Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

With Canberra back in lockdown for the first time since the middle of last year, Minerva pivoted (to use current Covid-19 jargon) to meeting via Zoom again. Fortunately, having now experienced Zoom meetings in various aspects of our lives for well over a year, and under the expert chairing of Kate, the meeting ran smoothly. This is just as well, because we had plenty to say about our book, Douglas Bain's Booker prize-winning, Shuggie Bain.

The novel tells the story of a young working class boy and his mother in struggling working class Glasgow during the 1980s. It's about what happens when love and dreams of a better life meet poverty and alcoholism.

As always, we started with our ...

First impressions

• Struggled with the story, because of its bleakness and brutality, and could only read it when the sun was shining. But appreciated the humour, liked the highly visual descriptions, and thought it explored well themes like violence versus tenderness and love.  
• Found it an impressive account of many issues and ideas. Found it bleak at first, but it became unputdownable. Thought it was very much about love, and liked Stuart's comment in his ABC interview that "Art is meant to move you".
• Chose not to read it because of its potential to trigger vicarious trauma, but was interested to hear our discussion. 
• Having experienced female alcoholics in her family is unsympathetic to alcoholics, and wished Agnes had "tossed in the towel earlier"! But, loved the writing. 
• Had to put it down often because the evocation of poverty is so sad, but loved the interview with Stuart as he came across as such a positive man. Liked that the ending was somewhat positive.  
• Was initially hesitant, because feared vicarious trauma, but thinks the novel is a masterpiece. Couldn't put it down. Liked that it was peppered with humour, and its portrayal of children's love for parents. 
• Found it both devastating and brilliant (even though had just read another devastating story, Educated). Felt it was accurate about the period (1980s Glasgow). Was really moved. 
• Greatly enjoyed it for its descriptive writing, the humour, and the warmth and respect towards its characters. It was bleak, but heart sank most when Shuggie and his mother arrived back in the city, and Shuggie, watching young children play, wonders “what it must feel like ... to be so carefree”. It was so clear that Shuggie had never had that.  
• A tricky novel, but mesmerising, immersive, and made you feel as though you were there. Some reviews suggested it could have done with more editing, but doesn't agree because the detail is important to our understanding of the life. The novel redefines love. 
• Agrees with everyone else. Loved that it started with Shuggie at nearly 16 because you knew he was going to survive. Masterful management of darkness and light, and loved all the Scottish terms. A very visual book. Shuggie kept you going. Thought Eugene was mean and nasty in encouraging Agnes to have a drink. 
• So glad she read it. Brought up important issues, and its truth to domestic violence and alcoholism were spot on. 

Further discussion

The discussion that followed was lively, with many ideas being explored:

Humour

We explored the different types of humour in the novel, with some finding more humour in it than others. One saw the "cackling" laughter of the Pithead women as a distancing mechanism. Another felt there were many humorous scenes, such as Leek teaching Shuggie how to walk.

Alcoholism and addiction

We discussed many issues regarding alcoholism. Regarding Eugene and the question of whether he was better than Shug, one member argued that Eugene wasn't mean when he encouraged Agnes to have a drink. She suggested that he didn't understand and genuinely believed that in a stable loving relationship, Agnes would be able to drink, like a "normal" person. Another confirmed that the encouragement to drink is a very common challenge that recovering alcoholics have to face. One member commented that Eugene felt badly about what he'd done and tried hard to support the family with food for some time after.

Another member wondered how an alcoholic like Agnes managed to maintain a nice house, but another suggested that Agnes and her family had a high degree of "emotional intelligence". Some of us weren't sure that emotional intelligence is the relevant term, but we did note that Agnes and family came from Wullie and Lizzie who seemed to have a good handle on life. 

Where, we wondered, did the alcoholism come from?

We also discussed the references to Valium, and the fact that it was mentioned but not really developed in the novel.

A member mentioned Jimmy Barnes' memoir Working class boy, which starts in Glasgow and describes a life surrounded by drink and drunkenness. As we all agreed, the Thatcher era was a grim time in Glasgow, particularly for men with mines closing down resulting in loss of work and their roles in life.
 

