I have read Brooklyn already about 7 or 8 months ago so I might give it another scan soon. I saw Colm Tóibín reading from it at the Dublin Writers Festival and he was wonderful so I am looking forward to watching the interview linked above.

Will you be discussing the book here in comments or anywhere else?

My two cents? I don’t feel like Eilis ever made a choice. She just coasted along through the whole book without taking responsibility for any of her decisions. Her choice, in a sense, was made for her by the auld one in the shop who basically threatened to rat her out, and there was nothing left to do but go.
Throughout the book, my main gripe was with Eilis’s character: she didn’t seem to have any backbone, or any desire or ambition of her own, outside of what was expected or planned for her.
There were no real goodbyes, but that was because to say goodbye you have to make an active choice: to leave. She just kind of toddled along, falling into these departures without thinking them through or deciding who she needed to say goodbye to, or what preparations needed to be made.
(Aside from Eilis’s insipid character, I really did quite enjoy the book, in defence of that rant!)

While I didn’t particularly like the way in which Eilis falls back into routine life in Enniscorthy towards the end, I wasn’t overly surprised by it. She belonged there, for so long she didn’t know anything but life there. She was safe there, had a purpose in being there, particularly with her sister gone.

Yes, she cruised through her life in the book without taking responsibility for her actions a lot of the time but that all changes at the end. I felt as though she stood up and took charge of her life, almost as if she was done cruising along and wanted to take a stand. That’s why she made the choice to return to Brooklyn.

In Brooklyn she went about life because she had to, in Enniscorthy she went about life because she wanted to. But this is flipped around at the end; she realised that she wanted to be in Brooklyn even though perhaps she needed to be in Enniscorthy with her mother.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, definitely the best read I’ve had in a long time.

great idea. loved ‘the master’ and been meaning to read ‘brooklyn’ for ages, thanks for the push. look forward to discussions.

I normally like Colm Toibín’s work but I found Brooklyn quite different.I thought the characters were rather stage irish and stereotypical.

Delighted with choice of book. It is on my reading list and having read comments I can’t wait to get started,

Best of luck with the Book Club, Rosita. I’ll tell my mum. (She got Brooklyn for Christmas.) Will Colm Tóibín be joining in the conversation (formally or informally) at some point? I’d imagine he won’t be able to resist reading the comments. What a fascinating, potentially painful, potentially enlightening gift for a writer – a month of analysis and feedback from a rake of readers. A real pity writers can’t get that in advance of publication, when there’s still time to revise, clarify, and fine-tune…

The ending:

I didn’t like the ending but having thought about it at the time I decided that Eilis did the only thing that she could do given the circumstances. She probably would never marry her Enniscorthy beau. His mother might have seen to that! She then would spend her years looking after and living with her mother.

We must rembember the story is set in the 50s. She chose marriage and returned to Brooklyn. A wise decision.

HI folks, some very interesting comments already coming in. Thanks to you all for the good wishes.

Eleanor F wonders if “her story is the classic emigrant’s tale so familiar to us but perhaps a revelation to an international audience.” This novel has been really successful in the US, and maybe as Eleanor says, that is one reason? The graphic projectile vomiting in the cabins during the crossing was a a new dimension to the process of exile on me. I wonder how he researched those scenes.

Jenny says she didn’t like the book at all, and found it very stereotypical.So for her, she wasn’t convinced by it at all. Are we less interested in what’s so seemingly familiar to us?

“Her choice, in a sense, was made for her by the auld one in the shop who basically threatened to rat her out, and there was nothing left to do but go,” says Rosemary M, which has to be the most entertaining synopsis of the novel thus far.

Julian G asks if Colm will be engaged in the conversation. Yes, he will. He’s agreed to answer questions that you put to him. We’ll publish a selection of the Q and A in the paper at the end of Feb, and all the discussion about the book will be archived online. Get Mammy Gough contributing online to the discussion.

Great idea to have a book club…I read “Brooklyn” about 8 months ago and loved it…You ask about the ending… it was the correct ending and while it went with a whimper rather than a bang it was all the more effective because of that…Also, at the end I changed my opinion of Mammy (whom I hated up till the last 2 pages).Are American men really THAT into baseball?..Mrs Keogh was a nosey, manipulative aul bitch ..couldn’t you have throttled her…

Hi Rosita
And thanks for starting this online book club. The Book club I am involved with met in the local library till it closed for refurbishment, so I am currently at a loss. Your initiative will help fill the gap.

