Book summaries - 2007-2008

MY NAME IS RED - Orhan Pamuk

SALT, A WORLD HISTORY - Mark Kurlansky

 On 3 October we met at Dominique’s (al completo, as they say) and over a wonderful dinner discussed a very interesting, fact-filled book.  While some of us had already some knowledge about different kinds of salt, areas of extraction and even some history, for most of us this book was full of new and interesting information – or a new perspective on something we already knew.  It was a revelation for many of us to learn about the salt-aspect of American history, or its predominant role in many historical events that are well-known except for this angle. In fact, from an acquired knowledge point of view, Salt is a real goldmine (or salt mine…!)

However, discussing an encyclopedic sort of book ends up a rather limited enterprise. While the book is fascinating because of its fact-filled nature it does not lend itself to the kind of discussions we generally have. One is limited to repeating those facts that were of most interest, or the most surprising – even the most unusual – but no fact in and of itself led to a wider perspective on any other facet of life.  We were constantly veering off into completely different avenues – cooking, travel, etc. – because there wasn’t any real connection either emotional or day-to-day.

This led to some thought regarding whether or not such a book is “literature”. Though a dictionary definition (upon later consultation) includes all written material some of us felt that literature was something that involved the heart and spirit in some way and thus enabled a greater net of related experience for discussion – something a book like "Salt" cannot do.  At the same time, Kurlansky certainly writes with verve and eloquence so that reading this book is enjoyable; discussing it was rather more difficult though be it because of our wonderful group or the simple joy of learning new things, it turned out to be an entertaining evening all the same. (T)

GOMORRA - Roberto Saviano

On June 30 we met for the first time at Roberta’s to enjoy an imminently satisfying summer supper and an animated discussion of the book. We have probably never had a book chosen by someone who had personal experience with the subject matter and it gave our evening an added dimension because Roberta could talk about the issues and context of Gomorra from a first-hand perspective, giving us a sense of immediacy and substance we would not otherwise have experienced.

We all enjoyed this book, depressing as it is, because the author is a superb writer (though the German translation was not totally up to snuff; the English, however, was excellent) who succeeds in being descriptive, exhaustive and intense in equal measure. We could discern the poignancy behind insufferable kids who have and seek no other role models, or the master tailor who turns his back on his exploiters and only succeeds in hurting himself. We felt the gut-level anguish Saviano expresses in trying to explain his inability to just look away and we marveled at the vast reach and complexity of a criminal system we all knew about but never to such a degree.

However, while we admired the craftsmanship and the increased awareness we again found ourselves up against an intractable problem. Organized crime functions with the covert complicity of all levels of society and this enables its influence and permanence to weather everything, with the end result being that it is likely a scourge we will live with forever. Also, there was just a whiff of the hypocritical in the choice of  publisher (politically entrenched) and the media grabbing assertions of the author’s life being threatened. As our Italian husbands expressed quite independently one from the other, nothing in this book is new. Had one been carefully following the news over the years, all this information would have been gleaned beforehand. Be this as it may, we all felt that having the information compiled as the author has done in this in-depth and passionate account has the power to make a far greater number of people look up and take notice than would otherwise occur and this is, perhaps, the only way to make inroads against as formidable and powerful an enemy as the Camorra (and all other organized crime syndicates).

Naturally our discussion was more political than not, and the repercussions being worldwide we had ample fodder though debating in two languages was hard for some. Thus we (or I, anyway) hereby hold Roberta to her promise to take a full immersion English course so that we can welcome her into our midst without sounding like illiterates! A wonderful summer to all  (T)

A LONG WAY GONE - Ishmael Beah

On May 15 we met at Gillian’s and were treated to a marvelous spring-fresh meal despite the nearly winter temperature (lighting a fire this late in the season seemed ridiculous but would probably have gone over just fine). Gillian chose "A Long Way Gone" because it had been recommended and she was interested in hearing about this ugly phenomenon from someone who had been directly involved – a child soldier himself. In this, the book was successful, largely because Beah is obviously a rather extraordinary kid who had a command of language even when very young and a prematurely far-seeing and objective eye. Where many in his position simply succumbed to the brain washing, violence and drugs, Beah managed to keep alive that hidden core of spirit that allowed him not only to comprehend and describe what he was going through but also use it to heal a brutally damaged psyche.

All of us appreciated the author’s strength of character and his honest, naked descriptions of the abject depravity these children experience – so raw and graphic at times that some found it impossible to read the worst scenes. We found his recounting of his recuperation, and that of others like him, detailed and forceful, enabling us to learn to admire and appreciate those people who are fighting to save these children despite their exploitation by both sides of the various conflicts going on in Africa, Asia and Latin America, but it was here that "A Long Way Gone" fell short – not because of any lapse by the author but because of the immense and muddy proportions of this tragedy. In the conversation that ensued we could find parallels in many parts of the world and each time, the scenario was the same. The government in power raped, plundered, pillaged and kidnapped in equal measure as the rebel armies and the ultimate victims were always one and the same. Both sides are financed in large measure by players far from the scene for base monetary gain or power, and the networks, links and hidden byways of these war mongers are nearly always too complex to fully identify let alone fight.

