Evex’s Weblog

Pete chose a graphic novel for this month’s read, written by David Almond and illustrated by Dave McKean. Pete wasn’t aware that it was a children’s book when he chose it , but I don’t think it mattered. None of us had a bad word to say about this tale which is narrated by a young boy coming to terms with bereavement while coping with bullying. Seth thought that it held up well when being read by adults.

The device used by the author is novel within a novel. Blue Baker, the narrator, writes about a story that he wrote after his dad dies. The story is obviously about Blue experiencing grief – however our big debate was about the nature of the savage himself. Pete felt that the savage was fantasy – purely an expression of Blue’s grief – an interpretation that was shouted down by Paddy and Ann. Ann thought that this was a boring answer, while Paddy said he would not discuss such a prosaic interpretation (which was a bit of a lie as he participated quite enthusiastically in the discussion). Paddy was adamant that the savage was real, feeling that to think otherwise was to put a very adult interpretation on a children’s book – Seth agreed, pointing out that younger readers would believe in the savage. I think Nicky and Ciara agreed more with Pete – Nicky was sure that  the savage did not exist apart from in the role of imaginary friend, and Ciara felt that the episode where Hopper was attacked and reacted with fear to Blue showed us that the savage was a projection of Blue’s feelings and actions. Paddy argued that myths and stories should be taken at face value and that we should not intepret the story as a metaphor for Blue dealing with the loss of his father. Dan wondered  if Paddy was underestimating the power of loss, anger and grief.

Ann liked the fact that the family was drawn as quite stable and loving; despite the bereavement, the author wasn’t  tempted to create dysfunctional relationship in order to create drama. She thought that the author had successfully avioded making the story a patromising lesson. I particularly liked the mum’s character – I thought she came across as brave and strong, and although we weren’t given an insight into her grief, I felt that it was clear that this was so she could protect and support her children.

The misspelling technique didn’t work for everyone – Nicky found it quite effective but Paddy and I didn’t agree. I didn’t think that the bad spelling was consistent enough to be convincing – I probably see too much of it in the day job! We didn’t talk much about the illustrations but I felt that they added a necessary dimension to the younger Blue’s writing.

A lovely book.

My second choice ever for book club. I bought it as a present for Dan and thought it looked like it might make for good discussion. The novel is narrated by Hans van den Broek, a wealthy Dutch stockbroker who moves to New York with his wife and son. He becomes estranged from his wife following the 9/11 attacks and takes solace in becoming part of New York’s small cricket scene, populated by a variety of expats.

Immediately we noticed a gender divide in our responses to the book. The men absolutely loved it, with Martin praising the thoughtful narrator with his warm, gentle flow of words and Dan managing to like him despite his riches! In contrast, Ciara, Nicky and I found him remote and had difficulty connecting with him. I only relaxed into enjoying the book when I realised I wasn’t supposed to feel friendship for him – the book really is about male friendship, not about his marriage. Martin pointed out that the excerpts from glowing reviews on the back were all written by men! Nicky pointed out that we don’t get a true picture of his wife through his portrayal – she comes through as horrible and one dimensional. I thought the dinner party episode, where she defends him, gave an insight into a different side of her character.

The book was very global in its outlook, with the theme of cricket bringing together European, American and Caribbean characters in New York. Ciara and Nicky felt that this aspect was too researched, with the characters appearing stereotyped. Martin felt that the narrator describes places through his relationships; we learn about the breakdown of his marriage in New York and England, his childhood relationship with his mother in Holland. However, the book centres around Hans’ friendship with Chuck Ramkissoon, a Trinidadian entrepreneur (or fraudster) and dreamer whose death triggers the narrator’s story. We were divided about the effectiveness of his character, with some of the group finding him fascinating, and others felt that he was two dimensional and derivative. See if you can guess who thought what.

We agreed about the difference in the way that Hans and his wife experienced the sexual encounters that they had with other people. Hans is able to view and reflect upon the one night stands he has, in a completely different sphere from his relationship with his wife. Martin felt that the instant, incidental nature of these encounters was in keeping with his whole situation. In contrast, his wife embarks upon a new relationship. as she is looking for something more permanent, in order to replace her marriage. She is only able to consider reconciliation after this new relationship breaks down.

