Book summaries - 2011

WHAT I LOVED - Siri Hustvedt

THE LACUNA - Barbara Kingsolver

 On December 15 we met at my place and had a late morning brunch (the first in book club history, I think, and also the last, if we heed Margie, which we will J ) to discuss The Lacuna. I’d chosen this book because it was suggested to me by nearly all my friends in the U.S. and since I like Kingsolver generally I was looking forward to reading her new book. Personally speaking I was less swept away by her prose than in her earlier works but when it comes to bravely tackling the origins of the ills of our times I think it one of her best. 

Most of us enjoyed the book, but for different reasons. Some, quite the opposite to me, found the writing beautiful and were swept up in her descriptions of places and people, especially the first part of the book, which takes place in Mexico. Others enjoyed the way Kingsolver tied many of the problems of our commercial, superficial times to the unprecedented events of the depression and WWII. Even if we didn’t agree with all the parallels and consequences she came up with we found them interesting and worthy of discussion. 

 Many of us were also pleased to learn more about a time and people we didn’t know much about and enjoyed the real/fictional blend regarding the lives of the artists, Rivera and Kahlo, and Trotsky, but this aspect was also the one that divided our views because there were also those among us who didn’t like the liberties Kingsolver took with the known facts of these people’s lives. The imagined conversations, events and letters that could in no way be verifiably true made them doubt the rest, it being hard to discern what was actually said and which things truly happened from the fiction. They felt that a book dealing with real people should be wholly real and objected to words being put into real people’s mouths and feelings attributed to them which they may have never had.

Since Kingsolver’s base (founded on a great deal of research) felt solid, others of us could go with her ideas of the possibilities, finding believable the views and attitudes she obviously made up, especially because these were unusual people in an unusual time. We all found the fictional characters well drawn – Shepherd’s mother and Tom Cuddy – and believable even though they often seemed to be meant as prototypes of the day. Perhaps only Mrs. Brown seemed fully her own being, an individual not meant to characterize an era but simply a creation so lovingly made she seems more real than the real ones. 

We appreciated the nuanced, subtle approach to Shepherd’s sexuality as it chimed perfectly with the period in which the story took place, and admired the fearless stance The Lacuna takes in making connections between things that happened then and are happening now, and outlining the beginning of America’s downward slide morally and ethically. We may not have always agreed but it was certainly extremely conducive to discussion and it ended up being a wonderful book for our club.

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful New Year’s Eve and a splendid 2012. With affection. (T) 

THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING - Alaa Al Aswany

On November 8 we met at Eva’s house and, true to her culinary book club history, enjoyed an Arab meal in honor of "The Yacoubian Building", which takes place in Cairo. Eva had bought the book while visiting Cairo in order to get a feel for the place and its people and she wanted to share this glimpse with us. Basically we all enjoyed the book and found the story engaging and the characters well drawn but more than afford a new look at the country it rather reinforced ideas and perceptions most of us already held based on our own acquaintances and experience. 

Though the folk peopling this story are complex characters created with realistic nuance and depth they still adhere to a basic thrust of Egyptian culture consisting of a great deal of wily scheming, in the best of circumstances, and deceitful conniving in the worst. Most of the characters, even the most appealing, used manipulation and pretence to get where they wanted to go or achieve their goals and it was the rare person we tended to admire. In truth, however, in such an environment, permeated by corruption and cronyism, it seemed clear that the only way forward for the common man was to hone those skills and use them as the only tool in their possession when they lacked money or name, and the book’s most lasting effect was to make us all truly understand what lies behind the Arab Spring and why it is the only response possible. 

 The book also made us see that the ills affecting Egyptian society are pretty standard and have affected most countries at some time or other in their history, including Italy. We compared a lot, looking at the changes that have occurred here over the last 40 years or so and connecting some of the more “backward” mores to those that still exist in many places, including Egypt. Naturally, dictatorships manage to fix these outmoded constructs for a longer period of time and it is only now, with the rebellion of the people, that change may come – though "Reading Lolita in Tehran" went far to educate us on how precarious the aftermath of any revolution is no matter who plays a part in bringing it about.  