Agnes

Of course, we talked a lot about Agnes and why she was the way she was. She "wanted and wanted and wanted". Why? She had aspirations for a better life. Was this simply because she was spoilt, as her father Wullie came to think she was?

One member suggested that the book is partly about dreams and aspirations. Both mother and daughter had aspirations. So, really, did Leek. For all her faults, Agnes was admirable for her resourcefulness and her ongoing attempts against so many odds to maintain face against a harsh world. Her story was heartbreaking.

We also noted how neither of her two husbands - Bernard and Shug - wanted her to work, and yet her work at the petrol station, when she was in recovering mode, gave her pleasure and self-worth. She was happy when she was working. Another of the book's themes is gender, and the lack of power and opportunity for women.

We discussed Agnes' relocation with her family to Pithead, a dying mining town where few had jobs, and how desolate the place was. Shug, we agreed, was truly cruel in taking her there with every intention of leaving her. One member did say however that alcoholics do move, that they are "geographic", believing things will be better when they move.

Shuggie

Our conversation about Shuggie roamed around a bit. We talked about his life, and his dedication to saving his mother. One member commented on the scene near the end where he undresses his mother, and also where he fixes Leanne's mother's dress. These felt very real, as though Douglas had experienced it. As this novel has strong autobiographical elements, we felt he had.

One member raised the death scene, Chapter 31, and wondered whether there's a suggestion that Shuggie could have saved Agnes but chose not to. Most of us, however, didn't read it that way.

Shuggie Bain is, in part, a coming-of-age novel, but he's also queer. From the beginning, there is an underlying idea that he's "no right", and he is mercilessly teased for his difference from a very young age. When he is 10, he asks his mother, "What's wrong with me Mammy?" From her answer, it's not clear to us that she knows, but he does realise at the end of the novel that his brother Leek has always known. We suspected that his father Shug also knew which is why he never appeared to like him.

One member, thinking of Raimond Gaita's memoir, Romulus my father, wondered what gave Shuggie his resilience. We didn't have many answers, but wondered whether his grandfather Wullie's early love and support, and Leek's being there, contributed. Some felt he'd inherited his mother's propensity to dream.

It was interesting, we though, that, despite their upbringing with Agnes, none of the children seemed to become alcoholics.

Some mentioned feeling sorry for Shuggie living alone in the boarding house at the end. It was helpful, we thought, that he didn't have overweening confidence, because it meant that he listened to others, such as Leek, unlike his mother who took little advice. We liked that the book ended with Shuggie having a friend, in Leanne, who also had an alcoholic mother. It enables the book to close on a sense of hope.

The novel is semi-autobiographical, or "autofiction", and we saw some similarities with Trent Dalton's Boy swallows universe (our review). We suspected that Stuart's story can be found in both Leek (both Stuart and Leek were accepted into a Fine Arts course) and Shuggie (Stuart, like Shuggie, did do his best to care for his mother until she died.)

Bibs and bobs

Besides the above issues, we talked about several other topics too. Our book trade member commented on how lucky Stuart was to get his Scottish dialect past the editors, as publishers tend to dislike language that might challenge readers. (In his ABC interview, Stuart talked about how important it was for him to use the language of people who rarely find themselves in literature, partly so that they might read it.

One member who had listened to Stuart reading excerpts from his book, said he made it sound like poetry.

We wondered about Shuggie's older siblings, Catherine and Leek, having no contact with their father.

One member commented that debut Booker prize winners, like Keri Hulme's The bone people and DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little, tend to be gritty. She wondered where they go next.

We talked about the impact of winning prizes on sales. Our booktrade person said that the Booker and Miles Franklin are the biggest awards in Australia in terms of generating sales, but this rarely means they will sell better than popular writers like Liane Moriarty. 

Finally

In the end we thought Shuggie Bain was a visceral but deeply moving novel about industrial Glasgow and region during Thatcher's 1980s, about alcoholism and the ravages it visits upon sufferers and their families, and about the deep love and loyalty children have for their parents and that siblings can have for each other.

Present: 11 members

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Our March book club novel was the 2019 Booker Prize winning text by the British novelist Bernardine Evaristo. 