So it was that our discussion highlighted the limits of this kind of exposé – we all agree (as do the United Nations, the European Commission, the African Alliance and many others) that this horrible state of affairs must not continue but nobody knows how exactly to stop it; where even to start when countries happily ratify all kinds of conventions and then do nothing to uphold them. Where to begin when globalization has brought organized crime networks front and center so that Time Magazine cites Interpol’s classification of Guinea Bissau as being the first known “narcostate”, totally in the hands of drug pins from Latin America funneling cocaine through this country towards Europe and the States – and naturally providing ready, easy access to the drugs that destroy these children from within while they are being butchered from without.

 Our discussion lapsed often into the meandering associations of connected problems that have no obvious solutions other than, perhaps, as many of us believe, talking, talking and talking more so that these issues at least remain in the public domain and as many people as possible attempt to put their efforts towards their ultimate solution. In the meantime, Beah’s book provides some easy ways to help this particular cause and is, in the end, an important voice in this particular battle.(T)

THE GRAPES OF WRATH - John Steinbeck

On April 8 we met at Margie’s house to enjoy the now traditional (and always delicious) dinner and discuss an American classic. Margie said she chose this book as a counterweight to the fluff we read the last time and true to its consideration as a classic, despite the more than 70 years that have passed since its publication we all found it to be topical and frustratingly relevant today. It was clear from reading it that the names have been changed and the impact made global but the basic human foibles of greed and ignorance continue to drive the disparity between people with plenty and those with little or nothing.

Steinbeck wrote this book to rouse public sentiment and rally general opinion against the exploitation that was systematically and quite openly being extended over desperate people – the Oakies – who had lost their meager living due to environmental catastrophe and the good old fashioned bottom line. He wrote from his heart and real experience, and did not hide his belief that the only way to prevent such despicable exploitation was to institute some kind of social net so that the hungry did not have to work for nothing but bread to put into their mouths. For this he fought accusations of being a communist when it was worse in the US to be accused of that than of murder.

The obvious parallels bothered us because it seems an example of how nothing actually changes. We widen the scope and tame the language but the outcome is the same – a few are getting rich off the dismally-paid labor of many. There were the migrant farm workers in the sixties – again, in California; there are the GATT-condoned factories in Mexico; the out-sourcing to India and China; the steady erosion of the social services once enjoyed limitlessly throughout Europe – not to mention that to this day real social services in the US are nothing but talk. There are people who suddenly cannot afford basic food staples in Africa and Asia because we are growing food for fuel and western economies must prosper at the expense of developing economies in order to maintain our standard of living.

Our discussions mostly branched off into the various aspects of Steinbeck’s exposé that are happening today, with little by way of solutions, and it was natural that we veered off into politics a great deal because that is what is at the beginning and at the end of all the scenarios we discussed. This meant that we gave short shift, perhaps, to the literary aspects of the novel, not lingering on his magnificent use of the language or the way he alternated his chapters on the nitty-gritty details of the characters’ lives with poetic, soaringly beautiful chapters that belied the tragedy unfolding in the magnificent landscapes and deceptively beautiful descriptions.

While I think Margie felt that we could have talked more in detail about the book itself and were too drawn into the various parallels I believe that our discussions were actually satisfying. When we all like a book we usually end up finished with it very quickly – after all, what’s to say after we have all praised it? Our best discussions come when some really like the book and some really don’t. This time, though we all liked the book very much we discussed its wider import a great deal and in the end I think that is what Steinbeck would have wanted. (T)

THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB - by Kate Jacobs

On March 7 we met at my house and though we were missing Froujke and Jill it felt like we were nearly all together so the evening was wonderful though the book, decidedly, was not. I believe this is the first time in my years with the club that not a single person liked this book. A few of us appreciated the glimpse into New York life; some rather warmed to the character of Anita but overall we felt this book to be one step up from a romance novel – and only because the sex was alluded to rather than described. The writing is mediocre, the characters too pat and the plot predictable. We did  consider that for a younger age group it might be an enjoyable read and we conceded that for a beach book it could be entertaining but for us it fell completely flat. I chose it because the title made me think of our group in some small way and I have always felt there are some fascinating stories in our circle but there were none in The Knitting Club and despite Gillian’s valiant attempts to bring our enthusiastic discussions back to the book from wherever they had wandered there was truly nothing in it to discuss. So, a great evening and a lousy book. (T)

NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON - Pascal Mercier

On the week-end of January 26-27 the Castelli Book Club met at La Selva, an agriturismo in Tuscany, and celebrated 30 years of the club’s existence. This meant enjoying each other’s company, unhurried and task free, relishing in the glorious weather and beautiful scenery, sharing wonderful meals and rejoicing in the deep and easy friendships that make of our group not simply a coffee klatch of like-minded women but a harbor where we each can “let our hair down” (or hang in our pj’s, as it were) and know that we are surrounded by people who share our lives and, for some, have done so for so many years that the abiding familiarity renders our group a haven that both stimulates and welcomes in equal measure. It was for this reason that we missed Froujke and Jill, and those past members who were unable to come since they, too, are elements of the embracing strength of the club.

