Brooklyn - Has anyone read the book ?

Yeah, I think realism was the point of the book. It wasn't supposed to be anything fantastical.

The point of writers like Toibin (whom I love), is that they aren't trying to tell a fantastic story that will keep you flipping the pages, in fact they actively avoid it. The point is to let the profound moments produced by everyday existence rise to the surface. His prose is quiet, and poetic, and often needs to be meditated on.

The director, Nick Hornby, said in an interview I saw, that one of the reasons he loved the book so much was that it wasn't exciting, but that it was just normal people living their lives, and that's interesting enough.

I do think the film is much more exciting than the source material, but I don't think the movie loses the sentiment of the novel. My favorite scene in the movie is when Eilis is talking outside the bathroom with the older border girl and Eilis asks her if she hopes to be married one day, her response is something along the lines of "Of course I don't want to be sharing a bathroom with five girls, but I'm sure one day, when I am married, and I'm waiting for my husband to be done reading the paper on the toilet, I'll wish I was back here talking with you."

I also LOVE the ending of the novel. It could have never worked in the film, but its one of my favorite book endings.

Maybe read some other stuff by Colm Toibin. Once you get used to his slow simmering approach, his work is really mesmerizing. And he's one of the most praised novelist of our time.

Nobody likes a blonde in a hamsterball...

I think you are right about the book sneaking up on you at times. One of the lines that struck me most was Mrs Kehoe saying "Never tell anyone anything" as though this was a maxim to live your life by. So sad.

Actually in the film (apart from Eilish) Mrs Kehoe was one of my favourite characters, but in the book she was nowhere near as lively or as much fun. Also in the book one of the most interesting people was Rose and I wish the author had spent more time on her. She had managed to carve out quite a life for herself in stuffy and unpromising old Ireland. But the film Rose was just a very pale shadow of the book Rose.

You loved the ending of the novel! I thought it ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Although in a way it was somewhat open ended. I wondered whether Eilish would go back to Tony or not after she decided she didn't love him after all.




The Players of The Game are the scum of the earth.

I definitely agree re: Rose... I thought she had a lot of depth in the book and was kind of a tragic hero, almost sacrificing her self for Eilis' sake. The actress they chose was quite good, but she didn't nearly have enough material.

It definitely was a whimper of an ending in action, which is a term I like btw, but I thought it had a lot of emotional impact.

I took it as she would go back to Tony in Brooklyn and marry him, because that was what she said she'd do and for once in her life she was being an adult. It's kind of sad when you think about her potential future, but as far as the content of the book is concerned, I thought it was a nice ending.

Toibin's most recent novel, Nora Webster, is a personal favorite of mine. Its about a recent widower of four children in 1960's Enniscorthy (Eilis' mother even makes a cameo). If you can handle another stoic female heroine (though Nora has a little more to her than the blank slate that is Eilis), check it out!

Nobody likes a blonde in a hamsterball...

I had a different reaction. When Tony was pressuring Eilish to marry him before she returned to Ireland she should have said NO! I thought that was very bad of Tony because he was just being selfish and putting his own desires ahead of her future possibilities.

I think that may have been why Eilish decided she didn't love Tony in the end, because she realized he had used her in a way. Plus the fact that having sex with him had been quite painful for her couldn't have helped.

Of course then there would have been even less of a story because Eilish probably would have married Jim and stayed in Ireland.

I agree about Eilish's potential future. I worried about her ending up being a domestic drudge with ten children, (oh the humanity..!). If only she hadn't made the impulsive decision to go and see Tony for comfort late that night after she had received the news of Rose's death. That one simple mistake and its consequences (Tony taking her back to her room, proposing to her and staying the night) kind of sealed her fate.

What she really should have done was not married Tony, returned to Ireland, not married Jim, gone back to America, got a job as a book keeper, took her time, had a good look around her and married up (if she wanted to marry at all). America in the fifties, where else would you want to be...!





The Players of The Game are the scum of the earth.

It was sort of a quiet but beautifully written account of a young woman who had no agency at all when the novel opens but seemly gains control of her life while in America only to discover the limitations of her choices at the end due to the social mores of the time.

I felt in its entirety that the story was quite melancholy. The film still retains much of this mood, but due to some narrative tweaks and Saoirse's beautiful performance, we are able to feel uplifted when her character returns to Brooklyn at the end. In addition, the budding relationship in the film ensures a "takeoff" and provides the viewer with a lovely emotional investment especially in the two main characters.

There is no way the writer/director could have followed the novel completely and satisfied the audience, for her "relationship" with Jim surely would have turned the viewer against her. The novel's ending definitely was a downer for me and wasn't the way you'd want a film to end.

Which makes it strange Toibin was such a proponent of the film.
I remember Ian McEwan being mostly pleased with the Atonement film. But he thought the ending betrayed the novel.

I don't recall the author specifically addressing the comparison between the two jlent, but l'll speculate and say he clearly understood the film couldn't hew exactly to the novel. In addition, I genuinely believe he was thrilled with the result. Let's face it, the film was terrific overall. If you read the novel someday, you'll understand why the script differed from the source material.

I remember IM being perturbed with the way in which the film's ending was framed, but I strongly feel after many viewings that the screenwriter and Joe Wright came up with a clever way to visually present the "reveal." The novel's ending was powerful and a shock to me, but all the images combined with VR explaining what really happened to the T.V. audience (and us viewing the film) was quite effective.

http://tinyurl.com/hvfc4zq

It does. I actually like that part of Atonement, the frolic on the beach, the type of scene that usually is rank sentimentality but becomes something completely different when you know what preceded the scene.

But I have to agree with McEwan the TV interview was a mistake. McEwan's last chapter is brilliant and the TV interview destroys it. Novel Briony takes her secret to the grave. Movie Briony tells the whole world. Novel Briony also tells how the old estate had become a golf course, what her current dealings with Lola and Paul were, and the reason her "Atonement" won't be published until after she dies.