Author: frosen3@telus.net

Crossroads: A hard slog in need of redemption

(Owing to time constraints, I have not consolidated our group members’ reflections into a single document. I present them as more or less individual conversational snippets.)

Didn’t like the characters nor care what happened to them. Too involved with social problems, moral ethical issues. Went on much too long.

I really enjoyed the book and liked the chapter structure but disliked the Perry chapters. For me, it was the drama of small lives populated by a cast of well-drawn characters especially Marion. I was attracted by the prose and drawn in by the narrative style as it encouraged moments of reflection. I really appreciated the rhythms and the geography of place provided in some sections. For me, Marion was the most fascinating character. I saw her in all different ways—fat, very dumpy, self-loathing and layered on her past.

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen is a big book. While the author may have had George Elliot’s Middlemarch (1871-1872) in mind, I was drawn to consider the demise of a family portrayed in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901). Contrary to other opinions, the book contains much humour and wonderful metaphors. The book is rich with internal dialogue. For those with very tidy minds, this may be tedious; for those with easily distracted minds, very engaging. Interestingly, the book offers the internal dialogue of whom who is unravelling.

This was a hard slog, and I didn’t finish it. The only redeeming feature I found was that Russ had some understanding of the Navajo culture. I did not enjoy all that teenage angst. I would not recommend this book.

I confess that this book wore me out! It was an unrelenting story about a dysfunctional American family devoid of the slightest hint of humour. I found the main characters difficult to like or feel any empathy for them. I found the way the main story went off track particularly irritating and the diversions into religion singularly non-illuminating. While it may be unreasonable to expect everything to proceed in a linear manner, I found the transitions between event/space too abrupt. But I did learn—there were several words that were unfamiliar to me, and I plan to research them. That is my treasure!

I did not enjoy this book. It is about a small American family who are hopefully atypical. I did not like any of the characters and found it hard to sympathize with them. It was full of ethical dilemmas, spiritual crises, and ongoing dysfunction. The constant introspection of these characters was exhausting, and they seemed unaware of their narcissism. The most despicable was Russ—with his disloyalty, his constant preaching, his weakness and vanity, self-pity, and his pathetic adolescent pursuit of this looking-to-have-an affair woman. However, neither Becky, Clem nor Perry appealed to me. The only person I liked was Marion with her devastating past and her accommodation to her present situation. (The group discussed Marion’s role in the drama. Was she a victim or a perpetrator or both? After all the Russ she connected with was a very naïve escapee from a Mennonite community.)

I do consider the author’s prose, his characterization and plot development masterful.

I place books in three categories: (1) like (2) don’t like (3) resent). Crossroads falls into the last category. I resent the time I had to spend reading this book when there are so many other good books to read.

Being familiar with the author, I was not expecting a character driven story. I was expecting something that focused on societal events and how people reacted to them. And that is what this book is about—their behavior and their thoughts. It was overlong and overly hyperbolic. However, the repetition of Marion being short and overweight may have been intended to invite us to experience “what Marion lives”.

I was aware that this book was well received but I gave it a thumbs down rating. I may have been in a negative mood and overtired. I was struck by the idea that it was two books rolled into one. One was a story about things that happened in the seventies which was well written and well researched. And there was another incomprehensible story about religiosity—I did appreciate Ambrose washing Russ’s feet which I thought was one of the best written scenes in the book. The book was very dense and long. The author is an awfully good writer with a keen sense of psychiatry. The portrayal of Perry’s breakdown was quite profound. I liked Marion’s letter to Clem in which she tried to explain Perry’s situation to his unsympathetic brother. It was one of the most moving situations in the book.

I would not recommend this book to anybody. The book was too contrived with its exaggeration of physical appearances and its repeated religious references. I could not relate to the book; the circumstances were far outside my own experience. There was just too much, and it was too depressing.

I didn’t trust this author. I thought his people weren’t real, they were fictional people. People are nicer than he portrayed them.

I liked it more than a lot of you. I thought the writing was good and I thought he changed the tone by person and situation. I listened to some of his interviews, and he grew up in a similar situation— a church based social group that was his main social life in his younger days. (Our group discussed the relevance of the Crossroads program to the 70s setting and to now. The understanding was that this was an environment in which our youth continued to operate.)

