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The Banyan Tree
On an overgrown and rundown farm in Ireland in the late-1980s, widowed Minnie O'Brien remembers the past: courtship and marriage to Peter; life on the farm; and the births of her three children and what became of them.
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
10 people are currently reading
233 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Nolan
43 books25 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Christopher Nolan was an Irish poet and author, son of Joseph and Bernadette Nolan. He grew up in Mullingar, Ireland, but later moved to Dublin to attend college. He was educated at the Central Remedial Clinic School, Mount Temple Comprehensive School and at Trinity College, Dublin. His first book was published when he was fifteen. He won the Whitbread Book Award, for his autobiography in 1988. He was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in the UK, the medal of excellence from the United Nations Society of Writers, and a Person of the Year award in Ireland.
Due to birth complications, Nolan was born with cerebral palsy, and could only move his head and eyes. To write, Nolan used a special computer and keyboard; in order to help him type, his mother, Bernadette Nolan, held his head in her cupped hands while Christopher painstakingly picked out each word, letter by letter, with a pointer attached to his forehead. He communicated with others by moving his eyes, using a signal system.
Christopher Nolan was an Irish poet and author, son of Joseph and Bernadette Nolan. He grew up in Mullingar, Ireland, but later moved to Dublin to attend college. He was educated at the Central Remedial Clinic School, Mount Temple Comprehensive School and at Trinity College, Dublin. His first book was published when he was fifteen. He won the Whitbread Book Award, for his autobiography in 1988. He was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in the UK, the medal of excellence from the United Nations Society of Writers, and a Person of the Year award in Ireland.
Due to birth complications, Nolan was born with cerebral palsy, and could only move his head and eyes. To write, Nolan used a special computer and keyboard; in order to help him type, his mother, Bernadette Nolan, held his head in her cupped hands while Christopher painstakingly picked out each word, letter by letter, with a pointer attached to his forehead. He communicated with others by moving his eyes, using a signal system.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
November 17, 2023
The most interesting part of this book came on the very first page, during the authors note:
“Deprived of oxygen for two hours at birth, [Christopher Nolan] is mute and paralyzed. He writes by having someone hold his head while he taps at a typewriter with a stick attached to his forehead. Nolan lives in Sutton, Ireland.”
That is wild, impressive, and commendable. I did not enjoy the rest of this book.
“Deprived of oxygen for two hours at birth, [Christopher Nolan] is mute and paralyzed. He writes by having someone hold his head while he taps at a typewriter with a stick attached to his forehead. Nolan lives in Sutton, Ireland.”
That is wild, impressive, and commendable. I did not enjoy the rest of this book.
March 3, 2013
After several attempts to read this book, I finally took the time to really sit down and absorb the language of this book. Once I was used to the rhythm and the language, and felt that I knew the characters, I did not want to put this book down. Read a few chapters a day then many chapters in amazement. The final half of the book really hit home with me as it covered so many emotions of this family, and thinking of so many families who are not in touch with one another.
I did not read about the author until I finished the book, and I want to cry from astonishment. The effort that went into writing this beautiful piece of work! Incredible!
I did not read about the author until I finished the book, and I want to cry from astonishment. The effort that went into writing this beautiful piece of work! Incredible!
November 26, 2023
3.5 stars. I took a lot of heat for this book selection from Wintergreen book club. Some people just can’t appreciate a slow burn. First of all, the way it was written fit the time and setting perfectly. I thought it was a poignant portrayal of aging, especially back in the day when it was harder to travel and generations could get left behind by their offspring. Truly sad! Also, I learned a LOT of new vocabulary and old Irish euphemisms. Musha just give it a try and I’m happy to discuss!
February 20, 2009
This is a book to read for language, the way Nolan take ordinary nouns and creates exciting verbs. He's a language outlaw, and it saddens me that he has died. He was only 43.
June 13, 2015
"'You're the first Irish girl I've noticed in over thirty years,' he breathlessly said. 'But it wasn't you that noticed me,' she whimsically whispered, 'but my need that spotted you.'
February 14, 2023
это была невыносимо тягомотная книжка, я просто очень рада, что она наконец-то закончилась и я могу читать другие книжки 😭
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August 12, 2016Did a review of this book here: https://youtu.be/aF_OrlQoqcI
April 24, 2024
His flowery style of writing just irritated me. "Nursing still their helium harvest the cataracted crocks waited, still playing their stoic games, but the moment they were lifted they yielded up their booty, listening in awe as their clotted cream dropped ploppingly down into the cold damp coffin of darkness." Seriously? They're just crocks.
August 25, 2024
Took forever to read, but the poignant story grew on me.
June 22, 2025
like a tone poem wrapped in the Irish, spoken in a version of English-a family saga specific to Ireland, to the meaning of land, the folk ways...
January 4, 2014
It was obviously fraudulent.
What else could explain the stunning autobiography supposedly written by an escaped slave named Frederick Douglass in 1845? Southerners pointed to the book's clear style and sophisticated imagery as evidence that this was the work of some clever abolitionist spinning out incendiary propaganda. No African slave could be that articulate.