I read “Brooklyn” for Ryan Tubridy’s book club and was seriously unimpressed. The ‘choice’ apparently open to Eilis at the end of the book was nothing of the kind. Remember this is 1950’s Ireland we are talking about. What are the chances of a divorced woman (which Eilis would have to be) being allowed to marry the only son of the town publican. When we remember that this is the diocese of Ferns, where in the late ’50s a boycott of Protestant businesses was organised because of a decision by a couple in a mixed marriage not to educate their children as Catholics, the possibility of a choice disappears. In that particular instance, the ‘auld one in the shop’, Miss Kelly did Eilis a favour by allowing her see the reality of her situation.
Aside from this, I was disappointed by the story, though it did seem to say an enormous amount about the lack of communication within Irish culture, as epitomised by the Lacey family: the children are not told of their father’s illness; the brothers in Birmingham cannot bring themselves to tell those back home about the reality of their lives in England; Rose, Eilis’s beloved sister, tells no one of her serious illness; finally when Eilis comes home, she fully intends to return to New York, while her mother (and the rest of Eniscorthy) believes her home for good.

The book was also excellent on small town life with its ‘twopence looking down on three ha’pennies’ attitudes. Eilis and her family are not immune to this – witness Eilis’s attitude to Mary (her co-worker in the shop) or Rose’s response when she realises that Eilis is dating a tradesman. It is an attitude that infects the Irish wherever Toibin portrays them (witness the attitude of the tenants in the house to the new arrival). Toibin is also very good on the attitudinal differences between Americans and the Irish as exemplified by the ambitions of Tony’s family.

The real problem for me was with the characterisations. They are too stereotypical – the nosy shop-keeper; the kindly priest; the caring sister; etc. Particularly problematic is the character of Eilis – she never takes the initiative about anything – others suggest and she goes along with it, though one gets a sense that she herself is unhappy with this outlook. Even crossing the Church hall, the night she meets Tony, is spurred, not by her own need to widen her circle of friends so much as her growing abhorrence of her companion, Dolores.

I have read other Toibin novels and I know that he can draw realistic female characters. This time he failed spectacularly. Quite honestly, I do not understand how he won the Costa Fiction prize.
Thanks again for the Book C

How great to hear from readers like Breda who were so happy with Eilis’s final choice. It reminded me of how on tenterhooks I was coming to the end of the novel…But lots of people felt the opposite about the ending [than I did]
and here is where you really see Toibin’s gift; making his readers care so much about his character.

Fascinated at Eleanor F’s suggested that Rose might have been gay and at Julian G’s observations of what it might be like for a writer to read a rake of analysis on their novel from readers through an online book club like this one.. And Shirley M’s point is great – that an online book club could be ideal for a reader not that able to get out and about.

I think the bookclub is a great idea,as our bookclub has just finished ? reason

Delighted about the launch. Purchased Brooklyn today and will be starting it tonight.

Hi Rosita
I find it strange that you you start a book read by asking people about the last chapter and without any ’spoilers’ warnings.

brian

Hi again, all

Brian T points out – fairly – I should have raised spoiler warnings to last chapter. I guess in defence I’d say my post just raised the question of the choice Eilis made, rather than what it was, but later comments referred to what choice she made. So, many apologies to those who haven’t finished the book yet. I think though, the novel is really more about the process of arriving at the choice, rather than what the choice was that she made.

Stick with the book club! We’ll figure out the best ways to have a discussion as we go along.

Thrilled to see Shirley M’s contribution. I guess that’s what a virtual book club is all about: it doesn’t matter where you are, as Margaret D says, you can be a part of this community by logging on whenever you have a chance.

Breda I – have no worries about thinking your comments mightn’t be of value. They are! This is an inclusive space. We want to hear from you all. And we’re going to be reading a range of books.

I’ll update the blog post tomorrow. Thanks again meantime to all of you for contributing, and do keep coming back!

I bought the book yesterday and finished it the same day. Though this sounds like I couldn’t leave it down, I have to admit to being disappointed with it.

The story and the language were very simple. I’m sure this was a very deliberate decision on the author’s part, but it was so pared down I felt there was something missing. In trying to capture the sometimes claustrophobic atmosphere of the 1950s, I think the author resorted a little too easily to stereotypes, like the dreaded Miss Kelly or the awful Miss McAdam. Maybe this was how they appeared to Eilis, but it felt very unsatisfying.
Some of the comments above point out that Eilis was swept along by events and didn’t appear to have a lot of drive or ambition of her own. I agree with this and actually found it quite believable, but it did make her character somewhat frustrating.
The most effective part of the novel for me was the description of her early bad bout of homesickness.
As to the ending, (**spoiler alert**) I was pleased with it. It would have been awful to think that should could have put aside her new life so easily, though she must have felt a strong sense of duty towards her mother. I can’t help feeling that the ending would have been different if she and Tony hadn’t been married.
Overall, I expected more from the book after hearing so much about it. I loved The Master and feel that Colm Toibin really showed his true colours there. I would like to read more of his books to form a more rounded opinion of his work.
The bookclub is a great idea, Rosita, and I’m looking forward to continuing to contribute to it.