I really enjoyed the book. The author is a master of internal dialogue, especially the unleashing of thought processes—sane or insane. He locates a disintegrating family in their social context and explores how they arrived there and the depth of their individual and collective pain. He invites us to ponder questions of goodness, authenticity, compassion, and redemption. The rather grim narrative is punctuated with humour and sympathetic metaphor.

Our Rating

The Pull of the Stars: A message contaminated by melodrama

(Owing to time constraints, I have not consolidated our group members’ reflections into a single document. I present them as more or less individual conversational snippets.)

The title The Pull of the Stars draws it meaning from the Latin word influentia, “to flow into “and comes from an Italian superstition that the stars were having an influence on health. Emma Donahue began her book in 2018, one hundred years after the influenza pandemic, and the book was published in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic descended on the globe.

I enjoyed the writing and the stories, but I did not think the three main characters, Julia, Bridie, and Dr. Kathleen Lynn were well developed. The closet ward to which maternity patients with flu-like symptoms were dispatched was an interesting lens through which to view contemporary Dublin society with its privileged and poverty-stricken classes, the aftermath of the Easter uprising and the consequence of unwanted pregnancy. The story was equally interesting in that it placed men and the consequences of war in the background of women’s lives. As additional background, we were referred to A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle which describes the first twenty years of Henry’s adventure-filled life in early twentieth-century Ireland.

‘Another plague book’, I didn’t enjoy it. Not as good as Room nor as The Barbary Plague by Marilyn Chase which was about the epidemic of bubonic plague centered on San Francisco’s Chinatown. I agree that the characters were not well developed.

I liked that the book was divided into parts but I found the setting very confining (forgive the pun) and thought the book could do without the last 20 pages. I didn’t like the absence of quotation marks. I found the initial description of bicycling to the hospital evoked memories of our experience of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. I didn’t mind Part 1 which includes a graphic picture of childbirth including stillbirth but Part 2 contained more blood and gore as did Part 3 with its more difficult births, but the babies survived. Part 4 was overly dramatic and demonstrated the harm caused by relaxed interpretation of public health advice.

This book provided a vivid picture of the fate women suffered in this religiously dominated patriarchal society. I became angry over the injustice to women, their value attributed to their baby producing capacity, the cavalier use of pubiotomy as an obstetrical tool and the horrific treatment to which orphans and unwed mothers were subject.

Donoghue packed a lot into this book. I enjoyed it. I got really steamed about the Catholic Church and the social conditions. I found the descriptions in the early part of the book quite evocative.

I thought the first half of the book was much better than the second. I appreciated that the author had done a tremendous amount of research. And some of the material felt very real. However, the lack of character development and the turn of events in the last part left me with the impression of a sort of Harlequin romance novel.

I really liked it. I thought it was well written and her research was fantastic. I liked the historical aspects and the use of an actual person in the role of the woman doctor. I disagree with those who felt the characters were not developed as I felt in touch with them very quickly. I can remember in the 50s in Montreal that there were orphanages full of unwanted children. Basically, we were taken there to do charity work. I certainly don not fault those, mostly Catholic, institutions for taking unwanted children, only for abusing them.

For me, I had a sense of the characters very quickly. I was unaware of some of the issues that were explored—the ignorance around childbirth, the midwifery challenges, the valuing of women as reproductive stock, and the questionable empathy of the male physicians. I appreciated the author’s presentation of the pandemic from a different perspective.

My mother had the ‘flu’ and survived; at the time she was in boarding school. I am familiar with families of more than ten children. And their circumstances and the welfare of the children varied from good to bad. So that’s what happened in the past. I liked this book, but I think the author went overboard with the roof scene and the baby snatch. The ending spoiled the beginning and turned it into an Irish dirge.

For me, this book recalled my Project Literacy experience with a Mount Cashel survivor who showed up illiterate in our program at 60 years of age. From that encounter I learned that despite the travails people endure, there exists within them the spirit to overcome great difficulties.

