Brooklyn in Constant Reader

Jun 03, 2017 Linda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2017, audio, ill-chcpl, book-discussion-read

What a sweet story of a young girl who emigrates from Ireland to (surprise!) Brooklyn. She leaves behind her mother and adored older sister as well as her brothers and friends to forge a path in the New World, with a new job, new living arrangements, and new friends. Eilis is an honorable lass who tries to keep all right with her world, but it isn't always easy.
This book rings so true. I loved it. ...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Laura rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-books, contemporary-fiction, book-and-movie, irish-literature, read-2015, impac-dublin

From BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime:
Niamh Cusack reads Colm Toibin's story of duty, love and a girl who moved from the south of Ireland to seek a new life in New York in the 1950s.

The novel opens in the small town of Enniscorthy in the south east of Ireland in the early 1950s. Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who can find no work. Her three brothers have already left to seek their fortunes in England; she, her sister Rose and her widowed mother are all that remain at home.

When a pr From BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime:
Niamh Cusack reads Colm Toibin's story of duty, love and a girl who moved from the south of Ireland to seek a new life in New York in the 1950s.

The novel opens in the small town of Enniscorthy in the south east of Ireland in the early 1950s. Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who can find no work. Her three brothers have already left to seek their fortunes in England; she, her sister Rose and her widowed mother are all that remain at home.

When a priest comes home from America for a holiday, he recognises both Eilis' plight and her potential.

2/10: Prompted by Father Flood, home from America for a holiday, Rose sets about organising her younger sister. Almost before she knows it, or has had time to say goodbye, Eilis is crossing the Atlantic, heading for a job on the shop floor of a Brooklyn department store, lodgings with an Irish landlady and a brand new life.

3/10: Eilis has lodgings with an Irish landlady and a job on the shop floor of a department store. Every day a whole world of things are new, but letters from home remind her of just what she is missing.

4/10: Christmas looms, as Eilis struggles to adapt to her new life in a city far from home. But she is not the only member of the Irish diaspora feeling homesick - helping Father Flood tend to his flock brings comfort and cheer.

5/10: As Bartocci's opens its doors to all customers, whatever their colour, Eilis fights the prejudice of her fellow lodgers. Even at Father Flood's Irish dance night, not everyone is Irish.

6/10: As Eilis' romance with Tony Fiorello blossoms, life in Brooklyn takes on a new rhythm and it is time for Eilis to experience her first Italian meal.

7/10: Tony takes Eilis for a trip to Coney Island to celebrate her exam success. But Eilis' new found happiness is short-lived, as news from home turns her American life sour.

8/10: Eilis' happiness in Brooklyn has been shattered by the news of her beloved sister's death and Tony is the only one who can offer her comfort.

9/10: Following her sister's death, Eilis returns to her lonely mother in Enniscorthy for a month's visit. Once there it is hard to tell the truth about her last action in America, and harder still to resist the lure of the familiar

10/10: Home for a holiday and to comfort her grieving mother, Eilis has been unable to resist the lure of the familiar. Meanwhile, Tony waits for her in Brooklyn.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k8759

4* Nora Webster
3* The Master
3* Brooklyn
TBR The Heather Blazing
TBR The Testament of Mary
TBR The Blackwater Lightship ...more

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Jun 05, 2016 Paige rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5

Sometimes the very last page of the book changes the way you feel about the entire thing. That was the case for me with Brooklyn. I ended up liking this book way more than I thought I would even when I was 80% of the way through. I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, and I thought this novel was mostly bland--Toibin is not the sort of author who writes an engaging or interesting description of bookkeeping, working on the shop floor, or even boardinghouse drama, and yet that is what he cho 3.5

Sometimes the very last page of the book changes the way you feel about the entire thing. That was the case for me with Brooklyn. I ended up liking this book way more than I thought I would even when I was 80% of the way through. I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, and I thought this novel was mostly bland--Toibin is not the sort of author who writes an engaging or interesting description of bookkeeping, working on the shop floor, or even boardinghouse drama, and yet that is what he chooses to put on the page. I think this would have made an excellent short story, but I did not find enough good material here to stretch to 250 pages.

The book starts slow and stays slow--I would even say dull. Although I liked what Toibin ultimately did with some of the themes--permanence and memory and identity and inevitability and decision-making (is decision-making a theme? let's say it is)--these didn't seem to emerge until near the end of the book. There was a lot of set up and the pay off, while satisfying, was too little too late for me to really embrace this book. The writing was stiff, it seemed like it was at this odd distance, like there was a barrier that, except in a few rare cases, prevented me from feeling emotion in relation to the characters, which in turn prevented attachment to them. I never really got a sense of Eilis, the main character, and although that may have been intentional, it did make for a frustrating reading experience. The book ended up being more complex and satisfying than I thought it would be for the first 90% of it, but it still lacked a certain depth throughout.

Eilis was so very passive, and part of what this book explores is a shifting sense of self, how people change based on context, and passivity/restraint. So with a changing context and an indecisive character, I can see how she may not have a sense of her own self. However, she seemed such a weak character; there are characters who are indecisive or struggling with identity that the reader nonetheless gets a very strong sense of, because they are written effectively (Holden Caulfield comes to mind). Eilis, I'm sorry to say, was kind of boring, because the writing used in her story was kind of boring. There was a lot of "not going to think about this lalala," "not going to think about that lalala," and I didn't understand where the need for this avoidance was coming from. Are we supposed to think that all women in the 1950s were this restrained? Or is it supposed to be an Irish thing? Or a combination? There weren't enough clues to evoke a setting where this sort of behavior was necessary or common, and in fact there are a couple indications that this restraint was not a characteristic for women, Irish people, Irish women, Irish women immigrants, etc., across the board, which makes Eilis's insistent passivity seem in further need of development or explaining. Is she afraid? Of what? Why?

After letting the book settle for a couple days, I'm wondering if I should bump it up to 4 stars... however, despite the fact that there's more to it than how it appears at first, and despite appreciating what it did well, I still found it to be missing something important. ...more

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Feb 18, 2010 Dree rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-reads

I did like this book, but I suspect in a month I won't even remember it.

Even though it SHOULD have been heartbreaking, I didn't find it to be so. I couldn't really relate to Eilis. I found her a little too passive--things happened TO her, she didn't make them happen. In her going to America, her relationships in her boarding house, her moving into the basement, her relationships with Tony and Jim, with her employers in Ireland and Brooklyn, her relationships with Rose and her mother--she makes n ...more

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Apr 14, 2010 Beth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I couldn't put this book down. It is so perfectly written and the characters so real. Loved it. ...more

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Mar 21, 2010 Wendy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, immigrant-experience

Builds slowly - however it is a beautifully written, coming of age novel with well-developed characters living in a time when things were not as simple as we may sometimes like to believe.

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Oct 13, 2016 Kathy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-non-mystery-fiction, x-feb-16-thru-jan-17

Saw the movie, had to read the book. The two forms are just about equal in character and storyline, and I honestly can't say which was "better." ...more

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