Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Source of book: I own this.

 

This book was this month’s selection for the book club I am in, The Literary Lush. This isn’t a book that was on my list, which is often the case - the club encourages me to read outside my usual genres. 

 

I was really hoping this book would be good - it seemed like a promising premise: a young Irish girl immigrates to the US in the 1950s, and finds herself torn between her new life and her family. 

 

Unfortunately, the execution of the book was not all that great, and it was ultimately a disappointment. 

 

There are several reasons I found it problematic. The first is simply that the writing, while competent, was pretty flat. There were very few descriptions, most of the characters felt one-dimensional, and even the protagonist’s inner life was barely outlined. A book that is all plot is fine in some genres, but this book isn’t a thriller or a mystery, but a realistic story that aspires to be literary. In that genre, you have to make the story compelling through the vibrancy of the writing, not through gore or suspense. 

 

Another thing that bothered me is that the protagonist is static. There is no real growth or development, and she remains as passive at the end as at the beginning. Everything in the book happens to her, and she does little to actually make things happen. And even when she does, it is in response to other people, not her own initiative. 

 

There are a number of set pieces in the book that are interesting, but seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the book. They have no effect later, they aren’t referred to, and they seem there perhaps to be a scene in a movie or series. (Which is, unsurprisingly, what happened with this book.) 

 

Not all modern books are this way, of course, but I have run across a few that seem to have been written with the movie rights in mind. Thus, scenes that would play well on the screen are included, whether or not they make for a good narrative arc in a book. 

 

At the risk of spoilers, here are some of those scenes. Eilis is badly seasick on the trip over, and she is befriended by a more experienced woman in surviving. Hey, we have an interesting character! But then she is gone, and never referred to again. 

 

While taking night classes, she borrows books from a library, and the Jewish librarian is puzzled by her lack of knowledge about the war or the Holocaust. But this never goes anywhere. And her decision to overstudy on the legal cases is noted, but again, this never means anything. 

 

Oh, and there is a brief lesbian encounter (not really consensual and pretty icky), but what was the point? Since it was with her supervisor, shouldn’t there have been some fallout at work? Or some effect on Eilis’ psyche? 

 

But these would make interesting movie scenes - a bit of fan service perhaps. Sigh. 

 

And then there is the central plot point, one that I just don’t find appealing. Yep, she has to choose between two guys! Who saw that coming. Except that she never really chooses. Circumstances direct her, and it is difficult to imagine she has any genuine passion for either. 

 

We get hints of ideas that might have been interesting to explore. Tony is a plumber, and he may feel jealous of Eilis’ education. But that is never explored. We see the Irish/Italian cultural differences, but there is little we see of what the characters actually think or experience. Eilis’ classmates struggle with learning English in a way she does not, but this is mentioned but never examined. 

 

More than anything, I just felt like I couldn’t actually care about it. The only thing that really got into me enough to make me care was that I loathed Eilis’ mother. (For personal reasons.) Good old mom, essentially sucking Eilis’ sister dry, and when she dies, glomming onto Eilis and trying to drag her back in. At least in this case, the character was fleshed out enough to matter. 

 

I am sure that one of the problems with reading this book when I did was that I was just finishing up The Golem and the Jinni - another book that is all about the immigrant experience. It shares many of the same themes, and the same conflicts. And it is the better book in every way. Despite the main characters being, technically speaking, not human, they felt so much more real and relatable. 

 

It was just weird to have a book so surface, so glossy with no depth. The more I think about it, the more I feel like it wanted to be a screenplay, not a novel. The visuals would compensate for the lack of description, and the scenery-chewing would provide the missing emotional depth. In that sense, I suppose the author may have accomplished his purpose: he got his movie. 

 

But readers who tend to find a book to be better than the subsequent movie may very well find the book disappointing.

 

Our book club discussion of the book, on the other hand, was most excellent.