I had the feeling that too much was piled on without allowing time for introspection. The dilemma was carefully delivered followed by an impromptu fantasy vision for the future!

Our Rating

Oh William! Weaving snippets into a story

Our group’s response to Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout ranged more widely than for any previous group read. The diversity of comments reflects our enthusiasm for different opinions!  

I enjoyed the book and had forgotten that it was related to the earlier book My Name is Lucy Barton. I was puzzled that the author wrote so disparagingly about Maine when she had moved back there. The tales of relationships and broken lives were dismal but I was happy that I could read without making notes about the places and the people.

Initially charmed by the story, I found things went down from there. The book needs some serious editing—it has the makings of a short story. For those who like to count the characters or pages that get in the way of appreciating a story, in this case, the blame rests with the many asides punctuating the narrative.

I found that it proceeded like an oral history with the speaker reflecting on the tale as she recounted it—allowing the recorder to capture the zeitgeist along with the story. I did a simultaneous read and listen with this book and suspect that reader enlivened the text considerably. I experienced anxiety and found it emotionally challenging in places.

For a Booker prize nominee, I was disappointed. A week after I had read it, I couldn’t remember what it was about. I found it lifeless. Even though in the first person, it was more like someone making a recording, not like someone who was in the action. It lacked punch or real feelings; it was like a cipher—a nonperson. Been to Maine and was sad to hear how it had suffered as a state as I remember the beautiful small towns were quite special. William’s devastation upon discovering that his wife had left him struck a chord with a couple of members.

It seemed like a stream of consciousness slowed by repetitiousness, and it didn’t really grab my attention. I didn’t feel I had learned anything. Yes, you cannot depend on things happening and your past shapes your future but what’s new?

Initially, I thought it was quite a light read without much substance but subsequently realized it was far more complicated. One aspect of Lucy’s life that hit home for me was the impact of bizarre parental behavior on a child and how poverty complicated this further. I was left wondering why the relationship with William, so passionate prenuptially, floundered on the wedding day. What was it that drove William away? As the story unfolded, we saw enormous parallels between William’s mother and Lucy. Furthermore, we learned that rejection by women was a pattern in William’s life. However, that might explain William but what explains Lucy?

I felt the novel was full of fears, insecurities and misunderstandings and perhaps this could be the basis for the angst felt while reading it. Additionally, I was captivated by the author’s suggestion that we truly never know another—reminding me of what I learned in a psychology class, i.e., that the person exists on three levels: (1) the one shown to the world (2) the one shown only to a partner or a close friend and (3) the one shared with no one.

There may be a lot more to this book than meets the eye—I think you had to do a lot of work to get the meaning. I just didn’t get it! Despite the use of the first person, I had no sense of intimacy with the narrator. I felt “talked at”. Although Lucy Barton may be a study in PTSD, the story and the characters did not come together for me.

I liked the book a lot. I felt as though I were a close friend of these people. I found the themes interesting; (1) responsibility to others versus to self (2) family secrets (9) the impact of family secrets revealed. We are left not knowing! I thought it was a book that would stir up something in any reader. While some are staggered that it made the Booker List, I’m surprised that it did not win!

Our Rating:

Permanent Astonishment by Tomson Highway: “Don’t mourn me, be joyful.”

(Our group appreciated the many details about the Indigenous situation from which he originated and the broadening of our perspective about the residential experience.)

As one who grew up in England, this book helped fill a gap in my knowledge of the residential schools and the suppression of the Indigenous people’s culture. The book was fascinating and the story of Tomson’s birth gripping. The scale of his accomplishments in adulthood is astonishing considering the challenges of his early life.

Loved the book! It was very interesting even if sometimes there was too much explanation. The ruggedness of the life was amazing. It provided an insight into how bizarre the residential experience must have been for these indigenous children even in the best of circumstances. It was refreshing to learn about the positive aspects of the residential school experience and that the author was able to transcend the negative with his joie de vivre. While conveying a sense of its rugged magnificence, it included so much about a land that is largely unseen by us. I was amazed by how huge the Subarctic is and by the Indigenous people’s understanding of their environment.

