A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Because I haven't done a book post in forever. And because I read this book way back in May or June or something. And because I'm actually in Brooklyn this weekend. ....A book post!

(Gabe feel free to jump up and down for joy at any point in time here)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  by Betty Smith was an absolutely amazing novel. It was just so well written, and its so easy to read. And I just really love books where you learn snippets of people's lives. Because the preface of the book did such a beautiful job explaining the book, I"m going to let it do it for me (because I was honestly in love with the writing in the preface too!)

"In its nearly five hundred pages, nothing much happens. Of course that's not really accurate: Everything that can happen in life happens, from birth and death to marriage and bigamy. But those things happen in the slow, sure, meandering way that they happen in the slow, sure, meandering river of real existence, not as clanking "and then" that lends itself easily to event synopses.
If afterwards, someone asked, "What is the book about?"- surely one of the most irritating and reductionist questions in the world for reader and writer alike - you would not say, well, it's about the pedophile who grabs a little girl in the hall, or about the time a man went on a bender and lost his job, or about a woman who works as a janitor in a series of tenement buildings. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is not the sort of book that can be reduced to its plot line. The best anyone can say is that it is a story about what it means to be human......instead this is that rare and enduring thing, a book in which, no matter what our backgrounds, we recognize ourselves. Francie does not say "good-bye" to the tenements or the tragedies but to the girl she once was, the illusions she once had, the life she once led." preface written by Anna Quindlen

There are also a plethora of amazing quotes throughout the novel. Here's a few.

"Suddenly Francie jumped up. Her heart was beating fast. She was frightened. For no reason at all, she thought of an accordion pulled out for for a rich note. Then she had an idea that the accordion was closing..closing...closing...A terrible panic that had no name came over her as she realized that many of the sweet babies in the world were born to come to something like this old man some day. She had to get out of that place or it would happen to her. Suddenly she would be an old woman with toothless gums and feet that disgusted people."

"The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church.She pushed open the door and went in. She like the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library paste and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass."

"What Katie and Johnny said to each other on that special day, they never remembered. Somehow during their aimless but oh-so-significant conversation with its delicious pauses and thrilling undercurrents of emotion, they came to know that they loved each other passionately."

"And he asked for her whole life as simply as he'd ask for a date. And she promised away her whole life as simply as if she'd offer a hand in greeting or farewell."

One more, then I'll stop..

"There is here, what is not in the old country. In spite of hard unfamiliar things, there is here - hope. In the old country, a man can be no more than his father, providing he works hard. If his father was a carpenter, he may be a carpenter. He may not be a teacher or a priest. He may rise - but only to his father's state. In the old country, a man is given to the past. Here he belongs to the future. In this land, he may be what he will, if he has a good heart and the way of workign honestly at the right things."

So yeah, I have an obsession with good quotes from books and I could like many more from this book here - but I'll just let you read the book yourself!


Oh and just a sidenote, there is a tree growing in Brooklyn in this book, but its not the focal point of the story. The entire time I was reading this Martin kept asking me how the tree was doing and when I said I didn't know he didn't really find that to be an acceptable answer!