In the homey atmosphere and holiday spirit of the week-end it would seem nearly impossible to focus with any intensity on a book but Night Train to Lisbon, which Eva chose after being captivated in just the first few pages – which she read because her daughter had been ready to throw the thing out – not only was up to the challenge but may have been one of the best books our group could have discussed on such a memorable event as a 30th anniversary. Basically a philosophical tract couched in a novel, Night Train to Lisbon is excellent testimony to the vast reach and wealth of human thought. Read carefully, each line can resonate with our lives or make us look at things we’ve accepted as mundane through entirely new lenses (much like the new glasses the protagonist acquires) and nudge us towards a true application of thought to what we have made of our lives rather than the blithe and superficial passage with which we normally pass our days.

For some, most forcefully Eva and Dominique (and Roberta), the philosophical riffs resonated so deeply or with such power that they were ready to read the book again – Dominique in French, in order to take the concepts to an even more personal level than what she thought she got in English, good as it was. For them, the fiction in which the philosophy is housed worked perfectly. As Eva said, how else would the author have persuaded anybody to make the effort. For some of us, however, the novelized skeleton upon which Mercier hangs his treatise bares its bones too much. Some of it is so unbelievable as to take away our appreciation of the meat of the book, and it was uneven. There were parts of the story that were riveting, as though so vividly lived and documented that each word was chosen with great care while other sections seemed a hurried and not too carefully thought out link between one philosophical concept and another. This was more annoying to me, Helle (who at times truly disliked the book), Gillian and Margie than to RoseMarie or Francoise but to a greater or lesser degree did temper our enthusiasm.

Philosophy requires a committed effort to think about things we rarely take the time to consider and with some of us nearly able to quote the passages they found most powerful our group was able to discuss the different concepts to a degree we don’t often reach. Many of the concepts are jewels that can illuminate different aspects in our lives and the book has many, so though we delved into a myriad of issues of serious import – religion, parenting, relationships – we never risked leaving the confines of the book and the hours we were able to spend talking about it flew. While the story itself is more or less enticing the fascinating and profound glimpses into those concepts that define our lives engendered a fruitful and in-depth discussion; perhaps this was abetted by the  sense of no time limits, by the crackling fire and the countryside outside our windows changing from dusk to night in beautiful color but it was most certainly a memorable meeting and one that will live in our hearts and continue to provide us with delightful memories.(T)

Dear girls,

I looked into my dictionary to find the English word corresponding to ' Wehmut ' : It says 'melancholy' but in German 'melancholy' is a sad feeling, sadly painful and a bit on the edge of desparation. ' Wehmut ' is painful too, but a soft, longing, even yearning, beautiful pain - if pain can be beautiful... but I think it can be.  And this beautiful pain I still feel remembering our 30th anniversary. What a beautiful place, almost unreal weather and our group so very much at ease with each other - the memory still sounds inside myself and I am very grateful to be with you all in our group ! I hope you all came back sane e salve and I wished you felt  the same beautiful pain - just happiness !

 Thank you girls, Roberta included.

Eva

It was so sweet of you to think of sending me a "Programme" with all the messages in the back. It looks as though you had a fabulous weekend - I thought of you all a lot over those two days and wished I had been able to make it. Anyway - not to be! You - Margie - have done an extraordinary job, keeping records of all the books, all the members and keeping us all in touch for 30 years with the website and your emails! Thank you again so much; the continued contact is extra important for those of us who dont live in Italy any more! Looking forward to the 35th! Lots of love, Fi

Dear all,

Many thanks for the booklet and your kind messages.  I know I was wise not to come as I am finding it all quite a challenge. Twenty six family members to provide for for a weekend plus at least 100 for snacks after the memorial service, plus the arrival of my mother’s furniture etc. etc.  I felt quite despondent on 26^th thinking of you all, but luckily Ru turned up out of the blue and we went walking on Dartmoor.

I’m glad you all had a great weekend I will be very interested to hear how the discussion of the book went. I must admit I didn’t think it rang true, it was all too improbable. I tried to focus on the main characters. Gregorious rather uncharismatic and so lonely he wanted to literally enter another man’s life. (Amadeu’s relations seemed amazingly tolerant opening their doors to a total stranger and telling him their closest family secrets.) Amadeu also lonely and inward looking (always dwelling on his unsatisfactory relationship with his parents) but outwardly charismatic. Both brilliant but neither really reached their potential. Interesting descriptions of Lisbon which I don’t know but which I would now like to visit. I believe the translation was poor which didn’t help. Amadeu speech at the graduation ceremony for me was a highlight of the book.

Hope to see you all before the next reunion. Maybe I could join in a meeting when I am in Italy. I will be coming for at least two weeks around Easter and will be fairly free except for a few days when Alessia and Gaia will be staying with me in Lucca.

Love to you all

Christina

Dear all,
Now back in Sweden, I think back on the lovely weekend we spent together, how much fun we had. Further, the brilliant organisation coupled with perfect weather made it a most unforgettable time spent with the best of friends.
Thanks to you all, only wish more  bookclub members could have joined in. As one member present suggested, we should  try to get together for a weekend away once a year. I would certainly second that.
Have fun at the next meeting. We should be back in Italy again  at the beginning of May and hope to be able to join you then.
Much love
Helle.

Love RoseMarie

SUITE FRANCAISE - Irene Nemirovsky

 On Friday,  January 4, we met at Francoise’s – chi c’era c’era chi non c’era non c’era… - and over a lovely dinner and a welcoming fire discussed Suite Française. Francoise chose the book in order to read something “French”, and also because it came highly recommended. Though German occupation is not new for any of us in terms of literary renditions this book was exceptionally good and while some of us liked certain aspects more than others there wasn’t anyone who didn’t deeply admire the author and totally enjoy the book.

Suite Française is enjoyable from different perspectives. There’s the first part, detailing the mass exodus from Paris when it was about to fall into enemy hands. It is my favorite part – vividly describing the chaotic, nerve wrangling mess of everybody trying to get out of the city at once while at the same time focusing intimately on the various characters and how the best (but mostly worst) parts of their personalities come to the fore in those desperate times. The second part was an intricate look at one particular village under occupation, and how the villagers see-sawed from hating the guts of the Germans that have suddenly overtaken their homes and their lives and accommodating them – even liking them as their German-ness is superseded by their being young, handsome and often entirely likeable men.

That, we decided, was the essential story. But then the book could be read from a different viewpoint, focusing on the author and how she got the results she did. This was helped considerably by the notes included that Irene Nemirovsky jotted down – not only ideas for plot and character but philosophical and literary traditions she wished to attain, epics she hoped to emulate. Thus we are privy to an author’s work in progress, not merely seeing the finished job but part of what was going on in her mind as she wrote it.

And then there is yet another view – that of the tragic story of the author herself and her family, made up of letters written by her, her husband and a final note concerning the fate of her children. We agreed that Suite Française is a multi-faceted book that we enjoyed at every level and all of us finished it struck by the certainty that had the author not been killed she would surely have become very famous as she continued to write.

All this praise, however, makes for a short discussion in the end. As always happens when we all like a book, after consensus is had and we’ve all read out our favorite parts or considered the things we were most drawn to, the conversation slips unobtrusively to other subjects. At first they are linked but soon we are just gabbing and having a grand old time so perhaps Suite Française is not a perfect book for discussion but it is most certainly a wonderful book. (T)

IMPERIUM - Robert Harris

On Friday,  November 30, we all met at Gill’s place and enjoyed a wonderful meal that belied all her assurances that she’d gone to no trouble at all…Gill told us that the book had been recommended to her and she thought it would be fun for our group to read something set in ancient Rome. To this end she armed herself with a map and a rudimentary knowledge of Latin that she put to good use in following the travels and vicissitudes of Cicero, which gave her an immediate, first-hand feel for the story.

There is much to be said for her approach because not all of us felt as involved in the story as she did. This, however, did not only depend on our use or not of maps but seemed to have something to do with how much we already knew about ancient Roman history and Cicero in particular. For those like Eva, Francoise and Dominique, who had studied Cicero extensively, the book was a disappointment – although Dominique was able to enjoy its rather superficial story more than the other two because of the parallels she felt were jumping out all over the place with the way politics and the populace are controlled today. Eva and Francoise objected to the narrow view the book provides of Cicero’s extensive and utterly fundamental influence over some of the most basic precepts of Western thought and knowledge, portrayed more as a scheming albeit wily politician who knew how to make compromises, when to fight and when to flee.

Margie, Gillian and I, with much less by way of in-depth knowledge about Cicero, perhaps enjoyed the book more but Margie’s and my view was colored by something entirely different – well-read Italian husbands. Both Maurizio and Mimmo read Imperium and both felt that there was something ultimately flawed about it, though it was Maurizio who put the concept to words best. He said that all the facts were true but their rendition and perception were entirely through the eyes of the modern century. Thus our enjoyment of the basic story was shadowed by an unformed but present feeling that things weren’t quite as simple as Harris made them sound.

This carried over to what was, at bottom, the most interesting part of the book – how little things seem to have changed in the world of politics even more than 2,000 years later. The way alliances were firmly made and casually broken, the naked (and successful!) attempts to manipulate public opinion, the sorry state of justice – all can be found and elaborated on by listening to today’s news. Still, we kept wondering whether we weren’t in some subtle way being manipulated by Harris himself, with more emphasis on something than perhaps was given at the time, or a detail thrown in that may be entirely of his own creation.

Read simply as a good story we all basically enjoyed Imperium, except for Eva who simply could not read one more word about a time and place she had studied well and found so disappointingly rendered in the book. Froujke and Gillian enjoyed some of the minor characters that seemed better drawn than the protagonist himself, and Gill delighted in the descriptions of places she knew from her own travels, but our enjoyment required blinders, which made Imperium less than a good read.(T)

HALF OF A YELLOW SUN - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

On Friday,  October 12, we met at Dominique’s house and enjoyed an Ethiopian meal – not Nigerian, like the book, but from the same continent at least! Discussion on the book started late because of me, unfortunately, as Eva and I didn’t arrive until after the meal was over, but it was easy to get into the story once we began.

Dominique read the book because Brian recommended it. When she started it she realized that our book club had had little, if any, input from Africa and both the writing style and the subject matter appealed to her immensely, making her pick it for the rest of us. She felt that the Biafran story had been one of the first such incidents that the mass media beamed into everyone’s consciousness but that few people knew what the history behind the famine was nor the end result and it was this aspect of the book that we liked the most.

Never before had the western world been so appraised of a tragedy taking place in another part of the globe, with the television everybody owned by then making its first real physical incursion into the news, transmitting terrible pictures and stories directly into our homes. But though all of us remembered Biafra none of us knew how the whole thing started nor how it ended and this author’s rendition struck us as extremely realistic. Not only did we finally understand what was behind the creation of the state of Biafra but through the book we lived the slow, steady demise of a people’s hope and will – the legacy of which is still carried by the people of Nigeria today.

Most appealing about the book is the fact that this “history lesson” is imparted through interesting, believable characters. We relate to them, and enjoy meeting them as the author brings them into the story; thus their reactions to the initial massacre of Ibo and the subsequent decision to secede and form an independent state read true despite the fact that we have no real experience with this period to weigh the story against. Just the true-to-lifeness of the protagonists, their characters, which influence how they deal with the slowly developing trauma after the first euphoric swell of tribal pride, made us feel we were getting an insider’s view of what happened and how people dealt with it.

We all enjoyed the writing style, which is to the point and eloquent, and felt that this young author has a surprising command of literary technique and, at the same time, a true feel for the various states of mind people inhabit and how that influences their coping mechanisms (or lack of such) when faced with a tragedy of these proportions. The only one of us who didn’t enjoy the book was Eva, who felt that reading about such horror and sadness just brought her down. With all the terrible news coming in daily she felt getting into this book was simply overkill and reading it overwhelmed her, but the rest of us were caught up in the story and very much enjoyed the way it was presented. We all agreed, however, that we would be interested in reading her other book as she does seem to us to be as gifted a writer as the reviews of Half of a Yellow Sun said she is. (T)

THE READER - Bernhard Schlink

On September 12 we met at Gillian’s house – the whole crew, so that we were cramped and cozy and delighted.  There was much to catch up on, a whole summer gone by, and a wonderful meal to enjoy but we brought the book to the table and  soon got down to business.

Gillian had chosen the book because it was recommended to her by a friend whose judgment Gillian trusted, and on a whole we all thought it was a good book – not so much for literary style or a unique premise but because it was nearly unparalleled in provoking discussion, thought and sentiment. Because of a date change the meeting fell in the middle of the week and those that had to work and get up early in the morning could not stay until the subject had been exhausted so, unfortunately, the evening was shorter than most although in truth we probably could have kept on talking straight to dawn.

Any story about the “Jewish question” in Nazi Germany throws the doors open wide to much that has been said in a million different ways over the ensuing years but “The Reader” takes such an oblique and, on the surface, mundane route that you are halfway through the book before you realize what exactly is happening. And then this simple story about youthful sexual awakening, illiteracy and the consequences of both becomes a metaphor for the complex dynamics of victimization and the radical rooting of guilt. What made this story hit our group with such force was the fact that more than one had actually lived through the consequences of Nazi Germany – as a German, as a Jew and even as a conquered state – lending a visceral identification with many aspects of the story. And it was each woman’s personal identification (or lack of such) that colored her view of the book’s bigger message.

Eva and RoseMarie – present for having sent her views via e-mail – lived first-hand the enormous and nearly unbearable guilt that being a German after the war entailed. So stark and prevalent was RoseMarie’s desire to not be part of such a horrible history that she went for many years pretending not to be German, and it took serious soul searching on Eva’s part before she was able to come to terms with who she was and know in her heart that she carried no blame. Neither woman had anything to do with the war period itself, naturally, just as Margie, who is Jewish, did not personally live any of the evil inflicted but nonetheless realized at one point that she had a knee-jerk mistrust of anybody who was German.  Gill and Gillian, who are British, well knew the opposite end of the spectrum, where the noble British war effort somehow rubbed off onto successive generations despite their having had no part.

Francoise, Dominique, Froujke and Helle (French, Dutch and Danish) could distance themselves to some extent and thus were able to focus more on what I will call the surface story, Hanna’s seduction of a 15 year old boy, her illiteracy and the choices it forced her to make – culminating in her being tried for war crimes. Helle focused on the tragedy of illiteracy, still a problem in our day, and how people who cannot read and write hide their inability and often make drastic choices so as not to give themselves away. I was appalled at the character of Hanna and was unable to feel much sympathy for a woman who willfully seduced a boy who thereafter was unable to form a loving relationship with a woman, and found myself butting heads with Dominique who questioned the innocence of 15 year olds. But these were gravy. The meat of the book was what ordinary people did in the extraordinary setting of Nazi Germany, and what that has meant (if anything) since. As in many of life’s more intractable issues there seems to be no foolproof explanation nor has the issue been laid to rest. If anything it was clear that passions still bristle and points of view can be diametrically opposed even now, more than 60 years later. Perhaps “The Reader” is, above all else, an excellent barometer of how far we have come, and it was a superb choice for our book club. (T)

 l liked the book a lot….albeit  with a very “heavy heart”…..so much sadness and melancholy was sometimes hard to “digest”. The author’s precise and “no-frills” style put me immediately into an alert and reflective  frame of mind. Although previous books that we have read were much more wordy and flamboyant  they did not manage to “hit the emotional spot” in quite such a direct way as did Bernard Schlink’s economic use of language in “The Reader”.  ( When we read Doris Lessing’s “The Fifth Child”, her use of language had much the same effect on me)  The book was very disturbing, too, because I could identify with all the different emotions that were expressed or described by and through the various characters. Hannah was a culprit as well as a victim. She could be perceived as both cruel and vulnerable. Someone that abused and was abused herself. Michael, the young adolescent, who falls in love with Hannah--- 21 years his senior--- at the age of fifteen, was a victim first and foremost, yet thought of himself later on often enough as being “guilty” of some betrayal vis-a-vis Hannah.  The entire story is a rollercoaster of emotions,  tempting one to condemn one minute what one might want to excuse the next ! But any amount of empathy that I felt, never diminished the horrible and cruel deed that was done through the hands of Hannah and the other women.

The book took me back to the time I went to Grammar School when history lessons taught us to face and accept the fact of our collective guilt. We had to deal with the sins committed by our fathers, uncles, teachers and possibly close family friends. No one could  be absolved and  words like: “…but we were not even born when all this cruelty took place” were unacceptable.  We had to take a share of responsibility  for the cruelties that the nation, we had been born into,  had committed. When I finished school I wanted out! I left Germany feeling deeply ashamed of being German and thus carrying the burden of unforgivable atrocities. Another planet  didn’t seem sufficiently far away…….the next best things were Africa and the Far East…. English became my escape route and “hiding place”…..to pass as an English speaking person was  comforting, and to avoid having to admit to being German was an aim worthwhile pursuing. If only one could have shed one’s nationality like a snake’s skin!

Back in Europe again later on, however, history caught up with me, once more, really fast. The paediatrician that was to look after me and our first child in Rome was a German Jewish doctor whose entire family had been wiped out in one of Germany’s concentration camps. I wanted to hide under the chair during my first visit in her surgery. I wanted the floor to open and swallow me up. I wanted to run…….. when being asked now where I am from, my first urge is still to “run”, but I have learned to “remain”: I have finally learned to admit to being German. Perhaps a reason why I was able to return to Germany after such a long time abroad .………… Thinking back of all these emotions  throughout my own growing-up time in the fifties and sixties and of the  very many heated discussions with my parents and others of that generation who had been directly involved in the war, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Bernhard Schlink’s book was more than “just” fiction. It feels to me as if it contained a lot of “autobiographical” material. His book feels like a coming to terms with events and people and biographies that have been a part of his own life.

Hannah, the central figure of the story behaves in such a monstrous way that any attempt to view her with sympathetic eyes has ultimately got to be abandoned. It is true, that much of what came about in her life had something to do with her being unable to read and write. Yet her illiteracy could never provide a justification for her actions---neither during war time nor later on when she seduced the 15year old Michael. Hannah took possession of a young boy who, subsequently, throughout his entire  adult life remained unable to form a fulfilling relationship with another woman because of her: she was a mystery to him that he felt the need to explore, she punished him when he didn’t act  as she had expected him to  by withdrawing her love from him, she made him feel guilty for being young and interested in having a good time with his contemporaries, and above all he experienced an emptiness and pain when she disappeared out of his life without a word, without an explanation, that he was never able to recover from. Nor from the shock of discovering later on who Hannah really was and what cruel actions she had been capable of carrying out, partly because she was too proud to admit to her illiteracy and partly because of the hopeless situation she found herself in (clearly expressed in the courtroom when she asked the judge: ”What would you have done in my place”……)  

“The Reader” is such a little book in terms of actual size and number of pages that it is a miracle and surprise how huge and extensive it is in contents! One evening will not be enough to discuss  all the soul-searching and  interesting topics as well as philosophical questions  that it contains. Wished I could be there with you. Have a wonderful evening. Love RM

PS. It goes without saying that I read the book in German.....what the translator has done with the original text I don't know.......so when I write about Schlink's language I am not so sure that those that have read the translated version will understand what I am on about. However, on the whole good translations are obtainable nowadays, so I trust we won't run into the same problems that Eva felt existed when we read Michael Ende's
book some years ago! Love RM

ORACLE BONES - Peter Hessler

On June 22 we met at Margie’s house, missing Froujke, Eva and Francoise but with RoseMarie and her daughter, which gave the evening a special feel. Margie now has no choice but to cook chilli con carne and strawberry cake – which she uncomplainingly did – and we enjoyed it all thoroughly, books on hand for the whole time we were at the table. Margie had chosen this book after walking around a huge book store in the States holding it in her hands since the subject matter was interesting and nothing else on the shelves jumped out at her, and it was a successful book for our club because whether or not we liked the book appeared to depend upon how we initially perceived China.

I, perhaps more than anyone, Margie and Dominique had a fairly monochrome view of China – big place, billions of people, communist state – inherent in which (though I admit this was more my own preconception than theirs) was the sense that everybody was doing more or less what they were supposed to be doing and hence were more or less the same. Thus it was fantastic to learn about the different ethnic groups in China, and the various ways in which lifestyles and mores differed from region to region and between social classes. It was a revelation to read how much space there actually is for different approaches to getting ahead in life, and how complex and varied the peoples’ perceptions of their own history are. What we most enjoyed about Hessler’s book was the multifaceted view he provided of a truly immense place with so much diversity you kept uncovering layer after layer of unique views and unintended consequences of historical events and current practices.

For those, however, who had a more nuanced view of China and took to heart the blurb on the book cover promising ‘…great insight into Chinese society,’ the book was a disappointment because they felt that instead of giving us insight Hessler only succeeded in showing us a thousand individual, unique and ultimately small pieces of the Chinese social fabric that did nothing in their view to enhance their knowledge of the country. If anything it seemed to them simply a hodgepodge of people the author met, places he visited and experiences he had, leading Gill to comment that she felt she knew more about Peter Hessler after reading it than China!

This led, naturally, to very interesting discussion because the same passages that might get me and Dominique excited merely gave Gill and Gillian reason to bemoan excessive detail that ultimately led nowhere. At the same time we could all relate to the fascination with the different cultural constructs that were responsible for guiding different people and how often they had no parallel to our own, which branched off into how cultural mores change once people leave their homes and settle elsewhere – as close as a different part of the same country or as far as a different land altogether – tying us in to the immigrant experience and the Chinese immigrant experience in particular. Seeing as every one of us is, essentially, living an immigrant experience of some sort or another, the repercussions of the discussion were immense and interesting, and the evening was a wonderful success. (T)                                                                                    

CLOUDSTREET - Tim Winton

 On May 29 we met at my house, with only Gillian missing. Since a full week before this date the weather has been hot and summery, I planned a light, outdoor dinner that ended up being a light indoor dinner because it rained all day! Despite the change due to the weather we enjoyed the company as we always do, and particularly the discussions centered around Cloudstreet, which all of us liked nearly to a woman without reservation.

This book had been given to me as a Christmas gift by my sister and though I only managed to read one chapter at that time I was so excited about the writing that I wanted our club to read it. The more I read the more I felt that Winton is a phenomenal wordsmith, able to create scenes and induce feelings with the sheer skill and audacity of putting words together that I’d never seen together before, or hijacking their grammatical uses for other needs, resulting not in confusion but in such vivid characters and settings that I hated to have to stop. It is a skill that most of us enjoyed thoroughly, both because of the Australian rhythm and character, which permeated the speech patterns, and the efficacy of the way places were described – with such verve and love it felt like being there.

The beauty of his use of language wasn’t the only pleasure. It is also a wonderful family story, true and heartfelt. By the end it seemed as though these people were real, as though we knew them and suffered and rejoiced with them, and ultimately wished them all the best for the future. My one worry was tied essentially to Winton’s unique use of language – that it might prove daunting to the non-mother tongue English speakers of our group. While it did slow some down, Eva and Francoise felt that it ultimately didn’t matter if there was a word or two they couldn’t understand – even four or five when the  author carried them out into landscapes and sentiments that they understood if only through the heart and by ear. Only Dominique found that the use of idiom and slang, and an often unconventional English, tripped her up enough to make the read a chore sometimes instead of a pleasure, though she still ended up liking the book in general.

If there was any reserve it was Gill’s, who felt that the book did not live up to the hype on the back cover. Somehow neither the story nor the language made her feel Winton warranted comparisons to Steinbeck or Faulkner, but her view was a lonely one. The others were enthusiastic about Cloudstreet in every way and all indicated they would love to read something else by Winton – almost as a test, to see if he could pull something this stunning off again. Since Cloudstreet is a story about two families the discussion branched out all over the place – comparisons with our own families (mothers in particular!), ideas about home and place and how essential these are to one’s identity, the magnetic pull of kin that is sometimes tether and sometimes dead weight, and on out to the use of idiom and how much gets lost in translation, Australian history and the personal cultural codes that influence the way we react to what we read.