Loved the book! An example of why I get pleasure from the book club, i.e., I get to read interesting books that I would not have read otherwise. I plan to make gifts of this one. It needs to be owned. It can’t be read quickly. Each chapter is an episode to be savored on its own. Although the book was rich with detail, it was surprisingly light on the sexual abuse. It is amazing how Tomson became so enthralled with music.

While he came from a family that had no formal education, they were clearly of superior intelligence, skillful, hardworking, and successful in business. The parents seemed to be loving people who gave him a good foundation for life, and a sense of togetherness and belonging. Generally, being two spirited seemed mostly to be treated as special rather than abhorred. Highway did a masterful job of communicating his connection with and love for the land; his writing was joyful, humorous, and quirky. I enjoyed reading about the travails of the priest and the nomadic lifestyle. The information about language and names was intriguing.

The author described a way of life that was completely alien to me. Some of his memories may be warped and not actually true. But that’s no secret as he tells us at the beginning of the book, “this is a shape-shifter book, residing in the space between fact and fiction, the fantastical place of memory and dream”. His words are shrouded in positiveness—a quality he likely inherited from his father whom we were told always found a ‘silver lining’.

I really liked the book; a friend disagreed saying it was too pollyannaish. My thought was that with everything else we have heard recently, “Give me Pollyanna”. I liked the positivity, the portrayal of his family and the apparent equal partnership between the parents. It was interesting that the Dene and the Cree lived close together but spoke different languages and did not embrace Catholicism to the same degree and so the land was their commonality. The writing was delightful, containing many wonderful descriptive passages.

Having lived and worked in Manitoba, I really enjoyed the book as it was like going back into the past. I am aware that some consider it a book about a “fantasy” Manitoba. I was familiar with his father who periodically flew to Winnipeg to take part in dog sledding competitions. And I have traveled to the Northern area and witnessed the stunning landscape. My first awareness of Tomson Highway was as an author of children’s books which were marked by a playful kind of writing. A style that persists into this book and one not typical of others writing about the residential school experience—not everybody is on the same page. He covers a lot of topics —some familiar and some needing more discussion, and some about which we know little.

Permanent Astonishment is for me important because of the author’s knowledge of the Cree language and his use of it throughout the book in the text, though this does slow the reader down. His memories of his residential school are diverse and balanced including sexual abuse. Seasonal activities, language games, bullying, the role of lay brothers, parental support for education and grief for dead children are all dealt with in ways others have not. Tomson and his brother Rene were among the brightest students ever to attend these schools and it is of interest to see how they progressed. The book does become somewhat tedious in its descriptions of the Northern characters.

His humour permeated the book—within and between chapters. One example that I particularly enjoyed was the contrast between his description of how his family fished through the ice and the methods used for tourist fishers. His language was a remarkable blend of linguistic and cultural influences containing an ability to deploy truly experiential descriptions—magnificent word painting. There was some repetition in the details; however, this rendered the text readily readable as episodes.

Our rating:

Weather: A Novel: Fleeting Ruminations or Random Jottings?

(Haven’t tried to sort our thoughts about Jenny Orfill’s book into a linear arrangement—that would seem inappropriate given the structure of her text…)

Enjoyed parts & liked that it was set in a library and the topics that came up, but it contained too many relatively obscure references that were too distracting, e.g., Lucretius—the name was familiar, but the significance of the reference was not obvious. Found the Epigram interesting. I read her earlier book (Dept. of Speculation) and found it flowed more easily.

Read it twice as I found myself asking “What the hell was that about” after the first read. I liked the book but don’t know why. Liked the juxtaposition of a demanding life in a declining world couched in humor—a mixture of boners and off-kilter humor.

Read it twice and in the end was somewhat taken by it. Had difficulty with the style. Initially thought the first part was a prologue and wondered when the book would start. Once I realized that this was the style, I settled in. There was a sort of plot, but it went unresolved. It is not a book I would pick up because of the title although the cover was a interesting. I didn’t know if weather referred to her life or climate change. Not sorry I read it but unsure as to whom I would recommend it.

