Alan Gould, The Lake Woman

About 10 Minervans plus the author found somewhere to sit in my living room last night to discuss this, to quote Les Murray, "strange and compelling book". Appropriately for Anzac day reading, the book begins with the moment that an Australian soldier in British service parachutes into the chaos of D-Day Normandy. It was good to have Alan confirm that the book was intentionally set in, but not actually about the war. Also, as it has a most arresting first few sentences, we weren't surprised to hear that for him, a novel begins with a sentence. Luckily his was a more fruitful beginning than that of a character in Camus's "The Plague" who, we remembered, endlessly rewrote the first sentence of his novel but got no further.

Alan, who started out as a poet, explained that for him, poetry is like music while fiction is like history, and that he can only work in one mode or the other and not both at once. We were struck by the beauty of his prose throughout the book though, written as only a poet could write. We felt that it helped create the sense of unreality and dislocation that overtakes Alec, the main character, as his purpose is shaken after his rescue by a strange and unforgettable woman, in a way shifting his mind to a timeless, legendary dimension. His subsequent lack of focus caused distress to his loyal, practical sister who hated to see him fail in his promise. Alan confirmed that he had used clocks and watches as symbols of Alec's removal from time, and the different languages, French, English, German, including music ("doodling") as different channels of communication to create a sense of confusion between two dimensions. Cannon fire, the chaos of war and and the surreal devastation of the formerly peaceful Norman countryside heightened the sense of unreality.

We were struck by the authentic, period feel of the spoken interaction between the characters, particularly the military and the Australian country people. It was interesting to hear how Alan absorbed and adapted the experiences and expertise of the friends and acquaintances credited in the Acknowledgements section, and no-one was surprised to hear of hours spent examining various maps of Normandy.

Alan was queried about the role of coincidence in the novel, for example the constantly reappearing Sergeant Ferris. He explained that Ferris is the death figure, appearing when others die, but himself unkillable, and that for Alan as a novellist "coincidence makes a story other than bland, both at the level of history and at a plane outside natural causality". In response to another query he explained why he took us through the whole of Alec's life - so that, through the response of the students at his retirement, he could see that his life had had some value after all. Some of us were very moved by the last couple of paragraphs, which clarified something that had remained ambiguous through the whole story.

We also heard about the highs and lows of life as a poet-novellist, the impact of changing literary fashions and the sad reality that the marketing manager now decides what gets published.

I've left out such a lot that was covered in a wide ranging conversation that I really enjoyed. I also really loved the book, which I think is Alan's best so far, but as an old friend of his I'm rather biased. Did anyone disagree though when someone said "We should have the author here every time"?

Lloyd Jones, Hand me down world

Courtesy Text Publishing

All 8 (or so) Minervans who attended our meeting at the end of March to discuss Lloyd Jones' latest novel, Hand me down world, liked it. Some loved it, some liked it, but no-one disliked it. That says something about the quality of this book, methinks.

This is a multiple point of view novel chronicling the story of a young African woman who leaves Africa, by boat as an illegal immigrant, to find her son (who had been illegally taken from her when he was a baby) in Berlin. The first chapters of the book are presented as witness accounts by those who saw or helped her on her way. The rest of the book is told in larger chunks with, near the end, Ines (as we come to know her, though this is not her "real" name) telling us her (version of) her story. All these stories, except the Inspector's near the beginning, are told first person.

What Ines does to achieve her end is not - shall we say - always ethical. For her, the ends justifies the means in her desperation to make contact with her child. There's a death, and there's quite a bit of thieving and lying. For some Minervans this made her an unappealing character with whom they could not relate. For all of us, though, it certainly challenged us to think about what we might do - how far we might go - in similar circumstances. Another criticism of the novel was that it got a little bogged down in the central Berlin section ... did we need the full Defoe section some thought?

We discussed at some length the meaning of the title. Some ideas (including from reviews/interviews) included that:

• the world, our world, is a rather arbitrary one
• the son was, in a sense, "handed down"
• people inhabit different worlds
• Ines wore, symbolically, a hand-me-down coat, rather reflecting her status in the world as a "used" person because, for all her faults, she sure was "used"
• versions - of things, people - are a theme of the novel (just as, really, the world has different "versions" depending on who we are and where we live)

Jones, it appears from the two novels we've read of him, keenly interested in the marginalised and dispossessed. His views are perhaps most encompassed by Bernard (or Millennium Three), the French character who most supports Ines, no questions asked. He talks of his politicisation in Berlin:

...we abhorred the state-inspired delineations and definitions of difference. Borders. Citizenship. Rich. Poor. Entitlement.

Another witness, the Film Researcher, talks of "other":

Until then she was, black, African, other. But now I saw a young woman who looked about the same age as my sister Alison. I could have been looking at Ali, apart from the obvious differences. Now I knew what I must do.

How to meet and react to "Other" is a powerful challenge for us all ... and Jones, in this novel, tackles it head on ... it's a powerful tale.

