Christopher Nolan’s last completed work before his death in 2009 is a novel- and it is an epic one. “The Banyan Tree” spans over eighty years and follows the life of one woman named Minnie Humphrey O’Brien in the quiet village folds of Drumhollow in Ireland. Most of the action takes place at a small working farm of five fields at the end of a lonely boreen. This is the normal, unglamorous, unpampered life of the Irish country-side where Dublin is a far away fashionable gleam and one glass of white wine on one’s honeymoon is enough to last a lifetime. Every human being has a story and, unfortunately, the stories that get told are usually exceptional. Nolan chose to showcase the story of an uneducated and unassuming woman and yes, it is quite interesting, though not spectacular.
Minnie O’Brien is born in Drumhollow, the daughter of a last-chance spinster and a dissatisfied Dubliner who is viewed suspiciously as an outsider until her birth. Raised in the confines of her father’s shop, she marries Peter O’Brien who has a dark secret. He takes her to the five fields up the boreen and there they have three children- two boys and a girl. We follow Minnie as she loves her husband without question, raises her little brood, and keeps the farm running. And there is always a lot to do on the farm. She is the roots of “The Banyan Tree” of her beloved little O’Briens.
Time marches on. The eldest son becomes a Catholic priest, first in the hot sun of Africa and later a less-than-exemplary bishop in New York City. The daughter becomes a nurse in London and marries a wealthy businessman, doomed then to lead the busy-lonely life of a trophy wife. The youngest demands to be set free before he is ready and travels the world looking to earn his bit, though unsuccessfully. The pony dies, another is bought to pull the family trap and is eventually replaced with a bicycle. The dairy cattle are sold. Wireless radio is introduced to the lonely widow’s old house and the pension check replaces buying and selling at the market in Huntstown. Wealthy and pedigreed neighbor Jude Fortune lusts after the fertile five fields as they fall into neglect. But Minnie is stubborn and will not sell. No, the five fields must stay intact for the day when her prodigal youngest son might return to care for them and hang whatever the neighbors say in whispers.
Nolan’s writing style has been changed by the year he spent at Trinity College, Dublin. It is mature, steady, and an interesting collage of colloquial expression and book-learned patterns. Occasionally, he breaks forth in the assonance and sound-play that so astonish the reader with genius in his other works. But one can just as readily hear the voices of the characters in the story-line as though listening to their most jealously guarded and most precious inner thoughts. His style captivates and creeps into the reader’s own thought patterns until one starts to feel a bit Irish oneself. One can’t help but wish that Nolan had been able to complete that last novel that he was working on at the time of his death. It is clear that he had much more to share with the world, much more that he loved and guarded every bit as much as Minnie Humphrey O’Brien did those five fields up the quiet boreen in little Drumhollow.