Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Another zoom meeting during lockdown this month. We are getting more familiar with the technology but all of us still prefer to meet in person.  

Hamnet is the story of the wife and children of an unnamed playwright of the sixteenth century living in the small village of Stratford, Warwickshire, England. It concerns Agnes (pronounced in the French way Ar-nes) and her children, Hamnet and Judith who are young twins and their older sister Susanna. We hear about Agnes’ early life and her courtship with the future playwright and the daily life of the village people. The crux of the novel is the very sad death of Hamnet from the pestilence at the age of 11 and the reactions by his mother and sisters. 

 

Maggie O’Farrell is a prize winning UK author who has written 8 novels and the autobiography : I am, I am, I am.

 

All members enjoyed this novel and some even loved it and we were all very pleased to have read it.

 

First impressions:

• It inspired me to look into Shakespeare’s early life by reading a book by John Bell (of Bell Shakespeare company fame) called On Shakespeare. I have visited Stratford and Ann Hathaway’s cottage, a short walk out of Stratford and it was enjoyable to remember the scenery in reading this novel.
• I particularly appreciated the evocation of grief which was written so movingly. I have a few questions about this book though, so not totally won over by it.
• I really wanted to read it.
• I found it very moving, evocation of time showed that the author had researched the life of the villagers well. It was very dense at times and hard to penetrate the intensity but O’Farrell nailed it so well. The courtship scenes with Agnes and the playwright were good and the book was worthwhile.
• Reading about the sixteenth century plague during our pandemic was amazingly pertinent and the book was an incredible feat of the imagination and research.
• The grief struck me. I thought Agnes was a great character.
• It was a relief to read after having read Shuggie Bain, last month’s novel. I admired the way the author expressed the tenderness and the emotions of the characters. I wondered about the language at times as it seemed too much. I skipped over some passages. I loved the structure going backwards and forwards in the story.
•  Immersive novel, a little dense but with evocative and beautiful language. It was about love and motherhood and grief. I wondered why not write about Shakespeare’s wife? The novelist nailed it.
• The portrayal of grief over the death of Hamnet was the ‘worst thing’. I felt that when the child died there was a loss of momentum in the second part. 
• How did it get tied into the play of Hamlet? I am not clear on that aspect.
• I was won over on the second page with the sentence “ the smell of his grandparents’ house is always the same : …’ I can remember experiencing a similar sensation as a child. I loved all the details of the way people lived, it was fabulous detail. Including talking about the menstrual rags that had to be counted by the older women.
• I liked the structure of the child dying and the romance being interwoven through different time frames.
• I was lost on the mystical ‘stuff’. Hamlet is nothing like Hamnet. (It was pointed out that Shakespeare in the novel trained the actor to have similar mannerisms to his son.) The book is not about Hamlet or Hamnet. It is about motherhood and Agnes.
• I found it very readable and felt I got into the 16^th century household. It was a poignant story and it starts off with a lot about emotion. Reminded me of The year of wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I found the story of the flea amazing, coming from Venice or in other stories from the Black sea.

 

Discussion

 

Does the structure work ? 

 One member liked the weaving in and out of the stories and it seemed to her like two curves meeting at the end. The novelist pulls it off. It is not over-complicated and we enjoyed the dual storyline.

 

Why did O’Farrell write the book about this death? 

Would it have had the same impact if it had just been chronological? We decided that the impact and tension would be harder to achieve with a different structure. The death takes such a short time to describe whereas the whole novel is over many years – in fact the whole of Agnes’ life up to that point. It engaged us. It also concentrated the story around Hamnet rather than him being a minor character. It portrays an intense look at Hamnet and his environment. It also shows Agnes’ undoing. Agnes is a strong character so her grief is like a ‘well’ around which her story is told. 

 

Our next topic of discussion was about the different portrayal of Shakespeare’s wife shown in this book from the norm in popular culture such as in the English program Upstart Crow. In this comedy, the wife is a dullard not the strong woman we read about in Hamnet. One member mentioned that she particularly liked that O’Farrell picked up on Germaine Greer’s interpretation of Ann Hathaway. Does O’Farrell want to rewrite history?  

