Where the crawdads sing by Delia Owens

We began our discussion of Delia Owens' very popular novel, Where the crawdads sing, by talking about the title. ‘Crawdads’ are a type of yabby or crayfish.

This American book was inspired by some of the events in the life of the author, Delia Owens. She was a ‘wildlife scientist in Africa’ for some years. It was highly recommended to one of our members by an eminent scientist and environmentalist which helped to persuade us to read it.

It tells the story of Kya Clark, who was left by her family to live in the marshes of North Carolina at a very young age. After being sexually abused by a so-called admirer she is accused of his murder and so the novel revolves around her early life in nature and the subsequent court case.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

 

First impressions:

 

• I found it very readable although emotionally draining at first. 
• Engaging, readable, a bit Mills and Boon like -- about the downtrodden girl. I didn’t believe many parts of it especially how a young person could be published and earn so much money from one book on shells. I liked the engagement with the natural world and the main character’s isolation from society. It was endearing but it was also curious. 
• Why did she write this novel ?
• I wasn’t sure about it. I heard some of it on ‘audible’. Last bit was too contrived. It had sad parts, eg when the character ‘Jumpin’ died. I engaged with the characters and enjoyed it.   
• I got angry with the unrealistic story but I admired the structure of the book revolving around the court case and the police investigation and the time jumps between the story and the murder case. I thought the writing was beautiful about the characters.
• I loved it and was engrossed by the story. I also found it very readable and liked the vivid writing about nature. I did not like the small town prejudices but having lived in America in the 1980s could understand the tone. It was also annoying at times.
• I got used to the devices of time jumps. I also found an anachronism in it – she talks about Kya and Tate going on a picnic and using plastic cutlery in the late 1950s. I don’t think they would have had plastic cutlery even in the US at this time. It would have been metal cutlery I think? 
• I saw flaws in this book, for instance, its sentimentality, but I was moved emotionally. It reminded me of a book I read when young called The girl of the Limberlost. ‘I thought the book was a bit suss. I didn’t like the poetry by Amanda Hamilton but it was important to the resolution’. Intellectually there were too many stereotypes – good African Americans and ‘bad’ white Americans with prejudices against the poor ‘white trash’ living in the marshes. 
• I found it contrived but it had a good sense of place. I felt the murder was a bit out of character for Kya and the poetry ‘drove me batty’.
• From an absent member –  a sense of Kya's gentle, almost secretive gliding around the water in the marshlands; she would look out for Tate, or birds or animals, disappear or hide on so many occasions. The language lent this feeling to the book. Loved how we didn't really know what she did through the years except survive remarkably, and occasionally see people, and somehow the story flowed such that I didn't wonder what she did. But then we find later in the book that she painted, recorded, observed, with the precision of a 'trained scientist' but using innate knowledge and feeling for the marsh and all nature there. It became her life, and it seemed so fitting. And the knowledge of what she did provided background that I found comforting and satisfying.

 

Further discussion

 

The other main characters in this novel are Tate, who was a good man and Chase who was not a good man or good lover. Kya was taken in by both boys (men) due to her loneliness and wanting so desperately to be in a relationship with another human. Kya knew that living alone with nature for company and stimulation for so long had changed her.

Chase was an ordinary lover and was fascinated by the exotic Kya. He was a tool for the author to show that Kya was able to surmount her difficulties of her early life. She was able to protect herself pretty well.

Kya was a lonely girl who somehow managed to survive. We then discussed how there was a sense that Kya’s loneliness and love of the marshes related to Owens' life trying to protect wildlife in Africa. We all wondered why she wrote this book? Was it to explore isolation and loneliness ?

We liked the light touches such as the ‘love’ game between Tate and Kya when they were exchanging feathers and other natural items found in the marsh. One member was frustrated that there were not many insects to bother Kya, which was a jarring note in her opinion. Another member commented that Kya was fortunate to look good after such a poor diet and lack of medical facilities and toiletries for many years.

The police were commented upon as leading quite a good investigation. They didn’t immediately jump to conclusions as they might have been suspected to do considering the lowly status of Kya. Some people in the town actually supported her too which was surprising considering they had not done so earlier.

It was surprising that Kya was able to acquire her father’s holding so easily. It was a little too neat.

The author wants the reader to believe that someone else eg Tate murdered Chase. But the last chapter convinces the reader that Kya got her revenge on Chase with the help of her friendly and kind lawyer. The lawyer could be a latter day ‘Atticus Finch’. The author is not a subtle writer.

We admired the writing in many places. For instance

Loved her magical descriptions eg the skunk family 

"Them scurrying behind [the mother], running into and over one another in black and white confusions." (page 296)

Also,

"The microscope's light (reflected in her dark pupils), and she drew in a breath as a Mardi Gras of costumed players pirouetted and careened into view. Unimaginable headdresses adorned astonishing bodies so eager for more life, they frolicked as though caught in a circus tent, not a single bead of water." (page 279)

And some very succinct descriptions eg:

"Life had made her an expert at mashing feelings into a storable size."(page 151)

"Sleep avoided her, slinking around the edges, then darting away."(page 277)

This novel is really an allegory or fairy story with many stereotypes – for example Jumpin and his wife Mabel are Kya’s only friends and moral supporters. The rest of the town are against her as she is poor white trash and considered dirty by many people such as the minister’s wife and Chase’s mother. Although a few people advocated for her most didn’t. Barkly Cove served their religion ‘deep fried’.

Most of the action in this novel is through Kya’s eyes so it is a very biased viewpoint. It was not depicting social realities of the 1950s and 1960s in North Carolina.

It was on the best seller list for 2 years and is being made into a movie.

Present: 7 members

The Overstory by Richard Powers

This major novel was the subject for our June book club. It was the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2019.

The Pulitzer Prize website says:

‘An ingeniously structured narrative that branches and canopies like the trees at the core of the story whose wonder and connectivity echo those of the humans living amongst them.’

This book was a massive undertaking as one of our members said. It is 625 pages long and some readers found the size challenging. In addition it has a large number of characters and time periods.

This novel was also awarded the William Dean Howells Medal in 2020 and nominated for the Man Booker in 2018. This is Richard Power’s 12thnovel. It was published in 2018. It has been critically acclaimed by many major authors including Barbara Kingsolver, writing for The New York Times.

Spoiler alert :

It is the story of 9 main characters living in the United States who all identify with particular trees: chestnut, mulberry, maple, oak (for a married couple), fir, beech and cedar. Each chapter in the ‘Roots’ part of the book includes a small drawing of some leaves and sometimes fruit. (An unusual feature for a novel.) The story of trees in America starts with the first Europeans arriving in the country but the main characters' lives begin in the 1960s till the present day. It is a sad tale of young activism and vandalism trying to save forests and loving trees and their subsequent lives. Some characters stay true to their ideals and one person is killed. The remaining eight find later life very difficult.

The two academics are amongst the strongest characters, they are Adam Appich and Patricia Westerford. He is a psychologist and researcher and she is a scientist. The other two prominent voices are those of an American of Indian ethnicity, Neelay Mehta, who grows up to be a technological wiz with his own company and staff devising fascinating games about ‘natural’ worlds, and an American engineer who is a daughter of a Chinese migrant, Mimi Ma. It is a huge book encompassing very different personalities and different life paths. Some of them cross paths towards the end of the novel.
   

First impressions

• Wanted to read it as had heard about it. Loved it but it took time to get into. Felt she had a responsibility to read it. 
• Enjoyed it but found it complex and hard to put it together
• Well written but grappling with it nevertheless
• Thought I would love it as I love trees but didn’t finish it 
• Loved it and wanted to read it as it was on everyone’s list in 2018/19, really liked the way the story was interwoven like the trees with their roots getting interwoven
• Liked the way trees were characters in the novel
• Daunted by the size of it but determined to finish it
• Liked the way the 9 characters set the framework for the novel
• Enjoyed the ‘Roots’ part of the novel much more than the rest – felt I needed some explanations for it
• Got engaged but lost the plot and the characters at times, as many of us did, found it a bit contrived also 
• Is it a polemic or not? Not sure
• Not a study of human nature but allegorical? 
• Powers is writing with a purpose and a passion for forests and trees. He has said that this book has changed him forever.
• Loved the way there were magical parts – like being in a forest – looking at the land from the canopy (walking or sitting up high enough to be part of the forest).
• Took me on a journey with such joyful and challenging knowledge
• Need to read it again and again – could be studied in great detail
• Not a perfect book 
• Didn’t like any characters except the academic Patricia
• Reminds me of Tolstoy— depth of knowledge and references to life’s challenges from birth to death and grief and way of living one’s life
• Does it change your mind about the environment – probably not – talking to the converted

Ensuing discussion

Structure of the work is most unusual – arranged according to the parts of a tree: Roots, Trunk, Crown and Seeds. The largest section is the ‘Trunk’ part.

Characters:

We talked about Neelay, the amazing digital wiz whose life is changed by a tree when he falls from a branch. He taps into a fantasy wonderland of Nature more nuanced and wonderful than reality. He keeps wanting his staff to create more excitement for players of his video game.

We discussed Patty (Patricia) who spends a huge part of her life in the forests and succeeds in setting up a seed bank for the future of mankind. She is deaf and has other issues however she, like the others, are all challenged by the society in which she lives. 

We all applauded Patricia’s success in court as an expert witness. She loves the forests with a passion and great knowledge, and we felt very sorry for her when she was ridiculed for her research conclusions which in time turn out to be correct. Powers is showing that we can make a difference but the odds are stacked against anyone trying. That is the trouble with an existential threat. 

We discussed Nicholas (Nick) and his family’s story of looking after chestnut trees until they all disappear. However, one chestnut tree reappears in someone else’s backyard -- Ray and Dorothy’s little suburban forest. A possible spark of hope? There is a beautiful scene when Ray who is greatly disabled by a stroke and Dorothy realise that they are rekindling their marriage, after many unhappy years, by learning more about nature and allowing nature to overtake their backyard. 

An example of more branching images and interconnections – Dorothy and Ray using the ‘decision tree’ to identify the trees in their yard by their characteristics. (page 552)

We also discussed Olivia Vandergriff who is like a spirit of the forest and slightly wacky. She hears voices and takes Nick on a road trip according to her voices. Some people felt that after her experiences and accidentally (?) dying for a second time, the book didn’t progress. However, others felt that Olivia inspired other characters, particularly Mimi, and some others had a reference back to Olivia and her death. She didn’t expect to achieve anything and she didn’t but she tried. 

Each character brings some different aspect of personality and opinions to the story. For instance Mimi’s dad is a sad Chinese man who takes his three daughters fly-fishing in Fish lake which is where Patricia parks on her way to Yellowstone Park. There are these linkages all through the novel. For instance, Powers writes about Mimi: 

‘The oldest girl, named for a Puccini opera heroine, will soon be wanted by the feds for fifty million dollars of arson.

Two thousand miles to the east, a student sculptor …(will) live to walk past the tree again, thirty years later, but only because of swearing to the Puccini heroine that no matter how bad things get, he won’t kill himself.’ (page 165)

Mimi’s dad killed himself so she doesn’t want that to happen to anyone else. We liked the section talking about Mimi’s Dad’s scroll which shows fishing. We also appreciated Winston (Mimi’s dad) saying sorry to the bear near the lake. 

Mimi asks her father what he said to the bear (that was preparing to attack) – he said

'Apologise!… people very stupid… forget everything...where they come from, where they go.. Don’t worry. Human being leaving this world very soon. Then the bear get top bunk to himself again'. (page 47)

Part of the author’s theme of leaving the world to itself to sort out and continue.

We also talked about the scene when the trees are cut down in front of Mimi’s office. This was where she met Douglas and had a moment of enlightenment.

This novel is full of misfits – because they are like us? The reader could draw allusions to Biblical stories such as those of Paul and Moses? 

The author himself moved to live in a forest and felt it changed his life still living in the Great Smoky mountains of Tennessee.

Title: The Overstory

We thought the title was good – it relates to forests and to one of the climactic parts of the book when Olivia and Nick are delicately balanced on the platform high up in the forest’s canopy. One member remembered the story of other people living high in the trees in the Tarkine, Tasmania. It could also be interpreted as having a mythic atmosphere? 

Forests

This book makes people think about forests more – after reading it you don’t feel the same anymore. However we don’t think it will change people’s ideas about climate change if they are not already convinced of it by the science.

There are many sections discussing the landscape of old growth trees. One member discussed Simon Schama’s book on landscape and art. Schama particularly talks about German landscape painting which often shows forests with a range of trees, as well as growth and death. 

Powers, the author, does not talk about the First Nations people of the US in this novel. There is only one small reference to them in one of the protest scenes when the young people are trying hard to save a forest.

In discussing the forests we talked about oaks and their beauty. One member also talked about forest bathing in Japan where you can be at one with Mother Nature. 

Powers is quoted as saying that ‘all good stories will kill you a little’. Books can do this. 

Conclusion

Is this book saying ‘we are stuffed’ as far as saving the trees and thus the planet? There are different opinions on this matter. But we think Powers is saying that personal connections with nature, especially trees, are vitally important and will help save us ? Life will continue despite everything.

Many of us are troubled, even discombobulated, by the news every day so Patricia’s seed bank leads to hope. There are seed banks in place in Australia as well as overseas, which do hold good for some species of flora. 

This month we were very happy to return to meeting in a member’s home, suitably socially distanced.

Present: 10 members

Mary McCarthy's The group

Prepared by Sylvia

Mary MacCarthy’s The group  was a controversial novel published in 1963. It was on the American best seller list for almost 2 years according to Wikipedia. Our ‘group’ of 9 older women (older than the characters, that is) mostly enjoyed it and were pleased to either read it again or for the first time.

SPOILER IN THIS PARA - BUT IT IS A CLASSIC!

Mary McCarthy (1912-89) was a Vassar girl who graduated in 1933. She wrote more than 20 books and The group was her fifth. It tells the story of 8 girls who have just graduated from Vassar College in 1933 and are all excited to start their adult lives. It begins with Kay and Harald’s wedding which they all attend. Each girl is discussed for a short period of her life (mostly dealing with their sex lives and their hopes and opportunities) before moving onto another girl. It ends with Kay’s tragic death and her funeral, which the other seven also attend, as does her profligate ex-husband. These girls are dealing with the middle-class problems of their generation – unfaithful men, work, babies, parents. Many of these issues have hardly improved, we felt.

As is our practice, we started with our …

First impressions

• Read it when I was 13 or 14 and didn’t understand it, but now I do
• Loved it
• Characters so precisely done 
• Some difficult prose and unusual words – needed a dictionary  
• Loved the stories coming together with the beginning wedding and closing funeral providing the structure
• Loved the precise grammar
• Loved the episodic nature of the book showing lives of the women
• Very modern in style
• Didn’t expect it to be so witty, even evident in the tragic scenes such as when Kay was being committed to a mental institution by her husband
• Loved the humour
• Didn’t mind that there wasn’t a plot – Kay was the linking character throughout the stories
• Has wonderful characters such as Mrs Davison, and Polly’s father
• Marvellous novel, thought it would be salacious but it was satiric 
• A bit tedious but I really liked a few of the characters such as Lakey
• Some men miss the point in women’s novels, such as Norman Mailer’s criticism of Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy’s memoirs are good reads too: Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, How I Grew, and Intellectual Memoirs .

Characters

The eight women in the group are Kay, Polly, Dottie, Lakey (Elinor), Libby, Pokey (Mary), Priss and Helena. They are based on McCarthy’s own classmates and she claims that she ‘suffered’ for the rest of her life for ‘using’ them. 

These girls were romantic but also naïve.

‘… they had something to contribute to our emergent America …they could see the good that Roosevelt was doing despite what Mother and Dad said;’ (loc 241 in Kindle).

They strove for a path for themselves but sometimes we only see them through their partner’s eyes.

Harald (Kay's husband): an awful character so we loved that he was put in his place at Kay’s funeral. We felt he deserved it. 

Kay: didn’t have talent but she liked to be superior and couldn’t let go. She believed in Harald and thought that he would have a stellar career in theatre. ‘She loved Harald’s risus sardonicus, as Helena Davison’s mother called it.’ (1192 Kindle)

Libby: we felt sorry for Libby when she had an awkward interview with a publisher.  She couldn’t take the hint that she couldn’t write well enough. She was a gossip, and unkind about her friends, such as Dottie, and was also cruel about the lovely Polly. A cold person. We felt she was the shallowest character. However, we were also distressed for her when she was assaulted by a boyfriend. 

Dottie: her deflowering sex scene in chapter 2 caused most of the book's controversy in the 1960s, but was much less shocking when reading it today. McCarthy handles the scene with humour and wit.  

Polly: we all liked Polly best. She is described "a sympathetic soul". We weren't impressed by Polly’s mother offloading her sick and elderly husband onto her daughter, and just sending an occasional box of eggs. 

Lakey: develops confidence in her years in Europe and ‘the group’ also grow to accept her and her evident sexual divergence from them.

Priss: rears a child according to the theories being developed by her paediatrician husband Sloan who uses her as an experiment. We all remembered the horrendous, rigid, methods suggested – only picking up a baby at a set time.

Norine: a Vassar 33 girl too, who is not a part of the group but is friendly with some of them. She is a counterpoint for some of the other characters, such as Kay, and Priss, who discovers their child-rearing practices are diametrically opposed.

We also discussed Helena Davison’s family, particularly Mrs Davison and the butler Hatton who would read the newspaper so he could give the news to Mrs Davison. It reminded one member of passages in Jane Austen.

We discussed how their Vassar education encouraged them to think but society did not allow them to operate as intelligent people. There were a couple of scholarship girls but most of them didn’t have to make a living, so they did volunteer work. Some characters felt that they were ruined by the college education, with Norine saying "our Vassar education made it tough for me to accept my womanly role". We noted how, in Australia at least, women were often not allowed to work once they were married.  

Were the girls as different from their parents as they had hoped when they left Vassar in 1933? They varied in their politics, some being more Democrat and some more Republican.

The American poet Robert Lowell thought that these Vassar girls were ‘pastoral girls’ and ‘cloistered’. He wrote to Mary McCarthy that 

“we were dependable little machines made to mow the lawn, then suddenly turned out to clear wilderness”. Leave it to the poet to know an elegy when he sees it. Flowers of the culture, these young women, but shot from a gun.’ (Vanity Fair review, 2013)  

Some felt that the main "group" in the book was Polly’s "group" – one of her communities - and that the eight were only the Vassar group when it suited them? Was there a lot of contact outside of the wedding and the funeral? It wasn't completely clear.

Some of the characters exist to be counterpoint to others, like Norine, who isn’t part of the group. This shows how people are multi-faceted.

McCarthy deals with universal themes – jobs, love, marriage - so that although it's an old book now, it doesn't appear dated.

Similarities with other novels

A comparison was made with Edith Wharton who wrote about young women living in New York in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. Her young women, like McCarthy's, were striving for satisfying lives but were constricted.

Another member saw a similarity with Frank Moorhouse’s Grand days - the idealism of the Roosevelt days versus the idealism of the creation of the League of Nations.

Other comments

We noted the smoking scenes – even in hospital! So much change in half a century!

One member particularly liked the ‘bagging’ of the Freudian analysis done on Kay. McCarthy was also admitted to hospital by her partner, Edmund Wilson, in a similar way to Kay’s admission. 

Mary McCarthy had a tough childhood living with her grandparents. She developed a close relationship with her female Latin teacher. Mary was an intensely bright girl and tried relentlessly to do well. She was inspired by her teacher to compete and became very driven. (This is shown by her amazing output of novels and of literary criticism). She made money from her novel The Group, and in fact made more money than Norman Mailer, her fierce critic.

In one review McCarthy was praised as an acute novelist, like Doris Lessing, but others criticised the book for not having a plot and attempting too much. 

One reader also commented that the author reminded her of the Australian academic Jill Kerr Conway who worked at Smith College in mid 20th century and wrote the revealing memoir Road from Coorain.

It was recommended that we watch the Mary McCarthy program, Vassar Girl 1933-74 on YouTube.

Present: 9 members

Amor Towles' A gentleman in Moscow

There's nothing like a bit of dissension to liven up a meeting! And so it was that our April meeting of Amor Towles' novel A gentleman in Moscow was a lively one given there were some questions raised amongst the overall positive responses to the book.

The novel spans over three decades, and chronicles the life of the aristocrat Count Alexander Rostov under house arrest in Moscow's grand Metropol Hotel.

First impressions

• Delightfully written, containing irony delivered with grace and wit rather than with bitterness.
• Loved it, hilarious and well-written, enjoyed the humour, such as the "wine label" story, so clever.
• Loved the literary and historical allusions, its description of communist Russia without the horrors, its portrayal of gentle manners, a masterpiece.
• Read it while travelling to Russia last year, and enjoyed reading it in context. 
• Enjoyed the hermetic life, though found the idea a bit of a stretch: would Stalin really have let such a person live under house arrest like that.
• Loved the tone, and how the Count could put a positive spin on the things that happened to him. Liked his optimism and "can do" attitude. Enjoyed the cultural allusions, and the historical setting.
• Didn't like it, because it's intellectually dishonest; doesn't believe aristocrats thought the way the Count does, and didn't like the references to 21st century corporate language like "facilitate"; was able to go with it as the story of someone forced to live in a grand hotel. (Reminded her of the Grand Budapest Hotel film.)
• Really enjoyed reading it, but had some disquiet about Towles' intention: why did he write it? Saw it as a construct, rather than something meant to be believable. 
• Enjoyed the book, and felt that each chapter could be a mini-book.
• Wondered about Towles intentions, but thought it had lovely Austen-like observation and commentary on human nature.

Our member's concern about the book being "intellectually dishonest" got our discussion off to a strong start. 

Several argued that Towles does reference the "ghastliness" of life at the time. There are references, for example, to starvation, and characters are shown as disappearing (Nina) or suffering (Mishka). One member suggested that the fact that the book doesn't hit its readers with a sledge-hammer makes it more powerful.

It was also suggested that the interest in American culture - including films like Casablanca - is believable, that there was in Stalin's days a gap between public rhetoric and private behaviour. Stalin, for example, loved watching Western films.

Part of our discussion revolved around its form and tone. Is it a realistic book (like Dickens and Tolstoy) or more like an Austen or Henry James book of manners or, even, more of a fable or fairy tale? It does not hang together well as a realistic story, many of us felt, and so should not, perhaps, be judged on the basis of realism.

Our main naysayer raised the issue of the Count's shooting the Hussar and his fleeing to Paris. She felt this held some clue to him and his role. This resulted in our discussing whether the Russian aristocracy had made a practice of visiting Paris, or whether this was something unusual for the Count to have done.

We also spent quite a bit of time discussing the ending - what it meant, whether we liked it, whether it made sense, why the Count would do what he did. How we viewed the ending depended somewhat on how realistic we thought the book was!

We also talked about what we enjoyed about the book: the humour, the easy-reading style, its cleverness (including fun names like Anna Urbanova), the satiric footnotes, the characters, and its depiction of life in a grand hotel.

The Count and manners

We spent some time discussing the Count, and whether he had changed during the course of the novel. Most felt he did, though was it more in degree than substance? One mentioned his discussion of convenience versus inconvenience, and his recognition that inconveniences were more meaningful:

“I’ll tell you what is convenient,” he said after a moment. “To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.”

Another commented on his momentary slip, resulting in his friends calling him Count Blabbermouth and the Bishop joining the Triumvirate's daily meeting.

We did note that the Count was adaptable, enabling him to make a life for himself in the face of loss of freedom, position and possessions. One member commented on "his unwavering classiness".

Talking about the Count raised the idea of manners, given the Count's focus on good manners. How important are manners, a member asked? What role do manners play in the idea of being "a civilised person"? Good manners, politeness, can be superficial, and divisive, but do they also have a positive role in human relationships? We were amused that the Count's knowledge of and focus on food - how it's cooked, what wine goes with what, etc - closely matches today's foodie trends!

We thought that the book had an element of the comedy-of-manners genre, more than the social realism of Tolstoy and Dickens to whom the Count occasionally refers or alludes.

Towles' intentions

Some members had checked Towles' website where he writes that it was inspired by his noticing during his travels that some people spend long times in grand hotels. Hence he had

the idea of a novel in which a man is stuck in a grand hotel. Thinking that he should be there by force, rather than by choice, my mind immediately leapt to Russia—where house arrest has existed since the time of the Tsars.

A member shared Towles' description of the structure of the novel. He says that the book

takes the shape of a diamond on its side. From the moment the Count passes through the hotel’s revolving doors, the narrative begins opening steadily outward. Over the next two hundred pages detailed descriptions accumulate of people, rooms, objects, memories, and minor events, many of which seem almost incidental. But then, as the book shifts into its second half, the narrative begins to narrow and all of the disparate elements from the first half converge. Bit characters, passing remarks, incidental objects come swirling together and play essential roles in bringing the narrative to its sharply pointed conclusion.

This aspect of a number of "things" appearing ("people, rooms, objects, memories, and minor events"), which all come together to mean something later, is a feature of the novel that one member loved.

Another member shared a quote from the novel that intrigued her. The Count says:

I suddenly understood that this propensity for self-destruction was not an abomination, not something to be ashamed of or abhorred; it was our greatest strength. We turn the gun on ourselves not because we are more indifferent and less cultured than the British, or the French, or the Italians. On the contrary. We are prepared to destroy that which we have created because we believe more than any of them in the power of the picture, the poem, the prayer, or the person.

We discussed what we felt this meant. Is he saying that, for Russians, it's their essence, their culture, that is more important than concrete objects? How does this idea fit into the novel's overall theme/meaning?

Whatever Towles' intentions were, we saw several themes, including the ability to adapt to your circumstances, the power of friendship, the dangers of ideology. 

Finally, whatever it was about, the novel proved to be a great one to discuss.

Other works

As often happens during our discussions, other works popped into our minds, including:

• CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia: because of going through the cupboard
• George Orwell's Animal farm: its depiction of communism
• George Orwell's Down and out in Paris and London: his description of hotel kitchens.
• Boris Pasternak's Dr Zhivago: its response to the Russian Revolution
• Death of Stalin film: its evocation of Stalin's death

Present: 10 members (plus some input from an absent member who sent some notes in!)

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

This novel was suggested by a couple of members who had either read it or wanted to read it. Marilynne Robinson had been on our reading list for a long time.

Robinson’s first novel Housekeeping was published in 1981. Gilead, her second novel, was published in  2004, and focuses in John Ames. There are 2 others in this series, Lila and Home, which tell the stories, respectively, of Ames' wife and of his friends the Boughtons. In 2005 Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Gilead. Robinson has won many awards for her novels and for her many non-fiction writings, and has been honoured by Oxford University as well as by many American Universities.

Gilead is a most unusual novel. It is set in a small town called Gilead in Iowa, USA in 1956. Its format is a long rambling letter by an elderly (late 70s) Congregationalist minister, John Ames, to his young son. There are no chapter divisions. He talks about the present, the recent past (how he met his child’s mother), and his friends, especially his near neighbour, Reverend Boughton and his son John (Jack) Ames Boughton. John Ames’ past is included, including stories about his father and grandfather who were also ministers. As the central character is religious by nature, ethical questions pervade the whole novel but there are also discussions of a more simple and domestic feel.  Questions are explored such as ‘what is a good man’ and ‘how can I forgive’.  It is all written in a very calm and introspective way.

Initial responses

• Hard to get into – rambling and retrospective
• Liked the rhythm of words – some beautiful prose
• Family history and US potted history intertwined
• John Brown in Virginia – still going in the 1950s (see the Wikipedia entry for those of you who know little of this history)
• Quite enjoyed it
• Layers of religious ideas – hard to work out what he (ie John Ames) is actually saying
• Interesting how religion affects families and causes tensions
• I heard it while driving and liked the voice – sounded very plausible
• Really liked to hear that the pastor shared struggles and doubts with his religion
• Two sides of restoring self – forgiving others and stop blaming oneself
• The theology was too old-fashioned for modern Christian thought
• Surprised that Ames is not fussed about heaven
• Slow melancholic novel which I liked – got into the voice
• Some funny scenes such as the town digging the tunnel for escaping slaves, and then giving the guy another horse when his horse fell into the tunnel
• Theology went over my head – and an amazing number of religions are mentioned in this novel (why?)
• Warm hearted novel

Reverend John Ames

We decided that Ames was a good man but flawed. He was deluded in some ways. He was also aware of his limitations. He was very fond of his friend Reverend Boughton.

He was a very generous guy. He gave his money away while he was single for many years after the tragic loss of his first wife and child. He often stated that he was sad he couldn’t give more earthly goods to his second wife and child.

He had a passion for his young wife and not for his first wife which we thought was interesting.  Why was that? Maybe too religious when he was young?

He brought up issues on how to live a good life. Had he been a good man in his seventy plus years. He also wants his son to live a good life and enjoy it. Ames didn’t have much fun.

He often talks about grace and forgiveness. There is also a lot of talk about father and sons and Ames feels lucky that he was able to have a young son at his advanced age. He talks about his own youth and that of his father. He particularly wants his son to know about the trek that Ames and his father went on to find the grave of his grandfather who had walked out of their lives when quite elderly and ended his days in Kansas.

It was fascinating to see that Ames placed very little value on his old sermons even though he had kept them. His wife, Lila, thought they were very special. Was he saying that his life’s work was not important. He was an old fashioned pastor. He accepted the help of the community but also helped them at times, such as fixing a tap. His life’s work was love. One member objected to our acceptance of the character so easily. She thought he was irritating.

The New York Times review of Gilead (28/11/2004) discusses clergymen as characters in novels, the reviewer stating that ‘Robinson’s pastor (is) that most difficult narrator from a novelist’s point of view, a truly good and virtuous man, and occasionally you may wish he possessed a bit more malice…" 

He felt that his son would be in good hands after his death as his wife was fabulous. She had had no education but learnt to live a good live with her elderly husband in the few years they lived together.

As Ames was an elderly dad he did not place restrictions on his son like other parents – such as allowing his son to watch a cartoon on television while Tobias (a friend) had to stay outside.

The book whimpers out at the end with Ames’ quiet death.

John Ames (Jack) Boughton

John Ames (Jack) Boughton, the profligate or prodigal son of his good friend, we decided was a foil for Reverend John Ames. His appearance was a test for the evangelist. He tested Ames’ beliefs and his ability to forgive the young man. When young, Jack had had sex with an underage girl who had become pregnant. He abandoned both the mother and the child and the child died. Ames was challenged to forgive the younger man’s dishonourable actions and stay true to his religion.

We also discussed how the Boughton family had got involved with this poor family abused by their son. Some felt they could have done more for the mother and child.

We admired Lila and were curious about her relationship with Jack. Had she known him when they both lived in St Louis ? If so, what was she doing there ?

Lila was very empathetic with this younger man. Why was she in that town? Many of us were interested to read Lila to find out. (I think she just liked having a young man around to talk to as she was still a young woman?)

Jack Boughton is the prodigal son, and Ames reflects on his brother Edward who also left the small town.  (As an aside, there seems to be a plethora of stories about prodigal sons at the moment, for instance the new film called, Sometimes, always, never.)

Ames forgave Jack but he didn’t really believe it. Jack was a good man and John Ames’ blessing meant something to him near the end of the novel.

The novel explores all these father and son relationships. But Jack also wanted to be forgiven by his father. This didn’t seem to happen.

We also decided that it was a good idea to read Gilead slowly and maybe absorb some of the thoughts or meditations.

We concluded with the idea that we might write a letter to our children? One family recorded their elderly grandmother and the grandchildren really like hearing her stories long after she had passed.

Attendance: 9 members

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

This book was recommended highly by one of our members. That was a good start for the discussion.

This text concerns the true story of how cancer cells belonging to Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, are still alive and are greatly responsible for amazing scientific breakthroughs in America and elsewhere for almost 70 years.

Henrietta died of cervical cancer in 1951 and Rebecca Skloot is a young American, who became fascinated by this story and so it is also her journey into the background of this remarkable episode in American medical work and her tenacity in tracing and interviewing Henrietta’s family.  Skloot was trying to bring attention to her for recognition of her service to science for future generations. Henrietta’s cells, known as HeLa were obtained by a researcher, who was successful in keeping them alive and in reproducing them. The researcher found them unique in their ability to be cultured. The family who were and are still very poor, received nothing for their mother’s (and grandmother’s) ‘donation’. Henrietta did not know about the future use of these cells nor did the family consent to their use after her death.  So there are many questions of moral rights as well as recognition and respect.

The book relates not only to the scientific aspects of the research done by George Gey and many others as well as the social /societal effects of poverty upon Henrietta’s family and community. Until very recently they had not received any recognition of the use of her cells for scientific research or their worth. The family have had very different reactions to the writing of Henrietta’s life but all seemed impressed by Skloot’s devotion to the subject.

Our general comments included:

• Amazing, shocking stuff, fascinating, sad, gruelling.
• The HeLa cells were mentioned in the professional training of two of our members but only briefly. They were well known by medical students until recently but with no attribution or recognition of Henrietta’s role.
• Our resident medico couldn’t help remembering some horror stories from her medical training especially in relation to the treatment of Black people in America.
• Should be compulsory reading for a great range of students.
• Really well done.
• Loved the mixture of science and discussion of ethics. Great juxtaposition.
• Very impressed by Skloot’s personal skills dealing with the family and her skilful narrative.

The conversation largely related to two factors : the personalities involved and the medical ethics or lack of them. 

Important people and the HeLa cells:

George Gey, researcher, who worked at John Hopkins Hospital, and who initiated the research in 1951 and gave her cells away for free to any interested laboratory (without receiving any extra compensation).

Deborah Lacks, one of Henrietta’s five children. She was an uneducated but very intelligent woman with a warm heart who just wanted to know about her mother and was continually trying to understand all the things that Rebecca and others were telling her.  Rebecca had great difficulties in convincing Deborah to talk to her initially but once she did Deborah became the main person in learning about the cells and in persuading the family to be resigned to their story being told.

Elsie, Deborah’s sister. She suffered terrible abuse as a teenager by a mental institution and Rebecca was able to obtain a little extra information about her for her siblings. 

Scientists who apologised to Deborah and her brothers for the way the medical profession had treated them. This included Susan Hsu who was director of medical genetics at the American Red Cross. Also Christoph Lengauer, a young researcher from John Hopkins who showed 2 members of the family some of Henrietta’s cells and actually explained for the first time that Henrietta’s cells are not alive just her cancer cells. He also explained that a person’s colour does not show up in these cells. (see pages 263-267). Susan Hsu said :

‘I feel very bad…people should have told them. You know, we never thought at the time they did not understand’. (Page 189)  

HeLa cells. This indestructible human material that once they left Henrietta’s body did not belong to her and she did not know they would be of interest to mankind!

Zakariyya, the brother who suffered so badly from his stepmother’s abusive treatment was given space to appear as a concerned person who wanted to know about his mother.

(We were very impressed by Skloot’s ability to relate to the family and allow them room to speak and wrestle with the questions she was raising.)

Rebecca Skloot herself, the author and medical scholar who at times describes her trials and tribulations. She was drawn into the family gradually over a long period and also felt their trauma. She began researching for the book in 1990 and it was published in 2009 and a movie was made staring Oprah Winfrey.

Ethics:

It was not unusual for patients in the 1950s to not be informed about cells when biopsies were taken. The issue of cells taken from one’s body is still current. One member related that she gave permission for her cells to be used just recently. The Nuremberg Code is very important with this issue. Although this code was written just after WW2,  it has not been adopted as law in any country but it underpins many of our modern medical regulations.

One member feels some sympathy for doctors trying to research medical issues like cancer. They need to experiment on patients but now it is largely prohibited. This wasn’t the case 60-70 years ago when Henrietta Lacks was alive.

Further Information about cervical cancer from Wikipedia:

Henrietta’s family see the HeLa cells through the prism of religion and science and we were asked how we respond to this. Deborah in particular kept thinking that her mother had been cloned. This is highly emotive language and sad that the family so misunderstand the science or are so mislead by the lack of information that they can assume such a terrible conclusion. It is very sobering thought in this day and age.

The question of race was obvious all through the text. Henrietta’s family thought that the white scientists were making lots of money through Henrietta’s cells and they naturally felt that they should have inherited some of the money obtained. They are still a family who can’t afford medical insurance in the very over-priced American medical system.

We briefly discussed commercialism of scientific research and patenting of such things as the human genome.

We also discussed the non-judgemental attitude of Rebecca Skloot in that she does not criticize the scientists who researched Henrietta’s cells. ‘It is what it is!’

Skloot has set up a foundation to assist Henrietta’s family and others who donate to science without receiving any gratitude or gratuity.

Present: 9 members 

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The sympathizer

Our February book was Viet Thanh Nguyen's debut novel, The sympathizer, which won the Pulitzer Prize, among other awards. While not everyone had quite finished the book by the meeting, most enjoyed it.

As usual we started with first impressions:

• funny, amazingly well-written, playful but also intense. Fabulous to read about the Vietnam era, something which feels like unfinished business (in terms of our understanding/reconciling what was done in the name of humanity, the way nations did, and still do, "bash up against each other", killing citizens along the way.) 
• dense, graphic, evocative, and packed with ideas. The language is great, but the dictionary was needed for many words. 
• captivated from the first page, because it was so alive and real. The title puzzled at first, but its multiple meanings became clear. The opening description of the day of the Fall of Saigon was so graphic. The book is as much personal as political, and is about America not listening to Vietnamese voices, just as we are not listening to indigenous voices here! So, this member said, she listened! 
• sad, bleak, but also witty and stirred up this member's way of looking at things. It's about the refugee experience, showing how refugees feel like aliens. The narrator himself represents this alienness through his mixed race background. This member also liked that the book presents multiple points of view, rather than just one perspective. 
• hard to read, with the sentences being complex and sometimes "over-the-top" 
• the voice was great from the beginning, and beautifully sustained. The satire was effective, making us laugh and grimace at the same time. It was good to see a Vietnamese viewpoint about the War (like another recent book about the war, written from a Vietnamese perspective, Hoa Pham's The lady of the realm.) 
• the audiobook version brought the book's stunning language to life and made it easier for this member to engage with the book after she couldn't initially get into it. The descriptions are effective, and there are so many wonderful and emotive scenes. 
• a complex book, that was perplexing at beginning, but the language, irony, metaphors, alliteration won this member over. It has pathos, particularly about the refugee experience, one that's not unique to those in the book. This member had recently read Jane Fonda's autobiography, My life till now, in which she talks about how many American lives were lost while they were destroying Vietnamese lives.

We then talked a little about the author, who is a professor at USC in Los Angeles. He arrived in the USA as a refugee with his parents when he was about 4 years old. He said in an interview that he had chosen to not "live" with two languages but to "master" English. However, in doing so he'd been exposed "too well to how Americans viewed the Vietnamese". It was seeing films like Apocalypse now and Platoon which encouraged him to want to tell the story from a Vietnamese perspective. He makes this point explicitly at the end of the movie-set section of the novel, when he says that "not to own the means of representation", that is, of telling your own story, is "a kind of death".

He had three main aims for the book: to expose what America did in Vietnam, to express Vietnamese anger at what America did (something he feels Asians have been reluctant to do), and to expose what the Vietnamese did to themselves. (They were not just victims, he said, but also victimisers.) In other words, while his main target was America's actions, he recognises the universality of corrupt, self-serving behaviour.

 "moth-eaten moral covers"

Our discussion proper then started with the fact that the book is presented as a "confession", which we later learn is part of a "re-education" program. The discussion then went rather free-range, but never strayed far from Nguyen's language and his satirical exploration of the Vietnam/American War from multiple angles. We noted Nguyen's desire to represent different voices and experiences, and that our "bastard"-Eurasian-divided narrator was an excellent vehicle for this representational aim. (Several of us enjoyed how this narrator, this divided-I, became "we" at the end.) Many of the characters represent groups of people and/or ideas and/or parts of society. This is typical, we suggested, of satire. So, for example, the narrator's father reflects the colonial story/the missionary role, while his mother, the colonised/the victim.

We talked about politics, about the fact that the Vietnamese wanted American money but not American imperialism, that America continued the war long after they knew they couldn't win. (And we digressed to the war in Cambodia, and Vietnam's role there.)

We shared many examples of the language, particularly in terms of how it reflected Nguyen's themes. The book is replete with irony and paradox, which is embodied in the never-named narrator himself. He is the ultimate paradox - the son of a Vietnamese maid and a missionary, a North Vietnamese mole working for a South Vietnamese general, a philosopher who is not above acting against his philosophy. So, for example, he says, after the squid masturbation scene:

Massacre is obscene. Torture is obscene. Three million dead is obscene. Masturbation, even with an admittedly nonconsensual squid? Not so much. I, for one, am a person who believes the world would be a better place if the word "murder" made us mumble as much as the word "masturbation".

While we'd agree, this is ironic, because he himself murders, and in rather egregious circumstances. Frequently in the book, an idea is presented, only to be turned on its head in another situation.

Members shared other examples of language they liked: a description of the refugee experience as the "metasising cancer called assimilation", and this of our "moth-eaten moral covers".

"we too could abuse grand ideals"

And we talked about the satire - sharing many examples from the book, such as:

The Chinese might have invented gunpowder and the noodle, but the West had invented cleavage, with profound if underappreciated implications. A man gazing on semi-exposed breasts was not only engaging in lasciviousness, he was also meditating, even if unawares, on the visual embodiment of the verb 'to cleave,' which meant both to cut apart and to put together. A woman's cleavage perfectly illustrated this double and contradictory meaning, the breasts two separate entities with one identity. The double meaning was also present in how cleavage separated a woman from a man and yet drew him to her with the irresistible force of sliding down a slippery slope. Man had no equivalent, except, perhaps, for the only kind of male cleavage most women truly cared for, the open and closing of a well stuffed billfold.

And this, on the General's plan to mount an attack from America:

The General's men, by preparing themselves to invade our communist homeland, were in fact turning themselves into new Americans. After all, nothing was more American than wielding a gun and committing oneself to die for freedom and independence, unless it was wielding that gun to take away someone else's freedom and independence.

The satire is also conveyed through names. The raped/tortured agent says her name is Viet Nam, and the narrator refers to many characters by description rather than name, including the crapulent major, the baby-faced guard, the grizzled captain, the affectless lieutenant.

Related to the satire is the humour. Some of us called it black humour while others preferred to call it bleak. Whatever we called it, we agreed that the book has many "comic" scenes. We shared some of them, including the "country club" dinner party with the General, the Congressman and the "Asian expert" Richard Hedd.

But what did we make of the ending? We discussed variousideas, including the idea of nihilism (particularly represented by Man); the hypocrisy of fighting for "independence and freedom" (a regular catchcry during the book) only to have it taken away upon victory; and the fact that at the end our narrator is en route back to the USA, this time as a "real" refugee. He implies that he (that they, on the boat with him) might still be looking for a "just cause", but right now they just want to live. He's finally liberated from his old life, as free, we decided, as you can be in the circumstances, which doesn't necessarily say a lot! So, is it a cynical ending, a realistic ending, a hopeful one?

Finally, we briefly commented on some of Australia's writers from immigrant backgrounds, including Nam Le, Anh Do and Alice Pung.

PRESENT: 8 members

Our souls at night by Kent Haruf

Minerva members enjoyed this short American novel, Our souls at night. Many of us read it in one session. Haruf wrote this ‘homage to his wife’ as he was dying – one chapter a day.

The story is seemingly simple but actually concerns many issues pertinent to mature readers. It is also sweet and poignant. An elderly single man and single woman live next door to each other in a fictional town called Holt, Colorado. They are both lonely having lost their long-term partners. One day quite out of the blue Addie decides to change her loneliness for companionship by asking her neighbour Louis if he will spend the nights with her. It begins with friendship and slowly develops into a loving relationship. Along the way they change the life of Addie’s young grandson. However they live in a small town and gossip is their enemy. It ends in tears and secrecy.

A small domestic drama but most enjoyable seeing their friendship develop and how they are able to spread happiness around for at least a short time.

One member likened the tale to a fairy story with a dash of reality at the conclusion. The story is about dealing with pain as we all must and then just get on with life.

Louis and Addie are aware their relationship will cause problems but are not aware it seems that jealousy and backstabbing behavior is so rife in the personalities of their family and friends.  Narrow mindedness and malicious gossiping are still issues in the 21^st century.

Addie Moore crumbles under the pressure of her son’s criticism and values. Her health also suffers and her vulnerability in body as well as mind is sad to see after being such a competent person. Her son is more concerned with his inheritance than her welfare. The son has seemingly good reasons for his behaviour but we were not convinced.

One member thought Addie and Louis were too kind to her grandson, a little bit schmaltzy but others disagreed. They were certainly very generous and kind in the amount of time they spent with him in comparison to his parents. It was just what he needed. He blossomed under the love and attention of the two devoted older people. Here Haruf is strongly criticizing the younger generation’s lack of parenting skills in a quite bold way. Haruf is also criticizing their concentration on money rather than the more simple pleasures of life, such as camping and working in the shed.

It is difficult to make such a poignant story out of simple pleasures but Haruf succeeds beautifully. One of the great strengths is the sentence construction. They are very simple and there are no qualifying clauses and phrases. A Minerva member loved the opening sentence – such a simple beginning but it conveys so much – ‘And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call to Louis Waters.’ It delivers the names of the characters and puts them in a setting immediately.  We did comment that Haruf has written numerous other books so he is an experienced writer with an obvious mastery for words and plot.  It could be likened in its straightforwardness to the Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley and the Englishman Ian McEwan.

Louis is a wonderful character who we all liked – one member would like one in her life !  We noticed that Louis is quite hesitant about Addie’s proposal at first – ‘what in the hell, he said’ (to himself). Addie discovers that she is not all dried up despite her mature years but can still have fun and enjoy life. And they give happy times to others such as the older neighbour as well as the child.

After the climax, the end of the sleeping arrangements, both Addie and Louis have regrets which is another reality check. They were fond of one another and of their arrangements as it gave them so much.  It is a novel in which so much is inferred – just enough to allow the reader’s imagination to take over.

The conclusion resulted in us discussing some of these topics such as sleeping arrangements and ourselves and others. As we age these ‘things’ matter more.

What a pity that Haruf didn’t live to know that he wrote a perfect little gem of a book.