A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Okay, better late than never, right?

I finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn quite a while ago. Life (and a few other good books) has gotten in the way of me writing about it, but here I go. I absolutely loved this book. Admittedly, when I started out I didn’t think I’d make it through the hundreds of pages I was facing, but once I got into it, the pages flew by. I sometimes measure how much I like a book by the feeling I get when I know I’m close to the end. In those last few pages I felt myself trying to read a little slower to savor those last moments on Francie’s journey. She was just such an amazingly relatable character that I really didn’t want to leave her. During the five year journey through some very formative years in Francie’s life, Betty Smith takes her readers through the raw emotions of a little girl not only on her path to womanhood, but in a struggle to survive her daily life. With the added struggles of poverty, isolation, and family breakdowns, Brooklyn is a tough place to grow up. In midst of all that, Smith still created a character in Francie that is able to shine through; her courage, her passion, and her spirit allow her to make it through, and cause the reader to cheer her on throughout the novel. You see Francie come into herself as time goes on and there are so many scenes that stick out in my head (think the vaccination scene), but there is one quote that was so beautiful to me I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since I read the book.

"Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere-be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."

Now, my journey hasn’t been as much of a struggle as Francie’s, but the last five years of my life have been full of so many huge life changes, especially this past year and a half that really shook up my world and set me off on a completely different path. I’ve learned to appreciate life in such a different way and to really be present in the moment and truly living life. In this passage, Francie basically put words to thoughts I’d been having on how I want to live my life, and I’m grateful to Betty Smith for giving that to me. It is such a simple line of thought, but I think its simplicity that makes it great. She’s not asking to be delivered from the life that she’s had to experience. She doesn’t ask to be beautiful or perfect or rich (and considering her life, could you really blame her if she did?), she just wants to live. And to live in such a way that she is something and every experience is meaningful. Who wouldn’t want that?

I think I’ll leave it at that and wait for my fellow bibliophiles share their thoughts. And if you haven’t read it, do it!! This really is a great piece of literature that every woman should read. And if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the movie on dvd, PLEASE let me know. My days of tapes and vcrs are long gone and I want to see the movie!