 

Another member discussed the snippets of the relationship between Agnes and her husband and how she saw their life together and apart. When he came home from London it took a while for them to become close again. This lead to a short discussion on how many men have to work away from home for long periods even in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

 

We also discussed that many women of the time were healers. It was fascinating that Agnes wanted to give proper medicine to Judith whereas the so-called doctor in his scary mask wanted to put a dried toad on the stomach of the child. (p. 148). Witches dealt in toads supposedly so was it ironic that the doctor did too?

 

How does the death and Hamnet relate to Hamlet?  

This question is difficult. One member suggested that the quotation on a separate page and at the beginning of the second part of the book (page 255) from the play Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 2) quoted by O’Farrell was a clue. The quote is : 

‘I am dead’ (line 330)/’Thou livest ;’ (line 331) … ‘draw thy breath in pain,’ (line 340)/’to tell my story’ (line 341).   

 

Agnes sees the father and son characters in the play where the father is a ghost and the son is alive. The play relates to the son – has Shakespeare given life to his boy? Is that too big a stretch ? 

 

Did Hamnet's death have an effect on Shakespeare’s plays?

Did it bring a greater understanding of grief – we decided it had a huge impact on the way he saw the world. He wrote his major tragedies after Hamnet's death.  

 

He was inspired or needed to express something to evoke his son. However, Hamlet is not about Hamnet. Is it understandable that Shakespeare wrote the comedy Merry Wives of Windsor soon after the death, as it shows he couldn’t cope ? 

 

How do you live with grief? 

Agnes’ grief was extreme which lead to a sense of unreality. She lost her gifts to heal and tell the future. This section of the novel was the most moving, and as mothers we all felt for her. Some members thought that the novel lost a bit of tension in this last part as you felt drained and exhausted by reading it. It was a visceral feeling one member commented.

 

The birth of Susanna in the woods raised some interest. We also noted that Agnes wasn’t allowed to do it again. A nice touch was the planting of the Rowan Tree at the backdoor of ‘her’ house. The rowan tree is the tree of life. It symbolises courage and wisdom. Agnes learnt about it from her the Celtic tradition and her Mother. One member noted that the tree symbolises her mother's presence for Agnes.

 

We liked that Shakespeare appeared less knowledgeable about herbs than Agnes and wondered whether he wrote about them. In the famous witches scene in Macbeth it is toads in the cauldron. It is a nice idea that Agnes could teach him something. (John Bell says that Shakespeare talks more about herbs and flowers in his plays than any other playwright he knows.)  

 

What about the psychic business – pressing of the hand and thumb? 

Could Agnes foretell things? It was part of her early identity. Or was it something that O’Farrell thought appropriate for this character? Agnes was an observer and listener and had a sense of how people understand the world so maybe that helps to explains her ‘gift’. She was also intuitive. One member has faith in people being intelligent.  Also often illiterate folk have excellent memories as did Agnes for all her herbs and their names and uses.  Albert Facey is an excellent example of a person with this gift.

 

Another member reported on a book by William Dalrymple called Nine lives,  about a group of Indian storytellers who had these gifts.  

 

Other characters were discussed briefly. We all liked the lovely Bartholomew, Agnes’ brother. Such a good man. Some of the older women were not so pleasant, particularly Joan, Agnes’ stepmother. 

 

Judith, Agnes’ younger daughter was like her mother, not like her more business-oriented father and sister. She didn’t want to learn from Hamnet who tried to teach her. She wasn’t interested in learning to read and write but she was an observer and intelligent nevertheless. Her sister, Susanna, thought she was useless.

 

John, Shakespeare’s father thought Will was useless as did Agnes’ family. We all noticed the description of John's face, when he thought he was getting a good deal by his son marrying a girl who had a reasonable dowry.

 

We thought O’Farrell handled the difficulty of having such a famous character in the novel extremely cleverly. He is never mentioned by name and had very little to say. She made it about Hamnet and Agnes. History made it easy too as there are no letters to clarify.

