Welcome to our book club for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Today we'll be discussing Chapters 52-56. The end of the book! SOB!! We have next week to do a deep dive into the entire book and then we'll be done with the Cool Bloggers Bookclub (TM Birchie).
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Synopsis: Francie gets her heart broken by a no-good soldier boy. McShane asks Katie to marry him and for him to be allowed to adopt Laurie. Granma Rommely dies, Francie accepts a promise ring from Ben (*yuck* - editorializing from me), and Francie does a nostalgia tour of the neighborhood before she goes off to college at the University of Michigan. Fin.
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Things I looked up:
The ordering of Army ranks: I was confused by Lee's rank (corporal or general based on two different references in Chapter 52). I think Lee was probably a corporal and someone called him a general as a joke/sort of compliment to someone about to ship off to war. Most of the following came straight from the Army website. Here there are from lowest to highest ranks. Feel free skip all of this nonsense, or if you want to read it super carefullly, to correct any errors you might find.
Enlisted ranks:
Private - Lowest rank, generally given during basic combat training to a soldier without a four-year degree
Private First Class
Private Second Class
Specialist - can manage enlisted soldiers of lower rank
Corporal - team leader of the smallest Army units
Sergeant - oversees soldiers' daily tasks and often lead a team or section of soldiers that are slightly bigger than a corporal's team, but usually only up to four soldiers
Staff Sergeant - oversees a squad of 8-16 soldiers
Sergeant First Class - generally has 10-15 years of Army experience
Master Sergeant - principal non-commissioned officer at the battalion level and often higher
First Sergeant
Seargeant Major
Command Sergeant Major
Sergeant Major of the Army
Officer ranks:
Second lieutenant - first officer title one can achieve - second lieutenants lead platoons which typically consist of 16-44 soldiers
First lieutenant - leads more specialized platoons than second lieutenants and companies, which are smallest body of troops, consisting of a headquarters and two or three platoons
Captain - leads a company, 60-200 soldiers
Major - often lead brigades and task forces
Lieutenant Colonel - leads a battalion, 300-1000 soldiers
Colonel - leads a brigade, 1500-3200 soldiers
Brigadier General
Major General - leads a division, 10,000 - 16,000 soldiers
Lieutenant General - leads a corps, 20,000-40,000 soldiers
General
General of the Army
In Chapter 56, McShane puts
$1000 in Katie's checking account. This is roughly
$20,000 according to the
inflation calculator I used with the year 1918 (if Francie's 17 now). That's more money than I have EVER had in my checking account!
jabot (page 488) - Ornamental frill or ruffle on the front of a shirt or a blouse (which brings up an interesting point about the difference between those two words, but I don't think anyone here needs me to go on another tangent), typically made of lace.
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| RBG is the most famous jabot wearer I could think of. |
Van and Schenck (page 489) - Vaudeville comedy performers in the 1910s and 1920s. Gus Van, baritone, and Joe Schenck, tenor.
The Man Who Came Back (page 492) - In 1916, Henry Hull and his wife Juliet Fremont appeared in The Man Who Came Back at the Playhouse Theatre, a Broadway theater in midtown Manhattan. The play was very successful and ran for more than a year. Unfortunately, I can't find a summary of this play. Anyone else know it? Diane?
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Select quotes (I'm limiting myself to no more than one a chapter!):
Chapter 52:
And she promised away her whole life as simply as she'd offered a hand in greeting or farewell. (page 460)
Oh, Francie. Young and dumb.
Chapter 53:
"It's come at last," she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them - I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them." (page 463)
The next few chapters make me remember why I was so pro-Katie at the start of the book. Think of all she sacrificed for her children and all she's going to continue to sacrifice for Laurie.
Chapter 54:
"I will marry you because you are a good man and I'd like to have you for my husband."
It was true. Katie had made up her mind to marry him - if he asked her - simply because life was incomplete without a man to love her. It had nothing to do with her love for Johnny. She'd always love him. Her feeling for McShane was quieter. She admired and respected him and she knew she'd be a good wife to him. (page 470)
More on this quote in the question section.
Chapter 55:
Even Neely said it would be a good thing for her to go far off to college - she might get rid of her Brooklyn accent that way. But Francie didn't want to get rid of it any more than she wanted to get rid of her name. It meant that she belonged to some place. She was a Brooklyn girl with a Brooklyn name and a Brooklyn accent. She didn't want to change into a bit of this and a bit of that. (page 478)
I was at a party over Labor Day weekend with a linguist and we spent a lot of time analyzing our accents because the Northern Cities vowel shift is alive and well in many of the Midwesterners present. There are some divides (I say milk and not melk, for example, and was laughed at for my pronunciation of "mom" which I guess sounds like "mahm," but I don't hear it), but the linguist just laughed at all of us and said that vowels in English are quite mobile, which became the motto of the night. (Also from the linguist: You all just sound like educated Americans. As long as your meaning is clear, your communication is okay. I like his approach.) It's interesting to think about how you speak identifies your background so clearly.
Vowels are mobile! (Just imagine six adults repeatedly saying this over and over again and you get an idea of what a good time with us is like.)
It's also interesting to wonder if Francie will feel like she belongs to Brooklyn when her family moves on to a new home. Since my mother doesn't live in the place where I grew up anymore, I don't really feel like I belong in my hometown anymore. ATGIB says that Francie's old neighborhood will be greatly changed in the years to come (tenements torn down, etc.) and I do wonder if someday Francie will feel like she belongs to someplace that no longer exists.
Chapter 56:
In the two years since she had last looked on the school, Francie had changed from a child to a woman.
She went home past the house whose address she had claimed. It looked little and shabby to her now, but she still loved it. (page 485)
SOB!
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Mentions of the word hat (I can't help myself):
She snatched her gray hat and her new gray purse and gloves from her locker. (page 480) - At least it isn't a green hat.
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Questions for you:
1) Francie can do better than Ben Blake, right? Pompous know-it-all. Grumble, grumble.
2) Katie's explanation for marrying McShane is that he can support her family and her life isn't complete without a man to love her. No mention of her loving him. (See the above quote from Chapter 54). I'm so sad for Katie AND McShane here. Do you think this is enough to build a solid relationship? Do you think this marriage will last?
3) Were you satisfied with the ending here? Did you feel like you got enough closure on our main characters? What about our secondary and tertiary characters? Anyone you want to know more about?
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My head canon for post-book:
1) Francie is Betty Smith, so she becomes a famous playwright and novelist.
2) Katie and McShane have a tolerable marriage. Katie resents his children from his first marriage and Laurie is absolutely spoiled and insufferable.
3) Neely is a very successful salesman. He suffers in the Great Depression, but rebounds. He never marries.
4) Sissy and Evy basically mooch off of Katie, but the three sisters are tight for the rest of their lives.
5) Flossie - I don't know. I want to know more about how she turned out.
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Were there any quotations or lines that particularly stood out to you? Did you have to look anything up?
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Upcoming schedule:
September 18 (entire book wrap up)
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