Favorite Books Continued
Continuing the exploration of my favorite books, inspired by National Book Lovers Day on August 9, I simply must highlight A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It’s in my top 3 books of all time (as is Peace Like a River, from last post), and one of the few that I actually re-read. Because the experience of reading this book is nothing short of sublime. It’s idyllic. Not because everything in the Nolan family is going well…in fact, hardly anything is. But it’s Francie for me. She is everything you would want in a narrator, and the level of detail used in describing her world makes it impossible for a reader to not become engrossed.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that I can picture this book so well. That’s why I like reading it so much. This neighborhood in early Williamsburg, Brooklyn comes alive in my mind as Francie describes selling trash for coins, going to the butcher to fetch the cheap cuts of meat, yearning for an education, and all while watching her father drink away their happiness. What’s so tragically charming about her relationship with her father is she’s still crazy about him, still views him as having a magical quality, despite the flaws that threaten to ruin their family.
The book makes me want a simpler time, or at least it makes me want to remember a simpler time. I don’t aspire to be as impoverished as Francie’s family, but it does comes across as noble. Everything was so purposeful. Driven. Nothing wasted, nothing taken for granted, and the smallest luxuries were not just celebrated, but savored. How many of us could stand to infuse our own modern, excess-filled lives with those attitudes? No wonder Francie grows into such a strong and centered young woman. This book is truly a pleasure.
As a side note, I used to own a ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ t-shirt, my favorite, and it happened to be packed in a suitcase that would be stolen from the airplane once my flight landed at JFK. There was a lot to mourn from that loss, most of all my diamond ring and a few other prized jewelry pieces (the suitcase, after all, I had carried on with me and put in the overhead bin, because what could go wrong?), but I was weirdly sad to have lost the t-shirt. I ordered another one and it did not fit the same. Like so many of our favorite things unexpectedly parted from us, it’s something I’ve never been able to find. But that won’t stop me from looking. In the meantime, read this book if you haven’t. Francie is a joy. So is Brooklyn. And so, for that matter, is life.