Colm Tòibìn: Brooklyn

If I had to use only one word to describe Colm Tòibìn's novel Brooklyn it would be 'understated'. It's the story of a young girl, Eilis Lacey, who lives in the small Irish town of Enniscorthy with her mother and older sister Rose, in the hard years following World War Two. Her father has died and her brothers have moved to England to work, so the three women are the only ones left in the household. Through an Irish priest living in Brooklyn, Eilis's move to America is arranged, so that she may find a better job and life, while her sister stays behind with their fragile mother. Just when Eilis is starting to make a home for herself in America - thanks to work in a department store and the love of an Italian-American plumber named Tony - devastating news from home unexpectedly calls her back to Ireland. At the end she must decide whether to return to Tony and her new life, or to settle into her hometown, which suddenly seems more appealing than it ever did.

I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but in any case, what makes this novel beautiful isn't so much the story itself, but the way it's written. Tòibìn's writing is gentle and steadily paced. There are no great climaxes in Eilis's story, or rather, they are so well prepared that tension rises steadily throughout the novel. Eilis is an unusual heroine, not the feisty strong-willed girl who one normally finds, typically in young-adult fiction. She is rather passive, never standing up for what she wants, barely knowing what it is she wants most of the time. Her life just seems to gradually "be arranged" for her by her family, father Flood, her employers - who are on the other hand all quite strong characters. Nevertheless, Eilis is a very likeable character, sensitive and honest. The narrator focuses on her the entire time, making us readers root for her from the start. That's what makes her submissiveness all the more heart-wrenching. The writing is simple and the tone controlled. But strong emotions are conjured through a hushed tone of plainness but also humor. This, I think, is one of the novel's strongest features: the tone of humor constantly suppressed. Especially the dialogue can be lightly comic, without indulging in full-fledged jokes: "Well at least you don't look like you've just come in from milking the cows any more" "Did I look like that?" "Just a bit. Nice clean cows". Although Eilis comes through as a character who is never really in control of her life, but rather dominated by circumstance, and although the end is painfully bittersweet, Brooklyn manages to be a story of hope, of things not turning out as expected and of people realizing that that can be ok.
Finally a coming-of-age story that is not overly dramatic. There are no spectacular turning points, no real bad guys, just the daily adventure of making decisions, taking care of each other and facing the unexpected as well as the old and tiresome.
The topic of immigration is dealt with the same way: through stroke after stroke of commonplace trials. It's significant that - having been provided easily with lodgings and workplace by father Flood -  the greatest hardship Eilis has to face is every foreigner's malady: home-sickness. The perspective is also unusual: not the American one, according to which moving to the States is quite simply the natural thing to do, but the painful one of someone who was quite satisfied with her life in the old country to begin with.
This is not only a novel for those who like coming-of-age fiction, historical novels and immigrants' narratives. It's a novel for anyone who can appreciate a moving story that ranges from melancholic to desperate to amusing, and the exquisite writing of a master of his craft.

Andrea Levy: Small Island

My latest read is a little gem by Andrea Levy - British author of Jamaican descent - called Small Island. Published in 2005, this heartfelt novel won both the Orange Prize for fiction and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and is now a two-part BBC drama. The story takes place in 1848, although the plot shifts continuously backward and forward  - as well as from one to the other of the four main characters - so the effect is much like flipping through the pages of a photo album. The story is centered around the difficult encouter between Jamaicans moving to Britain, the Mother Country, - many of them after serving it during World War II - and local British people having to come to terms with an increased wave of immigrants, after having fought foreign peoples for the safety of their nation.
The strongest element in the book are the four main characters, thanks to the way Levy shifts from one's perspective to the other, revealing the motives behind seemingly harsh or cold attitudes, with an eye of compassion and wit. Hortense and Gilbert - along with heartthrob Michael Roberts - are the main Jamaican characters, who we get to know both in their home country (the Small Island of the title - at least, one of them) and when Hortense moves to London to join her husband, whom she barely knows. The hardships and racism they face as blacks in post-war Britain are the counterpoint to another difficult household: their landlords' family, consisting of Queenie and Bernard Bligh. Beautiful Queenie has escaped life as a butcher's daughter only to marry a dull banker. While she is one of the most likeable characters from the start, it takes a shift to his point of view and the retelling of his traumatic experience as an RAF in India to understand and feel compassionate towards the rigid and reserved Bernard.
Far from being an abstract historical inquiry, the novel portrays Colonialism, war, racism and the problems of immigration through the everyday pain that people inflict upon each other. Much like recent literary phenomenon The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Small Island sheds light on a complex historical turning-point with humor and grace. All characters see their dreams and aspirations partly deluded, as they struggle for acceptance in one way or the other. But the novel's outlook is anything but bleak, as the individuals' strength and kindheartedness show the only way for peoples and races to unite. The way these four people struggle to adjust to each other is sometimes fierce, sometimes hilarious, but always achingly human.
The novel is very well plotted, with a tender and unexpected outcome for the two couples. But mostly it's the brilliant characters that make the story come alive, thanks to Levy's linguistic skill that pitches their voices perfectly. If you're into historical fiction, but most of all, if you want a novel that is engrossing, moving and funny, make sure you pick this one up.