And there I'll leave it. Our discussion was a month ago so I can't remember the finer detail. Minervans, if I've misrepresented us, here's your chance. Comment away!

Albert Camus, The plague ... Why did he write it?

Camus 1957 (Public domain, from the New York-World Telegram
 and Sun Newspaper Telegraph Newspaper Collection)

A lively discussion ensued when 8 Minervans met this week to discuss Albert Camus' The plague. There were those who loved it, those who were surprised by how easy it was to read, and those who wished he'd written something different. If he wanted to write about the Nazi occupation of France, one member cried, why didn't he? With a discussion opener like that, it was on for one and all (more or less).

For those who don't know what the book is about, here is a quick plot. It is set in the town of Oran, on the Algerian coast, in the late 1940s. The town is 'visited' by the plague, and so closes itself off for the duration of the disease. The novel then follows the progress of the disease and how the citizens cope with such a pestilence and the resultant "exile" and "separation". There is a narrator, who is not revealed until the end, but we see the story through the actions and conversations of several characters including Dr Rieux, Tarrou (a "strange" visitor to the town), and Rambert (a visiting journalist). Secondary characters include the Priest Paneloux, a minor government official Grand, and a man with a past Cottard.

That's the basis of the literal story ... but this is a book that can be read on other levels. It can also be seen as an allegory about the French occupation in World War 2 (with a member suggesting that he took this approach because the French may not have been comfortable with a direct exploration of the occupation), or more broadly as a metaphorical story about how to live in an "absurd" world. It is these allegorical/metaphorical levels which engaged some of us, but frustrated others. Regardless though of what we thought was (or should be) the intent of the book, we enjoyed talking about the characters and how they behaved and reacted:

• we thought about Tarrou's idea that we all have the plague in us. One member suggested that this idea is present in our 21st century consciousness - that is, that we are complicit in some way in the things that happen.
• we discussed Fr Paneloux and his reactions: first, his fire and brimstone speech that people's sins had brought God's wrath upon them; and then later, in response to the death of an innocent child, his argument that whatever God willed, we should will too, that "the Christian should yield himself wholly to the divine will". 
• we felt we could understand Rambert's initial determination to escape. After all, it wasn't his town.
• we admired Dr Rieux getting on with his duty.
• we wondered about Grand and his seemingly trivial obsession with the first sentence of his novel, but a member suggested that he might be the true hero of the novel, and quoted the narrator:

... if it is a fact that people like to have examples given them, men of the type they call heroic, and if it is absolutely necessary that this narrative should include a 'hero', the narrator commends to his readers, with, to his thinking perfect justice, this insignificant and obscure hero who had to his credit only a little goodness of heart and a seemingly absurd ideal.

Grand in other words is a decent, ordinary everyman. No intellectualising for him, just a belief in doing the decent thing.

Of course, we discussed Cottard and his seemingly incomprehensibly happy reaction to the plague.

We enjoyed the language. One member commented that you could open the book anywhere and spot a beautifully written phrase. And this brought us to the translations. We all had Penguin editions, some old ones from the 1960s and 70s which used the 1948 Stuart Gilbert translation, and some the recent classic orange and white edition which uses the 2001 Robin Buss translation. We read the last paragraph in each translation and were surprised by the differences. For example, the "happy town" in 1948 becomes "contented" in 2001, the "linen-chests" of 1948 become "clothing", and "years and years" become "dozens of years". It felt very much like the language had been updated for more modern audience, but not being French experts we are not to say!

Finally, one member noted that an article she read described Camus as a "moraliste" but not a "moraliser", and that he had identified the central moral problems of the age. Many of us agreed with that, and felt that Camus was more humanist than existentialist.

I'm afraid, though, that the discussion was so vigorous that I have not recalled all that was said. I would be most happy if Minervans present picked me up in the comments on anything I've missed or, shock horror, anything that I've misrepresented! And, of course, for anyone else interested to chime in.

Freedom....what's it all about?

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen was our Summer read, and first discussion for 2011. A long saga of a novel, by the author of Corrections, it follows the lives of Patty and Walter Berglund, their experience in American suburbia, their stumbling student days, reflections on their dysfunctional families, and the unwinding of their lives as their children head into adulthood.

Franzen certainly chooses a large canvas, and contains some satirical reflection on American life. Patty's reflection on her family where she always felt an outsider, is both humorous and moving: eg 'Patty's father, Ray Emerson, was a lawyer and amateur humorist whose repertory included fart jokes and mean parodies of his children's teachers, neighbours and friends' It also becomes tragic, where her parents don't want to dwell on her rape as it would disturb the status quo, 'Coach Nagel says I should go to the police ' 'Coach Nagel should stick to her dribbling,' her dad said. 'Softball', Patty said. 'It's softball season now'. Which Patty sees as a betrayal of herself, and a reflection of her parents lack of understanding of her life as a sports 'jock'.

Patty and Walter are both rather naive players in their lives, subject to the power and games of others. They are both drawn to the cynical, rock singing Richard, who has a power over them, but who in turn is drawn to their idealism and zeal. Perhaps Walter and Richard are two sides of the coin, and Patty is attracted to both, which forms a large part of the novel's plot.

