Back to Brooklyn

My friend Susan Barr-Toman recommended a novel to me called Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.

But before I even start, let me first mention that my friend Susan Barr-Toman is the author of a wonderful recently-published novel with a fabulous title: When Love was Clean Underwear. Please do read it! (And she’s another Philly Writer!) Learn more about her and her book at: http://susanbarrtoman.com/

Now back to Brooklyn (where I used to live)… Susan was right, it’s a great book. I really enjoyed reading it and admired the writing.

Tóibín’s writing is very simple and straightforward. Not quite Hemingwayesque, not gruff or brusque, but without adornment. He simply tells what is happening, and what happened next, and what she did, and what he did, and what she thought about, and what she thought he thought about, until the simple accrual of information creates a story, and once you’ve gotten into Part II of this story you begin to realize that this plain and plodding writing style is delivering a rather complex story. And that’s how life happens, right? One things happens, and then another and another, until you have a story. And when the first things happens, you don’t know the next thing is coming, or when it will come, if ever, and what it will be if it does come, so you just go along and do as you’re told, or not, and get through things, and wake up and go to work and come home and go to sleep and wake up for work again the next day, and maybe talk to people and make friends and fall in love, or maybe not.

I haven’t read other works of Tóibín’s, so I don’t know if this is how he always writes, but it was very interesting and enlightening for me to read this type of writing. Enlightening because it made me realize maybe I don’t have to make writing a novel into such a big deal – I can just write what happens and what happens next. Interesting because I’m usually someone who goes for the writerly writers, the Nicole Krausses of the world with their perfect word choice and their endlessly poetic sentences, and Tóibín is of another variety. And yet, I like this very, very much.

I do plan to read more of this author’s work. He has a new collection of short stories just published. Here’s a link to the NYT review if you’re interested…
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/books/review/Prose-t.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=colm%20toibin&st=cse