"Be curious first, judgmental a distant second."

Title: After Francesco 

Author: Brian Malloy

The Set-up

 “From acclaimed author Brian Malloy comes a stunning novel of love, friendship, and surviving the deepest loss, set in New York City and Minneapolis in 1988, at the peak of the AIDS crisis.” 

More than a decade ago, the organizing principle of our book club was to create a way for us, all former Board Members, to continue gathering on the third Monday of the month to share our mutual love of literature and The Loft.  So, when Linda suggested we read Brian Malloy’s fourth novel, After Francesco, it was an easy, unanimous decision.  

Brian had served as both Director of Development and, later, Director of Education at the Loft before he embarked on a successful writing career. We all remember him fondly, as Steve put it, as “just a fundamentally nice guy and good person, as well as a talented writer.”  With the promise of a “mystery guest,” we were a big, boisterous group including Blanche and Faith, who we’ve been missing, and Chris, who flew in from New York. Liz, Gail, and Joanne unfortunately couldn’t attend and Steve joined by phone to spare us from his bad summer cold.  

From the moment Brian walked into the room to our spontaneous applause, our discussion was off to a raucous start. For a conversation about a novel dealing with grief, guilt, heartbreak, and anger, we still managed to laugh. A lot! 

 

Insights and Opinions

+ Never shy, we dove right into the debate over cultural appropriation in literature. We asked Brian his thoughts about Rebecca Makkai’s novel, Great Believers.  Born in 1978, Makkai is a straight woman who was still a child at the peak of the AIDS crisis. Yet her book on the topic received a $1M advance and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Brian explained that, in his opinion, anyone can write outside their personal experience if they’re writing fiction. At the same time, he thinks it’s fair game to skewer authors who opportunistically write their “emotional truth” in fabricated memoirs like the fictitious bestseller by Francesco’s “sister-in-love.”

 

+ Linda expressed her appreciation for the “gallows humor” that balances the sadness that could have rendered the story unbearable. She read the final paragraph of Brian’s author’s note asking him to elaborate on its final sentence: “Neither man has the self-pitying look of the bitter.”  Brian told us that he realized that he is still angry 40 years later about the cruel mismanagement of the AIDS crisis.  Writing this book helped him come to terms with that anger because, as he said, he doesn’t want to be a “bitter old man”:  “Bitterness is judgmental and narcissistic. It means you’ve given up on other people.”  

 

+ When Brian gave Francesco the memorable line “Be curious first, judgmental a distant second,” he didn’t realize he was channeling Walt Whitman.

 

+ Steve admired how all the characters in the book are fully developed – a skill Brian shares with Faith. It enabled him to care not only about the main characters, Kevin and Francesco, but all the secondary characters because they are so clearly and cleanly delineated. Faith agreed and acknowledged what hard work it is to create such memorable minor characters. When she finishes a novel, she said, she feels like she’s “had a long, long session with a psychologist.”

 

+ A good example of this was our affection for Kevin’s loyal friend Tommy. Brian explained that he was based on a real life-long friend from high school. Brian specifically wanted to include a sympathetic straight character in the book to counter the current demonization of straight, white males. “We’re so into identity politics these days, it’s preventing us from thinking and seeing others.” 

Author Brian Malloy amid the booksters

+ We also all loved Kevin’s eccentric Irish Catholic Aunt Nora. Her continuing outrage at the British government’s involvement in the Irish potato famine created a unique parallel to lingering anger over the US government’s political mishandling of AIDS.

+ Margy found the way in which the details of Kevin’s involvement in Francesco’s death were gradually revealed throughout the book was a powerful way to explain his debilitating and self-destructive behavior.

 

+ Lois commented that Brian has managed to capture the details of everyday life in the 1980s so authentically that it brought the emotional era back to life for her. And, Jocey appreciated his ability to write natural dialogue that “just flows.” 

+ While Kevin Doyle isn’t an autobiographical character, Brian feels he’s done his best writing about him and isn’t ready to let him go. Also a character in his first book, The Year of Ice, Brian is currently planning a third novel tentatively titled Minneapolis is Burning, that will pick up when Kevin is in his 60s (Brian’s current age). Having all loved After Francesco, we can’t wait to return to Kevin’s story and to resume our conversation with Brian as soon as it’s published.

Next Up

Our next meeting is set for Monday, August 16, at 12:30 pm to discuss Turbulence by David Szalay. The author of five books, Szalay was short-listed for the Man Booker in 2016 for his novel All That Man Is. At just 145 pages, Turbulence is “a stunning novel about twelve people and the ripple effect each one has on the life of the next as they cross paths in their journeys around the world." Happy travels!

 

And finally

Many thanks to Margy for writing this post and supplying the pix. And, many apologies to the booksters for the delay in posting because, you know, COVID.

 

Fresh Water to Bring Us Back to Life

Title: Fresh Water for Flowers 

Author: Valerie Perrin

 

Placing Us in Time and Circumstance

So, it's June, 2021, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we are just emerging from a year and a half of hiding in the basement. (A bit like the cicadas, although their tenure underground was quite a bit longer than ours). As we stumble out, blinking in the sun and hobbling in actual shoes that feel foreign, we find that we can actually meet IN PERSON for book club.

For some of us, reading during this time of trauma was a balm. For others, it was impossible, concentration being just out of reach. But, our first reunion demonstrated that our readers are back in business. So, let's get started.

The Set-up

Translated from the French, this story is told from the perspective of Violette Toussaint, the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. From the publisher: "Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of the hilarious and touching confidences of random visitors and her colleagues -- three gravediggers, three groundskeepers, and a priest.

Violette's routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of police chief Julien Seul wishing to deposit his mother's ashes on the gravesite of a complete stranger. Julien is not the only one to guard a painful secret: his mother's story of clandestine love breaks through Violette's carefully constructed defenses to reveal the ...." and I'm just going to stop there as this next bit is a spoiler. Plus, the above description is really not very good or even accurate.

Insights and Opinions

+ Chris, who was unable to complete any book during quarantine, couldn’t put this one down, perhaps because of its three-page chapters, or perhaps because her own childhood friend’s father was a cemetery keeper. “It resonated with me by reminding me what a happy place a cemetery can be,” she said.

+ Steve noted that there is so much love in this book, but much of it is frustrated. The writer does a masterful job of writing human characters, each interesting in their own oddities and eccentricities and, as a result, you feel real affection for each character. None of them are there as plot devices and they all play an important role.

+ Liz appreciated the quiet pace of the book – Violette’s knowledge of every grave, her journal in which she keeps a careful record of services and gatherings, the chats in her “public” room where she listens, the creepy dolls on her staircase. On the other hand, she felt that the book’s conclusion was out of keeping with the rest of the writing. No more can be said about that, though, as it would be a spoiler if you haven’t read the book.

+ Margy pointed out that this book is about love and redemption, but that no one seems to be in love with the person they are with. Instead, they are all having affairs with someone else. There followed some discussion about whether this is a “French thing” and that we just don’t get it as Americans. Or maybe we’re just prudes.

+ The many references to French culture and events left Linda a bit in the dark, so she just moved on. “Maybe I’m just not the ideal reader for this book,” she said. Liz Googled a few things along the way, which helped. But the story still stands without a complete understanding of these elements.

+ Lois was moved by the scenes in a cemetery room where Violette meets with the gravediggers, the men from the funeral home, the priest, and the mourners. These scenes brought her into each of these characters and demonstrated Violette’s wisdom and quiet but wise spirit.

+ One of our favorite exercises is reading aloud favorite passages. Linda points to these: “There is too much ‘just in case’ in my luggage.” And “It is the words they didn’t say that make the dead so heavy in their coffins.” 

 

Oddments and Telling Details

Our hostess, plus aftermath

+ In person, we were able to count Linda, Jocey, Liz, Steve, Shirley, Lois, and Margy, which was pretty amazing given current circumstances. Chris joined us via Zoom due to being skunked in her effort to get on a plane, the aviation industry being in the same muddle as everything else right now.

+ Jocey was semi-bleary-eyed, having just flown in from a “last-minute” camping trip to Iceland (who does that?). 

 

+ Margy’s John stayed downstairs guarding the door and keeping the creeps and weirdos out, and for that we are grateful.

 

+ Steve brought out an old book from days of yore and impressed us with his fluent French, which made us all feel insecure.

 

Where Has This Blog Been?

Also emerging from the basement is this blog, which has been dormant since 2017 for many reasons, but mostly the laziness of the writer.

 

The Walls We Build and How We Lose

Title: The Tortilla Curtain
Author: T. Coraghessan Boyle

First, a brief summary from the publisher to center everyone in the work: "Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher lead an ordered sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community: he a sensitive nature writer, she an obsessive realtor. Mexican illegals Candido and America Rincon desperately cling to their vision of the American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camps deep in the ravine. And from the moment a freak accident brings Candido and Delaney into intimate contact, these four and their opposing worlds gradually intersect in what becomes a tragicomedy of error and misunderstanding."

First published in 1995, this book was our choice because of the timeliness of the subject matter. Some 22 years after this book was written, we are still facing the same unbearable choices.

The run-up to discussion

With a good crowd -- Lois, Steve, Margy, Vicky, Shirley, Linda, Liz and Gail -- we started by doing what you'd expect: all talking at once. Steve accompanied on the piano, displaying yet another of his many talents. Once we'd reassured ourselves that Vicky's Florida home had survived the hurricane, we got down to the serious business of agreeing and disagreeing with each other.

Insights and Opinions

+ In the interest of full disclosure, two of us hadn't read the book at all. Both Margy and Lois had a hard time getting into the book. Linda tried three times before she was able to make it all the way through, but was careful to point out that, by the time she'd reached the halfway mark, she couldn't put it down. Steve had no trouble diving in and finishing, but couldn't sleep easily afterward. And, his ultimate opinion was that he admires the book very much.

+ Time and again in the novel, however, it is hinted at that the real perpetrators can be found inside rather than outside the projected wall: well-to-do people insensitive to the plight of the have-nots."

And, thank you, Wikipedia, for this apt observation. Many in our group felt this theme -- how the writer treats his "Los Angeles liberals" -- is less of a hint and more of a bludgeon. In Margy's opinion, Boyle looks down on this couple throughout. Lois stated that they "annoyed the hell out of me. I don't expect to like every character in a book, but I do expect them to have some redeeming qualities." In Shirley's view, Boyle treats these characters with contempt, which diminishes the power of the narrative.

+ Gail asked this question: "Are we all as thinly committed as they are? I had the sense that everything they did was about appearances." All agreed that Boyle does a masterful job of making white, middle-class to affluent people cringe. And the question becomes, what is a white liberal to do in a situation like this?

+ Jocey, who wasn't able to attend but sent her notes, ranks this book as one of her all-time favorites. She writes: "Tortilla Curtain was one of those books that made me uncomfortable as a white liberal, which is why I loved it so much. It still haunts me -- the opening with the self-satisfied white liberal environmentalist suddenly having to confront his own hypocrisy. His beloved forest preserve is a refuge to desperate Latinos. It is easy to be incensed liberals in the comfort of our own homes, but what happens when some of our ideals get in the way of our nice lifestyles? All of TC Boyle's books drive me crazy. I sort of hate them, but I can't stop thinking about them. I love being a lefty when it's easy, but what if all of those African refugees I feel sorry for moved into my neighborhood...? Tortilla Curtain made me uncomfortable and think about my values from a variety of perspectives. What's not to love?"

+ Linda agreed with some of Jocey's comments, pointing out that it's easy to be a liberal until someone is camping out in your backyard.

+ Margy felt, while reading, that she was being manipulated by the author -- that the cliffhangers at the end of each chapter had become formulaic -- that the flood at the end was too pat, too contrived.

+ To Steve, the best writing takes place in the immigrants' story and Lois proposed that this is because the non-immigrant characters are caricatures whereas the immigrant characters ring true.

+ To Vicky, TC Boyle is an over-the-top writer. "The things he writes are intense and cutting. I don't think he wants you to take it as reality. He exaggerates, kind of like George Sanders, but not like George Sanders, who has a big heart. I think we need voices like this, but I don't want to spend a lot of time with him."

Other Things to Ponder

At the close of every session, we share ideas on what to read and what we have been reading. Here are a few of the group's book suggestions, should you be looking for something new to read.

• Never Coming Back, by Allison McGhee
• Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, by Anya Von Bremzen (a memoir)
• The Nix, by Nathan Hill
• Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History, by Katy Tur
• Thank You for Being Late, by Thomas Friedman
• The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories, by Penelope Lively

Beside Ourselves with Longing, Love and Heart-breaking Consequences

Title: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Author: Karen Joy Fowler

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, this big-hearted novel by the bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club tells the story of a middle class family, typical in every way but one. From the publisher: "Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. 'I was raised with a chimpanzee,' she explains. 'I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren't thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern's expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister.'  As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence."

Insights and Opinions

The Indomitable Five -- Margy, Shirley, Blanche, Chris, and Vicky -- couldn’t hold themselves back from discussing this novel. They jumped right in at 7:30, which is our designated time for social catching up, and talked non-stop (as narrator Rosemary Cooke might have done had she been a part of our group) for the next hour and a half.  

+ Blanche posed the first question, asking Chris to say more about why she was “completely beside herself” about this novel.  Chris talked about how reading the novel was fascinating, yet she felt somewhat anxious as she read. We talked about how Rose herself was off kilter because she spent the first five years of her life as the sister of a chimp. Her instability is reflected in the telling of her story, thus partially explaining the edgy tone of the narration. 

+ The novel starts in the middle of the story as Rose does not want to let anyone (including us, the readers) in on the truth about her past. As the truth is revealed, we see how Rose herself comes to terms (sort of) with her upbringing. “I’m sobbing and sobbing,” she says, as she lets herself recall her part in losing her sister, Fern. It was “a thing I’ve never let myself imagine before.” By the end of the novel, as Rose finds solid ground, we the readers also feel calmer and more grounded. Ultimately Rose finds Fern and acknowledges her sister: “My sister, Fern. In the whole wide world, my only red poker chip.” 

Other Discussion Topics (just a few of many)

+ Role of the two suitcases: Rose loses the one that contains her mother’s story of her real past, just as she has lost or buried her memory of her sister, Fern. She ends up with a second suitcase containing Madame Defarge, a ventriloquist’s dummy, or someone who speaks for another, the way she must now learn to speak for Fern and for her true self, as sister to Fern. By the end of the novel, Rose and her mother have used the stories to create something useful and redemptive: a children’s book.

+ Rose’s monkey behavior: She acts out with Harlow, a chimp-like friend. They both (and also Rose’s brother, Lowell) end up behind bars or in cages, just like Fern. Rose exhibits certain bonobo (pygmy chimp) sexual behaviors in one scene with Harlow, Reg and two other young men. “I wonder if I had sex with all of them, would they calm down?” she thinks (p. 168). “I’d have bitten him by now,” she says in the bar scene.

  

+ Our kinship with the animals in our world: We talked about how this book makes us even more aware of the world we share with animals: our kinship, our shared environment. “It was always her (Fern’s) failure for not being able to talk to us, never ours for not being able to understand her,” says Rose.

+ During our discussion, Shirley dropped in quotes that she had marked while reading the novel. We talked about each one as she read them. 

“My father was himself a college professor and a pedant to the bone. Every exchange contained a lesson, like the pit in a cherry.  To this day, the Socratic method makes me want to bite someone.” (p. 6).

“Antagonism in my family comes wrapped in layers of code, sideways feints, full deniability.” (p. 19).

“His mother, my aunt Vivi, fit into our family about as well as my father—we’re a hard club to join, it seems.” (p. 22).

“I know from Grandma Fredericka, and not our parents, that I once went missing for long enough that the police were called, and it turned out I’d tailed Santa Claus out of a department store and into a tobacco shop where he was buying cigars, and he gave me the ring off one, so the police being called was just an added bonus on what must have already been a pretty good day.” (p. 57).

“The only way to make any sense of the United States Congress, our father told me once, is to view it as a two-hundred-year-long primate study.” (p. 92).

“’The secret to a good life,’ he told me once, ‘is to bring your A game to everything you do. Even if all you’re doing is taking out the garbage, you do that with excellence.’” (pp. 271 – 272).

“But no one is easier to delude than a parent; they see only what they wish to see.” (p. 274).

“I still haven’t found that place where I can be my true self. But maybe you never get to be your true self, either.” (p. 297).

“I’m unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through.” (pp. 304 – 305).

One Story, Two Perspectives -- Is Either of Them True?

Title: Fates and Furies
Author: Lauren Groff
Host: Liz

A finalist for the 2015 National Book Award, Fates and Furies has been nothing if not controversial among its critics. From the publisher: "At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it."

Insights and Opinions

+ Shirley found the structure of the book and the author's narrative method fascinating -- the story told from two points of view, brackets for comments directed at the reader [a technique found irritating by some], and the reader left to sort it all out.

+ Liz noted that the volume consists of two very different books. Fates is one sort of book. Furies is a second type altogether. Fates is Lotto's story, told from the perspective of a self-absorbed and very unreliable narrator. Furies is Mathilde's book, bound together by twists and surprises. As we read her story, we are stunned to see her true self, in contrast to Lotto's telling.

+ Linda (and the rest of us) considers Groff an extremely gifted writer. But she also found herself wondering -- is this really the way things were sexually during college in the 90s?

+ These two characters are as fascinating as they are unlikable. Both are nasty people. Neither has friends. Even Chollie, Lotto's "lifelong friend" is little more than a parasite. Yet both are entirely wrapped up in each other. At the end (spoiler alert), when we find out what Mathilde is really like, we wonder if her terrible mother wasn't actually right all along.

+ Steve found the book to be over-written, but wasn't bothered by it as he appreciated the many gems in store for the reader throughout. "I cared about the characters within ten pages," he said. "It was magic for me." Margy was equally engrossed, especially as Furies opens. At this point, it's clear the reader needs to hang on and get ready for the coming whirlwind.

+ Steve felt Groff does an extraordinary job in bringing Lotto's plays to life, describing the artistic process, and playing with the concept of beauty. Is Mathilde beautiful or not? Is Lotto handsome or not?

+ Sex is an important theme in this book. There was some discussion around whether it was used as a device to increase sales, but we all disagreed with that, deeming it an effective exploration of two people who are primarily sexual. For them, sex is the primary way in which they relate to each other.

Oddments and Telling Details

+ Conversation was thrown open to the question about what to do when the mini-library in one's front yard fills with donated bodice rippers and Rush Limbaugh books. The verdict: toss 'em!

Oh, Margaret, We Hardly Knew Ye

Title: The Heart Goes Last
Author: Margaret Atwood
Host: Shirley

Our February group was small, as it is during these snowbird months when half our group is south of the Mason Dixon Line cheating on us with their other book clubs. Initial chatter via email in the run-up to our book-club night had already tipped us off to how this conversation would go. And sure enough, Margaret Atwood fangirls and boys that we may be, we were already buzzing before we got our coats off. This is not Atwood's best work.

WARNING: This post contains:
+ Plot spoilers
+ Guilt, due to not wanting to be harsh about the work of any author, especially one whose work we typically admire.

Insights and Opinions

First, a little set-up. The book opens in some not-too-distant future time, when the bottom has fallen disastrously out of the economy, and society has sunk into chaos. Stan and Charmaine, a previously financially secure married couple, are now living in their car, sleeping with one eye open and scrounging for food.

When Charmaine sees an advertisement for Consilience, a planned community that promises security, jobs, food, safety, and comfort, she is immediately sold.  Stan is less so, but decides to succumb to Charmaine's desires. The only downside is that, as a resident of Consilience, you live one month in a lovely home, and then the next month in the Consilience prison. Married couples share their home with an "alternate" couple, but the two never meet. Until, in Stan and Charmaine's case, they do.

+ Only three of our group of five had actually finished the book. Joanne stopped reading midway through, and Chris was still struggling to finish, ran out of time, and admitted to finding it hard to make herself finish. "I love books that make me uncomfortable, and she does that in other books I've read and liked. I like otherworldly stories, when an author changes the rules on how society works." But Chris found this one coming up short, feeling that Atwood has done a better job in some of her other works of creating characters with whom you can find empathy.

+ We all agreed the characters were flat and uninteresting. Both Stan and Charmaine, the married couple at the center of the story, are shallow and cartoonish. We don't really care what happens to either of them.

+ Steve found the plot clever and liked the satire. As he started, he felt the book had real possibilities that were never realized. Both Steve and Chris found Conner, Stan's criminal brother, to be the most interesting character. But his potential never pays off. We feel like he's going to be important, but then he isn't.

+ Liz wondered if some of the flatness we felt was due to the fact that most of the action takes place off screen. There are many, many plot twists and turns, but we find out about them by reading people thinking. Stan is thinking about something that happened, or something that's going to happen. Then, Charmaine is thinking about something that happened, or something that's going to happen, or several possible things that might happen. All of this thinking, pondering, worrying, and considering leaches energy from the book, which could perhaps have been better shown through writing the scenes.

+ While "Heart" presents an alternative future for us that could have been fascinating, the book seems to center most on sexual obsession. Charmaine is obsessed with Max. Stan is obsessed with Jasmine and her purple lips. Ed is obsessed with Charmaine. Jocelyn is obsessed with who knows who. And, none of these obsessions are very interesting. Even the concept of mandatory love through surgery, introduced at the end, seems not to be about love at all, but about sexual obsession.

Shirley's stuffed dates looked somewhat like this,
only prettier.

+ After finishing the book, Shirley had gone to Amazon.com to review it, and gave it a score of "1," which means forget it. Much to her horror, Amazon highlighted the phrase "you don't learn anything about these people except for their sexual proclivities" and moved the review to the top. Now, Shirley fears people will buy the book just to read about sexual proclivities. Just be warned that the sex isn't very sexy.

Oddments and Telling Details

+ Shirley stuffed a bowl medjool dates for us, which was pretty amazing, and earned her extra credit.

+ Steve was heading out the next day to race in the American Birkebeiner.

+ Book recommendations from this well-read crew include: Short Loves Last Forever, The Folded Clock, The Honeydew Stories, We Know How This Ends, Purity, Brooklyn, and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Next Up: The Heart Goes Last

Title: The Heart Goes Last
Author: Margaret Atwood
Host: Shirley

This book is already controversial with our group, and we haven't even discussed it yet, except through email.

Here's what the publisher has to say, to wet your various whistles:

"Margaret Atwood puts the human heart to the ultimate test in an utterly brilliant new novel that is as visionary as The Handmaid's Tale and as richly imagined as The Blind Assassin.

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around, and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. NO one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in…for six months out of the year.

On alternating months, residents must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their civilian homes. At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice…but…with each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled."

A Life of Restless Energy and an Energetic Read

Title: On the Move: A Life
Author: Oliver Sacks
Host: Chris at Open Book

After an initial hubbub caused by changes to the Loft Literary Center's book club room policy, we settled down to the energetic business of revisiting the amazing life of Oliver Sacks. Before reading this memoir, which Sacks characterizes as autobiography, each of us had known at least something about Sacks. But that limited knowledge had prepared none of us for the arc of his life and the sheer magnitude of his experiences.

Insights and Opinions

+ What is remarkable about this book is Sacks' incredible generosity with the reader. He was willing to write, to share everything, to reveal his flaws, and to let us really see him.

+ Unlike other books we've read, which we sometimes race through to get to the end before our book club conversation, many of us found ourselves slowing down to really savor it. The writing is superb, and his descriptions of his work with neurobiology and color perception opened a whole world about which we knew very little.

+ Sacks seems to have never thrown a thing away. All of his letters, journals, letters he received from others -- he saved everything, and then used it in this book. Shirley wondered if this compelling need to record everything, including thoughts as they came to him, the writing of which he didn't necessarily remember doing, could reveal savant tendencies or perhaps a place somewhere on the autism spectrum.

Oliver Sacks, M.D., called "the poet laureate of medicine"
by the New York Times.

+ We were all uniformly amazed at the breadth of his experiences. How many lives would include chapters as a body builder, a biker dude, a drug addict, and a leading scientist of perception and the mind? And to be part of a family that included Al Capp and Abba Eban as his uncles? To have W. H. Auden as a best friend?

+ Sacks died just days before we talked about this book, and the memorial coverage exposed his knowledge that death was near, and his acceptance of its inevitability. Yet his life story is infused with an incredible will to live. He should have died many times, between the unsafe homosexual sex, the risks he took on his motorcycle, the drugs, the time he was found unconscious in an Amsterdam gutter -- and at the same time, he was recording this elegant writing, and making an incredible contribution with his work.

+ Chris admires the workings of his brain -- to be so unendingly curious, to keep poking, poking, poking. Shouldn't we all aspire to this?

+ Sacks came up scientifically during a period when scientists still shared their work with each other while doing it. Reading about these exchanges is fascinating, and adds historical detail that fleshes out our understanding of his discoveries and how he got to answers.

Oddments and Telling Details

We spent a little time talking about what we have all been reading beyond our book club selections. For those of you who want to know what this remarkable group of readers has been up to, here is the list of "recently read."
+ All the Light We  Cannot See (Vickie)
+ Life After Life (Liz)
+ Fates and Furies (Joanne)
+ Academic books on early modern literature (Shirley)
+ Short Loves That Last Forever (missed the reader of this one)

A Reckoning with Personal History Against a Tumultuous 20th Century Backdrop

Title: Old Filth
Author: Jane Gardem
Host: Blanche at Open Book

Let's start with a bit of a plot summary,  just to ground ourselves in the discussion that follows. Here's how the publisher describes our monthly read.

"Sir Edward Feathers has had a brilliant career, from his early days as a lawyer in Southeast Asia, where he earned the nickname Old Filth (FILTH being an acronym for Failed In London Try Hong Kong) to his final working days as a respected judge at the English bar.

Yet through it all, he has carried with him the wounds of a difficult and emotionally hollow childhood. Now an eighty-year-old widower living in comfortable seclusion in Dorset, Feathers is finally free from the regimen of work and the sentimental scaffolding that has sustained him throughout his life.

He slips back into the past with ever mounting frequency and intensity, and on the tide of these vivid, lyrical musings, Feathers approaches a reckoning with his own history. Not all the old filth, it seems, can be cleaned away."

This is the first volume in a trilogy, which includes The Man in the Wooden Hat, which tells the story from the perspective of Feathers' wife Betty and Last Friends, which describes the marriage of Edward Feathers and Betty seen through the eyes of Betty's lover Terry Veneering.

Insights and Opinions

+ Feathers' past is revealed slowly, through his present-day musings and some overheard conversations, and through flashbacks to his early life. It takes some time to adjust to what Chris called the "back-and-forthing," and since we haven't actually met any of these characters in the early pages, it's a bit of a challenge to track with names and what's really happening now, what happened then, and what may be Feathers' imaginings.

+ Joanne, who had tried to read it in interrupted chunks, found that method impossible as you really need to sit with it and concentrate on it in a continuous flow. After finishing, she picked it up again to reread it, and couldn't put it down. On the second read, you appreciate everything that is being foreshadowed and which you missed on first reading.

+ Chris read the beginning, then skipped to the end, and then came back to the middle. "I felt like there was no order to this book, so why should I read it in order?" On the other hand, Chris enjoyed the writing if not the order of the book. But Blanche thought the slow reveal of people and events were the main strength of the book.

+ Liz found it fascinating that Feathers' seems to be two entirely different people -- one, the elder and entirely closed down Old Filth, and the other the young Eddie full of life and curiosity. His remoteness later in life is the understandable result of events in his life, and Gardem demonstrates a remarkable ability to make us understand the stiff upper lip of English gentry during that time period. Everything about his early life was designed to shut him off from other people. When we meet him, he is completely closed. Yet, he doesn't regret or even seem to notice this. His musings about Betty after she is dead are the first indication that he is capable of feeling love.

+ Vicky felt like the author must have had a good time writing this book -- being able to incorporate all of the historical elements, the war, the queen -- and then placing Eddie in the middle of them. "It really is wonderfully told," she said. "She does go outside of his point of view, but she does it kind of Virginia Woolfe-ish. There is a very skillful writer here. It's just spectacular."

+ Margy felt that Feathers' failed effort to write his memoirs "without statement or judgment" -- finding the task impossible -- summarizes the whole structure of the book.

+ We all agreed we would like to read the second book, which is told from Betty's perspective, as it's clear that Feather's views on Betty are entirely inaccurate -- a classic case of unreliable narrator.

+ The fact that this is a trilogy is perhaps reason enough for the slow reveal, but the book does stand on its own.