Perhaps the author’s greatest achievement with 'The Yacoubian Building" is to have etched into place a time right before the change, showing ordinary people trying to make their way in a difficult world and making the reader understand behavior and convictions that can only make sense when there is no other solution possible. While some of us found the situations and descriptions a bit pat at times we all liked the book and many look forward to reading his next, which explains and describes the Egyptian Arab Spring. Having read "The Yacoubian Building" we are better able to comprehend the revolt, in both its peaceful and violent manifestations, and as a group hope that the change they bring about will be positive for all. (T)

THE ROAD - Cormac McCarthy

Yesterday we met at Gillian’s and enjoyed what is likely the very last bit of summer by having lunch outside beneath a medlar tree and discussing The Road. Gillian had been given the book and having liked it greatly wanted to share it with us because it manages to be literarily beautiful and heart wrenchingly poignant at the same time.  The beauty of the writing is what impressed us the most – even those who found it tough going at times because of the author’s creative use of language or the terrible scenes he evokes. McCarthy’s choice of words, his spare use of the chosen few and the beautiful and horrendous visions he succeeds in conveying are an accomplishment we all admired and we felt that this work is extremely powerful precisely because it is deceptively simple.

 Not all of us, however, enjoyed reading the book. For some it was simply too stark, sad and depressing, amounting to a look at a possible future they did not want to see. With all the sadness and horror broadcast into our living rooms daily by the news they felt that to indulge in this practically voyeuristic experience of the demise of civilization and one man’s desperate attempt to keep himself and his son not only alive but human was somehow unseemly. For others it was simply so grim that they could only read a little bit at a time, forcing themselves to go on because it was for the club and because, they could not deny it, the writing was exquisite. It was just too awful. They were glad to have read it, and impressed by the author’s abilities but it was not a pleasant experience. 

And then there were those of us who adored the book – for the writing, for the vividness, for the intense emotional effect – and who would have kept on reading even if it had been twice as long. We talked at length about whether writing such a book (and reading it) could possibly serve any purpose, as a warning perhaps, or a moral tale. Some of us thought that it could at the very least serve to make us take stock for a moment, identify and appreciate the wonderful things in our lives, what an immense luxury it is to have everything that we have and to live the way we do. While it is true that there are so many in the world who have nothing compared to what we have it is also true that many of us don’t even appreciate what we have. At least The Road makes a person thankful for peace, and clean water, good food and air, our comfortable, safe houses, our healthy families. And perhaps it even makes us more willing to involve ourselves in efforts to stave off a calamity like the one in the book.

Whether such a book can reach enough people to actually make a tangible difference, like banning nuclear weapons, is another story and we reluctantly agreed that it is unlikely that a book will change those whose goal it is to create those weapons, or use them. There were even doubts as to whether the catastrophe of The Road is nuclear since it is not made explicit and other things could have happened with the same results. Thus the major impact of this work is more to remind us to be thankful and giving us a chance to read a beautifully written story that lauds the indomitable human spirit and the power of love. (T)

HOUSE RULES - Jodi Picoult

On September 5 we met on Jill’s terrace with the glorious view of the lake and had a wonderful (rather cozy:) lunch whilst still enjoying wonderful summer weather. Jill had chosen this book because she’d read a previous one by this author and was interested in knowing more about autism – the guiding perspective of House Rules. In fact, we all felt the book to be a very good introduction to autism and it’s cousin, Asperger’s, a condition very few of us knew anything about. 

On this informative level, Jodi Picoult succeeds both in providing a sort of primer on the varying degrees of autism and detailing how it affects not only those afflicted with the condition but, and perhaps especially, those who have to deal with the people who have it. It was from this point of view that we had the greatest consensus and ultimately this was the reason we all enjoyed the book and were glad to have read it. 

The dissension began when considering the story itself and Picoult’s style. For some of us, the narrative framework created by the author to showcase the effects of autism was too flimsy in places – to the point of seeming totally trumped up in order to keep the story going. That the mother of an autistic boy who sometimes reacted violently would not do her damndest in every conceivable way to know the truth (did he or didn’t he) just didn’t seem real but allowed the book to go on much longer than the outcome of this simple act would have allowed. That the lawyer would not use everything currently known about autism to keep his client out of jail also didn’t sit right – and, again, allowed for the creation of narrative tension that otherwise would have not been possible.  Some of us also were untouched by Picoult’s business-like writing style, though overall we agreed that in terms of imparting insight into people dealing with autism it was probably the right choice. The most interesting aspects of our discussion, however, focused on those characters that were neither the mother nor Jacob. Despite the tremendous difficulties faced by the mother and the frustrations experienced by Jacob, it seemed to us that the truly tragic figure was Jacob’s brother, Theo, who played second wheel his entire life and ended up getting himself into dangerous situations because of it. Also Jess’s boyfriend, whom Jacob sets up to appear as the killer. Though Picoult portrays him as a real lout, to end up being framed for murder was greater punishment than he deserved. 