Its on my to-read list, great excuse to go and get it now. Irish Times book club is a great idea

Toibin’s work is light and insubstantial. His themes are not new and his take on them not entirely convincing either.

I have yet to see him push the envelope on form, dialogue, characterisation, imagery, tone and style.

The one thing I like about his work is his pacing which is very good indeed. It could do with more ballast and a more authentic voice from the central characters.

Rosita , best of luck with the book club, I love the idea of getting all these opinions on the book, especially as I am a lazy reader, I just read, enjoy and forget but from now on I am going to have to think a little bit too! I worry for Eilis on her return to Brookyln, I just think she will forever regret her decision.

Hi Rosita , the IT bookclub is a great idea looking forward to reading the various comments in the weeks ahead . Re; “Brooklyn” bought it before Christmas after hearing a radio interview by Colm Toibin. Must say I was disappointed was expecting a heavier read !.perhaps I rushed it ; read it through in two days. Having said that, I was a teenager of the 50’s and took the emigrant route directly from college and so could empatise with the storyline . CT captured the mood of the time and the loneliness of the emigrant arriving in a strange city – I liked how the story developed but the ending left me up in the air – there has to be followup surely ? I will have to read it again, slowly this time.

With regard to the comment about Rosita printing spoilers, I think this was rather unjustified. I have only just started Brooklyn so I am scanning comments – obviously if you start reading in depth, plot details are going to be revealed …

I’m a fan of Colm Toibin’s- I absolutely loved “The Master” and think it should have won the Man Booker. But I found Brooklyn quite disappointing. Some of the descriptions of social niceties in 50s Enniscorthy were interesting, but I felt he failed to bring New York to life at all. The photography exhibition “Picturing New York” now at Imma succeeds in showing the liveliness of the city far better than the novel. We discussed it at our own book club and nearly everyone found it lacklustre.

It’s a great idea to have a bookclub online like this – I am in a bookclub locally which is great – we did Tóibín’s The Blackwater Lightship and loved it unanimously, but as we have a rule not to repeat authors (as it is so tempting to repeat favourites) Brooklyn won’t get read by our club. I just finished our local library copy. I loved the flow of the language, languid and very evocative of what I imagine life in Wexford must have been like in the 50s or 60s (I was a child in the 60s so I can vaguely relate to it) but I haven’t ever been to Brooklyn so can’t relate there.

I felt he drew a vivid picture of the life of the Irish emigrant there and the claustrophobia that prevailed in Eilís’s life at the boarding house and in her job. I don’t know if the character of Eilís was really credible and she irritated me a lot with her passivity. Her relationship with Tony seemed so doomed to failure in the long term – I would love to revisit them a decade or two down the line. Shades of Charming Billy in the beach scenes, a book we read in our book club which seriously divided opinion – does the emigrant fare better in an Irish ghetto or by integrating?

I read all of Tóibín’s books except The Master and loved them; this one was a bit too stereotypical. Glad I’m not the only one here thinking Rose and Miss Fortini might have been closet Lesbians. Won’t say more as there are enough Spoiler Alerts already in the above comments!

I look forward to the book club progression and best of luck with it – thanks Rosita for starting it up.

Great Idea this book club. Really enjoyed all the other comments. I read Brooklyn a year ago and was disappointed. Actually I was shocked at how well reviewed and lauded it was considering its quality. None of the depth or thoughtfulness of the Master was present in this work. I felt that the story never went anywhere. It skimmed the surface and relied on cliches throughout. The best parts were the visceral descriptions of the actual boat journey to America. Here Toibin had me gripped and interested and I felt that journey was a genuine piece of inspired writing. However, none of the characters or even the plot lines went anywhere. They were curtailed and suffocated in dreary prose as soon as they began.
The scene where in Brooklyn where the woman in the shop made a pass at her as she was trying on swimsuits was intriguing. I waited for something to follow. Nothing did. Nothing followed all throughout the book. I was left with a feeling of a bland, opaque world populated with cardboard cut-outs of stock characters – the priest, the Mammy, the Italian lover, the small town bar owner.
The plot was reminiscent of a Mauve Binchy type novel. Who will the good little Irish girl marry? Which cardigan will Mammy wear today? (There actually is a discussion of cardigans!) But I felt Binchy would have done more justice to her characters. This book was a poor follow up to the brilliant Master. As a gifted artist, Toibin has it in him to write at a higher level. He needs to delve deeper into himself and not just coast on his established reputation.

