Brooklyn [Paperback]

Evocative, sparse, yet deeply emotional, the books of Colm Toibin have become some of my favourites. He writes beautifully about landscape, about the weight of the past on the present, but most importantly about people and their feelings. He is particularly good at showing family relationships and how they work.

This new book was no disappointment. in the 1950s, Eilis Lacey moves from small-town Ireland to America to work in a department store. In Brooklyn, everything is different: you can even keep the heating on at night, she writes home, with excitement. Her culture shock on arrival is so beautifully written, you feel every moment of her disorientation and terrible homesickness.

But then just as she seems finally to be settling in America, she suddenly must return home, and the gap between her two lives is revealed. Anyone who has ever had an intense experience abroad, then returned home thinking 'it seems like a dream now' must identify with Eilis. It's so delicately done, but with enormous power.

I would love to know what others thought of the ending, as that was my only reservation, but I will not discuss it here as I hate plot spoilers. Please do read this book, it's quiet, old-fashioned and brilliant.

This book came to me highly recommended by a couple of people, so I was looking forward to reading it to see what all the fuss was about and I had not read anything by Colm Toibin before either so I was doubly curious.

I was not exactly disappointed by the book, indeed I enjoyed reading it very much, but I would say I was underwhelmed by it.
It is quite a simple and straight forward story about the experiences of a young woman who emigrates from Ireland in the 1950's to Brooklyn in New York. It is an experience shared by thousands, if not millions of Irish people over the years so there is a lot to relate to here for many people, including myself, especially for those from the generation of the main character Eilis. The story likewise is quite simply told, it is not showily overwritten but is instead rather understated and for me this was the major plus point of the book. I would imagine it captures very well and nostalgically the atmosphere of that time for people of a certain age, women especially. Toibin is quite skilled at drawing female characters, especially the girls that Eilis shares a boarding house with in Brooklyn, and when Eilis returns to Ireland after being in Brooklyn for a couple of years he captures very well the conflicting feelings inside of her at being home after being away, something many an emmigrant can sympathise with.

That said I do have to say this wasn't quite the 'outstanding' novel I was expecting. Very competent and controlled, yes, but it didn't blow me away like I was lead to believe. I actually found the character of Eilis quite irritating after a while. She seems to go through the whole novel in a very passive way, it's all 'Eilis thought this, but then thought this but then decided to see what happens' and she seems almost swept along by feelings she does not really give much thought to. of course this is most probably Toibin's deliberate characterisation but its hard to care for and respect a character that seems to have no mind of their own. I found myself waiting for something devastating and dramatic to happen that just didn't arrive, even though towards the end it felt like the narrative was winding up to this.

By the time I had finished reading this novel, I almost shrugged my shoulders as if to say 'Is that it?' It seems to me a lot of fuss over nothing that spectacular. An enjoyable, almost light read, but nothing spectacular. Many more people, I think, could write something as good if not a whole lot better based on their actual experiences of emmigration if only they kept it simple like Toibin. And the fact that this book is already being touted as a future Booker nominee can only lead me to speculate it is because it is written by a certain Colm Toibin, who is a well established figure in the literary world, and not on the actual merits of the novel itself.

I had been looking forward to reading this book for some time as I had read good reviews about it when it first came out. I must say however that I was disappointed. It is just a nice story, not much happens and although it nicely shows the cultural transition for Eilas who is from a small Irish town leaving for America, it nevertheless becomes boring. Whilst I had some sympathy for Eilas when she travelled from her home town, leaving her family behind and having to negotiate the cultural differences, I quickly lost sympathy at the end because of her duplicity. I can't quite understand why there was such a hullabaloo about this story and only wonder at the competition when it won the prize it did. No at all impressed. In fact I disliked the character well before the end of the story and little cared what happened to her.