In the end, we all learned something new from House Rules and it was a successful book in generating discussion. (T)

READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN - Azar Nafisi 

On  June 24 (just got back, as a matter of fact, but since I’m leaving tomorrow I didn’t want to wait) we met at Margaret’s – where it was cool and breezy and lovely – and enjoyed a perfect summer lunch to accompany our discussion of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Margaret had chosen this book for a few reasons, the two main ones being the fact that it dealt with a rather special sort of book club and because it seemed like another good chance to learn something about a place and its history. She’d read it before and enjoyed the literary references as well, which ended up being for most of us the most interesting aspect of the book.

While it was sometimes frustrating because not all of us had read all the works touched on in this book, the parallels the author would draw and the reasons behind her choices gave an interesting perspective to the pre- and post-revolutionary period in Iran and made for some lively discussion as we attempted to follow her reasoning and understand the reception her students gave to the different books – all canons of Western literature that sometimes resonated with her students and sometimes didn’t. Many of us had not been aware of the various ideologies jostling for primacy after the revolution and the connection to the Arab Spring was natural since this, too, is mostly a student movement and learning that the fundamentalists did not immediately come out on top in Iran sparked ideas concerning the possible outcomes of today’s upheavals.

 On an intellectual level, therefore, the book was widely liked but when it came down to a more nuanced look of how that ominous time affected the author and her students we generally felt let down. Nafisi, though recounting details of the inexorable advancements made by the clerics or the day-to-day experience of living through the Iran-Iraq war, never really allows anything heartfelt or emotional to show and we felt untouched by her story and that of her students, as though everything that happened was merely the subject of intellectual appraisal and not a soul altering decade. In fact, her unwillingness (or inability) to give a human face to herself and her students gave her actions a pedagogical – even a bit supercilious – aspect and detracted from the impact of her book.  

There were also passages that simply didn’t ring true, like Nafisi’s meetings with the Magician (unescorted and at all hours of the evening) and some of the exchanges with her students or her children, which seemed always to lack the messiness of real life. Overall, however, it was an excellent book for discussion because there are so many directions one can take – political, cultural and ideological – that are all relevant to what is happening today and it was a success.

Happy summer to you all, dear friends.(T)

BURY ME STANDING - Isabel Fonseca

On  May 7^th we met at Margie’s house (no chili con carne but hooray for the strawberry cake) to talk about the first book any of us except Margaret had ever read about gypsies. Margie had chosen this book thanks to Maurizio’s suggestion (again) and Bury me Standing interested all of us. It was, for most, full of insightful detail and even revelation but in the end, most of us also felt that the new knowledge we had obtained on gypsies was somehow more incomplete than before we started, raising more questions than answers and focusing too strictly on Eastern Europe, thus bypassing some larger issues about the gypsy experience in less desultory places: Nordic countries, Great Britain and the United States.

This being non-fiction there wasn’t much to praise or disparage in Fonseca’s writing style; hence our discussions focused more directly on the information in the book and how relevant it was or wasn’t to what we see today regarding gypsies and their encampments, the hostility and/or apathy their presence generates and the existence of long-held myths concerning gypsy behavior. While the long passages in the book dedicated to the miserable gypsy history gave weight to the issues city governments face today they also precluded any of the personal experiences some of us had as children with the presence of gypsies in our communities. These experiences, being in Sweden and the U.K, did not conform to the litany of injustices in Bury me Standing so gave a sense of this book’s being incomplete.

 There was also a disconnect in the group as to whether gypsies and the issues they pose to settled communities and today’s cities resemble the issues being confronted as a result of illegal immigrants and refugees. Some felt that the two were very similar while others felt there was no comparison at all. This meant a lot of discussion on what one camp or the other felt bolstered its views and often veered away from the people and their stories in the book – which, when focused on, also did little to bring about consensus. Some of us could admire aspects of gypsy culture with the anthropologist’s all-inclusive view of human constructs while others had difficulty connecting with people who purposefully disdained education and assimilation, and the debate on how exactly a city ought to cope with people who come and go, setting up camp wherever to beg as a main source of income until decampment, followed these two lines.

