Giving Form to Emptiness

Title: The Book of Form and Emptiness

Author: Ruth Ozeki

Just when it seemed we were safe to come out of the basement and join the world again, COVID-19 paid a new visit in the form of the Omicron variant so we are back to BCZ (Book Club Zooming). This was not all bad, however, as it allowed us to fold in those who are vacationing or living in warmer, sunnier places.

To orient ourselves, let's start with the publisher's description:

"One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world. He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.
 
And he meets his very own Book—a talking thing—who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter."

Insights and Opinions

+ Once discussion started, our group drew immediate comparisons between this book and Ozeki's earlier work, A Tale for the Time Being, which we read years ago, discussed and loved. Steve and Linda pointed to the themes and devices common to both books -- grief and loss, the animating power of the written word and its ability to change one's life, the sentience of all things.

+ Lois highlighted the theme of reality and how it is experienced differently by each character, leading to the ultimate question with which Benny has to grapple -- what is real? There is Benny's reality, and his mother Annabelle's reality, the reality of the therapist, and the librarian. All profoundly different yet all profoundly real to the person.

+ To Steve, the objects themselves also became important characters -- the voices, the books, the snow globes, the teapots, Benny's Coping Cards, The Aleph's hand-written notes tucked away for others to find and follow or not -- even the precipitous bridge in the library addition.

+ As someone who spent time working in libraries, Margy appreciated the accuracy of the library as a character. Librarians do form relationships with their regular homeless occupants and libraries are also faced with the current-day challenges of deaccession and bindery closure as technology takes over.

+ There was some disagreement about whether the ending wrapped up too precipitously but then Steve rightly pointed out that everything that occurs in the closing pages is introduced as a possibility earlier on and, as a result, the book reaches its logical conclusion. To Steve, Kenji was there all along, perhaps nudging things toward a better place.

+ To Liz, Ozeki's treatment of every character was compassionate. As a result, despite the oppressive force overtaking Benny and Annabelle, a reader is led to understand everyone's point of view -- each player's reality. There are no good guys or bad guys. Just flawed people trying to make it through the day.

+ Ozeki is a superlative writer. As is our way, we brought our favorite passages to read aloud. There are too many to share here. But consider this quote from The Bottleman: "Ze truth about stories is that is all we are. A famous Cherokee writer named Thomas King once said this. We are ze stories we tell ourselves, Benny-boy. We meck ourselves."

+ Margy admitted to having actually read Walter Benjamin's Unpacking My Library, which amazed us all.

+ This is a perfect pandemic book and, as Lois suggested, should be kept on one's shelf, taken down regularly, opened to any page, and read until you are calm.

The best way to enjoy our book discussion.

The Stuff of Legends Delivered with Grace

Title: Sharks in the Time of Saviors

Author: Kawai Strong Washburn

 

Summer was waning, COVID was waxing, and it seemed a perfect time to sit outside and discuss this magical book. But the combo of aggressively falling leaves, bird droppings and a work crew next door sawing through concrete drove us inside almost immediately. Ours is a hearty group of diehard book-discussers and we'll talk anywhere, so next stop -- the living room. 

 

Our book club rules are strict. First, general exchange of news, not to exceed 30 minutes. Then get down to the serious business of critique and opinion exchange. No one is allowed to state whether or not they liked the book until the end of the discussion although there are some regular sinners who will launch the conversation with "I know I'm not supposed to say whether I like it, but I loved/hated this book." We spent our first 30 minutes talking about The Loft, which is how we all came to know each other in the first place. Then we sequed into who died of COVID, which is how all conversations turn at this moment.

 

About the Book

From the publisher:

"In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends.

Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods—a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities. But as time passes, this supposed divine favor begins to drive the family apart: Nainoa, working now as a paramedic on the streets of Portland, struggles to fathom the full measure of his expanding abilities; further north in Washington, his older brother Dean hurtles into the world of elite college athletics, obsessed with wealth and fame; while in California, risk-obsessed younger sister Kaui navigates an unforgiving academic workload in an attempt to forge her independence from the family’s legacy."

 

Insights and Opinions

+ Linda found the book compelling and thought-provoking. Although she found parts of the book gritty and sad, each character is fascinating, including the character of Hawaii itself. To quote a passage: "The kingdom of Hawaii had long been broken -- the breathing rainforests and singing green reefs crushed under the haole fists of beach resorts and skyscrapers." She agreed with the critic who described the book as "a hula of modern prose, like the gods have chosen Washburn as a vessel to cram all the glory and sadness of these islands into the story of one family." 

 

+ Overall, our group had mixed reactions to the book. We were uniformly awed by the quality of the writing, but some expressed confusion about what they saw as the unresolved message and ending. Several of those who felt this way recommended watching interviews with the author, such as this one, which is available on Facebook. (This will open in a new window, just so you know).

 

+ While Margy felt there was no real resolution, she found the changing perspectives of the four main voices to be strong and involving. All three children were extraordinary. She found herself pulling for each of them to live up to their potential, but that doesn't happen for anyone in this book.

 

+ Steve, on the other hand, expressed some discomfort with the "turbulence and disorientation of skipping from person to person. I kept thinking, this is a great novel, and then, or is it?" In many ways, Steve felt the book is a closer look at the American dream, which we have all been examining recently, and some of the fallacies surrounding that concept. He felt educated by the book.

 

+ Because of the strong opening revolving around Noa's rescue by the sharks, Liz expected this to be Noa's story. But when he disappears midway through the book, she was left wondering and kept waiting for him to come back somehow in a powerful way at the end.

 

+ Others felt differently. That Noa was personifying Hawaii itself (Lois) or that the book is more about the eco-system of the family rather than Noa as an individual (Jocey).  

+ Bottom line: This is a book well worth reading if you haven't for everything it has to offer and for introducing you to the pain and cultural uprooting of the indigenous people of Hawaii.

A Look Out of Doors

We didn't take pictures at this event due to our initial flurry of relocating, so here is a random picture of what the garden was doing at the time we met.

Marigolds, salvia and rosemary

 

 

 

 

The Journey to Getting Back to Where You Started

 

Title: Turbulence

Author: David Szalay

For scene-setting, let's start with the promotional blurb touting this novel: "From the acclaimed Man Booker Prize-short-listed author of All That Man Is, a stunning, virtuosic novel about twelve people, mostly strangers, and the surprising ripple effect each one has on the life of the next as they cross paths while in transit around the world."

At just 160 pages, our choice of book-club reads was a suitable pick, especially for those of us suffering from COVID-19 cognitive and emotional fatigue. We also stuck with the transportation theme, piling into car-pooling clusters and then driving back and forth randomly until we were able to find Lois' house. After touring her beautiful garden, loading our plates, and loosely discussing the topic of "who is meaner -- writers or academics?" we got down to the business at hand.

Insights and Opinions

+ Core to this novel is its structure. Each chapter opens with the letter codes of the departure and arrival airports relevant to the character in the chapter. And each character is linked with a character in the next chapter. The reader is invited into the mind of each character along the journey and, as Lois noted, becomes privy to the internal assumptions they make about each other.

+ Szalay writes with profound empathy for his characters. Jocey was struck by how these interior conversations reveal their hardships and heartaches, which aren't visible to their fellow passengers. Szalay's hand at writing the human condition is deft. For example, Steve noted that, when seen from his wife's point of view, Shamgar is clearly an angry, abusive spouse. Yet Shamgar's chapter shows us a softer side and gives the reader a window into his pain. In many ways, he is a reprehensible character who also has a softer side -- not entirely rare in the world.

+ We were all struck by the way the stories circle the world. Some, like Linda, felt it was a fun game -- like being on a train platform and catching snippets of conversation. Linda expressed a note of personal pride at having figured out the system. Liz, on the other hand, felt that this structure was merely a gimmick. She had been drawn into and was fully engaged with each set of characters and felt cheated when the set-up amounted to nothing in particular. Margy, on the other hand, disagreed, stating that "it was so skillful, it took you by surprise in a delightful way."

Margy explains the geography of the novel to Liz.

 

+ In Margy's opinion, this line, which appears in the chapter about a baby being born blind, is the theme that holds the book together: "...was one of those events that makes us what we are, for ourselves and for other people. They just seem to happen, and then forever, and slowly we understand that we're stuck with them, that nothing will ever be the same again."

+ Shirley pointed out this Kennedy quote from the last chapter as her take on the true meaning of the book: "For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

+ Ultimately, Steve was mesmerized and entertained by not fully satisfied. "I enjoyed it as an exercise, but don't we expect more of a center to a book?" As Linda pointed out, "everybody is traveling and no one is really home."

Back to Where We Were Before

+ Maybe it was because Turbulence is so short or maybe it was because the group is still so in love with last months' book, but at least half of our time was spent talking about After Francesco by Brian Malloy -- last months' read. Everyone committed to recommending this book to friends. And the big question: why hasn't it been reviewed?

+ Other things people have been reading and recommend we do the same include Deacon King Kong, The Great Circle,  and The Good Lord Bird.

Next Months' Read

Our next session will be at Liz's house and we will read Sharks In the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn.

"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."