Comments on Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

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06/14/09--18:57: Molly commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

Oh - I have heard such wonderful reviews for this book and yours has pushed me over the edge. It is going to the top of the TBR list!




06/14/09--22:15: Ruth commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I have yet to read anything by CT. Maybe this will be th eone.




06/15/09--01:48: chrissussex commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I could no more read the last page first than I could fly as my reading would then be coloured by what I knew, which is lovely for a subsequent reading of a favourite but a totally different book from that first initial journey into the unknown. However, my Mother always did, but she said it was only because then she would know if she had read it before (despite reassurances of the book being hot off the press). So a definite 'must read' if you were so tempted!




06/15/09--01:49: Laura commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

What a wonderful review - it has made me want to read something I'm not sure I would ever have picked up. And now - for the apology - I notice that Leslie B has slipped off the 'Stately Progress' and I feel awful - and you were recuperating! It worked for me, but obviously it didn't weave many magic for you - so - sorry DGR!




06/15/09--02:13: Claire (Paperback Reader) commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I requested this book from the library a few weeks ago and I am currently fourth in line so I'll hopefully have it read by October when the "B" winner is announced.




06/15/09--02:52: adele geras commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

A truly wonderful book, I agree. He's a terrific writer.




06/15/09--04:03: Lesley-Ann commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

Yet another for the tbr mountain, wonderful review.
Went to order The Blue Hour in the library, but was already 6th on the list, so bought it from Amazon instead!




06/15/09--09:12: Nan commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

It really does sound terrific! Thanks for a great review.




06/15/09--12:55: Simon S commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I have to say that when you compared it in parts to Netherland my heart literally sunk as I have been wanting to read this book for an age, thankfully it sounds heaps better! I think a must read for me.




06/15/09--14:06: KevinfromCanada commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

You and I are at least in the same chapter, if not exactly on the same page, with this one, dgr. I quite enjoyed this book and while Eilis at some times can be a frustrating character with her passivity, those of us who remember growing up can understand that. I suspect most of those who have found this book wanting did so because they came with pre-held expectations of what Toibin would write (probably based on The Master). Brooklyn certainly isn't like that kind of book -- rather it is more like some of the stories in Mothers and Sons. And if I was making comparisons, I would say Edith Wharton portrays the decline of the New York aristocracy at the turn of the century(especially in the Age of Innocence); Steven Millhauser gives us the entrepreneurial class some time later in Martin Dressler; and now Toibin has sketched a member of the working class in Brooklyn in the post-WWII years. Your comparison with Saturday jobs at Woolworths is particularly appropriate.




06/15/09--15:22: dovegreyreader commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

Having not read The Master I couldn't make those comparisons so this was a Toibin stand-alone book for me Kevin as it's ten years since I read The South and that's the sum total of my Toibin reading. Interestingly I didn't see Eilis as passive,(not as frustrating as Fanny Price!) I think I was focusing on her more as a product of the era, she could be nothing else, there was no other map for her to follow and I was fascinated by that. Colm Toibin apparently imagined a 'character ' rather than a 'time and place' as he wrote but in the end I certainly felt he'd succeeded at both for me. Will this be on your Booker list I wonder?




06/15/09--16:12: KevinfromCanada commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I'd certainly have it on my longlist at this stage. There's still so much time to go (and more books to come) that I wouldn't go further than that at this point. I do think The Master is a much more ambitious work -- so while I quite like this book, for me, it is not his best. In no way should that discourage any one from reading it -- and I could certainly understand someone who said they preferred Brooklyn to The Master.




06/16/09--02:09: CaroleJ commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I have not read this book yet, which is why I have not read your account DGR - nor those of folk such as Kevin or JohnSelf - as I want to come to it raw. However, I adored 'The Master' and as this is my only CT so far, I find it hard to believe Toibin could write a less than magnificent book, and so still have high hopes of 'Brooklyn'. Unfortunately, I may be some time in reading it as I want to reread 'The Master' so as to compare style and language. NB I am curently reading 'Netherland' and finding it powerful and different.




07/04/09--18:49: Lisa Hill commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I thought this was a brilliant book with hidden depths. It reads perfectly well in its own right, and is accessible to the general reader but allusions to Portrait of a Lady are there to enjoy. See
http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/brooklyn-by-colm-toibin-beware-spoilers/

Lisa in Oz




07/31/09--10:29: Suki commented on 'Brooklyn by Colm Toibin' (chan 1357360)

I just finished the book and am filled with emotion, sadness. or is it just that this is the 5th rainy day this week? the psychological nuances Toibin is able to convey just bowl me over. I too wanted it to end a certain way (the way it did) yet it was never a simple black and white choice. to me, who is trying to make a choice, a big choice right now, that was the part of the novel that had so much significance. Elias returns to Ireland a far more complex woman than she was before. Yet still full of hesitancies and fears about revealing herself, being herself. I do wonder if the incident at the end hadnt happened, would she have made a different choice?