 

Some members particularly liked the way the author handled the first sex scene. It was fascinating and showed true feeling.

 

Various other scenes attracted attention including the description of Mary sewing, (p. 199) and the references to knot gardens. 

 

We were pleased that the couple reconciles at the end of the novel when Agnes finally realises that Will did grieve for his son for many years just as she had. One member recommended seeing the movie called All is true. (This is available through a streaming service).

 

We thought life for everyday women of the time was pretty busy in the household having to do so much, just to eat and live. 

 

Present : 10 members

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

Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

Prepared by Sue B

Our first novel of the year was "our" classic for the year, though, you never know, we may do another! It was Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers, which was published in 1857and is the second book in The Chronicles of Barsetshire series, aka The Barchester Chronicles. It is set in an imaginary English Cathedral town. As always, we started with our ...

First impressions

• Loved it. Couldn’t resist also rewatching the 1982 BBC TV series filmed in Peterborough, whose excellent cast did full justice to Trollope’s wonderful characters
• Didn’t finish it because read The warden first. The church background was very complex. It was wordy but witty. The deliberately heavy-handed naming of people was fun.
• Loved the engagement with the reader and the ironic tone but preferred The warden which was sweeter.
• Really enjoyed it. The characters were vivid and entertaining. It was hard to find a Kindle version in English.
• Hadn’t previously read it and found it different to anything else we have read. After reading most of it, listened to the last 25% of an audio play which “coloured” the characters. Preferred the “black and white” of the printed text. Loved it, and felt there was much to unpack.
• Only half-way through and enjoying it.
• Loved the wry comments. Not much plot, and the whole thing revolves around very little. Imagined Salisbury Cathedral. Found it hard to get into at first and glossed over the first few chapters. Grew up in High Church Sydney – it brought back memories.
• Love Hardy, but just getting into this when family events interrupted reading.
• Had read it in the 70s. Different to Hardy is more wordy in his landscape description. Liked the authorial voice in Trollope. Loved the satire and comments on life at the time.

Further discussion

Our conversation ranged widely and jumped around, including the following:

• Why write six novels set in a Cathedral Close? Because it is close to government? The politics of the Anglican Church are prominent in the novel, so it was suggested that a guide to Anglican church hierarchy might help us to understand the structure. Dr. Grantly missed out on being made Bishop because of a change of government. 
• The novel was written not long after the Oxford Movement, which was a religious movement in the Anglican Church which focused on High Church, emphasising its Catholic heritage. It led to Newman and others becoming Catholics. In the novel the High Church faction is represented by Dr Grantly, who recruits Mr. Arabin (who had been a follower of Newman) for support against the Low Church or Evangelical faction represented by Mr. Slope and Mrs. Proudie. There’s not much theology in the book, but much poking fun at the Church politics. We discussed that at that time the church tended to be a career rather than a calling. Mr. Harding’s principles were often amusingly in the way of Dr. Grantly’s pragmatism. 
• The warden and Barchester Towers also comment on the role played by newspapers in manipulating public opinion.

As you’d expect the novel reflects the attitudes of its time. There was some degree of sexism, for example Mrs. Bold being referred to as “a delicate creeper [which] has found its strong wall”, and we felt that Dr. Grantly had been highly mysoginistic in his treatment of her. Yet, the novel also has many strong women such as Mrs Grantly, Mary Bold, Signora Neroni, not to mention the formidable Mrs. Proudie and even Mrs Quiverful. It was clear that while the men held the official positions, their wives worked unpaid at the Sunday Schools and held a lot of power behind the scenes. It was noted that in the Trollope family the author’s mother (the highly successful novelist Fanny Trollope) had earned most of the money.

We also noted some occasional antisemitism.

