We met at Ellen’s to socialize and discuss Brooklyn, by Colm Tóibín. Ellen served delightful theme-related potato soup and homemade bread, along with other fare, inspired by the Irish main character, Eilis Lacey. Annie, Christe, Ellen, Jo, Kathy, and Nanc attended. We talked about Christe’s aggressive bees, and Paul and Marah’s plans to visit Emma in Colorado, along with a long discussion of possible upcoming books, although we only made one selection.
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| The sun had just set as we arrived at Ellen's (photo credit: Jo Smith) |
The book was set in the early 1950s, partly in Ireland and partly in Brooklyn, and follows Eilis who, as Julie noted via e-mail, "was quite weak and so influenced by whoever she was with." We all agreed that the book was relatively flat, due to Eilis’ dull life, but a pleasant enough read to finish due to it being technically well written. Kathy thought Tóibín did a credible job writing from a female perspective.
“She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything. The rooms in the house on Friary Street belonged to her, she thought; when she moved in them she was really there. In the town, if she walked to the shop or to the Vocational School, the air, the light, the ground, it was all solid and part of her, even if she met no one familiar. Nothing here was part of her. It was false, empty, she thought. She closed her eyes and tried to think, as she had done so many times in her life, of something she was looking forward to, but there was nothing. Not the slightest thing. Not even Sunday. Nothing maybe except sleep, and she was not even certain she was looking forward to sleep. In any case, she could not sleep yet, since it was not yet nine o’clock. There was nothing she could do. It was as though she had been locked away.”
We also noted that we were teased a bit with potential plot threads: a brilliant bookkeeping law professor who is impressed by her, an Italian boyfriend who looks unlike the rest of his family, the uncomfortable scene where she tries on bathing suits in front of Miss Fortini, her unpleasant landlord and her unpleasant old boss communicating and exposing her brief "double life.” But none of those story lines were pursued.
It didn’t feel like the character grew through the course of the story, but when she returned to Ireland, many friends and family members commented that she had changed.
“You have changed, “ Nancy said. “You look different. Everything about you is different, not for those who know you, but for people in town who only know you to see.”
“What’s changed?”
“You seem more grown up and serious. And in your American clothes you look different. You have an air about you.”
Linda reported via e-mail that she "enjoyed Brooklyn and it was fun to read a story of a woman fending for herself in a new country after WWll. Interesting to read how different cultures were meeting each other and breaking 'some' barriers." We agreed that the most interesting aspect of the book was reading about immigration during that era.
March meeting:
Book: Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie
Location: Julie's
Date: Thursday, April 14, 2016
Time: 6:30pm
Upcoming meetings:
May 2016: Book TBA at Nanc's
June 2016: Book TBA at Linda's
Books we've read so far:
January 2014 - Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
February 2014 - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
March 2014 - Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
April 2014 - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
May 2014 - The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
June 2014 - Breaking Free by Marilyn Sewell
July 2014 - The Orphan Train by Kristina Baker Kline
August 2014 - The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
September 2014 - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
October 2014 - The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
November 2014 - The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
December 2014 - No book. Holiday gathering.
January 2015 - No book. Watched The Book Thief
February 2015 - The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
March 2015 - Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne
April 2015 - The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
May 2015 - The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
June 2015 - The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
July 2015 - Still Alice by Lisa Genova
August 2015 - The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
September 2015 - Ruby by Cynthia Bond
October 2015 - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
November 2015 - No book. Watched To Kill a Mockingbird
December 2015 - No book. Holiday gathering.
January 2016 - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
February 2016 - Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson March 2016 - Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
