The Banyan Tree

by Christopher Nolan

Book Overview

Covering the eighty-plus years of the life of Minnie O'Brien, who is bound to take her place alongside James Joyce's Molly Bloom, The Banyan Tree is a rich saga of rural Ireland in the twentieth... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559705116
• ISBN13: 9781559705110
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Arcade Pub
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Maybe it is Joyce who should be compared to Nolan!

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.

A Lesson For Authors

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.

BUY IT, READ IT, LOVE IT

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.

Unicorn Stick And Half A Million Clicks

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.