Schedule Suggestions 2010

Two suggestions for our next schedule:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoat, by David Mitchell

Some varied reviews - including this one from New Statesman - but sounds a fascinating book for Japan-ophiles, and for those interested in different structures etc.

Another interesting book in the same review that got quite a good rap, and the author was on the Book Show 18 June 2010, is:

The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his friend Marilyn Monroe, by Andrew O'Hagan

Voss by Patrick White

On Tuesday night 27 April, Gerda, Kate and I had a good discussion about this amazing book. It was a real pity more of you couldn't attend. We decided it was definitely one of the best books we have ever read for the story, the language, the characterisation, the cleverness and even the humour.

The story is loosely based on the 3 explorations of inland Australia by Ludwig Leichhardt. It was written in the mid 1950s and Australia was a very different country from today, culturally and in the way we think about ourselves as Australians. The Second World War effects were still an issue as well.

The main character is Voss, a German outsider and a man with a mission and a vision. He needs to do this trip across Australia not only for an intellectual exercise but he seems to have a physical need for it too. He meets Laura Trevelyan, also an outsider, and they fall in love with only moments of acquaintanceship -- literally a few hours of a picnic, a dance, a most difficult ride in a carriage and a farewell on the wharf. He writes to her at the first 'outstation' on their expedition and asks to marry her and from that moment they are linked/wedded telepathically.

There is a lot of racism in this book for example the 'German' is often pointed out or discussed by the Bonners and others. He is variously described as the Christ and as the devil. It is very much a love/hate relationship for Mr Bonner, the main supporter of the expedition. There is also a lot of love and hate about the country itself noted by the characters. This duality is found in the members of the expedition party too -- convict and squattocracy, young and fit and older and not so fit (Judd and Palfreyman), young and old Indigenous persons, rich and poor.

Laura and her cousin are also opposites in lots of ways and at times show an Australian version of Jane Austen's irony in mid 19th century Sydney.

It is a tragic tale but does not indulge in sentimental waffle.

There are also occasional funny moments --at the farewell on the wharf the "Colonel clasped the German's hand in a gloveful of bones'.

White was heavily critical of Australia in the mid 1950s and it does come out in this novel. Read David Marr* for more information about White's feelings about Voss. It has become a classic and Kate thought it would mke a great film although the tripping backwards and forward sequences are a little old fashioned these days.

It is highly recommended and easy to see why Patrick White won so many awards. It is well worth the effort.

* David Marr, Patrick White: A life

The little stranger, by Sarah Waters

It has been a veritable Sarah Waters feast for Minerva this week, all because, coincidentally, The Canberra Times-ANU scheduled a literary event featuring Sarah Waters in conversation with Marion Halligan the day after we had scheduled Waters' The little stranger for discussion. Six of us turned up for the discussion, and four the next day for the conversation.

First, though, our discussion. It was a good one! All had read it - or made a good enough fist of it to join in the discussion. We all enjoyed it, though not without various reservations along the way. The things we liked were:

• the social history: Waters has done a wonderful job of creating a "feel" for the time, and particularly of the class tensions that were rising in that post-war period
• the "fabulous" descriptions, particularly of Hundreds Hall and its cold, damp feel
• the characters: they were all convincing, even the minor ones

The plot was, though, frustrating for many of us. Many felt set up but were not quite sure for what. Some felt that at times Waters included information/details because she'd done the research and didn't want to leave it out. We puzzled quite a bit about the narrator, Dr Faraday. At times he felt unreliable, but we decided that in fact he was reliable. Some sympathised with him, while others felt he was manipulative. Did he love Caroline or the house? And we were not all convinced about who the little stranger was: the baby "Susan", or a poltergiest released by the Ayerses' inability to adapt to changing times, or perhaps, the doctor (though most of felt that he could not have consciously engineered the events that occurred)?