We enjoyed the humorous descriptions of life at the time. An example is Mrs. Thorne’s garden party where she tries to keep some Feudal traditions going, such as the quintain for jousting practice where Harry Greenacre came to grief. The social hierarchy at the time meant that everyone fitted in their appropriate place, except the appropriately named Lookalofts who were dressed up and determined to dine with the gentry instead of in the field with the other farmers. They're mocked by the Greenacres for being “half nekid’ and wasting money on pianos and silk instead of stock for their farm. Mrs. Bold’s widow’s cap became less obvious over time. A sign that she was ready to get back into life again? Mrs. Clantantram wears a Rocquelore. So much was made of it that we googled to find out that it was an 18th century man’s cloak. Characters were really amusingly described, e.g. Miss Thorne: “Had she not been made throughout of the very finest whalebone, rivetted with the best Yorkshire steel..”

We discussed Trollope as an author. He was wordy, as were other Victorian authors. One example shared was: "Should the bishop now be re-petticoated, his thraldom would be complete and forever".

He assumed that his audience had a classical education. He also took the audience into his confidence, for example with the plot spoiler that Eleanor would not, in the end, marry Mr. Slope or Bertie Stanhope. Would we have enjoyed the story more if we had not known this? We thought not. One member said “I love it when the author talks to me”. It was commented that Jane Austen did it too while Dickens did not. Trollope references Fielding in the novel. Did he see himself in that tradition? Fielding had larger-than-life characters but Trollope's are more subtle? Did he kill off John Bold so that Eleanor’s relationship with her father could be the focus?

What did Trollope believe?

We wondered what Trollope himself really believed. Most of the characters are reasonably well-rounded and shrewdly observed. Mr. Quiverful, for example, is torn between being offered the much-needed Wardenship, and feeling bad about Mr. Harding. Mr. Slope and Mrs. Proudie are mostly presented in a very unsympathetic light, but they were right about the Wardenship. Mr. Harding did not need it as much as Mr. Quiverful did.

We were told when they first came back from Italy that the Stanhopes were cold, manipulative people. But they were fun, and in the end behaved with honesty and even kindliness. Did Trollope change his mind about them?

In the last paragraph we celebrate Mr. Harding, “a good man without guile, believing humbly in the religion which he has striven to teach”. Maybe that’s the answer?

Present: 9 Minervans

Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

Many Minerva members gathered to discuss this novel. It was a happy meeting after an enjoyable read.

The story revolves around a middle-aged, retired bank manager Henry who meets his Aunt Augusta at his mother’s funeral.  His father died 40 years earlier.  Henry cultivates dahlias but has little else in his life. Aunt Augusta tells Henry that his father ‘needed bedrooms for more than sleep’ so many of us guessed that Aunt Augusta was more than she let on. (At 7% Henry says ‘My poor stepmother … I shall never be able to think of anyone else as my mother’.)

They both wanted to see more of each other after a walk at the cemetery so began their visits to various places, including Paris and Brighton. The Aunt has never married either but has had many relationships. Wordsworth is the current man in love with Henry’s Aunt and he floats in and out of the story. Henry and Augusta visit Boulogne and meet a lonely old woman still pining for his father. This shocks Henry and Aunt Augusta. The story gets complicated with comings and goings and they end up in South America surprisingly. Augusta has returned to one of her elderly former lovers and Henry is about to wed a 16 year old and be involved in a smuggling racket.  And finally there is confirmation that Aunt Augusta is Henry’s Mum.

The main point of this book we thought was its treatment of Love. Love comes in all shapes and sizes. There are so many types of love described – aunt’s love, mother’s love, romantic love, romantic fantasies, and love for objects (eg dahlias and money). There is also Aunt Augusta’s love for all men. There is also the love of travel and variety.

It is a very funny novel and this was even more obvious in the audio version according to one of our members. The two dominant voices are Henry and Aunt Augusta. They are great characters and we enjoyed the funny situations and the funny language such as ‘Pekinese eyes’. Aunt Augusta smuggling gold ingots in the base of candles across Europe is both shocking and funny. The idea that a staid bank manager couldn’t propose to a young woman, Miss Keane, even if she basically asked for it was probably strange rather than funny. The house of multiple rooms is also funny where an elderly man could live out his last few years, spending a week in each different room, pretending he is travelling. Greene claimed that this book was written for a laugh even though it has some darker tones.

