18.09.2016

The convention of a review

The intelligent reader should understand that a review has to promote or not to encourage the reading of a novel. The first element is the title, the novelist’s name, the year of publication, the number of pages, the publishing house and the ISNB code. Later there is a short summary, some information about the writer and his previews books. In the summary you must not say everything, you want the reader to enjoy the reading without any spoilers, you can also make some references and connection with the movie, if they created one.

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Book review by Robert Hanks

He uses seminal words to give the reader of what she/he is going to read. This article has seven sequences.

The introduction refers to the common imaginary of what American people know about immigration; usually this concept is given by mass media. Robert Hanks said that when it comes to Irish immigration Americans tip this over into a hyperbole. The writer then moves easily from the general to the particular. It is an alive romance. He describes the novel firstly with negative adjectives and then, last but not least, with the positive ones.

In the second paragraph he gives a briefly summary of the first chapter. He tells the reader where does the protagonist come from, some information about her family and the poorly life that she is living in. Then he goes on, in the third sequence, describing how Eilis’s interests, like the book-keeping class that she is taking and her feelings about leaving her sister alone with her mother. The writer gives the reader the feeling that something is not going right for the main character, giving us some suspense.

In the successive passage Robert Hanks gives some personal opinions about this romance saying that Brooklyn captures the atmosphere of travel before transatlantic flight was affordable. This division talks about the protagonist’s travel y boat, how confused she feels and her first opinions about Brooklyn and her new job. After these negative descriptions he keeps going with a short summary telling the reader a happy point of this story. Talking about her life changing “adventures”.

The sixth sequence he describe this novel as a sort of banal story set in a place and in a time that are common for the majority of the audience. He gives his final thoughts about this romance and giving us some specific details of the story. He concludes his review talking about the morals that Tóibín gives with his work. He affirms that He is determined to make the point that freedom and opportunity depend on perspective. He reassumes everything he said in his review and concluding suggesting this reading to other people praising the novelist’s clarity, simplicity and elegance.