... and so it was with some enthusiasm that we went to the Sarah Waters' event the next day. We had our question ready! But, Sarah, it was clear, did not want to engage in discussions about the ending, fearing spoilers for those who had not yet read it. All she said formally was that she left it deliberately open but that she tried to lead the reader to a certain conclusion. She’s been fascinated by the discussions that have ensued about the ending. Don’t we know it! I'd love to know how many of those discussions have been off the mark (from her perspective anyhow).

However, she did say some things that might help our deliberations. Her original plan was for Dr Faraday to be a straightforward, transparent narrator, who was firmly in the middle class and a friend of the family, and who would chronicle their decline. This changed as she started writing: she decided to make him more uncomfortable class-wise with some latent class resentments. And, she talked about poltergeists and how they represent the release of unresolved tensions, conflicts and frustrations. Well, there were a lot of those at Hundreds Hall and so I think that if we accept poltergeists, then we might decide that more than one “person” is implicated in what happened at Hundreds Hall. There is, after all, the following statement in the book made to Dr Faraday by Dr Seeley:

The subliminal mind has many dark, unhappy corners, after all. Imagine something loosening itself from one of those corners. Let’s call it a – a germ. And let’s say conditions prove right for that germ to develop – to grow … What would this little stranger grow into? A sort of shadow-self, perhaps a Caliban, a Mr Hyde. A creature motivated by all the nasty impulses and hungers the conscious mind had hoped to keep hidden away: things like envy, and malice and frustration…

This is just the tip of the iceberg of a lively reading group discussion and an engaging literary event (as Waters and Halligan were really rather delightful). It would be great if others who attended the meeting and/or talk, or who didn't attend these but have read the book, shared their ideas here. Go for it ...

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

Ten of our current active members attended our first meeting of the year at which we were to discuss Hilary Mantel's whopping Wolf Hall. Not only did ten turn up but a goodly number managed to finish it - or make a good fist of it. Most liked it, some really loved it...and that set us up for a good discussion.

It turned out that our hostess, also our newest member, loves historical fiction - and is pretty interested in this era in particular. She started us off by saying how much she liked the book. She enjoys, she said, what she calls "historical fiction lite" such as the works of Philippa Gregory - but this, she suggested, is a cut way above. When we asked her to define the difference, she said there were two main differences: in historical fiction lite

• every character has one strong trait that tends to deny complexity of motivation; and
• the story's the thing.

Well, Wolf Hall is somewhat different from that. Its story is strong of course - dealing as it does with the machinations involved in getting an annulment for Henry VIII from his marriage to Katherine (Catherine) of Aragon so he can marry Anne Boleyn. But alongside this story is a lot of detail about the issues surrounding this: the freeing up of access to the Bible, the separation from the Church in Rome, the Act of Supremacy, the rise of the trading class ... to name a few. And the characters - particularly Thomas Cromwell through whose eyes the story is told (albeit in 3rd person) - are complex. In fact, the story is really the story of Cromwell told through the Henry-Katherine-Anne plot.

We compared a little Mantel's interpretation of Cromwell and Sir Thomas More with other interpretations more favourable to More, such as A man for all seasons. Many of us would like to see that play/film again in the light of this book. Mantel clearly has some sympathy for Cromwell and has presented him more favourably - though not denying the fact that he was an ambitious, clear-eyed political-player willing to make hard decisions - than many before her have. One member questioned the interpretation of Henry VIII as a fairly "soft" man, though another wondered whether this was because the story is told through Cromwell's eyes. Is this how Cromwell saw Henry?

We talked a little about the style - particularly its third person point-of-view and the sometimes confusing way Mantel uses the pronoun "he". We liked its humour, particularly shown through Cromwell's interactions with such characters as "Call-me Risely" and next-door neighbour Chapuys. One member referred to Mantel's conversation with Ramona Koval (of ABC Radio National fame) about how she develops rhythm in her writing.

It was suggested that there was a point to writing this book now, since a major thread running through it is religious fanaticism: people are burnt - and are often prepared to be burnt rather than recant - for their religious beliefs, which is not far removed, she thought, from some of the fanatical religious behaviour evident in our era.

...and so we continued to toss ideas around. There were no gaps in our discussion about this book ...

