False Literary Memories: the Case of ‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Toibin
Here’s a trick my mind plays.
I’ve just seen the film ‘Brooklyn’. I loved it – wonderful acting, perfect dialogue (screenplay by Nick Hornby), beautiful to look at. As we went in, I told my friend that the Colm Toibin novel is one of my favourites and so I wouldn’t be wondering what Eilis would do at the end. The last part is really exciting, I told her.
I won’t tell you what happens in the end in case you haven’t yet seen or read ‘Brooklyn’. But here’s a strange thing. Although I’d read it closely just last year under expert guidance in David Grylls’ course on The Novel Now, I had totally misremembered the ending.
At first I thought the film makers had changed it, but I ‘ve checked and no! I had turned the conclusion upside down.
This is rather like thinking the train missed Anna Karenina or old man Karamazov was murdered by a different brother or Lizzie Bennett ended up an old maid.
Am I the only one who makes up endings to suit herself and then believes they’re what the author wrote?
PS Do read and see Brooklyn.
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