Au contra ire, Douglass must have mused.
Ten years later, he published a revised version of his "Narrative" called "My Bondage and My Freedom." Considerably longer, it was so packed with erudition, research, and classical references that Douglass inflamed the accusations against him. He shot back, "God Almighty made but one race."
His bondage is physical rather than political, but Irish writer Christopher Nolan has now challenged the world in much the same way. Born with cerebral palsy, Nolan is unable to speak or move. But using a stick strapped to his forehead, he managed to peck out a striking collection of poems called "Dam-Burst of Dreams" when he was 14. A few narrow-minded critics muttered that his mother must have directed the pointer when she held his head over the keyboard.
Seven years later, Nolan published his bestselling autobiography, "Under the Eye of the Clock." He won Britain's Whitbread Prize, and critics compared it favorably to the work of James Joyce. But a contributor to The Sunday Times (London) lamented that the severely handicapped author would never be able to write fiction.
"I'll show him," Nolan writes in his brief preface to "The Banyan Tree." "It's thanks to him that my novel has seen the light and for that I'll be ever grateful - he did me a great service."
And now Nolan has done us one. Nothing can match the unique voice and perspective of "Under the Eye of the Clock" - recently brought back into print by Arcade - but this new novel is the work of a mature genius.
"The Banyan Tree" tells the long life of Minnie O'Brien, an Irish farm woman born in the early years of the 20th century. She is not poor. She is not unhappy. Her husband is not an alcoholic. She is not a bitter mother. Her children do not die. She does not hate the Catholic Church. She does not commit assassinations for (or against) the IRA.
Can you imagine anything more revolutionary in an Irish novel? And yet the book is unflaggingly engaging, largely because of Nolan's rebellious style. Everything in this charming story simmers with life. Forgotten items in dresser drawers "rub shoulders." The grandfather clock laughs. "The road gate feared for its owner. The wicket gate waited." "The hell of a lawn on either side guffawed. Here and there the grand guards of mushroom-shaped chestnut trees growled as they stood there, adept at their waiting game." This is an author who could quicken a stone.
Drumhollow, Ireland, "consisted of a single street, a great burly nothingness of a street," Nolan writes. "The world passed through it without bothering to give it a glance. To the inhabitants themselves, though, the village was a metropolis." Indeed, that's Nolan's attitude about each life, too.
Looking for a mousetrap, Peter O'Brien is caught when he spots young Minnie in her father's store. "In a medley of stalactites the things of her shop hung from the boarded ceiling, all types of gadgets swinging their legs in watchfulness." He immediately knows this clever girl is for him. "She would try to sell gunsmoke rather than miss a sale."
At first, "Minnie and Peter almost tripped each other up in their anxiety to act normal," but their love quickly relaxes them both. Minnie eventually raises three children through the usual trials and joys. More than 100 short chapters celebrate the common details of starting a home, tending animals, cutting peat in the bog, winning a hurling victory, bickering with neighbors, enduring the departure of children. This is the rapture of ordinary life rendered in language that's unfettered even by the rules of grammar. Quirky constructions and neologisms catch the eye in these paragraphs like chunks of quartz in a creek bed.
In the end, Minnie won't abandon her house or her hopes for a wandering son, despite the well-meaning pleas of her other wealthy, responsible children. She's rooted there, tied by the strong fibers of the banyan tree to a place of simple beauty and intricate memories. Readers of this book will be equally captured.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0316/p1...
What else could explain the stunning autobiography supposedly written by an escaped slave named Frederick Douglass in 1845? Southerners pointed to the book's clear style and sophisticated imagery as evidence that this was the work of some clever abolitionist spinning out incendiary propaganda. No African slave could be that articulate.
Au contra ire, Douglass must have mused.
Ten years later, he published a revised version of his "Narrative" called "My Bondage and My Freedom." Considerably longer, it was so packed with erudition, research, and classical references that Douglass inflamed the accusations against him. He shot back, "God Almighty made but one race."
His bondage is physical rather than political, but Irish writer Christopher Nolan has now challenged the world in much the same way. Born with cerebral palsy, Nolan is unable to speak or move. But using a stick strapped to his forehead, he managed to peck out a striking collection of poems called "Dam-Burst of Dreams" when he was 14. A few narrow-minded critics muttered that his mother must have directed the pointer when she held his head over the keyboard.
Seven years later, Nolan published his bestselling autobiography, "Under the Eye of the Clock." He won Britain's Whitbread Prize, and critics compared it favorably to the work of James Joyce. But a contributor to The Sunday Times (London) lamented that the severely handicapped author would never be able to write fiction.
"I'll show him," Nolan writes in his brief preface to "The Banyan Tree." "It's thanks to him that my novel has seen the light and for that I'll be ever grateful - he did me a great service."
And now Nolan has done us one. Nothing can match the unique voice and perspective of "Under the Eye of the Clock" - recently brought back into print by Arcade - but this new novel is the work of a mature genius.
