Brooklyn

In my previous post I mentioned that I wasn't that impressed by Brooklyn, a novel by Irish writer Colm Toibin. Although the story gets off to a very slow start, it does pick up its pace in the second half but still not much really happens.

I had never read anything by Toibin before, in fact I had never even heard of the man but apparently he has quite a reputation. He is mainly a journalist but Brooklyn is his sixth and most successful novel to date. Toibin is openly gay and focuses a lot on homosexual identities and the Irish society. Enniscorthy County where he was born and its population frequently feature in his novels as well. He is particularly interested in people who emigrate and leave their old life behind so he can clash old and new world stories, just like in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is about Eilis Lacey, a young woman who is unable to find work in 1950s Ireland so she emigrates to New York with a little help from Father Flood and takes up a job in a department store. At night she takes classes to become a bookkeeper. It takes a while before she settles in but thanks to some new friends and a handsome Italian called Tony, she feels right at home. Then tragedy strikes (like it always does when things go great) and she must return to Ireland where things get even more complicated. Will she return to her new and beloved life in Brooklyn or will she live the life she was destined to lead?

Although many news papers proclaimed it The novel of 2009 and it won several awards, I'm still not convinced that Brooklyn is actually worthy of all the praise. It is a charming old fashioned post-war yarn that quietly muddles along no more no less. As I said the first part, actually until she gets settled in really, is incredibly slow and almost made me give up altogether but then she starts going out, meeting people and we finally get to know Eilis. Strangely enough, when she goes back to Ireland she turns into a completely different person, not in a good way, making the character development quite odd indeed. Brooklyn has many flaws but all in all it is a simple unpretentious story about a girl's journey into adulthood.