July's Read: Transatlantic by Colum McCann

From the publisher's book description:

"Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators -- Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown -- set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean...

"Dublin, 1845 and '46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause...

"New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland's notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion.

These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history...The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller..."

Join us July 22 at Margy's house for the next in a series of rousing discussions.

McCann to Read at Hennepin County Library June 24 at 7

This event, at the Minneapolis Central branch of the Hennepin County Library, is free and open to the public.

Woke Up Scratching Our Heads

Title: Woke Up Lonely
Author: Fiona Maazel
Host: Liz

Ours is a tough group, so it's not surprising that reactions were mixed to our June read -- Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel. When the first to speak admitted to not having finished the book, three others owned up, too. Now, we are serious finishers as a rule. So, getting to the bottom of this was a road we had to go down.

Insights and Opinions

+ Maazel has attempted something very brave and creative here. Take a cult, throw in some hostages, a charismatic leader, an ex-wife leading a double life, and U.S. intelligence organizations, and you have the stuff of a page-turning potboiler. But then combine that with well-crafted prose, multi-dimensional characters, and a literary sensibility, and you have something new that is not a tidy fit for any genre. Ultimately, it doesn't work, at least from our point of view. But Maazel is clearly a talented writer with guts.

Roses and peonies

+ Margy characterized Maazel's work as "too odd, both in plot and in language," while Joanne said she was captured right away by the prose and humor, but ultimately "I couldn't like any of the people."
+ Perhaps to avoid the "potboiler pitfall," Maazel has much of her action take place off-screen. Major plot points occur off the page. We return to a character, only to discover some critical event has already happened.

+ The key theme in this book -- and the cult's reason for being -- is loneliness. Maazel heightens this by writing right up to the point where we might learn the "why" of a particular character, and then backing off. Ultimately, we never know why these characters choose what they choose or act the way they act. As a result, there is no one to root for.

The aftermath

+ Everyone agreed that the hostages were characters introduced too late in the game to make us care about them. Some felt that the book starts to come alive when we meet the hostages, but by then it may be too late.
+ The cult itself, an L. Ron Hubbard-type organization named The Helix -- is not well-developed. We don't really know why it exists, what the attraction is, or why followers flock to its leader, Thurlow Dan. We need more about Dan so we understand the attraction and the conflict. Otherwise, he's just repellent.
+ Many of us were excited when we started reading. This book is original, clever, creative, wild and unpredictable. But ultimately, it falls apart. We all agree she is a fine writer, and we expect many more good things from her in the future.

Oddments and Telling Details

+ There were no barred owl sightings. Sorry, all.

June's Read: Woke Up Lonely by Fiona Maazel

From the official book description:
"Thurlow Dan is the founder of the Helix, a cult that promises to cure loneliness in the 21st century. With its communes and speed-dating, mixers and confession sessions, the Helix has become a national phenomenon -- and attracted the attention of governments worldwide. But Thurlow, camped out in his Cincinnati headquarters, is lonely -- for his ex-wife Esme and their daughter, whom he hasn't seen in 10 years.

Esme, for her part, is a covert agent who has spent her life spying on Thurlow, mostly to protect him from the law. Now, with her superiors demanding results, she recruits four misfits to both a reconnaissance mission in Cincinatti. But when Thurlow takes them hostage, he ignites a siege of the Helix House that will change all lives forever."

Sound interesting? Then read it and join the group at Liz's house Monday, June 17 to discuss.

The Lyrical Landscape of the Mind in a Deeply Personal Collection of Poems

Title: Odessa
Author: Patricia Kirkpatrick
Host: Joanne

The beauty of hearing the artist read her poems in an intimate setting is that we hear the poem in the way it was intended -- the rise and fall of the voice, the pause where it should rest, the emphasis that thrills. How lucky were we to hear Patricia Kirkpatrick read from her stunning new collection in Joanne's rooftop aerie?

Example of Kirkpatrick's note-making system

From the publisher, Milkweed Editions: "A grim prognosis, brain cancer, leaves the speaker in Kirkpatrick's Odessa fighting for her life. The tumor presses against her amygdalae, the 'emotional core of the self,' and central to the process of memory. In poems emotionally charged but void of sentimentality, Kirkpatrick creates from loss a dreamlike reality. Odessa, 'roof of the underworld,' a refuge at once real and imagined, resembles simultaneously the Midwestern prairie and a mythical god-inhabited city. In lines bearing shades of Classical heroism, Kirkpatrick delivers a personal narrative of stunning dimension."

Insights and Opinions

+ The collection has a three-part structure:
• Aura -- a distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place.
• Parietal -- of or relating to, attached to, or denoting the wall of the body; parietal lobe: middle part of each cerebral hemisphere.
• Cairn -- a mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark.
+ The theme of the collection is identity. Who am I?
+ When asked whether she wrote differently after her surgery, Kirkpatrick talked about her process, which involves generating a rich store of material from which she later chooses lines or thoughts to work with. Following surgery, she wrote several poems in a single sitting, shortcutting her usual process. Perhaps due to post-surgical drugs, her inhibitions were gone for the moment, and she wrote complete poems from beginning to end.

Pictures, phrases, definitions,
and thought fragments

+ The word "core" and core as an idea appear prominently and intentionally in these poems. Kirkpatrick uses the mythical Persephone, also called Kore, the queen of the underworld who must forever return to Hades each year before emerging again in the spring -- a "going down" before a return to life.

Oddments and Telling Detail

+ For more, read this interview, in which the poet talks about "finding one's voice through poetic form, the geography of the female body, and crafting myth from Minnesota soil."

The Overlapping Language of Geography and Anatomy

+ This was our first attendance via Skype, with Steve the willing guinea pig. Mostly, it went okay. It was a grand experiment to see if we can do this again for our snowbirds and frequent travelers. We think the answer is yes. Although a tripod would be a good investment.