Brooklyn

Who could have thought that the book that got adapted to a beautiful film with Saoirse Ronan would be such a flop? There are only a few films that are a lot better than the novel they're based on. "Brooklyn" by Colm Tóibín is such a rare example.
Where the film is heartfelt and deep, the book is cold and superficial. Where the film version of Eilis is headstrong and certain, she never makes a decision of her own accord. Book Eilis always go down the easiest route and doubts every choice she made. She seems so content with letting everything just happen to her. She doesn't have any chemistry with her love interests and is so bleak overall that I can't comprehend why everybody seems so enamoured with her. And don't get me started on every scene that was remotely sexual. That was the cringiest shit that I ever read!
I loved her relationship with Rose, though. Whenever Rose was concerned, those parts were very emotional for me.

In short: Do yoursel a favour and just watch the film.

A friend of mine reads recaps of television shows she likes before she sees them. That makes no sense to me. Half the fun of most shows is being surprised by how the story plays out. Will this be the episode in which the seven castaways get off the island? Will Jan make peace with herself and realize that even though she’s not Marcia, she’s nonetheless a worthy human being this week? Will Rhoda find true love?

It can be hard to avoid spoilers when a book has been made into a successful movie. Hard, but possible. I don’t watch TV and the trailer for Brooklyn wasn’t the kind of trailer movie theaters show before The Revenant. I take spoiler avoidance to extremes and avoid reading even the dust jacket of books I’ve selected. Over the years, I’ve gotten disciplined enough to not have to remove them or struggle to keep them out of my vision. In the case of Colm Tóibín’s novel, however, I wish I had.

I couldn’t figure out when it was taking place. There may have been clues that escaped me because of my lack of historical knowledge, but wherever they are I don’t think they’re in the first thirty pages. On the back of my 2012 paperback edition it says it takes place “in the hard years following World War Two,” but I only read that after I finished the book. I’d read nearly half the novel thinking it took place after the first world war, not the second, because the language, manner and customs of the main characters were much closer to Downton Abbey than to Happy Days. It’s not until the 125th page of this 262-page novel that a minor character makes it clear that it’s post WWII, and nearly 20 pages later when you can tag it to a specific year: 1952. (You know this because some of the characters see the movie Singin’ In the Rain.)

Not that this detracts from the book, it’s just a personal qualm. Tóibín’s prose is gentle and precise, yet reading Brooklyn is invigorating. It’s as if Tóibín has chronicled the life of a favorite aunt who emigrated from Ireland during that time period and he’s worked hard to bring her to life. He does. By the end of the book, you know Eilis well and feel genuine suspense as she has to make the most important decision of her life.

A fringe benefit to Brooklyn is that it deals with immigration and how newcomers assimilate into new countries. Granted, it doesn’t cover the issues as they stand now—Eilis does not practice a religion that has an extremist faction that practices terrorism against the West, and she requires no social services. Brooklyn does, however, show a real person with real dreams and hopes as she makes her way in the strange new world she begins to regard as home.

Brooklyn is captivating and beautifully told. It's a brief and spare account of a young Irish immigrant, Eilis Lacey, making her way alone in Brooklyn after WWII.

I'm becoming a fan of this author. In my frequent complaints about the seemingly requisite shock value featured in too many modern novels, Tóibín's fiction is an example of how to do it right. Few of us are molded by experiences of extreme upheavals, instead becoming fascinating and varied individuals in response to tame and relatively unvaried experiences. We construct our natures over the course of decades, choosing when to be passive, when to struggle, to some extent when to suffer and when to savor and celebrate. You might want to shake Eilis on occasion, when she's more acted upon than acting, but that's likely to be true of those surrounding you, as well.

Tóibín seems to be almost uniquely aware that this evolution of the individual can be subtly and simply and poignantly portrayed. Five stars.