The Imagined Lives of Virginia Woolf and Her Sister Vanessa Bell

Title: Vanessa and Her Sister
Author: Priya Parmar
Host: Liz

Just to keep the whole "Virginia Woolf thing" going, we chose this book as a follow-up to last month's reading of Woolf's The Waves. Having read, but perhaps not entirely mastered, that difficult book, we were in the mood for this fictionalized telling of the unusual relationship between Woolf and her sister, artist Vanessa Bell. In this glittering novel, author Priya Parmar imagines that Bell kept a diary, into which she committed her most intimate thoughts, including the abject betrayal resulting from Virginia's real-life "affair" with Bell's husband, Clive Bell.

Accustomed to the undivided attention of her sister Vanessa, Virginia is driven wild with jealousy after Vanessa gives birth to a child. To win back Vanessa's full attention, Virginia begins a flirtation with Vanessa's husband, which he takes seriously but which she never acts upon, but the damage between the sisters is done and irreparable.

Insights and Opinions

+ Steve found Parmar's book "breathtakingly beautiful," both for the prose and her insights into human nature. Lois agreed, observing that Parmar gives Vanessa Bell the "voice of a painter," a stunning achievement without actual access to real diaries from which to quote.

+ The work does include many letters from the real-life players in this story, taken from the historical record. Parmar skillfully uses those letters as the platform from which to leap into what might have happened.

+ Because this is a book about artists, and the self-absorption that can come with that package, the conversation turned to a rhetorical question: of the many members of the Bloomsbury Group and the many characters in this book, which two characters would you characterize as the most decent (since decency seemed in short supply)? Most everyone agreed they would be painter and critic Roger Fry and Lytton Strachey, the writer who is said to be the inspiration for Neville in Woolf's The Waves. (Strachey is also known for saying, at the moment of death, "If this is death, then I don't think much of it.") Fry was chosen by us for the decency award because he stands by his mentally ill wife, and Strachey because he is funny, but cares about everyone.

+ Liz thought the story paints Bell in a very positive light and Woolf in a very negative light. Per Liz: "No matter how thin you pour the pancake, there are still two sides." Margy noted that, throughout the story, Vanessa tells the reader frequently how Virginia can make people love her. Yet we never see this on the page. Ultimately, we end up disliking Virginia and feeling sorry for Vanessa.

+ Early in life, Vanessa is put in the position of caretaker to Virginia because she is special. This focus on her specialness makes her more ill.

+ Shirley suggested that perhaps this book would be a fun companion read for students who are studying Woolf.

+ We all agreed this is a fine work, bringing together fascinating characters, an important era in literary history, and elegant prose it is a pleasure to read.

In Lieu of the Actual Food

Not what we ate at book club

Since no pictures were taken of the actual book club food (and of course, we need that for the public record), we are using this picture of beignets and chicory coffee, taken at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, at a time just before our book club session. Photo credit goes to yours truly, who discovered that you can't talk while eating beignets because you can die from inhaling powdered sugar.

Waves of Confusion Morphing Into Delight

Title: The Waves
Author: Virginia Woolf
Host: Linda

The Set-up

Forgive me for plagiarizing from Wikipedia, but this seemed a good summary, so I purloined it:

First published in 1931, The Waves is Virginia Woolf's most experimental novel. It consists of soliloquies spoken by the books' six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jimmy, and Louis. Also important is Percival, the seventh character, though readers never hear him speak in his own voice. The soliloquies that span the characters' lives are broken up by nine brief third-person interludes detailing a coastal scene at varying stages in a day from sunrise to sunset.

As the six characters speak, Woolf explores concepts of individuality, self and community. Each character is distinct, yet together they compose…a gestalt about a silent central consciousness.

Insights and Opinions

+ This is no easy book to read. Linda, a Virginia Woolf scholar, admitted to having tried twice before. Book club was the goad to finish it on this ultimate read. Joanne started it, couldn't keep the characters straight, decided that it didn't matter if she finished it, and just as she was about to bail out, said "all of a sudden it grabbed me, and I absolutely loved it. It's one long poem." Liz read it slowly at first for meaning, but felt judged by her Kindle app with it's little "learning speed" note in the lower corner, than tried to read it in a rush in case that would make a difference, then settled back into "learning speed," which was the right speed. You must read this book in a new way, and finally, you will catch on and ride with it.

