Brooklyn

By Colm Tóibín, 2015

This novel presents an unflattering picture of Ireland in the 1950s as a conservative backwater, which is contrasted with Brooklyn where life, if not perfect, at least has the possibility of growth and change.

Written in Tóibín’s usual understated, observational style, it shows the limited options open to a young woman in a small Irish town (apparently, the same town in which Tóibín spent his childhood). The only viable option for Eilis seems to be working part-time in the small shop where everyone knows her and the owner does not respect her until she gets married to one of the local boys. When she gets a chance to start a new life in a faraway country where she doesn’t know what to expect, she knows it’s the best option she’ll ever see.

Eilis seems to fall into the events of her life rather than to choose them, although she does have ideas of her own. She doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life married in the village, even if she doesn’t see a way out until her sister arranges for her to move to America. She doesn’t quite want to fall into married life in America either, although she does choose marriage in the end. Perhaps Tóibín is pointing to an ambivalence among Irish (and other) emigrants – they don’t really want to leave the comfort of the familiar, however limited that may be, but economic or political factors push them to make choices that shape their future. Many immigrants continue to feel that ambivalence throughout their lives, particularly when they are faced with discrimination in their new home. Tóibín doesn’t go into the anti-Irish prejudice that many found in the Americas, and probably that had diminished significantly in the 1950s. In fact, the life he shows for Eilis is almost idealized. She is welcomed by her Italian boyfriend and her American employers, pursues an education and finds new job opportunities. It seems remarkably free from challenges except for her homesickness. Tóibín does give a concrete picture of the lives in the immigrant community – the close living conditions, poverty, the struggle to fit into an unknown society and constant homesickness. But they have time for dances, picnics at the beach, the occasional luxury, and they have hope for their future.

In her relatively comfortable material conditions, the struggles Eilis faces are mainly psychological. Should she marry the nice guy who cares for her and offers her a secure home? Should she hold out for something undefined but different? Should she make her independent way for a while longer? For Eilis, and perhaps for many women in the 1950s, these might be difficult choices. And in the changing social mores of the 1950s, they were probably difficult questions for many women to feel comfortable with. Tóibín presents them without leaning to any side, although readers might see them with less ambivalence today. (Come on, Eilis, just make a decision and get on with it!) She grows to become more confident in her job and her classes, even while she can’t decide what she wants emotionally. But of course, the emotional choices are the hardest ones. The psychological portrait reminds me of Henry James’ psychological probing, but in a much more contemporary and working class setting. With all the psychological pondering, the actual events that take place in the story seem curiously underplayed and anticlimactic.

In the end, Eilis sees Ireland as conservative and unchanging. She views her sister’s grave in a treeless, dead cemetery. She still feels ambivalent about it, but her final choice seems inevitable. She will go where the sees that she can grow. And this seems to reflect Tóibín’s own choices – growing up and leaving the small Irish village of Eniscorthy, leaving the country and settling down in the USA. In interviews, he says that he still feels drawn to Ireland, but he could no longer live there.