Brooklyn” by Colm Toibin

“Brooklyn” is the sixth novel of Colm Toibin. It is the classic one where plot’s centre is composed by a love story.

The main character is a girl, Eilis Lacey, who immigrates from a small village in Ireland to New York; thanks to an American priest who offers to help her. She has to leave because the job opportunities in the 1950, the time where the novel is set, in Ireland are scarce.

When she arrives in a lodging house in Brooklyn she felt homesick, and she can not stop thinking about her sister, Rose, and her weak mother.

When the things are going better for her, she finds love, but Eilis receives news, which send her back to Ireland. There she has to make a choice between duty and love.

The novel, through Eilis point of view, shows the economy of emigration, the pain you feel when you have to leave your roots and the difficulty of adapting. But in showing this, the writer lacks of psychological insight and this makes it difficult to understand and share the emotions of the protagonist. This aspect is also an evident in the relation ship between Eilis and Tony, a blond Italian boy. Indeed despite his loving Kindness toward her, he takes her to home for the dinner in his small apartment with his family, he talks about future children and so on, it is also difficult to understand Eilis real feelings.

Another negative aspect is that the last chapter leaves the reader whit a sense of incompleteness. It seems like that the novel is not finish. The important choice of Eilis is describe superficially. I think the ends of the story has to be written with more attention and with a lot more details so the reader can understand the main character choice and the situation she lives in a better way.

In my opinion this novel is not really worth to read because right from the start the reader can understand the plot’s develops and this makes the book banal and it does not involve the reader.