Customer Reviews

The Banyan Tree: A Novel

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

WHY AREN'T BOOKS LIKE THIS ON THE BESTSELLER LIST? A BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN BOOK, THE LANGUAGE TAKES HOLD OF THE READER AND DOESN'T LET GO.

THE STORY ISN'T, PERHAPS, TERRIBLY NEW. THE WAY IN WHICH IT'S TOLD IS BOTH OLD AND NEW, NOSTALGIC AND REFRESHING AT THE SAME TIME.

IT TOOK ME TWO DAYS TO READ BANYON TREE; IT TOOK THE AUTHOR TWELVE YEARS TO WRITE IT. SIMPLY WASN'T A FAIR TRADE, SO I'LL READ IT AGAIN AND AGAIN. I WALKED AROUND HOLDING THE BOOK TO MY CHEST WHEN THE TALE WAS TOLD.

It is difficult to forget the trials that Christopher Nolan had to endure to even write this book. The end result is an amazing picture of life in rural Ireland during the last Century written in the most amazing manner. The book shows that a simple story when told by a master author can accomplish more than all the twists and turns authors today feel compelled to put into their novels. A wonderful and human story. Highly recommended.

This is a truly special literary work, a gift from the author who spent 12 years creating it.

If you enjoy any of the great authors of fiction from the 19th and early 20th century you will love the book.

Mr. Nolan won The Whitbread Award in 1987, for the work he penned prior to this one, "Under The Eye Of The Clock".

If you enjoy rich enveloping detail that never is tedious, the book is for you. If you enjoy the scope of a work that takes the needed time, that brings to mind the word "epic", and the phrase "sure to be a classic", get this book.

If you are new to his work as am I, you are probably the rule rather than the exception. The last work published by Mr. Nolan was in 1987, and this new work took 12 years. And this leads to the title of this review.

Mr. Nolan is paralyzed and he is mute. He cannot read aloud what he has crafted so as to hear his prose as he means it to be heard. Mr. Nolan has what is called his "Unicorn Stick", attached to his forehead and with the assistance of a helper; he types his works one letter at a time.

"The Banyan Tree" required 500,000 taps on his typewriter over a 12-year period. The book is a remarkable work by any standard, and is made more astonishing by the method he uses to communicate this tale of a Family's History.

The book deserves your full attention, and a bit more time to read. Rushing through the story would lessen the impact of it, and fail to acknowledge the extraordinary effort it took to create.

I stumbled onto this novel by accident one day surfing around the Amazon site and I am so happy I picked this book up. It's an amazing story told by a man with an equally amazing story. I only hope we don't have to wait another 12 years for Nolan's next novel. The Banyon Tree pulls you in immediately and keeps you reading until the last page with prose that will take your breath away. Nolan's characters, especially Minnie, the 80-something protagonist are so real. They are normal people but Nolan tells his tale in such a way that they become extraordinary. Minnie has three children, and waits patiently for 40 years for the youngest, the one who left one day at age 18 to return to the family's Irish farm. She keeps the farm for him, living simply, thinking every day he will come back. She, and we, don't know his fate until almost the end of the book. This is a story of family, of love, of truth, of denial. There is something magical in Nolan's storytelling, something that hints at the stories untold that circle around the story we are reading. I highly, highly recommend this book. It's a treasure.

Although Nolan's prose has often been compared to that of other, more famous writers-James Joyce, Dylan Thomas, W. B. Yeats, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, for example-his style is more accessible, making his story more readable, more emotionally powerful, and more personally involving than anything I've read by these other great writers. Minnie O'Brien lives, loves, ages, aches, and ultimately haunts. She's an extraordinary character presented in an extraordinary way by an equally extraordinary author.

The basic story line is simple: Minnie O'Brien, an Irish countrywoman with a love for the land and her family, watches her three children grow up and leave the farm. As she ages into her eighties, she tries to keep the farm going, waiting for her youngest son, from whom she has never heard a word since his departure at age 17, to return to claim the land. But to describe the book in these terms is like describing Ulysses as a story about a man walking around Dublin. Nolan brings her to life by following the first rule of fiction: "Don't tell about something; recreate it." He does this, in part, by using vivid, emotionally charged words in new ways, sometimes using adjectives and nouns as verbs, conveying not only the emotional sense but also an action: In describing Minnie's actions at the death of her husband, we find that her cries were "cartwheeling around the room," before "she sacked her voice of screams" and dried her eyes, going downstairs to "perform the miraculous loaves and fishes reenactment," for the neighborhood wake. Minnie's connection to the land, her love for Peter, her devotion to her children, her commitment to what is good, and her ability to keep dreaming of the future, even as she is dying, are all part of the banyan tree of her life, one which will continue to bloom long after one finishes this book.

Today I finished The Banyan Tree, and felt compelled to find and read Nolan's Memoirs: Under the Eye of the Clock to learn more about this incredible writer. It amazed me from the very first chapter that someone who is paralyzed could write such beautifully descriptive prose regarding ordinary things, like churning butter, the landing of an AerLingus jet, a woman's love for her family,or the conniving character of Jude, among others. The story, set in rural Ireland is simple, but it is so alive with every word and the imaginative ways that Nolan can use language. It is a book to savor slowly, enjoying the depth of the characters that come alive on every page. You will feel as if you've met them, loved them, despised them. You will laugh, and you will cry, but you will not soon forgot Minnie and her love for her family and her land.

Christopher Bolan's Banyon Tree also provides excellent drama, set in rural Ireland in modern times and pairing Fiona Shaw's reading with the story of a woman who marries a man with a dangerous secret, bears his children, and struggles with neighbors. Ireland comes alive, here.

Not to sound hard, but a novel should stand on its own merits despite the afflictions ot the author. There is a wonderful story hidden in the purple prose. These characters could have been so incredibly moving if only Christopher Nolan had not been in love with words--and often the wrong ones. When he gets more deeply into the story, his style becomes more lilting and descriptive--the rest of the time, the language gets in the way of the story and real communication. At times, I moaned aloud at the ridiculous overuse of words just to use words, and yet, I did love Minnie and her love for her land. I would have liked to have heard more from her--the earthy, honest woman--and less from the author.

Other reviewers have commented on the plot. I will focus on but one aspect of the novel - the intoxicating language. Nolan makes words sing. His descriptions are arresting, his figures of speech spellbinding, and his attention to sound value utterly astounding. If adventurous language choices delight you, read this book and then spread the word. Nolan's novel deserves far more attention than it has received.

This is very much a book about Ireland and the beginning is tough to read, given the colloquialisms and use of the Irish lingo But then it relaxes and becomes a very wonderful book. The story itself might not be the novel of the century. But the way the author handles the language, inventing, reinventing and fusing it to create the most beautiful images, truly is a thing of joy. Much has been said about the author's affliction. That should not enter in a judgement of the novel. It truly is beautiful. It sings.