 

This novel is set in England, mainly London and northern counties from the 1970s to the present day. It tells many stories relating to twelve main characters who mostly identify as female. Sometimes Evaristo follows just one character such as Dominque and her journey and life in the USA or a family saga of 2 generations as with Hattie and her daughter Penelope. It is a snapshot of their lives, highlighting the way people are living in different relationships in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

 

First impressions:

 

• I liked it very much. The characters are wonderful, so warm and human. The punctuation or lack of it didn’t bother me at all. It was fascinating to see the different lives these women lead to the lives of the Punjabi widows also living in London (see our review of Balli Kaur Jaswal's Erotic stories for Punjabi widows). It was pertinent to read this book this month in Australia where we are discussing at all levels of society, women’s roles, safety and level of freedom.
• Both my children recommended it to me. I loved the energy of it, all the interesting characters, but I did feel a bit overloaded.
• It offers an aspect of English society that many of us don’t see.
• I found it pleasant and with great characters. I was sucked into working out the connections. I felt it needed a chart. I wanted a denouement. The After Party was not the answer as I had expected. I thought it was risky taking on so many voices at once. 
• I loved the rhythm of the writing. The novelist skewers the assumptions people make about others. She also shows the ‘accommodations’ people make to manage their lives. Evaristo shows many different aspects of racism in the UK in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
• I loved it and felt that the writing just flowed, like an energetic river. I preferred that to structured punctuation.
• I loved journeying through time. 
• I found the character of Megan/Morgan very confronting. The use of the plural pronoun was confusing.
• I found it hard to know at times if I was reading about a black or white person. For example, I thought that Penelope was a white woman for a while but it was clear by the time I read the Epilogue.
• It was clever how the novelist makes the connections seamlessly.
• I loved the fact that the writer is telling stories for people whose stories are very rarely told.
• I was shocked to hear that Evaristo won the Booker Prize with Margaret Atwood and this was the first time that the prize had been shared. However Evaristo was treated rudely (and probably racially slurring) by at least one commentator who is reported to have said something like: The Booker was won by Margaret Atwood and another.
• There are many subjects in this book including sexism, racism, domestic violence and family life. I was so pleased to read it. 
• I loved the structure and didn’t notice the lack of punctuation. I think the novelist handled the changing events of the time and the character’s interactions very well. Evaristo didn’t pass judgements from our day on the doings of the past. 
• It was the best book I have read in ages. I felt it was like poetry – there are poetic passages throughout. It wasn’t didactic. It was very funny and fresh. 
• Sometimes when writers change direction with a new character there can appear to be a ‘jump’ but this was not evident in this book. It was all connected. For instance when Bummi popped up as a cleaner after appearing earlier as Carole’s mother.  
• I found the ending very moving and it highlighted the mother-daughter relationships which are a main feature of this novel.
• I loved the ‘little’ touches in this book such as the inheritance and also the numerous marriages and different types of people discussed. It appears that lots of the characters are based upon Evaristo’s friends. 

While discussing our first impressions, we discussed the ending and how it tied up loose ends, without resolving the major issues because these can only be moderated through time and societal changes. The After Party reflected that all the main political issues are not resolved. There was some dovetailing in this chapter – between Yazz and her father, and Carole saying thank you to her former teacher Shirley. Revelations for the characters were pertinent. The Epilogue showed that on a personal level people can find happiness – especially mother and daughter connections. This is illustrated by the unconventional family of Amma and Yazz. There is an understanding of linkages even when we don’t expect it. 

Evaristo herself, we understand, venerated her grandmother. She never met her, but ‘used’ her as an elder in her texts. Maybe her grandmother was the basis for the elder Hattie, who was largely invisible. It was ironic that Hattie was making Morgan/Megan her heir, rather than her son or grandson. 

 

Discussion:

The majority of our conversation centred on the characters in this novel.

 

We began by discussing one of the few male characters in this work, Roland who loved his daughter Yazz and wanted her to appreciate him. Roland expressed the racism even for him as a University professor in his statement that he was ‘sick of being a representative of a whole race’.  

Grace was an orphan who won the heart of Joseph. He was a good man until Grace suffered postnatal depression which Joseph didn’t understand, and which wasn't known at the time, but that was resolved. It was difficult reading as there was a lot of racism in the village for Grace. At that time there were relatively few black people living outside large cities in the UK. The black migrants were from the Caribbean and Africa. 

 

We enjoyed Shirley’s mother Winsome, now in her 80s and back in Barbados where she is part of a reading group. Evaristo quotes from the British ‘Guyanese lady’ poet Grace Nichols. Grace Nichols has lived in the UK since 1977 and her first book of poetry, I is a Long Memoried Woman, won a Commonwealth poetry prize in 1983. The line quoted is so apt for this novel:

‘we the women/whose praises go unsung/whose voices go unheard’. (page 254)

 

As a reading group, we loved Winsome's comment about how her reading group ‘had a debate … about whether a poem was good because they related to it, or whether it was good in and of itself’ (p. 254). We appreciated many of these added facts about the characters. 

 

We also discussed how Evaristo ‘nails' talking about women’s appearance and confidence, and how these are essential to being considered a good worker by modern society. This is especially shown in Carole's section talking about her appearance and her lack of confidence in her high-powered job at a bank despite being exceptionally bright and intelligent. (See page 140 where she states her morning mantra before the mirror.)

 

Evaristo is so insightful and not scared to cut through the ‘crap’. The writing is so sharp and funny at the same time.

 

Morgan formerly Megan is a character many of us found challenging. A person wanting to be neither sex is something many of us have not come across before. The pronoun question is so hard. We discussed gender fluidity and cross-dressing, which is becoming more socially acceptable but is still confronting. Other readers thought Morgan was a bit stereotypical. One reader said she was not convinced by this character. We agreed that gender in the present day can or should become irrelevant in many circumstances. We also discussed gender, reproduction, and the challenges faced by trans-people and those close to, or working with, them. 

 

One member shared Yazz's friend Waris's list of questions and comments that people think they can ask racially diversified youngsters : 

... as Waris continues talking, says that she's learned to give as good as she gets if anyone says any of the following: 

that terrorism is synonymous with Islam

that she’s oppressed and they feel her pain

if anyone tells her she’s responsible for them being unemployed … (p. 60)

 

We commented on how some people think they have a right to question others about the most intimate matters. Evaristo highlights the reaction of the person being questioned so succinctly and so cleverly.

 

We also briefly discussed Shirley and Amma and their relationship, and how Shirley is considered dull and boring and Amma an intellectual snob. 

 

So it was a great discussion and I think most of us thought the book added new aspects to the present and continuing controversy over women of all races, our role in society and how we should be treated by men. It was wonderful to read.  

 

Present : 7

Richard Flanagan's The narrow road to the deep north

We have had a lot of very lively discussions this year - perhaps we always do! Regardless, our discussion of Richard Flanagan's Booker Prize shortlisted novel about the Thai-Burma Railway, The narrow road to the deep north, was another such discussion. I hope my report does it justice: there were so many conversations going on that it was a challenge to get all the ideas down! One member wondered whether Flanagan was emulating Patrick White with the "bigness" of the themes - love, war, mateship - and another suggested that it was reminiscent, in concept if not style, of the big 19th century novels with its multiple themes and many characters. Whatever it is, we all agreed that it was a good read.

This is not to say that we didn't have questions. We started by discussing its style and structure. Why, some wondered, did Flanagan time-shift so frequently, particularly in the beginning - before we'd worked out who everyone was. Others suggested that this is part of how we tell stories, that we often, in reality, don't tell stories in a simple linear fashion, but digress, jump forward and backwards in time as we try to explain not only what happened but why. Nonetheless, this structure did make it a complex read and most of us felt it could bear reading again in order to make sure we really did get all the connections between characters and events. A couple of members wondered whether it is a little "too" big, perhaps a little "over-stated", to win the Booker. Some thought the bush-fire scene pushed their credibility somewhat, reminding them of what they didn't like about Flanagan's The unknown terrorist.

Although it is written in third person, many felt it read a bit like a first-person novel. This could be because Flanagan uses a subjective (rather than omnipotent) third person voice. He also shifts the point-of-view between characters' "heads", making us feel we were "with" Dorrigo, Nakamura, Amy, etc.

We were interested in Flanagan's sources for the novel: Weary Dunlop's diaries, the knowledge and experience of Flanagan's POW father, Flanagan's trips to the site of the railway and to Japan. Flanagan has written about writing the novel, about how he'd been writing it for 12 years and had tried several different approaches before finally settling on "a love story", with a focus on the doctor in the POW camp. This doctor is not, he says, his father.

We thought the novel was well constructed - and enjoyed the parallels and paradoxes he uses to tell the story. We could see them - such as Amy being told by her husband that Dorrigo had died, and Dorrigo being told by his fiancé that Amy had died; the paralleling of Dorrigo who led the prisoners with Nakamura who ran the POW camp - but they didn't feel contrived.

"Powerful descriptions" (Minervan)

We all enjoyed Flanagan's writing. One member loved his description of dust motes in the bookshop where Dorrigo meets Amy:

He pulled out a book here and there, but what kept catching his attention were the diagonal tunnels of sunlight rolling in through the dormer windows. All around him dust motes rose and fell, shimmering, quivering in those shafts of roiling light ...

She was also deeply moved by the post-war scene in Hobart in which several of the ex-POWs end up spending an evening, eating and drinking with Nikitaris, the Greek owner of the fish shop that they had, the previous night, damaged in order to free fish imprisoned in a tank. A lovely scene about human connection and understanding.

Another member was moved by the profound ideas - and insights - Flanagan expresses about/into the relationships between men and women, particularly in terms of the meaning of intimacy, and of what love really is.

We discussed characterisation, and how well Flanagan individualises the different soldiers by their coping mechanisms - Darky Gardiner's choosing to look for the positive, Rooster McNiece's memorising Mein Kampf, Jimmy Bigelow's cheery "Rightio" and bugle playing. The Japanese are similarly individuated, such as Nakamura by his lice and desperation for shabu, and Colonel Kota by his fascination with necks. Later, post-war, we recognise Kota before he is named because he touches a character's neck.

We liked that Dorrigo is a complex, and paradoxical character. A strong leader in war and in crisis (as shown in a bushfire scene), he was also weak in allowing himself to go ahead with a marriage to a woman he knew he didn't love. Flanagan writes that "for the rest of his life he would yield to circumstance and expectation, coming to call these strange weights duty".

"A world of struggle" (Issa, cited in the novel)

Flanagan beautifully demonstrates the illogicality of the inhumane treatment of the prisoners, that is, the fact that not caring for the welfare of the prisoners meant more would die which meant there would be fewer to work on the railway. But, Flanagan also shows very clearly the very different mindsets of the western versus Japanese soldiers. The Japanese didn't treat their own soldiers well, beating them severely for even minor failings, so their treatment of prisoners was not, to them, particularly cruel. We liked that Flanagan was prepared to understand the cultural differences that resulted in the Japanese soldiers behaving as they did.

One member suggested Flanagan was making a point about the sublimation of one into many. For the POWs, identifying as a group gave them strength, despite the tragedies and deaths of many individuals. As Dorrigo considers (Book 3, ch 5):

For if the living let go of the dead their own life ceases to matter. The fact of their own survival somehow demands that they are one, now and forever.

The Japanese, on the other hand, sublimated their individuality to the orders of the Emperor: it was only as part of that whole that they had meaning and honour. The honour of serving the emperor and their country, enabled them to justify horrendous cruelty to the POW’s. She wondered whether at the bottom of great heroism and great cruelty lies this notion of sublimating your individuality for the sake of the greater group.

We were intrigued by how an unpleasant truth can damage a relationship. In his post-war life, Nakamura works with Dr Sato who admits that during the war he'd taken part in vivisection experiments. After this confession, their previously amicable relationship gradually, though not dramatically, fades away. Nakamura, troubled, starts to find Sato "who had formerly seemed such an interesting and genial companion - somehow dull and tedious". It's interesting that he's not repelled, he understands Satos' drive to do his duty, but he just loses interest in the man!

We also discussed the inequitable treatment of "war criminals" - of how the Korean guard, Goanna, was hanged, while many of the commanders were not charged. This we understood was largely due to General Macarthur's reconstruction policy and his desire to keep Japan strong. Flanagan makes points like these by showing, rather than by lecturing, to the reader.

"Love letter to literature" (Romy Ash's review in The Guardian)

A member read out parts of Ash's review in which she said the novel has a second love story - that of literature. We liked the haiku that Flanagan commences each "book" with. (Note: the e-version called the sections "books", but the print version didn't number or name them at all.)

Flanagan establishes both Dorrigo and the two most senior Japanese officers, Nakamura and Kota, as lovers of traditional/classical poetry. For Dorrigo, this includes Catullus, Dante and, particularly, Tennyson's poem, "Ulysses". For the Japanese soldiers, it's the traditional haiku poets like Bashō. The novel's title, in fact, comes from Bashō's haibun, The narrow road to the deep north.

Ash writes that the novel "does turn on the power of a poem or letter". Ella's letter, for example, tells Dorrigo that Amy was dead, which has a major impact on the course of his life.

There is a moving scene in which the bodies of prisoners who've died from cholera are being burnt on a pyre, along with their possessions. POW Bonox Baker suggests that the sketchbook of a prisoner not be burnt because it contains an important record of their experience so "the world would know". Dorrigo is not convinced, and quotes a Kipling poem about forgetting. Bonox replies:

A poem is not a law. It's not fate, Sir.
No, Dorrigo Evans said, though for him, he realised with a shock, it more or less was.

We didn't explore this idea in detail - because we were running out of time! - but we did like Flanagan's use of haiku, and other poetry, to link experiences/characters in the book, to draw parallels between Australian and Japanese lives. We also discussed how elusive haiku can be, how we feel that as soon as we catch a glimmer of meaning, it disappears again.

Finally, we talked a little about the "memory industry" to which Flanagan refers a few times in the book. Several of us have certain reservations about how it's been playing out in Australia over the last decade or so, as it seems, does Flanagan. Yet we all enjoyed his contribution to it with this book! Just goes to show the power of literature!

The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton

Prepared by Sue B

Eleanor Catton's Booker prize-winning novel, The Luminaries.

About 8 members gathered to discuss this very large novel set in the New Zealand goldfields in the nineteenth century. Not all of us had read all 832 pages, and as usual our reactions varied. Some liked it and others were disappointed. Some found it a very good read just as a mystery, others felt that after all the complexity the book was “hollow”.

The first 200 pages took some concentration as many characters were introduced. We found the recapitulation of the plot at about page 320 very useful as all the jumping about in time and different points of view took some getting used to. We discussed the complexity of the plot for some time, wondering if the author had an enormous flow chart on her wall as she wrote, some of us feeling that there were considerable holes in the plot and others querying whether we were supposed to care about that.

The characters were well drawn and interesting, including “shady characters like the Wild West”. We found the interactions between the characters were often very perceptive, one of us commenting that the young author seemed “emotionally precocious”.  We couldn’t agree whether the two main characters underwent any real character development though, and wondered whether they were even meant to?

The book had a nineteenth century feel to it in some ways. One of us was reminded of Thomas Hardy and another of Dickens. Each character was introduced in a quite theatrical nineteenth century way, and each chapter had an introductory summary. We enjoyed the joke that in the later chapters the summaries became the actual story and if we had made the mistake of skipping them we then had to backtrack. There was some racism and other nods towards nineteenth century attitudes. However the book does not moralise as do many period novels. We enjoyed the sense of place created, for example by the description of the rain in Hokitika. We noticed the humour, for example when Nillson inadvertently ended up as the generous donor.

We wondered what the book was actually about. Truth and lies? That there are many sides to a story? “Some things are never done” so once set in train things don’t get resolved? The deceptiveness of appearances – for example in the séance? The structure of the book was surprising. There was a lot of build up to the court scene but it was not the climax.  Each chapter was half the length of the preceding one.

We noticed that the whole book was structured around the zodiac, and each character in it represented a different force. Some of us felt that this distorted the story and made it and the characters less believable and meaningful. For some it was largely just decoration. Others found that astrology worked as an interesting way to interpret the world.

