This is a book chosen for us to read at the bookclub I attend. I’ve not read any other books by this author but this one sounds very interesting, being set in Ireland in the 1950s and with the main character Eilis emigrating to Brooklyn, which seems very courageous of her and courageous of her family too in parting with her, and it will be nice to learn about both Ireland and Brooklyn at that time.
This is a book chosen for us to read at the bookclub I attend. I’ve not read any other books by this author but this one sounds very interesting, being set in Ireland in the 1950s and with the main character Eilis emigrating to Brooklyn, which seems very courageous of her and courageous of her family too in parting with her, and it will be nice to learn about both Ireland and Brooklyn at that time.
Due to the lack of jobs in Ireland, Eilis’ sister, Rose, arranges for a priest to sponsor Eilis to emigrate to Brooklyn as it has a similar feel to Ireland and there are lots of opportunities there, so Eilis leaves her mother and sister to go there. She arrives in America, after a rough sea crossing, and gets a job there, and begins a relationship with a man called Tony. She then learns that her sister has died so goes back to Ireland (after first secretly marrying Tony), and falls in love with Jim there, and is then torn with whether to stay in Ireland with her mother and Jim or go back to America and Tony, finally deciding on the latter.
Well, firstly I’m going to say that I’m disappointed in my own stark review of this book, but unfortunately that’s how I felt about the book in general, ie, I struggled with what I felt was its starkness! I really wanted and expected fuller descriptions of the emotions felt by Eilis, as those events that she went through were huge and life-changing so I thought there would be lots of detail about the turmoil of emotions she felt, but surprisingly the book seemed to me to be mostly just bare stark facts being stated with hardly any description of feelings or emotions, and what was described in that way was done very briefly. I’m puzzling why it was written like this, as I’m sure the very highly regarded author had a reason for it. Was this reserve with the discussion of feelings perhaps an accurate portrayal of how Irish people were in the 1950s, did they often prefer not to express their feelings so therefore to have the characters do so in the book would be a false depiction of how things actually were (I don’t know enough about 1950s Ireland to be able to judge if this was the case or not, though it would be interesting to look into)? Or did the author, as a male, perhaps struggle to express how a young girl might feel, and perhaps there would have been more description of feelings and emotions if the main character had been a male? Or perhaps the author left out these emotional details as he wanted the readers to interpret Eilis’ feelings for themselves, perhaps based on their own experiences? If the latter, then I am left suspecting that I am perhaps quite shallow and lacking in the ability to interpret things as the author hoped I would, tee hee, as I just found it frustrating! This lack of emotional description made it hard for me to connect with Eilis and to care about her, and even to like her. And I did really want to like Eilis and to feel like I knew her and was sharing her adventures and her troubles with her. This probably sounds silly (!) as obviously Eilis is a fictional character, but when I’m reading a book I feel like the characters really lived so I felt quite sad for Eilis, like the author wasn’t being quite fair to her (!) as her story wasn’t being told fully without her emotions being detailed and I wasn’t able to fully get to know her! Admittedly, I can see sometimes that her actions displayed her emotions to a degree, which makes me wonder again if the author felt like the reader could gain enough of an insight from this and perhaps didn’t want to spell things out for the reader and just trusted them to interpret how Eilis felt just from this description of the action. But I just wanted more, tee hee, as I wasn’t able to interpret how Eilis felt! One thing I really felt cheated by, and am finding it hard to let go of (!), was the lack of details of the goodbyes when Eilis left Ireland, surely these partings from her mum and sister must have been hugely traumatic for Eilis (and for them). I did wonder if the author meant to imply that Eilis had tried to conceal her emotions from her mum and sister so as to minimise their worry and distress, but if this was the case then I’d have expected her inner feelings to be detailed in the book to the reader (perhaps I’m being too demanding, tee hee, but I just really wanted this aspect of the book to be included!). Also her arrival in America wasn’t dealt with either, her thoughts and feelings and fears at how overwhelming and exciting it was.