Nicky criticised the book for having too much day to day detail rather than plot, and having a weak ending. Ciara thought that the unclimactic ending was possibly supposed to reinforce that the book is about what it means to be human – mysteries aren’t always solved and loose ends aren’t always tied up. We all agreed that the ending was uneventful.

I feel like I’ve missed out some of our discussion – I took a lengthy break in the middle of writing this which never helps. We had more to say about the cricket theme and the realtionship Hans has with his mother and Chuck. We didn’t really talk about Hans’ relationship with his son which seems like an oversight.

Highly recommended to the more masculine of you!

The curse of Nabokov strikes again! After choosing Lolita, the first book group fell apart and we never got the chance to discuss it. It seemed almost impossible to arrange a meeting for Pnin, and only Nicky, Ciara and Ann managed to get their act together and turn up to discuss it. I think they had quite a short discussion and I didn’t get the feeling that they were overly impressed.

The book is about the experiences of a Russian professor,  Timofey  Pnin, living and lecturing in post WW2 America. Pnin is presented as a comic grotesque, but this is undermined as we grow to realise that the narrator isn’t the omniscient author but someone in Pnin’s life who has been a friend and a rival.

I think Nabokov writes beautiful prose and I love reading his descriptions. However, it isn’t always pleasant reading the sad and caricatured depiction of Pnin even filtered through the unreliable narrator. It’s also more like an extended short story or character study rather than a novel.

Hopefully one day I’ll be able to do a full write up of one of Mr Nabokov’s novels!

It’s taken me a while to get to writing about last month’s choice – Blindness. This was Ciara’s pick and one that everyone at the meeting seemed to have really enjoyed. The story takes place in an unspecified country where an epidemic of blindness takes hold. Initially, sufferers are held in an old asylum, but as the illness takes hold of the entire population, society starts to break down.

Nicky thought it was a disturbing but thought provoking book that reminded her of Day of the Triffids. Paddy compared it to The Road, in that although they are excellent books, they can provoke a feeling of desolation in the reader! I wouldn’t be surprised if Blindness was an influence on The Road as some of the same themes and devices are used. Saramago writes with in very distinctive style, eschewing paragraphs and speech marks. I felt this this was intentionally disconcerting, reflecting the chaos depicted in the book.

I felt that the author was trying to show us how near we all are to complete chaos in our supposedly civilized society: systems can break down completely after an unexpected event or deprivation of some kind.  Martin felt the book was about our lack of awareness of our own reality and how we can’t actually cope with anything out of the ordinary, needing a familiar structure around us for survival. Ciara thought that the author was illustrating how fundamentally connected to our human instincts and needs we are, which becomes more clear as the layers of normality are stripped away as the epidemic takes hold. This was symbolised by the fact that no character is referred to by name – their constructed human identities are stripped away. Paddy referred to Wikipedia’s comment on this, that the descriptions given (‘the girl in the dark glasses’, the boy with the squint’) are sharply ironic considering the predicament they find themselves in.

The rape scene was, for me, the most shocking part of the book. Martin thought it was a fundamental moment, but Ciara expressed some concerns about the tone it was written in. I felt that the author held back in his depiction of the rape of the doctor’s wife, compared to how he wrote about the other women. Nicky disagreed with me on this, feeling that it was shown to be just as brutal. Martin questioned whether the doctor’s wife was justified in killing the rapist and whether this implied that it is morally right to be able to take revenge in a wider context e.g. when at war. I think a few of us found this scene difficult to read, although I think the author made the right choice in portraying rape as a violent expression of control, stripping it of sexuality.

We discussed whether the book was an allegory. I wondered whether the blindness symbolised that people in society are ‘not seeing’ the systems that they live under and the way that they rely upon and relate to them.  Martin saw the book as representing freedom from the old order, through the asylum scenes, and moving towards a new reality shown through the reclaiming of their humanity when they break free, although he wondered whether the spiritual redemption would disappear if their sight was regained. Paddy brought up the powerful scene in the church, where the statues are ‘blinded’ by scarves, wondering whether it symbolised a breakdown in faith in whether God is watching over humanity.