The one true agreement, in the end, was that the subject of gypsies and their way of life was far richer than we had imagined and infinitely more complex than Bury me Standing alone can convey, and that in today’s world there is probably very little wriggle room for a nomadic people who covet their separateness as much as their freedom. The book raised interest in our group to continue to learn more and this, perhaps, is Fonseca’s greatest success.(T)

NON TI MUOVERE - Margaret Mazzantini

On March 25 we met at Laura’s house and you’d have thought by how long it took us to actually get down to discussing the book (only over coffee, after an exceptionally delicious lunch) that we hadn’t seen each other in ages. Nonetheless, though it took as a while to get down to business, Non ti muovere engendered a lively discussion that , instead of veering off on myriad tangents as so often happens, centered mostly on the book itself.

Laura had chosen this book because she’d read it before and thought it superb, and was interested in sharing it with us. While on a second reading she had some reservations initially, seeing it, as she felt she was, through our eyes, in the end it captivated her anew and she enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Not everybody shared her view and even those who thoroughly enjoyed the book could understand how there could be contrary opinions.

Negative reactions to this book did not include the writer’s style. We unanimously thought that Ms Mazzantini has a beautiful command of metaphor and description – both when it comes to the tangible descriptions of places and the more intangible descriptions of people’s innermost thoughts and feelings. The problem came with the characters themselves, and the story concerning their lives. For some of us, the main characters were so unlikeable as to make us not care at all to what tragic ends they come. And the minute descriptions of the self-absorbed ruminations of what struck some of us as patently cruel, detached and/or clueless characters took great patience to slog through.

We also could not agree whether the milieus and people described in this book are actually as vacuous, depraved and/or self-absorbed in real life. Could a father really sit in a hospital as his comatose daughter’s brain is operated on and actually rehash an adulterous affair from the past? Would a new mother welcome without question a husband who has literally disappeared the week their child was born? Could a woman infected from a clandestine abortion last nearly nine months before dying? These and other things made a full enjoyment of the excellent writing impossible and probably ruined a full appreciation of the author’s abilities.

For others, however, Non ti muovere is a peek at the some of the dichotomies of life: the comfortable and wealthy who seek some base thrill in the underbelly of society, the hidden desperation of people who, from the looks of things, have it all, the endless lows to which some people can drop because they’ve had nothing but from life since the very beginning. Far from being unrealistic they felt that the book was an honest look into the corners and shadows of a society we normally take at face value, and that people like the characters in this story not only exist but make up a large portion of our world.

However it struck us, Non ti muovere was an interesting book that made for an animated discussion of varying opinions. Some of us are looking forward to reading more by Ms Mazzantini; others have no desire to read anything else she’s written but we all enjoyed the afternoon spent discussing it. (T)

WHAT I LOVED - Siri Hustvedt

On February 14 we had our first lunch meeting at Lena’s and called it a success. Part of this were the Norwegian sandwiches Lena made, part was the fact that many of us felt less tired and more involved in the conservation and partly it was a Valentine’s Day made special by Eva with a treat for us all.

Lena had chosen What I Loved almost as an afterthought, having started with the idea of getting a book by the author’s husband.  Not finding what she wanted, and remembering that she enjoyed a previous book written by Ms Hustvedt, she settled on this one – a good choice as it is a book that easily engendered a great deal of interesting discussion.

Of note is that the topics this book covers are extremely far ranging and diverse. There’s the big question of what art is and whether it is enough for an artist to call something an artwork for it to be so. There’s the conundrum of what makes a child go bad and whether or not the parents in this story were responsible for their boy’s depravity. There’s the idea of how much a person should risk for personal happiness at the expense of loved ones, and there’s the simple gut-wrenching tale of what it was like for one couple to lose a beloved son.

It was interesting that everybody seemed to have a general appreciation of the book as a whole but always with a caveat or two. Some of us were bored by the endless descriptions of one man’s “art”. Some were unconvinced of the veracity of a possible psychopath’s experience. Some felt that the protagonist, a man, was too obviously written by a woman while others felt exactly the contrary. Some of the most entertaining discussions centered on the idea of what art is and whether anyone can actually provide a binding definition, especially considering how great artists in the past were often vehemently disliked by their audience at the time and only came to be known as greats after death. This veered off into how much should museums and governments subsidize art, especially because there are often big to-do’s about one or the other segment of society being appalled by one exhibit or another, and whether at least we, around the table, could agree on what art is not – performance art seemed to be the main choice, though for many of us much of modern art is equally risible – something we remember our five-year-olds producing.