(no subject)
Jun. 15th, 2010 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
decemberthirtyI've had a busy morning, with lots of errands and running around, but now it is five o'clock and I'm home. I'm sitting in the sun at my kitchen table, there's a batch of strawberry-ginger ice cream churning on the counter, and I'm going to spend a little time writing about books.
I finished Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn at the end of last week. The novel tells the story of Eilis Lacey, a young woman who emigrates from the town of Enniscorthy in Wexford (the same town that serves as the setting for Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship) to Brooklyn in the 1950s. Tóibín spends a little bit of time establishing Eilis's life with her mother and sister in Ireland, but the majority of the book is devoted to her immigrant experience. Eilis comes to America 100 years after the tremendous waves of famine immigrants, yet her experience is in some ways similar: she moves into an entirely Irish enclave, where everyone attends the same church and knows which county everyone else comes from. Tóibín gives us wonderfully detailed sketches of Eilis's landlady and the other Irish girls in the boarding house, describes Eilis's job in a clothing store and the bookkeeping classes she takes at Brooklyn College, and then brings in the drama: Eilis falls in love in America, then is called back to Ireland by a sudden tragedy, and must decide where her future lies.
There was much that I loved about Brooklyn. I loved Tóibín's sentences, his willingness to linger on details, the seemingly effortless and perfect way he renders dialogue. I loved Eilis as a character, reserved and thoughtful and awkward, but with a core of steel and rare flashes of brilliance. I loved the way Tóibín captured the split experience of the immigrant: the way that each place seems like home when you're there, yet recedes into dream-like unreality when you're away. And I am still quite fond of my theory that Tóibín writes the fiction of shyness. But for all that, I couldn't quite love the book as a whole. When I put it down, I was left wondering why this story? What about this story made it overwhelmingly compelling for Tóibín? Whatever it was, I couldn't feel it myself.
I finished Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn at the end of last week. The novel tells the story of Eilis Lacey, a young woman who emigrates from the town of Enniscorthy in Wexford (the same town that serves as the setting for Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship) to Brooklyn in the 1950s. Tóibín spends a little bit of time establishing Eilis's life with her mother and sister in Ireland, but the majority of the book is devoted to her immigrant experience. Eilis comes to America 100 years after the tremendous waves of famine immigrants, yet her experience is in some ways similar: she moves into an entirely Irish enclave, where everyone attends the same church and knows which county everyone else comes from. Tóibín gives us wonderfully detailed sketches of Eilis's landlady and the other Irish girls in the boarding house, describes Eilis's job in a clothing store and the bookkeeping classes she takes at Brooklyn College, and then brings in the drama: Eilis falls in love in America, then is called back to Ireland by a sudden tragedy, and must decide where her future lies.
There was much that I loved about Brooklyn. I loved Tóibín's sentences, his willingness to linger on details, the seemingly effortless and perfect way he renders dialogue. I loved Eilis as a character, reserved and thoughtful and awkward, but with a core of steel and rare flashes of brilliance. I loved the way Tóibín captured the split experience of the immigrant: the way that each place seems like home when you're there, yet recedes into dream-like unreality when you're away. And I am still quite fond of my theory that Tóibín writes the fiction of shyness. But for all that, I couldn't quite love the book as a whole. When I put it down, I was left wondering why this story? What about this story made it overwhelmingly compelling for Tóibín? Whatever it was, I couldn't feel it myself.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 10:39 pm (UTC)http://www.lakeland.co.uk/F/product/14438?src=awdef&afid=80683&afname=!!!name!!!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 09:26 pm (UTC)Ice cream sounds great, I love ginger, did you try the double ginger idea yet?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 10:44 pm (UTC)And that 10-minute popsicle freezer is quite a cool little invention! That would be fun to experiment with. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 10:46 pm (UTC)Imagine!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 01:10 pm (UTC)I chopped up a pound of strawberries (well, just under. I started off with a pound, but I ate some of them as I went...). Mix the strawberries with a little lemon juice and 1/3 cup sugar and let them sit for an hour or two, until they're very juicy. In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups milk and 2/3 cup sugar, and whisk until sugar is entirely dissolved. Add 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 1 tsp. vanilla, and the juice from the strawberries. Stir it all together and then add grated fresh ginger. And this is the problem, because I really don't know how much ginger I added. About half of one large knob? Maybe a tablespoon? I didn't measure, alas! Anyhow, pour all of that mixture into your ice cream churn and churn until it's almost ready. At the very end, add in the strawberries and churn for a few last minutes. Then into the freezer it goes!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-17 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-17 05:46 pm (UTC)