One Day by David Nicholls

We read One Day in June 2011 after being tipped off by a few other readers. I was very impressed by the gripping story although it was so "girl next door" kind of a story. We have all been there in terms of being young in London so it was great to relive the ups and down being young, poor and sometimes disillusioned. The way the disaster was described was very powerful in the non-event way it was described. Some hated it but I loved it. So matter of fact without any extra drama added. So totally unpredicted and unexpected.  We all agreed that we would have hated the guy, but kind of liked him because Emma did. The characterisations where really well done.
I am sorry, I forgot who attended since it was such a long time ago the meeting was, but we promise to get better on updating the blog. Today we are discussing The book thief over a bowl of lentil soup and red wine.

The Help

We read "The Help" in July and it was another unanimous success. The book is set in the deep South of America in the 1960's when the times were..very slowly..changing. It concerns a group of white women and the often very complicated relationships they have with their black maids. One of the white women who has aspirations to become an author has the idea of recording the experiences of the black maids in a book, an undertaking ripe with potential problems and dangers; this was a time when the Ku Klux Klan was prominent and Blacks who stepped out of line were regularly met with violent retribution.
As the maids' stories unfold, the reader realises that although appalling maltreatment and double standards certainly did exist, that there are more positive stories also, where there is something akin to love between the women, however unequal their status. White women of the time were expected to play second fiddle to their men and themselves had fairly restricted lives, which were defined by clear social mores.So in some sense, there was perhaps more common ground than might be immediately obvious.
The book provides a fascinating social  commentary of an interesting period of American history and it is obviously deeply personal to the author who herself grew up in the deep South.
Overall, highly recommended.

Book 8 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

We all loved this classic Hemingway novel. It was first published in 1952, and was the last of Hemingway's works to be published in his lifetime. The story centres around the epic battle between an old fisherman called Santiago and a giant marlin. When the book opens, Santiago, hasn't caught a fish for 84 days and he is now considered so unlucky that  his beloved young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with him any more. Manolin remains devoted to the old man and continues to visit him regularly and bring him food  - without the boy, the old man might starve.
Despite all adversity, Santiago remains determined to fulfil what he considers his destiny - to catch a truly big fish. On the 85th day, he sets off alone, far into the gulf. Before too long, he realises that a huge fish has taken the bait, but the old man and fish are at an impasse, with Santiago unable to pull the fish in and the fish unable to escape and ending up pulling the skiff along. Santiago spends 2 days and nights on the boat, catching and eating raw fish and bearing the tension of the line with his body.
This is the ultimate test of endurance for both man and fish. Santiago has a huge respect and even love for this fish, which he calls his brother. He even feels that nobody will be worthy of eating the fish, that it is too noble for most people.
On the third day, the fish finally begins to tire, and with the last of his remaining strength, Santiago finally pulls the fish onto its side and stabs it with a harpoon. The fish is too big for his boat and he has to strap it to the side of his skiff as he heads home.
Tragically, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin and although Santiago manages to repel the first attacks, he eventually succumbs and the marlin is devoured by these brutal creatures. By the time Santiago arrives home, only the skeleton is left. The old man, defeated, heads back to his shack, where he falls into a deep sleep. A group of fishermen on the beach measure the marlin to be 5.5 metres long.
We get the sense that this is it for Santiago, that he has no more fight left, and although he and Manolin promise to fish together again, we are left with the feeling that Santiago has come to the end of his fishing days and the battle between him and the fish has ended in a final stalemate.
The Old Man and the Sea is a work of art, in its dreamlike, evocative account of Santiago's final battle, which he seems to have spent his whole life waiting for.
There was a unanimously positive response to this novella and most of us agreed that it is the best book so far.

Roo

Book 7 - The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

A man slaps an out of control 3 year old boy at a barbeque in suburban Melbourne. The boy's mother is furious, even more than one might expect given the circumstances, and decides to take the man to court. The on-lookers have their own opinions about who is in the right and as a result, there are rifts created (or perhaps simply highlighted) in families and longstanding friendships are tested. Each subsequent chapter of the book focuses on a different protagonist, introducing us to their character and life situation. Actually, the eponymous slap doesn't play as pivotal a role in the rest of the book as one might expect, it serves more as a focus for other events and ideas.
The central conceit of the book is an interesting one, and we could all relate to the mixed feelings we experience when someone else has to discipline our child because they have behaved badly. However,the question of whether hitting a child can ever be justified wasn't really explored in any great depth. Instead, the book is more of a character study , which would be fine except that most of the characters are so deeply unpleasant it is difficult to feel any real empathy or sympathy for them. The men are vain and obsessed with sex, often with a violent side to their nature, whilst most of the women are fairly 2-dimensional or just very annoying (for example, Rosie, the mother of the slapped child). The friendship between the 3 main women didn't seem believable to most of us, given their different characters and lifestyles.
In its favour, the book is a page turner and an easy read, but overall, the consensus was most certainly a thumbs down.
However, Ulrika's butternut squash soup was delicious again  - thank you very much!

Book 6 - Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq

So we stayed off mainstream for this next book - here is the Amazon synopsis:


Franz Kafka meets George Orwell in this dark, dystopian tale. Set in Paris in the near future, the story revolves around a young woman who works as a beautician and masseuse, and for whom happiness is derived from perfumes, shampoos and generally hedonistic pursuits. One day she realizes she is slowly (and quite literally) becoming a pig. Life as a neophyte porker, she discovers, isn't all that bad, though it does contain some unique dangers. She remains extremely popular with her massage customers, who take unusual glee in adopting her barnyard ways. Unfortunately, it is difficult for a pig to find true love in a human world; abandoned by her lover, her days blur into an endless stream of swine-like debauchery. Then she meets Yvan, a young corporate type who sometimes becomes a wolf.Pig Tales, a Prix Goncourt finalist and overnight sensation in France, is Marie Darrieussecq's first book.


Having learnt not to try and make too much sense of our books (from the Outgoing Man) we all probably approached this a little differently.  Most of us found it a straightforward read and quite gripping.  The story was very bizarre but  we all enjoyed it.  


It was probably interpreted on many levels - as a humorous story, as a shocking tale of a world getting more and more mad, as a sad story of male treatment of women, and as a moving story of a woman rejected by her family having to turn to prostitution.  Although the book was largely about the antics of this pig/madame and her clients it was very tastefully written in its descriptions.  It certainly left us all thinking about it and it was well worth the read.  Generally the thumbs up from all literary ladies present!


Great butternut squash soup provided by Ulrika.

Book 5 - The Outgoing Man by Glen Neath

Probably our most interesting book club meeting so far.  Glen is a local author who many of us know - he has a son who is at nursery with some of our children.


Glen suggested a while back that we read his first book and that he would come and discuss it with our book club.  Here is a bit about it from The Independent newspaper...

Here is a first novel about a man who doesn't know why he's following orders, or whose they are, or why he is stuck in the hotel to which he has been led. He exists in an anonymous space run by anonymous authorities - who may or may not be political assassins, and who include figures with names such as X or D.

Sound familiar? Yes, The Outgoing Man is a rerun of The Trial, Kafka lite, almost completely shorn of any obvious purpose other than to take the reader on an entertaining journey through the vaguely conscious mind of its central, unnamed figure.

Technically, the novel consists of two "postcards" sent by a former "outgoing man" from some sort of safe house to an "incoming man" who has supplanted him, and who is in the process of being supplanted himself.

Almost nothing is made of this framing device. There are no chapters in the two monologues, just pauses. It's like being stuck in a lift with a deadpan comedian, waiting for a punchline that never comes. You have to keep going, or you risk losing any grip.

The book club ladies were all a bit nervous about a discussion with an author - we don't consider ourselves to be too high brow.  Glen let on though that he was also pretty nervous about being chewed up by a bunch of women who might hate his book!


None of us found it a difficult read but it was not the sort of book that any of us had ever read and we had hundreds of questions for Glen due to the fact that it didn't seem to conform to the formula of most books i.e descriptions of key characters, a beginning, middle and end - and the fact that none of us really 'got it', although most of us enjoyed reading it.


There were a number of stand-offs in the book between the main character and people he meets.  Some of the group found this annoying, and even a little uncomfortable, and others found it entertaining and amusing (me included).


What many of us had not considered before was that you actually don't have to get a book but isn't it enough that the pages you are reading are a pleasure to read and so what if it doesn't seem to have a logical sequence?  For me personally it was a bit like looking at a piece of modern art that I enjoy but don't get - as is the case with most modern art for me!  I certainly didn't really understand where the story was going in Glen's book - and in fact it turns out that he never really intended it to be a story, but I enjoyed it and for reasons I couldn't explain found it a real page turner.


So we all learned a lot about reading and to perhaps stop having an expectation on how a book should be and to just enjoy the words for how they make us feel.


We all agreed that this was our best book club so far.  It is of course a treat to be able to pose questions to the author himself, and it is unlikely we we have this opportunity again (unless we read Glens "The Fat Plan).  Everyone there was very engaged with the discussion and we exceed our obligatory 45 minutes of book chat (before allowing ourselves to digress) by far!


Glen has recommended our next book, Pig Tales, by Marie Darrieusecq - about a prostitute who turns into a pig - we really are veering well off the mainstream!!!


Delicious soup was made by Juta - recipe please?!


Posted by Jo

Book 3 and 4: The Possibility of An Island and Eat Pray Love

Book 3: The possiblility of an Island.

Plot summary:
There are three main characters, Daniel, and two of his clones.
Daniel is a successful comedian who can't seem to enjoy life despite his wealth. He gets bored with his hedonist lifestyle, but can't escape from it either. In the meanwhile he is disgruntled with the state of current society, and philosophizes about the nature of sex and love.
His two clones live an uneventful life as hermits, in an apocalyptic background far away in the future. They live in a time where the human species is on its last legs (alternatively, on its first legs: hunter-gatherer tribes), destroyed by climate change and nuclear war. The two clones are confronted with the life of the first Daniel and have different views about their predecessor. Scattered around are the remnants of tourist resorts, cities and consumer items and some natural humans living in small tribes without any knowledge of the past or of civilization.

None of us cared to blog about this one, because we actually didn't think much of it ???
Not a thick book but I (plus a few others) somehow didn't manage to plow through this one.... It was REALLY hard work ! Well done you guys that did manage ! Not sure if it was because of the weird storyline, the long words or just me but I found this one a very difficult (and not very good) read. Somehow I got the feeling that the other members of the book club felt the same ?

Meeting was fascinating and very enjoyable as usual. We talked about the book for at least 1 hour (that's the rule) where we discussed faith, humans, purpose etc. but then we went on to discuss other things like ... life, kids, romances etc. What was the soup we had ? Tomato ??

4 weeks ago now since that meeting and I actually can not remember much of it anymore.... so if any of you other attendees have anything else to add to this, please do.

 

Book 4: Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Story: At 32 years old, Elizabeth Gilbert was educated and had a home, a husband, and a successful career as a writer. However, she was unhappy in her marriage and often spent the night crying on her bathroom floor. In the midst of an affair, she separated from her husband and initiated a divorce, which he contested. The affair continued for some time but did not work out, leaving her devastated and alone. While writing an article on yoga vacations in Bali, she met a ninth-generation medicine man who told her she would come back and study with him. After finalizing her difficult divorce, she spent the next year traveling. She spent four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life (Eat). She spent four months in India, finding her spirituality (Pray). She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for "balance" of the two and found love (Love) in the form of a dashing Brazilian factory owner. The trip was paid for in advance from the book deal for Eat Pray Love.

What we thought: Good book, although we did find her annoying at times. The way she wrote, the way she thought and even the way she sounded (well, I think so anyway, as I only managed to get as far with the book as I did with the help of an audio version of the book......Finding time to sit down and solely read is a struggle !). Generally we all liked the Bali (Love) part of the book as we thought it was the most interesting and humane. India (Pray), we felt was a bit dull. Italy (eat) we thought was good as we do love food and we do love the Italian Language, so we could relate.

Meeting: Roaring fire. LOTS of delicious spicy butternut squash soup lovingly made by Jo. 5 attendees. Wine for non pregnant ladies and juice, or what ever it was for the pregnant ladies. Casual book talk (for well over an hour) , baby talk, bed wetting talk, labour-pain, de-worming and lice talk......... Reasonably early evening. Brilliant start of the week !
Next, we are planning to watch the movie and discuss that during our next meeting on 15th November.

And also, during the next meeting,  the author of our next book;The Outgoing Man, Glen Neath will be joining us to discuss and share some of his wisdom. How very exciting !

Ps. We are all so proud of ourselves, that we have now finished 4 books !!! Before we started the book club, we all thought we would be too busy to read but somehow we managed. Well done Girls (and a big pat on my own back, although I didn't finish The Possibility Of An Island and I didn't technically read Eat, Pray, Love as I listened to most of it....   )  !

Jo, could you share with us the recipe of your yummy soup  here ? In fact, I think we should share all soup recipes here ... after all, our meetings are as much about the soup as it is about the books, isn't it ??!

Posted by TC