Everyone agreed that this book gave us a lot to talk about.

Bring up the bones by Hilary Mantel

A small group of us gathered to extol the virtues of 'Bring up the bones' -- we all loved it.

Courtesy: HarperCollins

It is beautifully structured according to time -- a mere 9 months (September 1535 to May/June 1536) in 2 parts -- the building of the case against the Queen (Anne Boleyn) and then the denouement ending with her beheading in the Tower of London.  (Just following the facts, see: BBC History relating to Anne Boleyn -- a very good precis which also talks about how King Henry and the ambitious family of the Howards/Boleyns became acquainted.)

Mantel has written a construction of royal life in the 1530s. This is not historical fiction as we commonly know it, but it is more literary and probably that is why it won the Man Booker.

The events take place through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell as in Wolf Hall (see our post on this book) but this time he exhibits some characteristics and actions that are less loveable and more dastardly --  retribution for the action of others to his beloved Cardinal Wolsey but he is also a good 'servant ' of the King.

The language is wonderful. This is true not only with the chapter names, such as 'falcons', 'crows' and 'angels' which inspire great images but all through it : eg:

Stock-still in the great hall, a pale presence in the milky light, Jane Seymour is dressed in her stiff finery. '  (page 29 in my edition)

This is prescient as she remains 'pale' all through the novel. The novel is also 'breath taking ' in the way the case is built up gradually -- men and facts being manipulated. 'Cardinal Wolsey is crucial for the tale -- Cromwell's resentment and grief drives this story' we decided. (He also has a debate with himself about his relationship with his cruel and physical father, see page 160).

We were fascinated by the lack of equity for the 5 men accused of being the Queen's lovers. Why was Wyatt let off when he may have been the guilty one? He wrote a poem about the queen and he was definitely attracted to her, so a case could have been written against him but he was saved by Cromwell and indirectly, the King.

The 'animal' allusion fascinated us -- a taste of that is seen on page 159 -- in a paragraph about Truth:

Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.  

Later there is talk of the prisoners being 'a paw' of this 'animal'. All these prisoners are hated by Cromwell for their past deeds and he is revengeful although that word is never used by Mantel.  Instead she uses 'grudge' and this shows that Thomas is vulnerable -- a sign of things to come in the third and final novel in this series?

Thomas Cromwell is a good subject -- he is an enigma of a character -- how did he manage to escape going down with the Boleyns? He is an ambitious man -- a modern/new man. For instance, was he behind the social reforms -- we were not sure.

It was also interesting to realise that due to fear of the King and his loyal supporters, no exact record was ever made of the death of the Queen, Anne Boleyn. So Mantel's story is only a version of the truth but seems a very believable one. Truth and lies -- a theme all through this novel. It is also deeply ironic and cynical -- Cromwell changes and is becoming a 'man for all seasons'!

The ending of this novel is pure indulgence for Cromwell. He is getting his own revenge but he is developing a lot of antagonism against himself especially with people like Stephen Gardiner. Another way Mantel is building the plot for the third and final story in this trilogy.

Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

For its size, this short novel provoked a surprisingly wide variety of strong responses from the seven of us who met to discuss it. While a couple really enjoyed it, quite a few of us found it either mundane, over intellectual or downright annoying, with one of us wanting to dropkick the characters off the page! We were nearly all startled by the book's ending where we were left wondering what the heck had actually happened. For some this was further annoyance while others had enjoyed rereading from the beginning looking for the clues.

The feeling that we must have all read different books made more sense as we discussed the novel further. One of the main themes is foreshadowed even before we first meet Tony as a schoolboy along with the intellectually precocious Adrian who joins his group of friends. Our narratives about ourselves and our lives change with each telling so that our memories become a construct. This makes Tony an unreliable narrator and he has forgotten and omits crucially important things from the story, such as a viciously cruel letter he wrote to Adrian not long before his suicide. Was his university girlfriend Veronica really the heartless snob he remembered, or an insecure, inhibited girl, undermined by her own mother, who had relaxed enough with him one evening to be able to dance for the first time in her life? No wonder we were confused.