Other funny things include Henry’s love of dahlias and his concern for his mower in the rain. Most of us like dahlias but one member put them in the same category as gladioli, which are inherently funny (post-Dame Edna). We laugh at Henry rather than with him but he does evoke sympathy for his innocence and silliness. Henry’s naiveté is amusing in a sad way – was he a closet homosexual? Probably not, we decided later when discussing the unusual ending.

The book portrays England in the 60’s (it was published in 1969/70). Wordsworth, the only black man in the book, is treated with some contempt we felt. For instance, his language is strange, quite different from everyone else. He is also treated badly by Aunt Augusta. One critic said that it is typical 1960’s stereotyping, whereas another critic said that he was treated humanely.

 

We had a general discussion about ‘Aunts’ in literature with Lady Catherine de Burgh being the supreme example. We decided that this aunt was right in deciding to hand over the baby. She would not have been a good mother.  She was a free spirit and an outrageous character in comparison to her very conforming and moral ‘nephew’. The comparison of the characters led to a discussion about nature versus nurture.

Graham Greene himself has strong links to this book in that his first name is Henry and he lived quite a wild life not dissimilar to that of Aunt Augusta. He had been a spy and a friend of spies as is the character of Tooley’s dad (O’Toole) whom Henry meets briefly on board a vessel in South America.

There is also a dark side to this story. There is the contrary conclusion, which shows Henry’s morals have certainly changed under the influence of his rather lawless relative. Aunt Augusta though is a survivor and helps Henry to survive and gain a family, which presumably he wants. There are comments about American imperialism, which shows Greene’s antipathy to the CIA and American ‘ways’. Greene also shows great cynicism towards the ordinary Catholic and their beliefs.  Aunt Augusta’s faith is portrayed as being very shallow, but useful when necessary. Life in England at that time was also shown to be pretty awful. For instance, Henry’s mother does not have true freedom, she is very constrained and makes Henry equally restrained so he cannot enjoy life as a young man. The message seems to be that a good life could be had only if you were rich, like Henry’s former bank customers, and maybe flouting the law like Aunt Augusta.

There were many unanswered questions. Does Henry choose the new life in South America? Is he creating a real family for himself after all his years of loneliness?  Is Aunt Augusta a survivor versus the boring and mundane Henry? How does he accommodate her lack of moral fibre?

We all thought that Henry was an unreliable narrator in that he tells us some of his innermost thoughts but doesn’t know as much as the reader does in some circumstances. He is very dependent person, firstly on his mother and then his Aunt. This contrasts with Augusta’s dependence on men, who invariably are criminals.  

We finished our discussion with mention of product placement – in this case Omo, which is probably one of the first times such advertisements had been placed in a novel. Also, we pondered on the questions of the morally corrupt inheriting the world. It certainly seems so in politics in 2017.

Hanif Kureishi's The buddha of suburbia

Unusually, all Minervans who attended this month's meeting enjoyed the book, Hanif Kureishi's debut novel The buddha of suburbia. Despite the overall agreement, however, we managed to find things to discuss and even to disagree, a little anyhow, about.

We all agreed that we'd recommend it to others, though one member said she took a little while to get into it. She started to enjoy it, she said, when she "clicked" into the irony and satire.

Being women of a certain age, many of us had visited England in the 1960s or 1970s. We thought Kureishi's picture of London at that time was authentic, that he beautifully captured things like the mix of ethnic cultures, the rise of the punk culture, and the fashion (which he describes in some detail). We enjoyed the many cultural references to music, books, and London locations - and we used these to help pinpoint exact timings for the story. One member said that Kureishi captured the "seediness" of the England of the TV series, Till death do us part (1965-1975), thereby adding her own little cultural allusion. Sex features heavily in the novel, representing broad human experience and behaviour, some loving, some raunchy, some exploratory, some exploitative. The sex could be confronting at times, but is part of the liberated period in which it is set.