Just finished the book and the label “fleeting ruminations” surfaced in my thoughts—like when you are reading bits here and there and stop to ruminate for awhile and then move on. Was impressed by Lizzie’s “busy”ness but note that she doesn’t do anything to make the world better. She lets the doom-laden world dominate her.

The book reminded me a little of Woody Allen’s, Hannah & Her Sisters with all the intricacies of a dysfunctional family. Orfill’s fragmented style patterns that of Instagram, Twitter and other social media. The issues of modern life are cleverly brought forward as the narrative shifts conceptually between what’s happening today with Lizzie and what may happen tomorrow with the world. Although fragmented, and relatively inactive dramatically, we note entry into the Trumpian world at the beginning of Chapter 3. The book introduces the podcast world and the interconnectedness it nourishes.

Had great difficulty getting started—found the short separate fragments confusing, didn’t know who the protagonist was, and found it hard to make a connection until Chapter 3 when things started to make more sense. Read that the author was greatly influenced by Joy Wilson whose book, Ill Nature, is a biting rant against our impact on the world. Consider it one of the most depressing books I have read—notwithstanding the smart, cynical writing and the acerbic humor.

The structure was so fragmented that it was difficult to make sense of what it was all about. Despite the title, Weather: A Novel, my question is, “Is this a novel?” My impression was that it was a sequence of random jottings on her family, her work, and her daily life against the backdrop of the climate crisis. The structure was vaguely reminiscent of Jean-Luc Godard’s response to the question “Do your films have a beginning, middle and end?”— “Yes, but not necessarily in that order.” My other question—“Does the author have any obligation not to confuse the reader?”

This was a difficult read. I settled on listening to an audio version while following on Kindle. We are called to account in the epigram and quickly thrown smack dab into our crazy world with all its rules, protocols, guidelines, and tips for reframing and running our lives while seemingly being at a loss to address global crises. The “tweet-like” text covers many of the post information revolution social changes with a quirky sense of humor. It journeys into the post truth world of social media myth and illogical logic without hesitation. The scope of topics touched upon is dizzying, and perhaps, it is this that paralyzes Lizzie. I think there is comfort in being from the generation that is “aging out of the conversation”.

Our Rating:

The Spy and The Traitor: what a lot to talk about!

The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre prompted a lot of discussion. The story evoked a sense of connectedness to the world of John le Carré among our members and provided us with an insight into the role of Maggie Thatcher and others in the détente to the Cold War.

Although the book offered an interesting look inside the mind of a very brilliant man, the text was found repetitious at times and containing possibly unnecessary detail. Some members found the abundance of characters introduced during the first few chapters mind-numbing. Nonetheless for the most part it was thought to have a quick pace, like a yarn, with quite an exciting end. The chapters were noted to have an episodic quality, like a TV series. There was criticism of the placement of the pictures that revealed the outcome of the flight from Russia before the episode was finished. The participation of the diplomats in the escape and its details were considered awesome.

Most members had not heard of Oleg Gordievsky and were intrigued by his story and the role he played in the Cold War. They enjoyed the detail about the spy game and felt the book captured quite well the moral fogginess and the “wilderness of mirrors” enveloping espionage. They found the exploration of the motivation for espionage interesting and the scope of espionage activities remarkable. One member who had a spy in her family was captivated by the reveal of a spy’s life that the book provided. There was appreciation for the human cost paid by spies/traitors.

For the most part the book was considered well researched and well written. The genre was discussed and the labels of narrative nonfiction, and fluid yarn tossed about. The glimpse of the “Deep State” that the novel provided was considered disturbing and provoked reflection on the current role of espionage and other spy activities in modern life.

PS One member recommended another book by the author Agent Sonya.

Our rating:

Visitation: worthwhile but read it twice

(L) Book Cover (R) Reed warbler feeding the fledged cuckoo chick with a dragonfly

Here are some of the ideas our group expressed about Jenny Erpenbeck’s Visitation.