I felt very engaged in the main characters, and could empathise with the pain and indecision of their courtship, the challenges of raising children, and the tensions of marriage over the long terms. Patty and Walter tried so hard to move away from their own dysfunctional family life, but succeeded in creating a son with completely opposite values to them, and in losing each other. He does however manage to create a very lovable screwed up couple who, we were pleased to see, ended the book happily.

We enjoyed the dialogue in the book, and considered Franzen at his best in some of the dialogue between characters. He gives the main characters fairly comprehensively realised psychologies, so that we really take a journey with them as they make mistakes, follow their hearts, and make new discoveries about themselves. He does also use the book as something of a soap box, talking about the effects of capitalism, war, environmental destruction, and at times the book seems mired in this preachiness, which is less successful than the realism and journey with many of his characters. Walter's interlude with Lalitha and the subsequent accident, did not work for some group members, seeing it as rather melodramatic.

Franzen describes his approach as 'tragic realism' and 'an antidote to the rhetoric of optimism that pervades our culture', which I thought an apt label. We discussed the title 'Freedom' and thought that the concept of 'Freedom and Liberty were much more significant in US culture. Franzen does question the value of freedom, and the rampant materialism, abuse of power, and impact on the environment that valuing freedom above else had. The characters too have their own quest to free themselves from their past, and to create new lives, to have the freedom to be individuals. Perhaps Walter was the character most prepared to work communally, but in the end he becomes a mouthpiece for capitalism and environmental rape. For some the title did not work. I came away thinking Franzen saw Forgiveness as a more necessary quality than Freedom, such that the characters in the book needed to forgive themselves and each other, to really be free to move on.

But I'll move off my soap box ... The group as a whole enjoyed the book, the characters and his humour, despite some meandering and overdoing the 'message' elements.

List of upcoming book-film adaptations

In this post at Ripple Effects blogger Arti lists books that are currently in the process of being made into films. They might provide some ideas for future schedules.

Of course, we don't know from this list how imminent they are but it's a start. There are some interesting ones here including:

• 1984
• On Chesil Beach;
• The book thief; 
• The great Gatsby (again!); and
• several other classics, again

If there are any books in Arti's list that we haven't read and you'd like us to consider, let me know and I'll add it to the schedule suggestions list in the sidebar.

More reading suggestions

Hi, Some ideas for future discussions:

It's probably worth putting down the PM's Prize Winner: Eva Hornung for her novel Dog Boy on our list of suggested reads for next year.

Also Booker Prize winner: Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question 'a novel about love, loss and male friendship, and explores what it means to be Jewish today. Said to have ‘some of the wittiest, most poignant and sharply intelligent comic prose in the English language', The Finkler Question has been described as ‘wonderful' and ‘richly satisfying' and as a novel of ‘full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding'.'

The Thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Having rashly offered to write up our very enjoyable October discussion, I'm now attempting to come up with the goods. Eight (or nine?) of us gathered and enjoyed a literary evening followed by yummy chocolate cake. Kate was so anxious not to miss anything that she even rushed back from Cairo in time. Is that a record?
As you'd expect, our responses to the book varied. At least three of those who finished it had found it really enjoyable. This conclusion was tempered by the confession that the previously studied David Mitchell novel, Cloud atlas had been enjoyed at the time too, except no-one seemed to remember what it had been about. This fate couldn't befall Thousand autumns though! We mostly agreed that it had been a vivid, gripping experience being taken back to Japan during the Tokugawa Shogunate and stranded with the Dutch East India Company representatives on Dejima in Nagasaki Harbour, then taken up to a mysterious and sinister mountain shrine before finding ourselves on the deck of an English Man-of-War, creating havoc for all concerned.

Some of us found the cast of thousands hard to follow (and one of us was even driven to spreadsheet them all in her eagerness to keep up with the plot), but we agreed that the diverse characters were cleverly and engagingly created, so that we found ourselves in their heads and caring about them, and a couple of us had been moved to tears at different moments of the book.

There was the impression that a great deal of research and experience of Japanese culture was behind the well sustained authenticity of the world created, the invisible line between history and fiction, and we thought the novel was well paced and structured, with a satisfying, rather than anti-climactic ending.

We were impressed with the beauty of the language used and examples of the telling use of symbolism were discussed. The epic scope of the book was compared with Shogun, and the gradually revealed secrets of the shrine recalled The Name of the rose. Timeless themes were identified and discussed.

The comment was made that parts of the book were quite distressing and confronting. A more petty criticism raised was the misuse of the word "shall" by every character of every culture in the book, but nobody else agreed with me about that!

We thought the book would make a good movie, and speculated that the author had probably thought of that. However, on the basis of our discussion, a couple of us who hadn't finished the book decided not to wait for the movie but to get back into it forthwith.

Finally, I don't think even the fastidious Japanese could have queried the elegance of the tea sets that came with our yummy supper. Thanks Janet!