We found much to admire. The novel is beautifully plotted, compactly and cleverly written so that every idea expressed is there for a purpose, even the poem about barn owls and mention of the theme from "A man and a woman". It was noted that the author is skilled at "bringing together threads using small moments". The book is full of pithily worded  and profound ideas and we enjoyed reading out several memorable quotes which I can't reproduce here as my copy had to go back to the Library. Schooldays and the pretentions and insouciance of youth were beautifully evoked, some of the later reflections on ageing all too recognisably true. We noted that Julian Barnes is about our age and thought this helped us to relate to Tony. We wondered how much wiser Tony really was at the end of the book.

We tried to work out exactly what had happened and why. Why had Veronica's mother wanted to will Adrian's diary to Tony? Why did she even have his diary? Why did Adrian kill himself? Some of us felt that no matter how carefully we reread the book we might never be sure. Adrian had remarked with typical precosity “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”  By the end of the book it seems that Tony's memories are seriously flawed, maybe even the opposite of the truth, and we never get to see Adrian's diary (except for a tantalising fragment) to evaluate its adequacy as documentation. But what exactly was the "history" here? Or is that the point? You could easily talk about this book all night.

 "Instead of telling Tony that he'd never "get it", why couldn't Veronica just explain!" was the exasperated exclamation as we moved on to our well-earned and delicious supper.

I got too involved to take proper notes, but this is my (naturally unreliable) memory of the discussion. Please add corrections or whole important points that I've omitted etc.

Aravinda Adiga's The white tiger

Adiga's 2008 Booker-prize winning The white tiger generated a lively discussion amongst the nine Minervans who attended the March meeting. All had read it and all essentially enjoyed it. Universal enjoyment is not always a recipe for good discussion we have found but there were differences of opinion about aspects of the novel which enabled us to tease out why we liked it and what we thought it meant.

But first, a quick plot summary! It is a one-sided epistolary novel in which Balram Halwai, a self-confessed entrepreneur, writes to Wen Jiabao, the premier of China who is soon to visit India. His aim is to tell Jiabao the truth about India to counteract the official story that India is "moral and saintly". To do this he recounts his own rise from being a servant driver for a rich family to an entrepreneur running his own "start-up" business, a rise that is brought about by his murdering his employer/master.

It is a deeply cynical, but darkly humorous, book about what it takes to be "a man" in a society where servants are treated like children. He describes the "Rooster Coop" in which servants are trapped because, if they try to escape, their families will be destroyed ("hunted, beaten and burned alive"). One point of discussion was the "choice" Balram made, that is, to murder his master in order to escape the "Coop". Some felt he had a real choice while others felt it was more a case of a Sophie's or Hobson's choice. Many felt there were valid reasons for his decision but questioned its rightness in terms of the cost to his family. Some wondered what he had actually achieved in terms of personal fulfilment while others wondered whether this was the point. Is personal fulfilment or joy what Balram was about?

We found Balram to be a credible voice, despite there being some critical opinion to the contrary, but also recognised that it is very much a one-person point of view. Everything is seen through his eyes...and his eyes are more anti-hero than hero. However, despite this, despite his anti-social behaviour, he manages to engage us; the success of the novel rests upon our ability to accept his voice, and accept it we all did.

A strength of the novel, besides the power of Balram's voice, is its language. Adiga's use of irony and dark humour, and of metaphor, made the book a compelling read from the start for most members, though a couple found it a little hard to get going at the beginning.

We briefly compared the book to the film Slumdog Millionaire which presents a fairy-tale-like response to the poverty of India, and Rohinton Mistry's A fine balance in which the characters survive but remain victims. The white tiger, on the other hand, presents a vision of success and survival that is founded upon very murky waters.

Why the book is framed in terms of letters to the Chinese premier is something we didn't fully resolve. Some critics feel it is a weakness in the novel but we wondered whether Adiga is making a point about the similarities and/or differences between these two Third World countries and their relatively recent economic growth. Is he suggesting China has a better way, or is he simply warning China off following the Indian way? Regardless of the answer to this question, the overall message we decided is one of concern about the foundations of India's success. Adiga has been reported as saying he wanted to "entertain and disturb". We all felt that he achieved his goal.