  • Beautiful, elegant, spare prose that must be read twice–were the opening salvos from our group. It is a book to own—received it as a gift but had difficulty getting into it— ‘What in the world…?’ To follow, you must read carefully. My own lack of detailed knowledge of German history was an impediment to appreciating the nuances of the story. The enormity of content is only barely perceptible on second reading.
  • Even with two reads, it was not easy to appreciate her concept of time which she expressed as ‘a verity we can’t see, can’t hear nor touch’.
  • Read three times, and made the longest notes I ever made as a college girl, prompting my father, whom I was visiting, to ask ‘when are you going to classes?’
  • Built my own chart of events from prologue to epilogue while noting that even the differences between the prologue and the epilogue could be the subject of a session with the creation of the place finished about 15,000 years ago and the destruction of the home completed over 15 days.
  • Had difficulty obtaining the book but was able to read her essays Not a Novel…which I felt made me more able to appreciate Visitation when I did get the book.
  • A sheer joy to read!
  • I didn’t like this book although I was not able to read it twice. Initially, I found it enjoyable as it was like Hans Christian Andersen with its fable style and its repetitive phrases but after the tale of the wealthy farmer and his four daughters, I felt a disconnect. Parenthetically, our group suggested that the disconnect illuminated the author’s purpose, i.e., to have the reader appreciate the journey traveled by Germany through the 20th century.   
  • Except for Doris’s and the architect’s wife’s stories, I could not relate to the bare, dispassionate style, the nameless characters and the absence of dialogue in narrating this complex area of history. As a counterpoint, some members thought this style reduced the chance that the reader would be distracted from the main story.
  • The gardener is a constant, a time traveler upon whom we come to rely on this century long journey. Variously, we considered him an entr’acte, a calming device, a metaphor for the German people–with his orderly meticulousness, a symbol for divine source and a representation of the eternal versus the ephemeral.  We appreciated how the gardener built upon the bedrock. He said little, worked silently with nature and the owners—cultivating and conserving the property. ‘A marvelous gardener—in sharp contrast to mine who tells me more things that he can’t do than those that he can’, said one member. And yet, the property is carved up and the gardener sees it decline in parallel with his own loss of vigor—much like the losses sustained by individual states following the creation of the German empire, and subsequently through the occupation and division of the country. Interestingly, observed one member, the gardener seemed more human in his decline.
  • Rather than Germany, some thought it was more representative of East Germany which endured changes in area, borders, and governments along with a serious decline in resources following the Russian occupation and the creation of the German Democratic Republic.
  • The downward trajectory of the property triggered members’ thoughts of the contemporary issues of climate change and destruction of the natural environment. 
  • The book began beautifully with the story of the land formed by different layers that served as the foundation for the land and the subsequent homes, and the depiction of the culture with its superstitions, rules and classes that would evolve into the modern German.
  • Home was an important theme. What does it mean to people? How are they affected by loss of home?
  • While lacking a personal tone, the narrative was very poignant, and evoked empathy.  The incredible conciseness intensified the sense of foreboding. And while not really telling individual stories, the book recounted what happened to Germans over a century through the stories of what happened to a home.

Footnotes

  • The novel was published in German under the title Heimsuchung, which could be translated as “home-seeking,” although in common usage it denotes various involuntary ways of being visited: “infestation,” “affliction,” “tragedy”, “disaster”, “plague”, “haunting” i.e., “holy visitation” as in “Mariä Heimsuchung.”
  • The cuckoo heard in the background throughout the book is highly metaphorical as the cuckoo is a bird that makes no nest of its own. Rather, it raids other birds’ nests, dumps the eggs and deposits its own eggs in the nest with the result that the unsuspecting foster parents to rear the cuckoo hatchlings.

Our rating:

The Silence of the Girls: a heroic gesture?

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker caught our readers’ attention readily with Achilles reputedly saying to Apollo ‘But we both know if you weren’t immortal, you’d be dead’. However, we found reading became more difficult quickly as the material in the book was brutal—not life as a woman wants it—with women and children treated as chattel. Yet, perhaps due to the quality of the narrative, we were engaged. “I looked forward to reading a chapter or two each night when I went to bed.”