"The Banyan Tree" tells the long life of Minnie O'Brien, an Irish farm woman born in the early years of the 20th century. She is not poor. She is not unhappy. Her husband is not an alcoholic. She is not a bitter mother. Her children do not die. She does not hate the Catholic Church. She does not commit assassinations for (or against) the IRA.
Can you imagine anything more revolutionary in an Irish novel? And yet the book is unflaggingly engaging, largely because of Nolan's rebellious style. Everything in this charming story simmers with life. Forgotten items in dresser drawers "rub shoulders." The grandfather clock laughs. "The road gate feared for its owner. The wicket gate waited." "The hell of a lawn on either side guffawed. Here and there the grand guards of mushroom-shaped chestnut trees growled as they stood there, adept at their waiting game." This is an author who could quicken a stone.
Drumhollow, Ireland, "consisted of a single street, a great burly nothingness of a street," Nolan writes. "The world passed through it without bothering to give it a glance. To the inhabitants themselves, though, the village was a metropolis." Indeed, that's Nolan's attitude about each life, too.
Looking for a mousetrap, Peter O'Brien is caught when he spots young Minnie in her father's store. "In a medley of stalactites the things of her shop hung from the boarded ceiling, all types of gadgets swinging their legs in watchfulness." He immediately knows this clever girl is for him. "She would try to sell gunsmoke rather than miss a sale."
At first, "Minnie and Peter almost tripped each other up in their anxiety to act normal," but their love quickly relaxes them both. Minnie eventually raises three children through the usual trials and joys. More than 100 short chapters celebrate the common details of starting a home, tending animals, cutting peat in the bog, winning a hurling victory, bickering with neighbors, enduring the departure of children. This is the rapture of ordinary life rendered in language that's unfettered even by the rules of grammar. Quirky constructions and neologisms catch the eye in these paragraphs like chunks of quartz in a creek bed.
In the end, Minnie won't abandon her house or her hopes for a wandering son, despite the well-meaning pleas of her other wealthy, responsible children. She's rooted there, tied by the strong fibers of the banyan tree to a place of simple beauty and intricate memories. Readers of this book will be equally captured.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0316/p1...
November 23, 2023
This book was a leeeeetle slow for my liking but picked up halfway! The writer is very good at making you feel like you are in Drumhollow! The pace felt as such along with painting the picture of Minnie, her neighbors and the home!
April 26, 2020
Why is it harder to find the words to extol a novel of such rare beauty and craftsmanship than it is to pan one that is a complete dud? Is it because the reader is so wrapped up in the warm feelings engendered by the book and he or she fears that they will vanish if the novel is examined too closely. That’s how this book affected me. This is the story of a simple Irish woman from young bride to old woman of 80 years and the longing that consumed her throughout her lonely final years. Besides Minnie, the protagonist, stands her devoted husband Peter, who perhaps carries a disturbing secret to his grave. Their children are equally well-drawn: Brendan, the oldest, the New York bishop--and an alcoholic; Sheila, who married well--but not happily; and Francis...Francis, the youngest, and the source of Minnie’s longing. Perhaps it would be better not to tell you about the author. Read the book for its own merits, and then look into the creative genius who spun the tale, perhaps by reading his memoir, Under the Eye of the Clock.
April 7, 2014
I think I'm going to have to give up on this book. I've made very little progress; only about 50 pages in and it's been 3 weeks. I feel a little guilty about it, because the author was severely disabled and underwent a painstaking, tortuous process to write this book. My problem with it is that I'm not Irish. The author was, and the book of course is written in English, but not...American English. It is full of Irish slang and colloquialisms and is therefore difficult for me to understand. I will donate it and hope that it will end up in the hands of someone who can understand Irish-English.
March 7, 2013
The most amazing thing about this book is what an incredible imagination this author has. This male writer has overcome many physical barriers and has written a very realistic, very poignant picture of the life of a farmer's wife in Ireland and her family. The language was a bit difficult for me to comprehend at times, and the descriptions are beautiful and sometimes obscure. But a lovable character and an enjoyable book.
February 4, 2017
Beautifully, almost poetically written. The story lingers long after the last page has been turned.
July 7, 2011
Great book about Ireland. Great portrait of the relentless fight of a woman to accomplish her destiny no matter what as her life inexorably follows its course. I really liked the descriptions and the detailed settings of each moment in the book.
October 14, 2012
The novel was overly descriptive of the Irish setting. I felt the pacing was a bit slow and that the plot would have been improved by more insights into the lives of Minnie's children. Minnie as a character was quite static and feeding off of her, the novel was trapped in a lengthy doldrum.
November 2, 2012
This was one of the more difficult books that I've read. The writing style, though commendable, was not to my liking. I really disliked most of the characters, except for the main one, and found the situations more annoying than anything. I would not recommend this to anyone for a "light" read.
March 28, 2012
Very wordy, very Irish, story eventually draws you in can't help but think about how the handicapped author wrote it.
March 31, 2012
A sweet story and prose that reads like poetry.
March 6, 2015
Beautiful!!!
April 30, 2017
A book about an Irish widow and written in "Irish brogue," I found it along at times. It's a sweet story though about a tenacious woman who knows her purpose despite what her kids and those around her think.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews