Book summaries - 2010

BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE - Dee Brown

HOUSEKEEPING - Marilynne Robinson

On December 10 we met at Françoise’s to enjoy a wonderful dinner and discuss her book by an inviting fire. Françoise had chosen this book because it came highly recommended by the owner of her trusted bookshop, and while she found the language dense and the word choice difficult enough to require the use of a dictionary, she felt the advice had been fully justified. It was a feeling we all shared when appreciating the lyrical, poetic style of the prose though not all could say, notwithstanding the author’s language skills, that they liked the book.

For those of us that thoroughly enjoyed Housekeeping, the poetry of the natural descriptions and its influence on the author’s choice of words made this a wonderful reading experience. Her juxtaposition of metaphors, like exchanging those commonly used for water to describe the wind, were exhilarating and perfectly suited to the austere, harsh landscapes of the story. We found her insight into her characters genuine and persuasive, and many passages in the book worth underlining. I, for one, have gone back to those pages many times since finishing the book, finding such an aching, melancholy beauty that I feel motivated to write them out and send them to all my friends.

And yet, the undeniably beautiful prose was not enough for some of us to feel, on having read it, that they could honestly say they enjoyed it. For some it was the lack of a real plot. They kept waiting for the story to go somewhere and it never did. For others it was the author’s inability to make them care for the characters. They were left with a strange sense of detachment. For them, Housekeeping lacks the emotional resonance that makes the reader feel a connection with the protagonists. Nobody would go so far as to say they were untouched by the beautiful language but for some it was not sufficient to make them glad to have read the book.

This discrepancy in appreciation was not tied to the group’s varying degrees of English apprehension or cultural background but seemed to hinge entirely on a person’s personal response to Robinson’s story – an individual preference for experiencing certain things when reading that Housekeeping either provided or didn’t – though I feel it safe to say that all of us would recommend the book on at least some level. It’s just that some would do so more enthusiastically than others. (T)

THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG - Muriel Barbery

On November 5 we met at my place and, good hostess that I am, I put everybody to work setting the table and ferrying our dinner (thanks to Mimmo’s goodwill we had a dinner!) from kitchen to table and back again when we were through. Despite the bedlam (and I apologize to our newest member – it isn’t always this crazy) it was, as always (and put best by Laura later in her email) enriching for both my mind and spirit and I enjoyed it greatly despite the chaos.

I had chosen this book because a friend had lent it to me and I had just started it when it was suddenly clear that it was my turn for a book, so the choice was natural. It ended up being, for most of us, a wonderful reading experience as well, which was just luck. I had no idea what the book was about and had never heard of its author, but there were jewels inside that I will keep as reminders of how exquisite life is. This book can be appreciated from various angles. For many of us it was the writing – elegant, spare and so perfectly precise it seemed there could be no better way on earth to say things. For our French speaker, who read it in the original, it was an astute, razor sharp commentary on modern day France while for others it was the tantalizing vision of all things being possible no matter who you are or what you do for a living. Only a few were put off by the whole book. To them its language was pretentious, the view of upper class life in France unremarkable and the  ultimate joy of life marred, inevitably, by death.

While there were certain lines or sections that everybody found admirable, for those untouched by the story the book was boring and not only did they not wish to linger over the various philosophical or cultural musings, they found them arrogant – like showing off. But for those who enjoyed the book, each rumination was particular, giving you one woman’s carefully thought out reasons for the glory of being alive and all those things that any one of us can partake in to enjoy life to the fullest. The two characters through whom the story unwinds could be interpreted as the two poles in terms of how people approach life – those who cannot see past their noses and loath what they see, and those who ostensibly have nothing to look at but find great wealth for the mind, the soul and, ultimately, the heart.

While it doesn’t work for everyone, The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a lyrical attempt to engage the reader in the endless possibilities offered by art, music and literature to rejoice in being alive and having at our fingertips enough inspiration to make every day worthwhile – the way our very own book club does for each one of us.☺(T)

AS THE RAVEN FLIES - Tony Pitt

On September 24 we met at Gill’s place and while several of us were unable to come due to flus and other things, and were missed, it did allow us to sit comfortably around Gill’s table to enjoy her delicious lasagna and not have to be balancing plates on our knees. Gill had chosen this book (still in manuscript form) out of a desire to help its author get some objective feedback on his novel, which she found interesting and compelling enough to submit to the group. Her view, however, was not shared by everyone.

The first problem had to do with Pitt’s calling this novel a thriller, which it mostly certainly is not if you discount the last 20 or so pages. Most of us felt that the way it was written, chronologically, and the emphasis on the theological/spiritual nature of the story until almost the very end, could be called nearly anything but a thriller. Several solutions were suggested, such as using flashbacks and flash forwards instead of a simple time line to tighten the pacing and make the story less predictable – suggestions that would, we thought, make for a better novel whatever it is that the author wants to call it in the end.

The second problem had to do with the dialogue, which most of us found flat, in the best of times, and awkward or unbelievable in the worst. All the characters appeared to us to sound pretty much the same, something that was totally implausible when coming from young people today who, in reality, speak nothing like characters from biblical times. This flaw grated more on mother English tongue speakers than others but the sentiment was shared.

The third was the ending, which riled us all to such a degree that the one who defended it was truly standing alone. The great majority felt such a let down from that last paragraph as to feel gypped. Against its lone defender, who believed that it was the only way such a story could end and poked fun at what she considered our desire for happy endings, the rest of the group had countless reasons why it was such a disappointment. It seemed glib, callous and lazy. The language was high philosophy as opposed to an entire book written in plain English and left many of us not even able to understand what the heck it meant. It took an entire novel, days of reading, and just tossed it all out the window like one big waste of time. Gill told us the end had actually been written first, was the author’s inspiration for the whole thing, but if it is to stay as is it will require a totally new novel unless Pitt is ready to set readers on the warpath.

Many found the basic concepts interesting and enjoyed the author’s unique take on God and Jesus so the ideas underpinning the work were considered valid and we thought they could engender a good novel if what we thought were major flaws were corrected. Certainly the ideas fueled interesting discussions above and beyond our reactions to the writing itself and it was fun to contemplate other ways it could have ended without having it be either a false happy ending or the way it is now. The story generated a very enjoyable evening so no one would consider it without value but to make it a good novel more work needs to be done.(T)

THE SWARM - Frank Schatzing

On August 25 we met at Eva’s and enjoyed a dinner heroically prepared and deliciously executed despite her infirmity. It is now even harder to convince our new members that you could, volendo, just have cheese and crackers for the meeting but since these wonderful meals have become an integral part of our particular form of book-clubbing, I say more power.

Eva had been given this book by a friend who said she (the friend) was strongly reminded of Eva when reading it because of Eva’s focus on marine biology at university, and while Eva conceded that this was, ultimately, what got her immediately involved in the book she was delighted to find that it touched on broader issues and fascinating scenarios all plausibly rooted in fact. This view was shared by many of us, who were swept up in Schatzing’s “what if” evolution from events that are happening even today — the crescendo of all the pieces to the puzzle absorbing us as we wondered all the while how on earth he was going to explain everything.

There were those, however, who found the line between the facts and the fiction too difficult to distinguish. It seemed to them that the writing was too dense, too technical and difficult on the one hand, to engender pleasurable reading, and possibly not even true, on the other, making them even less motivated to do such hard work as reading this book entailed for them. This could partly be explained by less fluency in English but not always, and seemed also to do with their personal preference for books being either fact or fiction.

This difference did not hinder lively discussion, however, since the broader issues underlying Schatzing’s thriller were clear to everybody and are, inasmuch as current affairs go, on the mark for our day. We went off on tangents concerning the ethical treatment of animals, everything from whether or not to patronize marine parks and zoos to how unduly we have curtailed the lives of the most domesticated animals, such as our dogs and cats. We discussed the latest onslaughts to our environment, such as the BP spill and the increasing fury of “bad” weather, with massive floods in Pakistan and parts of Russia burning to the ground as we spoke. We considered mankind’s efforts to contact alien life and appreciated Schatzing’s premise that all attempts are, in the end, tied inexorably to our own perceptions, which alien life likely does not share. And we touched, as we so often do, on the age-old question of whether our tiny attempts at living ethically matter when the world at large doesn’t seem to care.

Certain flaws in the book were seen by all, whether or not we liked it, such as Schatzing’s cursory character development when it came to the American/CIA/government characters — more cartoon than real — or his obvious eye to this ending up, eventually, a Hollywood movie. These drawbacks, while present, affected those who did not much like the book more than those that did and were a good example of how much an author can get away with if he is able to catch you and hold you on the crest of the wave he is building. Once on the ride you accept all kinds of little anomalies to see it out to when he drops you, exhilarated, on the shore, which is how those of us who really enjoyed this book felt like. It was a ride I personally was sorry to see end. (T)

THREE CUPS OF TEA -Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

On June 5 we met at Gillian’s and, after convincing our newest member, Lena, that we do not all go to so much trouble with such success for the Book Club dinner (lest she begin perusing cook books starting now), began discussing Three Cups of Tea, which Gillian chose in part to balance out the idea that Americans are all bloodthirsty war mongers.

There was no doubt for any of us that what Mortenson is doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan is noble and ultimately more effective in countering terrorism than any military action can be, and we all shared his belief in the power of a balanced education to not only help lift people out of poverty and empower women but to actually contribute to world peace. This said, however, there were reservations – minor, such as those concerning his character, and major, such as the inherent cultural bias of anything aimed at, or conceived for, children.

Many of us were rubbed the wrong way by the overly adulatory tone struck by the book. Since we all think that “doing good” ultimately makes the doer feel good, thus benefitting him/her as much as whoever he/she aims to benefit, the constant venerating impact of the book was annoying. While it would seem that Mortenson is a humble person, there were elements in his behavior that made us wonder. Habitual tardiness, for example, which some of us perceive as a form of arrogance, or the fact that he puts his goals above the welfare of his own family, leaving his wife and baby to fend for themselves for long stretches of time without so much as being able to let them know he is even alive, let alone find out how they’re doing. Since the narrator is David Relin, with passages in the words of Mortenson, his family and friends, it was hard in the end to get a balanced picture of Mortenson and I personally would have preferred to have had him write the book alone – surely it would have sounded less like a PR piece.

The bigger concerns are harder to articulate but we realized that we share Mortenson’s view on education (and its form) because we all share the same culture. Naturally, we agree on what a “balanced” education is; however, we also understand that just as we are firmly convinced of what such an education looks like and its merits, others are equally convinced that there is nothing balanced about a western education, but that it inevitably imparts western views. The Turkish gentleman who, with Saudi money, is also building schools, also considers the education provided there to be balanced from a Muslim perspective. And who’s to say? The only way to avoid cultural bias is to only teach “neutral” subjects, like math and science, and no education can be balanced without the humanities (history, literature, philosophy) – all highly culturally influenced.

There were other considerations, too, such as what the people who are ostensibly being helped actually want – a bridge, perhaps, or a thoroughfare for markets – as well as the dangers that come when isolated, materially poor people gets swept into our globalized marketplace and risk swiftly losing those elements in their culture that gave them intangible benefits (community solidarity and dignity, for example) that rampant capitalism destroys (we had Tiziano Terziani’s commentary on the decline of Asian cultures with the rapid onset of modernization as a comparison).. Then there was the risk of Mortenson’s own success corrupting his purpose, as he necessarily focuses more and more on fund raising and the various business aspects of his enterprise.

In the end, however, despite the many flaws (real and possible), we applauded Mortenson’s efforts and believe he does represent a wider group of people that don’t think war is the best answer to the dangers of our times. (T)

BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE - Dee Brown

On 24 April we met at Margie’s house and indulged in what has become her traditional Book Club dinner (tastier every year, I swear…). After dukin’ it out over interpretations of meeting etiquette and deciding that a more laissez faire attitude would be adopted by all, we got down to discussing Margie’s book, a choice predicated mostly by years of suggestions on the part of Maurizio.

Not a novelized version of native American Indian history but an exhaustive compilation of the written record of that history, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was considered by all to be heartbreaking reading – so grim and unrelenting that many preferred to skim the book because being immersed in its detailed accounts of deceit, murder and legalized genocide got to be too much. While some of us were already acquainted with this ugly history, others were surprised at the extent and brutality of what transpired as the United States expanded and grew to the detriment of all who happened to stand in the way.