Paddy and Nicky didn’t think that the characters would regain their sight, whereas myself and Martin did (Ciara must have been at the bar). I won’t reveal who was right in case anyone reads this who hasn’t got to the end yet! I think we would all recommend this book and it is definitely a good choice for a book club as it generates lots of discussion. I haven’t covered some of the discussions we had, especially when we talked about some of the characters. When I leave it this long there’s always the danger that I won’t understand my notes, which has happened!

This month we read ‘The Stars Look Down’ chosen by Ann. We were all swept off our feet by this tale of a manly professor of medicine winning the heart of a impressionable young woman… hang on, that was Paddy’s version. The rest of us read an epic tale of a north east mining community. And very gripping it was too. It’s set in the not too well disguised city of Tynecastle, although we did wonder if we would think about it if we lived in a different city.

Martin was incredibly impressed by the book, describing it as a timeless masterpiece. The rest of us took issue with that at first feeling that it was very rooted in the time that it was written. Ann and I felt that it was dated, but saw that as a strength: we recognised it as a book that probably wouldn’t be written now. However, Martin countered by saying that he felt that the themes were universal rather than the style of the writing. Considering the themes: love, sex, money, class struggle, war – I think he may be right. Martin read it in one go -I almost managed to equal that, reading the first 500 pages on a train journey to Cardiff. Ann felt that the middle part dragged a little, skimming over events.

The book had a large cast, and there was a general feeling that character development was a strength of the book. We discussed the male characters at first, with Ann feeling that the author demonstrated great skill in developing them, commenting on how you could trace how David grew up to be the man he was as he was Robert’s son. The narratives of David and Joe were possibly the principle stories of the book: very different men who both tried to leave their mining background behind, David through education and political activism, Joe through opportunism and his (ahem) natural charms. We felt that the author was able to show their flaws without being overly judgemental or moralistic. Joe is a deeply immoral man but is able to transcend the financial, sexual and class based restraints that bind the other characters. We debated Arthur’s character and motivation: why he refused to go to war and his conflicted attempts to atone for his father’s misdeeds. Nicky felt that his actions were motivated primarily by guilt, and we never fully resolved whether he was driven by cowardice and bravery. Ann thought the the author was representing the ambiguity of the characters he had created.

I felt that the author had a very complex relationship with the female characters that he had created. Ann felt that they were considerably weaker than his male characters, and Nicky wondered whether this was a reflection of the time in which they were written. We were dubious about the seeming equivalence of beauty with weakness and manipulation, while the female characters who had brains, talent or heart described as not particularly good looking. Hilda in particular was at times portrayed as a clever, ambitious woman, but in one rather odd passage described as a psychotic feminist. I had a bit of a soft spot for wayward Jenny, feeling that later on in the century a penchant for booze, dining out and having a couple of boyfriends in young adulthood wouldn’t have resulted in a mysterious STD/mental illness death. Martin thought that Jenny wanted to be like Joe but couldn’t manage it . Annie was probably the most sympathetic female character.

We felt that the sex scenes in the book were more straightforward and explicit than we were expecting from a book written in this time, especially Jenny’s predilection for doing it in public places, and some of the unusual settings. Again this was an example of the author showing us something about his characters without being overtly judgemental. Saying this, we wondered whether the author was being a little coy by suggesting Hilda was a lesbian rather than discussing it explicitly. Ironically, we couldn’t find any sex scenes in Paddy’s Mills and Boone book which we expected to be racier

The mine disaster stood out for us as a powerful and shocking part of the book. I had to skim read it because I found it too upsetting to fully engage with it. We all felt that the author had successfully given each man a realistic and compelling response to their predicament.

Cronin is unafraid to tackle the big themes, and to weave them together. Ideology, and its impact on people’s lives runs through the book. Martin felt that it was a strongly anti capitalist book, but Ann disagreed, saying that unlike The Jungle, it doesn’t offer an alternative, just holds up a mirror to society. Martin and Ann had a debate about whether David as misguided in his beliefs and actions. Ann thought that he believed in the system and in working hard to escape poverty, which ultimately brought him nothing. However, Martin saw him as an idealist who stood up for his beliefs. The beginning and end of the book mirrored each other, with David and his mother preparing for him to go down the mine. We debated whether this represented his return to his community where he belonged, or the futility of his attempts to escape.

We all really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it. There’s also a film adaptation but it’s crying out to be a TV miniseries. Think I will read The Citadel next.