Brooklyn by Colm Toibin - can anyone explain why it got such rave reviews?

[said]

It was pleasant enough but felt a bit lightweight. What amd I missing?

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My thoughts entirely - I think he is one of those canon of Big Writers, part of the literary scene so reviewers (many of whom may know him personally) are a bit wary of saying: "Yeah, it was quite sweet but more Maeve Binchy than Don de Lillo/Philip Roth/Tom Wolfe/insert Great Novelist of your choice." I found it all quite superficial and meaningless and not that insightful about the great Irish diaspora - I didn't get a huge sense of Eilis as a person. Passed the time quite easily though and found the - spoiler alert - death very moving.

I thought it was rather dull. Totally didn't get the rave reviews.

Have never read any of his other stuff so may do to compare. Sparse language can = brilliant a la Cormac McCarthy but this just seemed like literary Mills & Boon.

It was so sparse that Eilis appeared to have no really deep emotional response to anything. I did enjoy it but was bewilderedby the "Masterpiece" stuff on the cover from, as you say, his mates, no doubt

i LOVED IT

I read the first few pages in the bookshop and thought it seemed very lightweight, so didn't buy it. Could get it from the library to take on holiday with me, perhaps.

Ah, but why did you LOVE it? I even read the reviews on Amazon to see if I'd missed something deeper.

Ive just downloaded a sample of this onto my kindle. Ive read a couple of pages and given up.

The language is that of middle class england, rather than Ireland. Ive just read The Help and loved the way it was written in a southern accent, it really draws you in.

I dont think Ill download the whole book if people here think its not that good.

Thanks

I agree with you completely.

I did really enjoy it, but it was lightweight and that is the main part of the reason I enjoyed - it was nice to have something easy to read when knackered with a baby.

I was very irritated that he didn't describe the main character's emotional responses to ANYTHING, or hardly give any of her internal dialogue - felt that was lazy writing rather than intentional

It was completely over marketed and over rated....
It only got going at the end when there was the tension about the choice between the new man and the DH in the US.
I was very disappointed in the book and it went straight to the charity shop after I read it!

I really enjoyed it. At the risk of sounding like an idiot I have a masters in English Lit and have read plenty of those 'difficult' books like Pynchon, Faulkner etc but I think its nice to read a story that sweeps you along and takes you to that place and time.
Yes it was light but for me that was its brilliance and it was never syrupy like a Binchy - whose books i just cant stand.

Then again I enjoy an odd Jeffrey Archer - again I do like a good story

I loved it. Found it beautifully and carefully written and personally did not think it particularly lightweight. I found the descriptions of the loneliness/homesickness and the emotional response at the end very moving (Eilis's thoughts at the end in particular but also her mother's response, etc). I felt heartbroken at the end at her predicament and thought it was well crafted how it all unfolded. I could also see very much how a young woman in those circumstances and those times could be a passive person, and get swept along into going abroad, then the relationship and marriage the way Eilis did. She was never a 21st century woman with the choices and convictions we are lucky enough to have. I think that made her interesting to me and helped it build to a moving ending - by the time she had a strong emotional response and realised what she really wanted, it was too late. I also found the setting (the segregation, role of the Church etc in the US) very engaging. It is one of the best books I have read for quite some time. I enjoyed the Help but that I found pretty lightweight (eg Hilly is totally one-dimensional).
Interesting how Brooklyn didn't seem very "Irish" to another poster - not qualified to judge that but Toibin was born and raised in the same town as Eilis and he has based other novels there.

I really enjoyed it as well.

Agree that Eilis didn't really have deep emotional response to events but I am of the opinion that was part of her character. Being female in that day and of her background that she had been repressed and hadn't been allowed to experience/voice emotion in her life. But even without deep emotional response I thought her character was anything but one dimensional, was a very well written and thought out character.

I'm raising this thread, as I'm glad to have found it.

Starting to wonder what I'd missed with all the rave reviews and awards it's been up for. Now I read it and didn't loathe it or anything of the such and I did like, don't need book to be full of intensity or be intellectual or anything like that. It's just it wasn't brilliant and wouldn't have me recommending others to read it like other books have.

When I finished it I thought 'well that was very Maeve Binchy but without her character development' (in other words it could very well have been written by Maeve but if it had been I'd have 'know' the characters better)

The sceptic in me thinks it's 'brilliant' because he's a man and if he wasn't then it's be just another chick lit!!!

I've also read another of his books (blackwater lightship) and have to say that to Brooklyn's credit it was at least better than that!!!

After the two of them I'm in no shape or form tempted to read anything else by him.

I agree with vanitypear about Brooklyn and The Help.

i agree, said.
i kept wondering what i was missing and agree with other posters there was no emotional depth to the characters.
the only reason i enjoyed it was that it's set in wexford where my dad's from!
hmmm, maybe the help will be better, then..

It reminded me of The Belljar by Sylvia Plath which is also about a young girl moving to NY for the first time and finding her way. Both protagonists are weirdly unemotional about issues, big and small, in their lives which deserve examination. But Plath's protagonist is deeply depressed and suicidal throughout. What's ellis's excuse?

I didn't hate it, but it was just lacking human insight on every page. I wanted to shake Ellis.

No idea how it got rave reviews.

Read it a few weeks ago and I loved it. Didn't find it lightweight at all, but, at the risk of sounding pretentious, subtle. There was no overstatement or melodrama and he doesn't tell the reader what to think or encourage judgement. I found Eilis's dilemma and her motivations wrt the two men in her life very convincing.

I find Toibin has a light touch, which is not at all the same thing as being lightweight.

I also don't agree with teamcullen, who said it had an English-sounding voice. For me the voice instantly recalled Maeve Brennan, a wonderful Irish writer, little known in England, who emigrated to NY with her family at the age of 17 and worked at the New Yorker.

I'm with vanitypear on this.

I also read this last year when it first came out, and i love stories like this about emigration etc. But i just did not like her and no real compassion for her perdicament. I read Ellis Island by Kate Kerrrigan about a similar story and i found it much more warm . I love Sebastain Barry, a much better writer.

I loved this book, completely and absolutely. It was the story of many women of that time. It's hard with our 2011 heads to comprehend how repressed everyone, and women particularly, was at that time. There was no place for drama then. My mam grew up in a small town at that time and emigrated to America, and she thought it was a very accurate portrayal of the times.

I just got another Colm Tóibín book, something about a lighthouse??? and I'm really looking forward to it.