Linda's impressive V. Woolf collection

+ The book's structure is intricate, with the only indication that the reader is moving into a different character being the addition of "…Bernard said" at the close of a sentence. As the title suggests, it is a series of continuous waves, and the reader best not fight against it but must just be carried along.

+ Shirley wasn't convinced, finishing it, but never being caught up in it. "I kept thinking there must be more to this than I'm getting, so I went to read Phyllis Rose, and found my own attitude….'takes one's breath away…but the overall effect is tedious…." Works like this one, and like those by Joyce and Faulkner, require a lot of effort -- an effort she's not willing to take anymore.

+ What kept Faith reading was Woolf's tenderness toward her characters, whatever their frailties.

+ Woolf is so sensitive to input and sensation, her descriptions are so poetic and odd, her metaphors and similes so strange, that Liz wondered how Woolf could get through her day. Both Liz and Faith agreed that the effort to write those sentences, each one so fully packed, would be exhausting. Intoxication and rapture seem to be how she writes, almost as if she wrote this in a fugue state.

+ While the characters merge and separate and merge again, they eventually emerge as distinct characters. Some felt they were distinct beings. Others felt they were all aspects of a single consciousness.

+ Percival stands out as the one character who never speaks for himself. Does he even exist outside of the perceptions of others?

+ Both Leonard Woolf and E. M. Forster considered this to be Virginia Woolf's masterpiece. We all agreed that, in writing this, she was well ahead of her time.

Oddments from our non-book-related conversation

More than other months, our pre- and post-book discussion was quite random, including expected and unexpected topics, including:

+ Grandchildren and how swell they are

+ Whether we should all get hearing aids prophylactically

+ Tattoos as a good strategy for covering up wrinkles

+ If stress tests to measure your heart health can actually kill you

+ Whether growing weed in the basement can make your house blow up

Next up

For our April book, we will read Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar. Just to keep the whole Virginia Woolf thing going for awhile. Liz will host.

On Being Perfectly Imperfect

Title: Let Me Be Frank with You
Author: Richard Ford
Host: Faith

A Prelude to Our Discussion About This Month's Book

Last month, we read and discussed Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, a book so engaging to the group that we spent the first hour of this month's meeting in continued conversation. To refresh, Gawande, a practicing surgeon, lays out the "ultimate limitation" of his profession -- the ability of medicine to make a person's last weeks or months of life rich and dignified. Our assignment was to bring to this month's meeting our personal list of the three things each of us would require as a minimum in order to prolong our lives.

The Question: What are the three things you would need to want to prolong your life? At what point would you want no further medical intervention?

+ Joanne:  No chemotherapy, to be able to read, and to be healthy.

+ Steve: To be able to recall memories, to be able to express love to the people I care about, and to be able to eat and breathe without tubes.

+ Liz: Daily exposure to nature -- to be able to get outside, something to care about and be engaged with, and one friend.

Since I forgot to take a picture of the food, I submit this,
which seems relevant.

+ Linda: To be alive when I die (curious and alert), to hang on until my kids come, and to be able to love and have memories. (Linda also contributed a relevant quote without attribution: "Age resistance is a futile kind of life resistance. We can't live outside of time."

+ Faith: To have family and friends and to interact with them, to have books and writing, and painkillers, including Scotch.  "If you are 85, you really have to think about these things. If I were 45, well then yes, hook me up."

+ Lois: To be able to breathe and eat without assistance, to be able to see or hear so I can have books and stories, and to be able to visit with people. (Painkillers also are on Lois' list, but that's a fourth item, so it's here in parentheses).

+ Chris: (from afar): To have her curiosity intact and list of interests growing -- not just "taking up air," as her dad would say; able to motor on her own with no forced support, and able to give, receive and be aware of love.

In Which We Become Even More Frank with One Another

Our consideration of these final wishes made for a good lead-in to discussion of this month's book selection, Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford. In four nearly free-standing stories, Ford's Bascombe openly and frankly admits his post-retirement process of closing down, his jettisoning of what he considers to be unimportant in this later chapter of this life -- friends, unnecessary niceties, striving; in fact, most things he considered critical to a good life early on.