I did notice that the book made me feel a range of strong emotions, so perhaps this was the author’s clever intention, that the lack of emotions described for the characters then enabled the reader to try and put themselves in the characters’ places and then feel the emotions themselves? For example, at the end I was extremely worried that Eilis would stay in Ireland with her mother rather than going back to America and Tony, and I felt strongly that I didn’t want her to sacrifice her happiness for her mother so I was extremely relieved that she chose to go back to America. However, I was then strongly disappointed at how grudgingly she decided to go to America, like she had no choice and that Tony was forcing her to come back there, and I felt strongly disapproving of how easily she decided that she didn’t now love Tony and fell in love with Jim, and I was strongly disapproving too of how she hurt Jim so unnecessarily when she should never have got involved with him in the first place. I didn’t like the way Eilis behaved in Ireland with Jim, choosing to enter into a relationship with him and hurting him as well as being disloyal to Tony, it seemed to me like she just thought that she could easily replace her job and husband in America with another of each in Ireland and was tempted easily by that convenience! I did try to imagine how difficult it was for her to be torn between her mother and Jim and Tony, between Ireland and America, but then I just felt angry and frustrated at her all over again! So I definitely felt a range of strong emotions with this section of the book which was interesting to observe in myself! And this made me admire the cleverness of this writing, as the book certainly had the ending I wanted but then there was the twist that this ending didn’t bring me the happiness and satisfaction I had thought it would!
And while I’m detailing my feelings about the ending, I have to come back yet again (!) to my frustration at what wasn’t shared with the reader and my puzzlement again at why the author did this (though I see there is a sequel to Brooklyn, so perhaps it was written like this because the detail is included in the sequel…I do hope so!), as I’d like to have known how Eilis greeted Tony when she got back to America, did her love for him come flooding back when she saw him and they lived happily ever after, or was she sulky and distant to him, resentful for him loving her and her feeling like she had to go back to him, and did he see those feelings of resentfulness (though we didn’t, tee hee!) and was hurt by them, and their relationship then damaged? It’s such an important scene but was dealt with using such sparse detail, which again sums up the book for me in general. I really would have liked the opportunity to understand Eilis better and to like her, though I realise that I probably sound a little naive as we don’t like everyone in life, do we, so perhaps I’m just not destined to like this character, but I always find it hard to fully engage with and enjoy a book when I don’t like the character.
And one other final query I am left pondering about, what happened in that scene with Miss Fortini and the swimming costume, what was that about?!
I’m obviously keen to read the sequel to this book, Long Island, and to find out what happened to Eilis and Tony. And I’m also keen to read some of the author’s other books in order to see if his writing style is the same as in Brooklyn, particularly another book set in Ireland in order to see if there are then differences in the writing and inclusion of emotional description, and The Blackwater Lightship is set in Ireland and sounds an interesting book. Also The Testament of Mary sounds a very unusual book, being about the Virgin Mary, and The Magician sounds a similarly fascinating book all about Thomas Mann (who I hadn’t heard of before but have now learnt from looking on Wikipedia that he was a German novelist of great influence), so the author seems to enjoy writing about a wide range of subjects.
Yes, yes yes! I agree. Really unsatisfying. I wondered too about his inability to accurately portray a woman. The lack of emotional depth, the ridiculous descriptions of the physical scenes (miss Fortini as well as with Tony and Jim) are awkward and unbelievable.The more I think about it the more disappointed I become. There are so many loose ends:the unread letters from Tony, their reactions to seeing each other again, whether Miss Kelly’s gossip to Mrs Kehoe wrecks her and Tony’s relationship, as well as Jim’s reaction to her leaving. I can cope with a little ambiguity but this was too much!
Thanks so much for your comment. I definitely appreciate loose ends being tied up in a book. Just like you, I can cope with a little ambiguity but not too much!