Passage from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“She was all these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommely’s or the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only—that something different from anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life—the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

If you read only one book this year, read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The book will literally change your perceptions on life. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is that rare, delicious reading experience that absorbs the soul wholly with its quiet magic and gently let you go, changed and enlightened.

I am not sure how to encapsulate Betty Smith’s semi-autobiographical tale about what it means to struggle, live and love in the slums of early 20th century Brooklyn. This book is like an intricate quilt of tiny stories, all marvelous in themselves. There is no clear, linear story line. Perhaps because this is no artificial world imagined by an author. This is not a book that escapes reality. Rather, it is an honest and hard-pressed portrayal of reality. This book reveals the beauty of dreams born from the brutal elements of a deprived enviroment. This book tells the truth—a truth not necessarily validated by concrete detail or memories, but rather, a truth based on insight and the observance of human behavior.

Smith wrote things here that are rarely found in the sea of novels. Smith gave the poor people in her neighborhood a voice up with and colored them with deep humanity. They are neither glorified or pitied or ridden with other simplistic stereotypes. All the book's characters are complex and ambiguous, full of virtues and downfalls. They are so human that it is easy to forget that these beautiful people live inside a book.

Brooklyn itself is a character. Never has an author painted a more heart-wrenching and vivid description of a neighborhood. The enviroment that is depicted in not abhorred--rather it is probed and loved, despite the cruelities that exist there.

This world is mostly perceived through the eyes of Francie, an observant, book-adoring child that is raised to believe that there is a better life worth striving for. Her mother, Katie, is a hard-working realist that supports her family by cleaning tenements. Her father, Johnny is a high-singing dreamer, full of quick-step and charm. But he is a weak man for his drunken, careless ways.. And Neeley, her brother, is Katie’s beloved treasure and an unquestioning follower of the Catholic Church.

I am elated to have discovered this literary gem. This book will endure in me forever. I will never forget Francie, and how I saw myself in her--as the lonely child that slips into book-land to ward off the hardness of reality.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn addresses the meaning of struggling for survival. Smith uses the trees that grow in the slum as a metaphor for the type of strength that is found in her characters and in Brooklyn itself. During one moving passage, Katie fights to make Francie, a sickly baby, live. Her neighbors try to discourage her and she responds with the words of a warrior:

“’Don’t say that,” Katie held her baby tightly. “It’s not better to die. Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun and water only when it rains. It’s growing out of sour earth. And it’s strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.”

I am at a loss when I look back at the totality of this book and try to recall the train of impressions it has had on me. I can not say anything profound about this book. I could only analyze this book if I dissected it into bits. There are so many vignettes in this book that will stay with me as powerful lessons—from the stoning scene of a young, unmarried mother to the Johnny’s failed outing to the sea to how Francie's composition teacher told her to stop writing stories about poverty and alcholoism because the aren't pretty.

Perhaps this reverent silence within me is what is supposed to be. I have journeyed into the imaginative landscape of a masterpiece and can not voice the literary power I came in contact with.

I am certain I will return to this book again in my life. I recommend for everyone to buy or borrow A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and stay up all night reading every glorious page.

My only question is this: why is this book not more highly praised in the academic literary world? It has won the hearts of millions, yet I have not seen it on any list of literary masterpieces. If I had the power, I would dethrone James Joyce’s Ulysses and crown this book as the most important book of all time.

I have read many, many classics in my time. I have not read them all as of yet. I know that sometimes the academic world is wrong about books. The academic world sometimes tends to favor the products of intellectualism and high ideas rather than the tales and poems that provide true insight on the human condition.

If you are interested in understanding the human condition, and all its joys and sufferings, read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In my mind, this book is the true model of what literature is supposed to be about.