Though it often felt as though we were careening far from topics that could ultimately be linked back to the book itself, the truth is that Winton’s gift has been to evoke a time, a place and a group of people that we not only grew to know and love but that resonated with our time, our places and the groups of people that we interact with so that in the end, everything can be brought back to the book and Winton’s loving depiction of the joys and sorrows that make up the lives of all families everywhere.(T)

HEGEMONY OR SURVIVAL - Noam Chomsky

 On April 20 we met at Froujke’s house and were fortunate to be following on the heels of her birthday for she cooked us a special, festive dinner that didn’t quite put us in the mood to discuss something as basically frightening as Chomsky’s book. Froujke had chosen it after hearing it recommended by friends and though most of us agreed with her that there was nothing in it that we didn’t already either know or intuitively guess, the effect of his marshalling facts, figures and declassified data in a barrage some of us barely got through was to drop us into a pessimism that seemed impossible to alleviate unless you ignored it, which is easy to do when you’re surrounded with friends and enjoying a lovely dinner.

Much of what Chomsky compiled appeared to be more eye-opening for me, and in part Margie, than for the Europeans of our group because our ability to second-guess and question motives has been learned while the others in our group seem to just pick this capacity up by osmosis in childhood. Although Chomsky confirmed many of the things I have thought to be possible it was shocking to see declassified data from our, shall we call them the golden years?, less recent history (WWII and into the 50s) that took away the American spin of that period which focuses on America’s altruism and revealed it instead to be as conquest-oriented as it is today but not so blatant. Gill drew up a list of all the instances she could think of where America meddled (often disastrously) in the national politics of foreign nations to its own ends and, again, there were no surprises but just having it all there, set end to end and over time, hit home how pervasive and accepted these interventions are, even though they are often less than efficient.

In fact, the discussion centered not so much around anything that Chomsky says but whether there is something any of us can do about it. Eva and Froujke  strongly believe that each of us, by refusing the propaganda, teaching our children how to fight it and talking as much and as widely as we can about the various injustices we see around us does make a difference. It may not be a measurable quantity or even something that we see happen in our lifetime but if the like-minded act together, a wave of influence slowly forms and grows, pulling others into its wake so that some time in the future it breaks with the changes it’s been carrying over time. I would like to believe that but found myself more in Margie’s camp, feeling distressed and impotent about anything I can personally say or do that would matter, though we all agree that hiding our head in the sand is unacceptable.

There was also much interesting discussion concerning whether or not other countries, were they as powerful as the United States, would behave in the same way. If we looked at history it would appear that the answer is yes, but we did not all agree on how much we have evolved as a people to change that perspective today. Gill felt that mankind has made giant steps, evolving personally and culturally in a myriad of ways that make any comparison with the past useless while others of us were not too certain that anything but a veneer of civility has been adopted to mask the beast that still growls within. Perhaps the truth is, as always, somewhere in between and Chomsky’s book, while shrill and less than even-handed, is well up to the task of instigating debate and, who knows, maybe even change.(T)

MY NAME IS RED - Orhan Pamuk

On February 20 we met at Eva’s house, and in deference to having read a book by a Turkish author, Eva prepared a wonderful Turkish dinner—though we all hope this isn’t going to start a trend!—and it was fun to be eating food I can’t pronounce while discussing a book that I often couldn’t fathom.

More a philosophical treatise than a mystery novel, My Name is Red revealed, to me anyway, better than anything I have ever heard or seen how different the Islamic culture is from ours. Granted, the book takes place in the 1700s but the basic cultural constructs have remained, changing little with the changing times, and I can honestly say I was forever thinking that I was very happy to have been born in the west—whatever its drawbacks and failures (while I can sometimes see the pull of converting to Buddhism and, like Froujke, mourn the utter erasure of American Indian culture, I can’t for the life of me see why anyone would convert to Islam). In fact, several of us commented often throughout the evening that we found much of the book so dense and contradictory and maddeningly unspecific that there were many things about the Islamic mind-set we simply couldn’t understand.

 Unlike Margie, RoseMarie, Gill and me, however,  Eva and Froujke were swept up in the poetic cadence and wholly different perspective of the characters in this novel. Instead of being put off by people never getting to the point or bored by the stories told rather than questions answered they found the pace rich and detailed, perhaps much like the miniature paintings of the protagonists, and were able to appreciate the languorous attention to the finest points and even the multitude of voices (including that of the color red). Francoise and Gillian appeared to have a foot in both camps, sometimes frustrated but often caught up by the author’s intricate descriptions of people and places and emotional states, and perhaps it was mostly RoseMarie and I who grew at times to despair our two cultures ever attaining anything more than a begrudging respect for one other—that being the best one can hope for.