As we talked we realized that for many, the mythology propagated by Hollywood movies stood in for what they knew of the American past, along with the fame of spectacles like Buffalo Bill’s travelling show or, more recently, revivals of American Indian folklore, which appears quaint and pleasant when one doesn’t know what effort was made to eradicate it. This book, plus the article Margie posted concerning Wounded Knee today, were for many a rude awakening.

Since many of us are well acquainted with the various atrocities committed in other places at other times throughout history and all over the world, it is not so much that this was any worse but that it has been brushed away without so much as a single apology or dedicated monument while the United States government continues preaching to all and sundry about how they should go about making peace with their pasts. Many other governments have done precisely that; heck, even the Vatican apologized some couple of thousand years later for branding Galileo a heretic but one look at any grade school American history book in the hopes of an honest appraisal of this period is in vain.

While not entertaining or even pleasant reading, we felt that Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a valuable book for setting the record straight and acquainting people with what really happened when the “cowboys” fought the “Indians.” (T)

OLIVE KITTERIDGE - Elizabeth Strout

On 27 February we met at my house and while soup and salad was my humble offering the discussion we had on Olive Kitteridge was definitely worth the simple fare. Though we were missing several of the club perhaps it was precisely the smaller group and the complete focus in English that made discussing this novel so interesting and vivid. I had chosen Olive only in as much as it had been given to me as a gift and as I had to quickly get a book for my meeting it seemed a logical choice but it was a novel that acted as a catalyst to many of our own life experiences, focusing as it does on ordinary people in an ordinary place living out the winter years of their lives.

The opportunities for identification with the various characters in this novel were numerous for us – late middle age or older, married a long time or finding themselves alone, struggling to give meaning to lives that, overall, have nothing to set them apart from the millions of others caught in the same circumstances. This is not a collection of stories about whirlwind romances in exotic settings but rather stories that could easily be about any one of us and therein lay the divide between those of us who truly enjoyed this novel and those who did not.

For some, reading is a form of pleasurable escape – a way to experience other places and other emotions – but the author’s ability to give us a truly insider’s view of our own place and emotions ended up being a drag for those looking precisely to escape their day-to-day existence for a few hours. As they put it, they are already living these problems, these big and little life defeats, and have no desire to read about someone else living them, too. But it was this identification that for others of us made this such a special book for in some way it made the compromises we have made, the inequities and misunderstandings, global. It showed us that we are not the only ones at a loss when our kids accuse us of things we can’t remember doing, not the only women who, in acquiescing to our desire to feel and be special for just a little bit end up with things racing out of our control and bringing us closer than we wanted to disaster.

Having our thoughts and rationales brought to life in other people in other places made us feel that this is, in fact, what life is made of – not that we have chosen unwisely or haven’t been good enough to make things special all the time but that the true fabric of daily existence is made exactly of these things. So while for some, reading this book was literally depressing for others it shored up a feeling of sisterhood or of belonging to humankind, of a piece with all those trying to make a decent life in our times. (T) 

Dear Book Club,

Although I have another 20 or so pages to read, I will write a few lines tonight, since I am out all day tomorrow and won't have the time to write anything before leaving home.
I am enjoying the book a lot. I love the individual stories making up a kind of loose-fitting novel. One seems to slide in and out of different tales, the same way I often let my thoughts wander freely from one subject to the next not fixing on anything in particular but in the end still having an entire "picture" in my head! Every detail- however mundane- turns out to be
important to understand the characters in the book, their feelings and their thoughts. Because they are such normal people, just like "you" or "I" or the  neighbour next door, I was able to identify with many aspects of their behaviour and thoughts. I almost wanted to be in Olive's place, for instance, when she overheard the conversation concerning her dress and her persona at her son's wedding whilst she was having a rest on the bed. I would have gladly joined her in pinching her daughter-in-law's bras and shoes as well as messing up her jumper.....Olive Kitteridge does not strike me as a very lovable person but I have a lot of time for her genuine, "no-frills" feelings and actions. She shows empathy with genuine unhappiness, yet can be as direct and abrupt when she has to say something that might not go down so well with the person she talks to. And above all she knows her own shortcomings very well. She is a complex character that is central to the book even though in some of the stories she is barely mentioned. Yet she seems present none-the-less because I got the feeling sometimes that I was looking at the other people through Olive's eyes....I am not quite sure how the author managed to do this and if anybody else in the bookclub has had that kind of experience. The relationship with her husband is interesting, too. They obviously love each other or should I say "have loved" each other and depend on each other, and yet through their conversations they allow the reader to see their disappointments with each
other throughout their lives together. There is some real poignancy in some of their conversations which affected me deeply. I can't say that it made me feel depressed, but kind of low, nonetheless, not least because the stories allow you to look in from the outside to realize what one could perhaps do differently in one's own life to avoid unhappy situations. There is also a
real message in the stories with their different relationships: it's important to try and understand people even if we do not really like them.  I would have loved to have joined the discussion of the book, since there is still so much more to say, and am looking forward to reading Tatiana's summery. Have a good evening......whilst you are talking about Olive Kitteridge, I will be listening to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain who are giving a concert in the Konzert Haus in Dortmund. Lots of Love RM