Have yet to read the book

Not Toibin at his best. Having read and really enjoyed some of his earlier work and of course the Master, Brooklyn on the whole was rather disappointing. It just didn’t ring true.

There is so much I agree and disagree with in the comments.It makes me laugh to hear that Rose was gay. The word was not invented in the 60’s,(o.k. maybe by Oscar Wilde).

Some of the views scare me they look so deep in to the characters. Are we supposed to do that.? My view for what its worth is he captures small town Ireland so well and the people who lived there.I’m enjoying reading comments but best thing it has giving me the confidence to join a book club. Please dont be offended but I come from an age when we like to talk face to face!
Good Luck with this though and hope it does well.

This book club is a great idea for those of us who love talking and arguing about books but can’t get to a book club due to other commitments. I’m excited.

Just reading and enjoying the book.

I read Brooklyn about a year ago and while I think it is well written in did not engage me as the writer’s previous work has done, in particular, The Blackwater Lightship.

I also emigrated in the 50’s and I kept waiting for Eilis to wake up and show the reader what it was like to lose the landscape of your life and to emigrate. I expect I’m in the minority here. The book club is a brilliant idea. Gabrielle Monaghan

Got Brooklyn for Christmas as well and had looked forward to reading it but am finding Eilis an uninspiring, insipid character who is so passive that she drives me mad! So far in my reading there is no real evidence that she takes any control of her life or acts on her own wishes or feelings. In fact we get to know very little of what she feels and thinks about anything. She seems to have very few thoughts of her own,,,,

My comments are very general so are added to the longest sequence.

I was tempted to drop this book after about 100 pages but decided to go on just to see where Eilis ended up. I’m glad I did as I eventually came to see her lack of dynamism, her willingness to just go along with things around her, as not so much an irritant but as the frame on which her vulnerability was stretched. It’s her very ‘ordinariness’ that allows her to be swept along so easily and makes her destiny that wee bit harder to guess. You felt that in resolving her ultimate dilemma, albeit with a little external pressure and even her mammy’s reluctant blessing, that that might just be the making of her.

Clearly the brothers weren’t going to deviate one bit from the life they were establishing in England so Eilis had a life-defining problem to address. But besides the circumstantial pressures she must have had some ambition anyway, to go through the grind of three or four night classes a week to be a, what, book-keeper? – think 1950s ambition here. Will her Italian family become the building and property magnates that they dream of being? Will Eilis become the book-keeper, then accountant, then financial director of this empire? If she doesn’t it’ll be because she eventually opted for a life raising second generation Irish-Italian kids on stories about the auld sod and coortin’ on Coney Island. Either outcome would be a step up from Enniscorthy.

Is it a realistic depiction of 50s Brooklyn and Enniscorthy? I think the scale of everything is just right – dreamt-of but limited ambitions, a racism born out of unfamiliarity, a one-step-at-a-time approach to life and love, the dourness and drudgery of Monday to Friday, the first green shoots of a generation gap in popular culture, the discomfort of trans-atlantic travel, the fear of being left behind. I take the point many have made about the viability of hopping on a boat back home at short notice, but I didn’t bat an eyelid at the time. At the end of the day it’s a work of fiction, not a social history but there’s enough there to evoke rather than describe 1950s Brooklyn and Enniscorthy.

I think it works well in that understated McGahern-esque way. A story of very ordinary lives in very ordinary circumstances which contain within them the accidents of fate and the half-made decisions that make tragedies and as well as dreams come true. It is from this that the narrative tension derives as well as the distance between our world and that of Eilis. For many Irish readers of a certain age I think there will also be a ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ element which is equally compelling. I am glad I persevered and equally glad that this book club came along just in time to help out with this interpretation!

Really, I don’t get all the hype about this book. Shock! Horror! Eilis goes to New York, and SPOILER ALERT, gets laid.

Has this type of 1950’s Irish woman not been explored a million times in a million better ways than this? Left me cold.

Best of luck to the Book Club though. Great idea.