While the book is a coming-of-age novel for 17-year-old Karim (as he is when the novel opens), we felt that it is also about the fact that we are always "coming-of-age" or, shape-shifting or transforming. The title character, the buddha of suburbia (aka Haroon or Harry, Karim's father), is an example. He is experiencing a mid-life crisis in which he is searching for meaning, for being something more than a Civil Service clerk who will never be promoted above an Englishman. So, he sets himself up as a "buddha", as a "visionary" who will provide wisdom from the east. We enjoyed the humour of a Pakistani Muslim setting himself up as a Buddha.

It's also about culture and class, stereotyping and racism. Although Indians and Pakistanis had been living in London and England for a long time, they were still marginalised. Kureishi depicts this with humour, showing their marginalisation but sending it up at the same time. He shows the ignorance of English people who repeatedly called Karim "black", but he's more "beige" he says!

The thing was, we were supposed to be English, but to the English we were always wogs and nigs and Pakis and the rest of it.

We discussed how the book is also about people assuming the mantle of their culture and working out what they can do with it. One member shared a story from China in the 1980s. Chinese people, would ask, she said, for help to get to the USA. When asked what they'd do in America, they'd say, "We're Chinese, we can teach Tai Chi", regardless of whether they had the skills. Muslim Haroon subverts this idea of racial expectations/stereotyping by assuming the mantle of Buddha!

Another theme we discussed related to escaping suburbia for the excitement of the city where you might have a "new life". Suburbia is seen as dull, the place of the "miserable undead", where "people rarely dreamed of striking out for happiness". It's where kids from other cultures expected to be bullied. And yet, the suburb-city dichotomy is not seen as a simple one. Karim has some of his most meaningful engagements with family and friends in the suburbs. And the city has its challenges. It's not "the real world" according to his childhood friend Jamila. It has its poseurs, and racism can be just as rife.

We discussed the role of the arts. There's a certain cynicism about art and the entertainment industry, and yet there's also a sense that there could be salvation through literature and the arts. Charlie reinvents himself as punk star, Charlie Hero, though like most issues in the book there are two sides to this.
There were aspects which different members questioned or didn't like. One member, for example, found Shinko, Changez's Japanese whore/friend/partner to be unrealistic. Another found the section set in New York to be less interesting and wondered about its relevance, but others of us felt that this is where Karim started to really learn about himself and what he wanted. Yet another member was disappointed that Jamila married Changez, the man "arranged" for her from India, while others suggested that while she made her decision based on convention, that is, on obeying her father, she subverts the convention by the way she managed this marriage. One member asked why Changez, a Muslim man with certain expectations, accepted Jamil's conditions. We put forward a few possibilities, one being that Changez is not presented as a powerful, confident man, but one his Indian family would have been pleased to have got rid of.

Jamila, some thought, is a rather idealised character. She's "human" but not "real". Is this a fault of the novel, or a valid part of the satire and Kureishi's social agenda? She stands for confident, second generation, liberated immigrant womanhood.

We briefly discussed other characters. We felt for Karim's abandoned Mum - a quiet, undemanding, woman - and were glad when she'd found a toy-boy by the end. We thought Karim's actor friend, Terry, was genuine in his humanity. We worried about Eleanor who seemed to have no sense of self, one member likening her to Marianne Faithful!  We thought Anwar, Jamila's father and Karim's father's best friend, was the saddest character. He was resistant to change, and he's the character who doesn't end well, which perhaps suggests one of the messages of the book - if it can be said to have a message! We liked Karim's exuberance, though felt he often walked a fine line between charm and callousness.

Overall, we found this a funny, engaging book. We enjoyed the way Kureishi regularly subverted expected outcomes or challenged our expectations. We thought the ending was nicely ironic. Karim, we agreed had come to some self-growth, but his expectation that life will be less messy in the future is perhaps a vain hope (given the adults we've seen in the novel).

Aminatta Forna's The hired man

Aminatta Forna was strongly recommended to us by one of our original members, who now joins us only in spirit from her coast abode. We chose The hired man, Forna's most recent novel, and it proved a good choice - we had a fascinating discussion.