Thank you, Margie, for always updating our site, and thank you, Tatiana, for the lovely summaries you so promptly provide. From the few lines I had sent in, you must have guessed that I loved the book, and I admired the author for being able to make such everyday happenings into such interesting reading material. I still wonder just HOW she managed to do that!? Lots of Love RM

If I knew how I'd be doing it myself! I think in part anyway it's her ability to convey sprawling, complex feelings in just a few lines: "Of course, right now their sex life is probably very exciting, and they undoubtedly think that will last, the way new couples do. They think they're finished with loneliness, too." Or "Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intamicies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee's, let's say, or the waitress at Dunkin' Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really." These are two of many places in the book where I thought - oh my God, yes!, just a few lines that encapsulate freefloating and undefined thoughts I've had - suddenly making them concrete and so precise I am shocked I couldn't have done it myself. I'd love to go through them all, all the ones I've underlined, to see if they are the same places that struck you, but it would take too long... we do miss you at the meetings. Wish you were here, as they say :)  T.

THE SOLITUDE OF PRIME NUMBERS - Paolo Giordano

On 16 January we met at Roberta’s, together once again after the holidays and the start of a new year. As has become customary, Roberta wined us and dined us Tuscan style and though it took a while to get down to business we soon settled in to talk about The Solitude of Prime Numbers.  Roberta had chosen this book mostly because of its superb title, but also because the author, at 26, is the youngest to win Italy’s most prestigious literary prize. Both reasons proved valid, for Giordano’s take on how two, damaged people experience their solitude is excellent and his style beautifully eloquent.

In fact, too much so perhaps, because this is, in essence, a realistic and depressing examination of two people who, because of childhood trauma of two different kinds, sincerely cannot reach out or be reached no matter how badly they want to, and there were times reading the book that many of us felt it to be unrelentingly grim. It seemed that the only uplifting words in the entire story are the ones that comprise the very last sentence.

This means that the author succeeded in making almost every one of us feel what it must feel like to live encased in an impregnable shroud left behind after childhood misery well into adulthood. There were only a few of us who felt he had taken the issue to an extreme that in today’s world, with better educated parents, school counselors and job therapists, would not be so hermetic and complete. They felt that he belabored a concept to such lengths that it ceased to feel real but most of us believe that this kind of severe loneliness is not only possible but indeed may even be more commonplace than we think, given the fact that dysfunctional families are not a rarity and today’s busy world relegates people like these to some nearly invisible sideline until they snap and either kill themselves or somebody else.

What nobody contested was Giordano’s immense skill in delving into and exposing the heart and psyche of his various characters with an insight that seems incredibly perceptive for such a young man – to the point that it led us to believe that he has likely suffered some of what he writes about himself, or is very close to someone who has notwithstanding (and I’ve checked this) there is no mention of any such thing in his biography on the web. Still, to be so aware having lived a relatively short time must come from somewhere, if not from his own experience then that of somebody he knows intimately or …. perhaps from that place writers go where all humanity can be accessed no matter how short one’s time on earth has been. In any case, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, while not an uplifting read at any time, is a book of great perception and empathy and we were all glad to have read it. (T)