told and not even considering arguing. It's more the norm than you think. The Irish of old were so used to being ordered around and tossed around and pushed around that the spirit is broken. Eilis, as the youngest child and a girl, no doubt felt that doubly; self esteem just doesn't come with the package. Only in these last few years of the economic Irish Tiger has the true strength of the Island's character emerged.
Given a taste of her own worth and a chance to prove herself, Eilis knows what she really wants. She succeeds at her classes, at work and in quietly spurning her boss's lesbian advances. When she meets a strong Italian man with a loving intact family, she's suddenly awakened to the other options in life. Of course her ties to Ireland break to the surface when she returns; we all long for the safety of the past. Knowing where her future lies is the real proof of adulthood.
I have not read any of Toibin's books, but I surely will. He opened up a whole new vista of what it was like to emigrate. Not the world of the coffin ships and fleeing the famine but now, here, in modern time. You don't think such an adventure would occur in the middle of the 20th century, but there it is.
Book Review: So very, very dull.
Summary: 1 Stars
I should warn of spoilers but there is so little to spoil. Such a gray and lifeless story. Eilis is a dull, unlikeable girl. She's prissy, duplicious, selfish, and has no self-awareness (poor Tony...saddled with her for life!). She is a static character...as passive at the end as she is in the beginning. When she goes back to Ireland, people SAY she's changed but it's just her American clothes and her tanned skin. Things are different with her mother but it's because Rose isn't there. The situation has changed, not Eilis. If she didn't want to marry Tony, she shouldn't have. If she wanted to stay in Ireland, she should have told Miss Kelley to suck it. Having read other Irish authors, I have a sense of the damage gossip could do in a small village and how the weight of a community's disapproval could crush someone, but none of that was touched on here. Perhaps Toibin thinks we've all read Maeve Binchey and understand the threat Miss Kelley was implying.
I kept waiting for something to happen. Would the priest take advantage or her? Would she develop a passion for law? Would she find pleasure with another woman? Would she be caught up in the struggle for civil rights? So much potential. Not that every story needs big themes and noisy action but then why the tedious description of her law class or the build up to the "coloureds" coming to the store? Even the dressing room scene with Miss Fortini barely registers...it's neither embarrassing or provocative. I get the feeling that Toibin was writing down a family story. Like most personal histories, it's a story essentially lacking in drama. But this is a novel! Maybe he felt it would be disrespectful to take the story beyond the facts? As for portraying a vibrant and changing community, well, even the scenes at Coney Island and Dodger Stadium were flat. Save your money. Save your time. Skip Brooklyn.
Book Review: The Kind of Story Grandma Would Tell
Summary: 2 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This was a pleasant enough story, the kind your immigrant mother or grandmother might tell in her waning years, with the caveat that all turned out well in the end. Only, like the stories Grandma tells, it lacked the depth and tension to hold my interest for the length of a novel.
Having not read any of Colm Toibin's other works, which appear to have been prize-worthy, I can't comment on whether the shortfall here had to do with attempting to write from a female POV. Certainly other writers have managed that quite well, but here Toibin seems only to skim the surface. Events happen, but feelings about them are not explored in depth. At times the novel is peopled with various characters, none of whom, besides main character Eilis, we ever get to know, and I didn't feel I even knew her character all that well.
To me this novel was filled with missed opportunities. For example, though touched on slightly, the author seemed to have no knowledge of the deep rivalry between Italian and Irish immigrants. That Tony's mother accepted Eilis so easily--or at least it seems that way for, again, this isn't covered in depth--seems unlikely. Also, did Tony or any of his brothers fight in WWII? Some of them must have, but that never comes up. Except for the last few pages, the novel totally lacks tension, and instead goes on, page after page, with nothing more than everyday things, like going to work, going to school, going home.
Certainly this was pleasant enough, and I can't say I disliked it, but I didn't really like it either, and I'd have difficulty recommending it.