The language was spare, the setting sparse

As we usually do, we started by asking if everyone had read it, and had we all liked it. A couple said that it had taken them a while to get into it. For one, it was because of the spare language and sparse setting. She usually likes the opposite she said. But, when she picked it up to give it a second go, she said, she loved it, partly because Forna is good at building up a sense that "something big will happen". Similarly, another said the beginning was slow-going, though she noticed "words" and "little clues" hinting at where it was going. She really enjoyed the second half.

Which war?

So, to get to the nub. The novel is set in Croatia. Our first person narrator Duro tells us about his life in the town of Gost from his youth, through the Croatian War of Independence and up to 2007. While war frames the story, the issues that drive the plot start pre-war, when Duro falls out with his best friend Krešimir who shows himself to be cruel, and full of hatred. This turns out to be just a precursor for what happens during the civil war when "men started hunting each other" and neighbour turned against neighbour, particularly as "ethnic cleansing" started to happen. It's a macho, chauvinistic world, one that Duro belongs to but doesn't condone.

We discussed the relevance of reading this book just as we've commemorated the 100th anniversary of ANZAC Day which has made us think about the definition of heroism, what we understand about conflict and its causes, and the whole randomness of who survives and who doesn't. While these aren't Forna's main themes, they are present. One horrific scene, for example, occurs when Duro describes the death of his father and sister, caught by a shell because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What sort of narrator?

We spent quite a bit of time discussing Duro. A few of us wondered at first whether he might be an unreliable narrator, but we all agreed that while he didn't always tell us the whole truth when we'd expect it, he was reliable. As our psychotherapist member said, many who have experienced traumatic war often don't tell the full story - some never, others not straightaway.

The novel opens in 2007 with Duro telling us that "at the time of writing I am forty-six years old". Later we realise he is writing it for a future reader, after he dies:

They will go through my papers and when they do they will find this. 

Maybe that person is you. Or, at least, I have to tell this story and I must tell it to somebody, so it may as well be you, come to sort through my belongings.

So, here we have it in Chapter 3, his need to tell us a story - and what a story it is. Given all Duro had experienced and lost, we wondered why he'd stayed. We decided there were probably two reasons: he wanted to be the thorn in the side of those men who betrayed their neighbours, and perhaps he hoped that his first love, Anka, who had "disappeared", might return. We also felt that while his life seemed "small", he knows himself and what he is doing, he's self-sufficient and in control of who he is.

What have the English got to do with it?

Duro is prompted to write his story by the arrival of an English woman, Laura, with her teenage son and daughter, Matthew and Grace. Laura and her husband have bought a house and plan to do it up, sell it, and move on. This house is the "blue" house which had been Krešimir and Anka's home. Duro, a handyman, becomes Laura's "hired man", to help renovate the house. As he does so, he becomes friendly with them - but, surprisingly to us, despite sexual tension, he never "makes a pass" at this married woman.

There is an underlying theme here of the British moving into Europe, oblivious of history and inherent dangers:

The way the English saw it, the past was always better. But in this country our love of the past is a great deal less, unless it is a very distant past indeed, the kind nobody alive can remember, a past transformed into a song or a poem. We tolerate the present, but what we love is the future, which is about as far away from the past as it is possible to be

Laura acts as a catalyst for Duro's memory, and for the resolution of the novel. She reminds him of Anka. (Interestingly, her favouring of her son and rather dismissive treatment of her daughter parallels the way Krešimir and Anka's mother had treated them.)

We are all implicated

We spent some time discussing the conclusion. We had various theories about what it meant. Why would Laura want to return after being intimidated by the town bully? Who was doing the graffiti, and why? Whatever the answers, we agreed that the ending was intended to be positive - as positive as it could be, anyhow - and that Forna's "message" is that the only way towns like this can survive is for their people to learn to live together.

We concluded the night with a lovely Croatian Cherry and Walnut Cake made by our host Kate. It was yum.