It’s fascinating to read the comments so far…I’m a librarian at a large public library in a NY suburb. Brooklyn has been a huge hit here, both among readers of literary fiction and among those who are looking for something “Irish” to read. (No implication these are 2 separate groups!)

I recommend the book often and notice that it is as popular with men as with women, not usually the case with a book with a female protagonist. This speaks volumes about Toibin’s skill in drawing Eilis, who’s been roundly criticized as “passive” as a universal character.

As we say here all the time “It is what it is” or, more fittingly, “It was what is was.”

Delighted you are starting an on-line book club! I’m getting so frustrated by my own book club only spending twenty minutes discussing the book, followed by two hours of drinking wine and gossipping about nothing.

Loved Brooklyn. Love Colm Toibin. Have only read Blackwater Lightship, The Master and The Heather Blazing. I’ll read more of his now. Thank you for the book club I’ve been meaning to join one for ages and never got round to it.

Looking forward to the next book

Fascinating to see we have a reader, Therese P, who is a librarian in New York and reporting, that “Brooklyn has been a huge hit here, both among readers of literary fiction and among those who are looking for something “Irish” to read. (No implication these are 2 separate groups!)

“I recommend the book often and notice that it is as popular with men as with women, not usually the case with a book with a female protagonist.”

Are there any librarians in Ireland in the club, who’d like to offer comment on what borrowers here are saying about Brooklyn?

I really enjoyed the book, read it in one day, which is a rarity for me. I loved the language and tone, found it totally engrossing and evocative of the era and places. Instructive in a way for us ‘modern women’? I was quite satisfied with the ending, that local fella didn’t deserve her and there was plenty of promise for her back with Tony in NY, who I imagine she grew to love and share the joy of parenthood with!!?

I am only half way through the novel. Sometimes it seems almost like a play. I am questioning Fr. Flood’s motivation but is that modern day cynicism? I wish I could have heard the song being sung at the Christmas Dinner.

Hi. The bookclub sounds great. Am wondering if there is to be an Irish connection to the novels you choose – either by author or setting – or is it going to be a lot more random than that? I love novels with a strong sense of place, so I’d certainly be happy for an Irish bent to the club.

Packabook (nice name – we like that ethos!) asks if we are concentating only on books with Irish connections in the Book Club. No, we’ll definitely be looking at some Irish books, but not exclusively so.

Orla, we haven’t yet decided what March’s book is going to be, nor when we’ll announce it – I guess it’s a balance between making sure people have time to go out and get the book, and that we finish up discussing one before starting on the next, which could get messy!

For the first couple of months, we want to try and build the community, so don’t expect anything too obscure – yet!

Hello everyone at Irish Times Book Club
I am part of a very small book club comprising six members. We read Colm Toibin’s book last May. There was a very mixed reception with some loving it and the others being disappointed. There was a general concensus that the book was entertaining although sometimes not very engaging.

It is great to read the comments from everyone else. It brings the book alive again and offers fresh outlooks which I hadn’t considered before.

Best of luck with the book club.

I enjoyed this novel for what it was, a depiction of the ordinary concerns and experiences of a small town girl in Ireland and America. I liked all the characterisations in the book, especially Father Flood and Mrs Kehoe. I got the impression at the end that Eilis didn’t really know what she wanted. Perhaps everything moved too quickly for her with Tony who I think took advantage of her when she was vulnerable after her sister’s death. The fact that they got married before she left for Ireland made it easier for the author to resolve the ending.

In response to Mairead’s post above – no, you are not driving me mad with your suggestions – very much welcomed. In answer to the last part – we will, from time to time, definitely be choosing a classic, but probably no more than one a year. The focus will be on contemporary fiction, across the genres.

Re all the other points – thank you very much – I’m mulling! What started as a blog seems to be evolving into a discussion board, which are two different things. Stick with us, and keep talking to me, folks – this is your book club and we want to make it work

I read Brooklyn and can’t see what all the fuss was about. I’m from Scotland and I’ve noticed in Ireland there’s such a distinction between Chick Lit and other literature, but if a woman wrote this it would be considered Chick lit, both thematically and in terms of the writing. Ireland has a history of writers who take literary risks. Where are they now in your mainstream?

ICongratulations on your book club
I read Brooklyn on holidays last summer
It is an easy book to read
What surprised me that it was written by a man
I will have a look over it again

Hi Rosita,

Just a thought… (yes, from time to time, I do have one of them !!!!) would it be more user friendly to have last messages posted top down on the page?

Take care.

Paddy

The comparisons of the book to chick-lit is grossly unfair and misdirected.