We would highly recommend it to other groups, but with one proviso: people need to have the time to commit to it. It is not necessarily a hard book to read, but it is one that you need to get momentum going in order to follow its flow.

Cover image: Used courtesy HarperCollins Publishers

Schedule suggestions 2009

Here are some of the suggestions tossed around at our meeting last night (together with those previous suggestions in the blog's sidebar):

• Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (this year's Booker Prize winner. It's long so perhaps our summer read
• Steven Conte's The zookeeper's war (last year's Prime Minister's Literary Award winner)
• Rodney Hall (a book by him)
• Alex Miller (a book by him - perhaps the new Lovesong??)
• Patrick White's Voss (had been tentatively set for January but maybe Wolf Hall would be better for the summer read)
• Kazuo Isiguro's Nocturnes (short stories)
• David Malouf's Ransom
• Jayne Anne Phillips' Lark and termite

Have I forgotten any that we discusssed?

What do you all think of these - and do you have other ideas? Marie, Susan and other farflung members - even if you can't come we would be happy to hear about any books you've read that you think we'd like to read.

(Free image from www.clker.com - for fun)

Valley of grace by Marion Halligan

On Tuesday 29 September, 10 of us including the author Marion Halligan sat comfortably in Kate's house mulling over French lives, loves and babies. We started our discussion with comments about the amazing cake -- how does it stay together, had Marion eaten it -- yes but it was in a little bag (!) and she had never made it.

Marion was very generous with her memories of Paris in 1989 living near the Church whose creation is so central to a main theme of women and fertility. Her tale of writing the novel was fascinating -- it started life as a short story which had possibilities. We enjoyed hearing that her act of writing is pen and paper although she writes essays on the computer. She talked a little about writing erotica -- plenty of love in Fanny's life when Gerard appears. We heard about some of the characters including the Philosopher who is based on a Canberra academic and his wife who is so happy with her abandonment of him in preference to the god child. It was good to hear that all the answers are not known even for the author. The wild child was the Professor's offspring possibly and was so sad -- that lead to discussion about such children and Marion revealed that she had researched these children.

We talked of types of families in contemporary life and the growing trend of gay couples having children. Marion admitted that she considered a sad end for Claude and Agnes' baby but decided against it -- I am so pleased. She also talked of endings and the suddenness of this one.
The cover we decided is beautiful and its yellow rays appropriate for the story.

What also came out was Marion's love of Paris and the French and their cultured lives filled with books and good food, wine, chocolates and friends.

Next challenge is Pages -- Marion doesn't want to read it !

(Cover image courtesy Allen & Unwin)

Dreams from my father, by Barack Obama

Somehow our report of our August meeting slipped through the net, so in the interests of comprehensiveness I'm going to do a brief one now. Eight of us (I think!) met at Celeste's to talk about the book everyone's been talking about - Barack Obama's Dreams from my father - though I think we must have been about the last group to get around to doing it!

Not surprisingly, we all enjoyed it, though some admitted to finding the Chicago section slower going than the rest of the book. We liked the nuanced way he explores the issue of racism and racial experience. By this we meant the way he comprehends racism from a number of perspectives, due perhaps to his own unusual background:

• he was brought up middle-class and by his white mother and grandparents;
• he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and so experienced another set of cultural differences and expectations; and
• his father, with whom he had some (but not much) contact, was African born (rather than an African American).

These things, together with his personal experiences and, well, his personality, give him a fairly unique basis from which to look at the issue.

Our assessment of Obama was that he is both visionary and compassionate. He is very open on some aspects of his life - such as drinking, smoking and drug-taking in his youth - but pretty reticent about his relationships with women (though clearly he had some - relationships, that is). While we would like to have known more, perhaps it's to his credit that he's discreet!

Finally, we talked a little about the title and the idea that it contains an element of irony. Whose dreams are they? Did his father's dreams carry the seeds of his own destruction? With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that whatever and whosever they are, they have stood him in good stead to date!

(Cover image: Courtesy Text Publishing)