All taking place in the recent aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on the east coast, Let Me Be Frank with You overlays the physical wreckage of Bascombe's community with the unsettled pieces of his personal life. Hilarious and irreverent, Bascombe thinks and does the things we are all too embarrassed to admit to think and do. He is, as the title suggests, entirely frank with us.

+ Ford is a masterful writer whose skill, in Steve's view, makes up for the main character's "jaded point of view." His keen insights into human nature are both truthful and a little painful.

+ Lois, on the other hand, feels that the character's innate cynicism lends a wonderful sharpness to his observations. Bascombe feels entirely free to offer his cynical point of view.

+ Liz felt that each of the four stories was a study in Bascombe's inadequacy as well as profound disconnection from other humans in his life. "In every story, I expected him to become a better person, but he never does."

+ Joanne and Faith both disagreed entirely.  Both connected to Bascombe, recognizing that as one's energy diminishes, what you care about shifts. "He's not that wonderful, and I'm not either."

+ None of us really understand Frank Bascombe's concept of his "default self," which is a face he adopts in his interaction with others. But is it the real face? Or protective coloration? We weren't sure. Steve felt it meant making himself invisible and staying out of trouble. Joanne and Faith both felt he was too young to have a default self.

+ Linda pointed out that the end of each story contains the title of the next story, something others of us hadn't noticed. She notes that the Bascombe character is not unhappy with himself, nor is he unhappy. In his own words "We are how we are because we like it that way."

+ While she enjoyed the reading, Liz disliked the main character, feeling that reading him was reading a continuous interior monologue of superiority. Joanne and Faith disagreed. Joanne: "He is empathetic to himself." And, Faith: "He understands his own shortcomings." And, finally Steve: "Isn't that the challenge for all of us? To accept the weird creatures that we are?"

Next Up

For our February meeting, we will read A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, and we promise to table the conversation about death and dying, at least for the moment.

Next Up: Let Me Be Frank with You

Date: Monday, January 19
Host: Faith

From the publisher: "A brilliant new work that returns Richard Ford to the hallowed territory that sealed his reputation as an American master: the world of Frank Bascombe and the landscape of his celebrated novels The Sportswriter, the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner winning Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land.

In his trio of world-acclaimed novels portraying the life of an American generation, Richard Ford has imaged one of the most indelible and widely discussed characters in modern literature, Frank Bascombe. Through Bascombe -- protean, funny, profane, wise, often inappropriate -- we've witnessed the aspirations, sorrows, longings, achievements and failings of an American life in the twilight of the twentieth century.

Now, in Let Me Be Frank with You, Ford reinvents Bascombe in the aftermath of Hurrican Sandy. In four richly luminous narratives, Bascombe (and Ford) attempts to reconcile, interpret and console a world undone by calamity. It is a moving and wondrous and extremely funny odyssey through the America we live in at this moment. Ford is here again working with the maturity and brilliance of a writer at the absolute height of his powers."

Here is a terrific interview with Ford from Fresh Air.

Interview with Richard Ford

What Really Matters at the End of Life

Title: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In the End
Author: Atul Gawande
Host: Joanne

As a bit of scene-setting, here is how the publisher describes this important work: "In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life, but also the process of its ending.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified."

Insights and Opinions

Notes contributed by Steve:
+ I especially enjoyed how our discussion went beyond insights gleaned from Gawande's Being Mortal to how we ourselves define what would make life worth living as we approach the end. Some of the many questions we discussed were how hard we would fight a fatal illness, what types of medical intervention we would endure and what factors would influence our decisions.

+ From there, we asked ourselves what three things we would need to prolong our lives, and we found our discussion so interesting we decided to suggest that everyone give some thought to the question and come with an answer to our January 19 meeting.

+ For me, I don't really know at this point in my life. But I think the three things would be a functioning mind (the ability to think and recall memories), a functioning body (the ability to breathe and eat without tubes), and …I'm not sure about the third one. Maybe the ability to feel and express love. To lose my ability to walk and to read would be very difficult for me, but I don't think so devastating that I would decide life was not worth living. I do know that, if faced with an incurable and painful illness, I would want to choose how and when my life would end and I believe it is my right to make that decision.

+ I realize these are heavy thoughts but we agreed with Gawande's admonition to make plans now for a likely and possibly extended period of frailty and to communicate those plans to family and friends.

Other Stuff

+ For our January book, we talked about wanting to read something light and humorous. And then we decided on Richard Ford's Let Me Be Frank with You. We'll see if that fills the bill.

Next Up: Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

Date: Monday, October 20
Host: Vicky

From the publisher: When Irene America discovers that her artist husband, Gil, has been reading her diary, she begins a secret Blue Notebook, stashed securely in a safe-deposit box. There she records the truth about her life and marriage while turning her Red Diary -- hidden where Gil will find it -- into a manipulative charade. As Irene and Gil fight to keep up appearances for their three children, their home becomes a place of increasing violence and secrecy. And Irene drifts into alcoholism, moving ever closer to the ultimate destruction of a relationship filled with shadowy need and strange ironies.

Our Reading Life in Middlemarch

Title: My Life in Middlemarch

Author: Rebecca Mead

Host: Blanche

As a refresher: Our group spread the reading and discussion of George Eliot's Middlemarch over two months to give us all a long, leisurely read. Then, we read Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch as the frosting on our three-month literary cake.

In Mead's own words: "I first read Middlemarch, which many critics consider the greatest novel in the English language, when I was seventeen. The novel tells the interweaving stories of several residents of a provincial town in the Midlands; but to describe it this way is a bit like describing Everest as a really tall, ice-covered mountain…So revisiting Middlemarch by writing a book about it was also a way of reckoning with the life I had lived so far: of looking at the choices I had made, the paths I had taken, and considering the alternatives lives I had left unlived."

Insights and Opinions

+ We started with an emailed comment from Vicky, in absentia: "If I could be there tonight, I would talk about how much it meant to me to see how Rebecca Mead connects the novel to her life. One of the last steps in the discussion method I used for years asked that the learner relate the material to his or her life. This often was the most challenging for students. Frequently, they would give general answers and move on. Yet I think it is one of the most important parts of truly absorbing what we read or study.

"So, as I read both the novel (Middlemarch) and Mead's book, I was asking myself 'how does Middlemarch relate to my life? Why am I so moved by the writing?' I see myself in each of the characters. Also, I see how, like Mead, I would have rejected and judged people in my youth, but how I'm hoping I have a wider view with age -- and maybe a little more compassion and tolerance for both myself (all my selves) and others.

"I also appreciate Mead's clarity and understanding for George Eliot and her life -- Eliot's appearance and how others judged her, but how she was able to rise above that and write so beautifully. It would be difficult to save my admiration and love for this novel and for Mead's memoir until the end of the discussion, I know. I'd probably be tongue-tied!"

George Eliot

 + Readers appreciated learning the back stories of each character, which made us sympathetic to the characters in the various circumstances of their lives. Linda thought that understanding and sympathy were what Eliot meant to accomplish. Steve observed that this is a good definition of great art.

+ Everyone agreed that Mead's wonderful command of the English language, along with the elegance with which she employed that language, made the book a joy to experience. She is a writer who is able to convey so many connections in just a sentence or two.

+ We enjoyed the comments from those of us who have been, or are, academics, about "surviving" the teaching of literary criticism as described on page 145 of My Life in Middlemarch. Here, Mead notes: "Books -- or texts, as they were called by those versed in theory -- weren't supposed merely to be read, but to be interrogated, as if they had committed some criminal malfeasance."

+ Shirley liked Mead's description of different reactions to Causaubon, and asked "Doyou agree with Rebecca Mead that Mary was the wisest character?" Our readers saw in Mary, not the fire and passion of other characters but, rather, that she was plain, wise, and funny, perhaps like Eliot herself. Dorothea, on the other hand, hung on to her idealized version of the world longer than she might have had women had more options.

+ We discussed how Mead's book brought attention to Eliot's feminism at a time when such voices were scarce, e.g. giving Dorothea ambition and curiosity with nothing to attach it to but her husband and his work. This led to a discussion of marriage, the difficulties of matrimony not always acknowledged, Eliot believing that there was a limit to the degree of self-suppression and tolerance that even marriage could demand. As Gail said "In marriage, acceptance is rather important."

+ Readers found many comparisons between the working class and the aristocracy and asked "what was Eliot trying to say to us?" Linda pointed out Eliot's trenchant observation in a letter to friends about visiting Dickens' house, awed to be in the man's presence. "Splendid library, of course, with soft carpet, couches, etc. such as become a sympathizer with the suffering classes. How can we sufficiently pity the needy unless we know fully the blessings of plenty?"

+ We wrapped up by discussing how Mead identified with Middlemarch throughout her life and how certain books have influenced our own lives -- perhaps a discussion worthy of our next meeting when we've had time to think about it.

Slow Down and Savor: Your Attention is Required in Middlemarch

Vickie's busted foot. Note the other shoe,
which is actually quite cute.

Title: Middlemarch
Author: George Eliot
Host: Steve

Many of us were missing for the July session for various reasons -- search committee, headache, husband's surgery, too busy, traveling, completely forgot -- but that never stops us from having a spirited discussion anyway. And, since it is, after all, the height of summer, we should be excused for all of that PLUS having read only half a book. In fact, we should get extra credit for even having book club in the summer when everyone else is off water-skiing and whatnot.

Vickie, sporting an attractive boot cast, launched our discussion of Middlemarch by distributing a helpful "tree" of characters and their relationships to each other. This is a big book with a big cast of characters and plenty of complexity to sort out, and we all wished we had had this tree at hand while reading. So here it is, in case you find it useful as we read the second half of the book.

Insights and Opinions

+ First off, it's important to note that our only assignment was to read Books 1 through 4, so that's what we did.

+ By contemporary standards, Middlemarch is a very slow read. It requires the reader to slow down, savor the language, and really pay attention. Steve wondered how many of today's writers would dare stop the narrative altogether as Eliot does to spend many pages describing Lydgate's character. Yet we're glad Eliot does as her examination of Lydgate in minute detail gives the reader critical insight into how he makes the decisions that follow. "Think of the time people had to write like this and read like this," Steve said.

+ As Blanche pointed out, Eliot is brilliantly funny. She skewers the Middlemarchers and their hypocrisy with a deft hand. Mr. Brooke is a dilettante, but such an inept dilettante. What in the world is he talking about? We couldn't make sense of it, nor could any of the Middlemarchers.

The beauty of reading a classic --
editions galore.

+ Liz noted Eliot's acute powers of observation. She is an astute student of human nature, and no nuance of behavior and the many layers of reason behind it escapes her pen. She understands human weakness and vanity. Not one of her characters is flat. They are all many-layered, living people. Causabon is so far caught up in the grandeur of his giant idea, yet so far beyond unable to actually accomplish it.

+ Vickie read My Life in Middlemarch, our book pick for September, at the same time she read Middlemarch, and highly recommends doing so.

+ Ladislaw, the romantic young relative of the prunish scholar Dorothea marries in order to elevate herself, is perhaps standing in for Eliot herself in some key conversations between himself and Dorothea, speaking with the author's voice on matters of love, life, and poetry.

+ We all agreed to being completely mystified by the epigrams that open each chapter. None of them seemed to relate to the action that followed.

+ We wondered -- who is the narrator? Often, she intrudes herself and actually becomes another character, but never identifies herself. She is hovering, no matter what is going on.

+ At this point, everyone started talking at once, making note-taking impossible. Most likely, this was when we made our most intelligent literary points.

+ Some felt that the Garth family are the best characters in the book. Mary is perhaps the most similar to Eliot herself, with her down to earth practicality. Of all of the characters, Fred and Mary are perhaps the most ideal as a couple, All of the other couples are in love with something beyond the actual person.

What happens when you don't take
the picture until too late in the game.

+ Margy wondered if perhaps we weren't missing too much by not having intimate command of the language of the time. What does Eliot mean by "an ordinary sinner" when referring to Mary? Did this phrase have specific resonance in Eliot's time? Eliot was writing about contemporary social life, but to us in the 21st century, it is a somewhat foreign land.

Other Good Things

+ The Turtle House Ink blog post on Summer and Middlemarch is particularly relevant, not to mention written by Vickie.  (This, by the way, is a wonderful blog for writers). Check it out here.

July's Read: Middlemarch, Books 1 through 4, by George Eliot

Having decided that reading all of this classic for a single session was much too aggressive for a lazy summer, we are reading Books 1 through 4 for July, and then books 5 through 8 for August. That should give everyone plenty of time for reading, long walks, al fresco dining and trips to various cabins.

New Starting Time is 7 p.m.

It's not really a new starting time, but since we spent so many years starting at 7:30, a friendly reminder is in order.

Speedy Decisions, A Poetic Refusal and Sweeping Reform

With uncharacteristic efficiency, our May group of readers chose books for the next three months, changed the start time for future meetings, ratified a constitutional amendment forbidding resignation, and amended the amendment to allow sabbaticals of non-specific duration. Whoa.

New Starting Time

From here on out, meetings start at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m. since we all want to be home and in bed by 9:30. Reminder: The first 30 minutes of every meeting is dedicated to chit-chat so come prepared with nuggets of chat.

Book Selections for June, July and August

June

Dancing Fish and Ammonites by Penelope Lively

Host: Gail

July

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Host: Steve

August

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead

Host: Shirley

New Rule: No Resigning

Vickie's attempt to quit book club was rejected with many reminders of why it's important to stay, even if you aren't able to read the books or even attend very often. We don't care. You are still in the club. Come when you can. Faith's poem, written just for this occasion, says it best:

For Vickie with Love
Vickie darling, Vickie dear,
Now, see here. See here!
You surely know we'd cry and put
Should you pack up and just walk out.
Come for treats. come for wine,
come for love. That's just fine.
You haven't read a single line?
To tell the truth, I've read just nine.

May's Read: Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

Title: Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932
Author: Francine Prose
Host: Linda

From the Amazon book description:

"A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself.

Paris in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon Club where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the loyal denizens, including the rising Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol, and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine.

As the years pass, their fortunes -- and the world itself -- evolve. Lou falls desperately in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with startlingly vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting port rail of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis -- sparked by tumultuous events -- that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more."

Great Expectations in Literature and in Life

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
Host: Lois and Gail

It was the best way to begin -- a celebration of Joanne's 90th birthday, complete with a poem written by Faith and cupcakes that looked like spring flowers. Happy birthday, Joanne. And thank you for your wisdom words:  "Patience and Fortitude."

Insights and Opinions

+ First, of course, we had to compare the different editions we had read. Joanne's small red volume with thin pages was a 1942 edition. Steve's copy was from his college years and contained a long list of all of the characters, with more notes on the inside cover. This is obviously a well-loved book, one that many of us remembered fondly before reading it again and have kept with us through the years.

+ How interesting it is to read later in life a book that we first read in our youth. Many of us found the characters more endearing than we had remembered. There was great appreciation for the humor and irony of the novel and for the complexity of the characters, especially Pip as he matures. Steve suggested it would be a good book to read aloud, chapter by chapter, to savor its beauty and humor. Good idea.

One book, many editions.

+ Since our last book choice was Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, we discussed the similarities between the two novels. Vicky pointed out the use of metaphor in both works.

+ Dickens' plotting skills are masterful. He does not leave out important details. Characters and details mentioned earlier return. "It all works out in the end," said one group member.

+ We discussed the two endings. The first leaves no hope that Pip and Estella will get together. "I see no shadow of another parting from her," reads Dickens' revised ending, leaving the relationship between the two ambiguous but within the realm of possibility.

+ All in all, the group (at least those who were able to finish it before meeting time) loved this classic.

Oddments and Telling Details

+ Steve's new book, Mastering the Craft of Writing: How to Write with Clarity, Emphasis and Style, has just been published by Writer's Digest Books and is available on Amazon. Congratulations, Steve!

+ We also learned about Linda's visit with Jerod Santek, a staff member at the Loft Literary Center for more than 25 years, who is now director of Write On, Door County. Linda recently led a workshop for Jerod's board of directors.

+ And of course we can't forget the poem Faith wrote and shared on behalf of our beautiful Joanne.


To Dear Darling Joanne on the Occasion of Her 90th Birthday

She is:

She seems pretty excited about that cupcake.

A role model without peer,
More fun than a glass of beer
On a hot summer day. What can I say?
She's an intellect with humor and grace
And a smile that warms the whole damned place.

She wears ninety like a boa of sequins and laces.
In short, we agree that the girl's simply aces.

With much love from the Lofties.

A bit of spring beauty
to fete Joanne.