We were confronted with a grim portrait of male culture—fighting all day and drinking all night, and a hopeless picture of women’s life—enslaved, brutalized and toiling, where the afterlife was the main hope for solace.

We found the introduction of so many characters interrupted the reading experience—who’s on first and who is playing, and what was their nature—who are the gods, the demigods, and the ordinary mortals?

In a departure from our usual format, we explored how the book raised “Then & Now” questions. Firstly, we discussed the continuing use of rape as a weapon of war, and the recent report from the Ukraine where 25 women in an occupied shelter were repeatedly raped for the purpose of ensuring that they would never produce a Ukrainian baby. Our group lamented with sadness how this echoed the low value assigned to women in Homeric times and the reported contemporary concern that refugee women may end up being housed by predators. One member remarked upon the concurrence of infectious disease and war, the plague during the Trojan war and COVID-19 during the Ukrainian invasion, and the associated blaming games. We noted the remarkable perversity of Apollo as god of healing/music and plague/vengeance.

We debated the use of modern idiom to describe the sexual violence. Many found these descriptions jarring and questioned the need to use them. Upon reflection we, and possibly the author, realized we had no way of knowing what words the women from 1200 BCE would have used to describe those events and their circumstances. And recognized that the author wanted to be graphic about the pain experienced by the women. Furthermore, we appreciated that from the beginning of the book there was little evidence that the narrative language was rooted in the past.

“This is a very brave topic for the author to have chosen”, commented one member. Modern knowledge of the period in which the Iliad was written and the time in which the supposed events occurred is limited. It is likely that our knowledge of male culture during those times exceeds our knowledge of female culture. We can criticize what the author chose to develop and what she left fuzzy. Nonetheless, the group shared the concern that it was difficult to locate in the place where the action was happening and found the use of modern language a barrier to transcending from now to then. There was a suggestion that the presentation of this material in verse form with a chorus (like the original) might have been more appealing.

Many commented upon ‘missed opportunities’ related to character development but we realized that Pat Barker may have heard that we did not want to include a book with more than 400 pages on our reading list.

The Island of Sea Women: leaving-home water-work

Everyone liked Lisa See’s, The Island of Sea Women, and were in awe of these incredible women, their diving capabilities, and their adaptability—their costumes, diving while at near term pregnancy and post partum in Vladivostok. We were introduced to a totally unknown culture. The book was a big learn containing an immense amount of well researched information delivered in an authentic way.

One member commented that she was aware of abalone farming, but had never heard of the haenyeo. Another, who grew up knowing little of Korea or Vietnam, was very glad to have read this book. Another reflected on how this was another example of the deleterious effects of the territorial divisions made at the end of World War II. For most, there was the realization that the suppression of the stories of the Jeju uprising and subsequent killing and punishment of its veterans and sympathizers finds a parallel in the Canadian residential school stories. Additionally, there was fascination with Shamanism and its hundreds of female deities and the rituals for death, the Jeju islanders’ reconciliation process, and the question of betrayal and forgiveness.

The book made it clear that it was only at a superficial level that this was a matriarchal society. Owing to the specifics of taxes imposed by the Japanese on the Jeju Island fishery, women had become the fishers and prime breadwinners, and men the child minders. However, the responsibility for ancestor worship still resided with males, property was still owned by males and females were not educated.

Some liked the book format with present day events triggering a recounting of the past. There was a comment that the story was interesting but quite contrived. Another comment was that there was a repetitiousness and occasional patchiness in the quality of the narrative—bursts of imagery tagged onto rather pedantic passages—almost suggesting more than one author for the section.

Rating

Homeland Elegies: the demise of the American dream

Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar received a very high rating from our Book Group. The prose was dense yet highly engaging, employing a conversational style. The author lamented the demise of the “American Dream” in eight “elegies” covering subjects ranging from racism including how it feels to be its target; how the country became one shaped by debt and money and how the pervasiveness of capitalism transformed many things including college into a customer experience, hero worship into money worship; how assimilation threatens the immigrant family; and the nuances of cultural identity. One member drew our attention to a book with a comparable view of the dark side of America, i.e., Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder which was made into an Oscar winning movie.

A question raised was “Is this book autofiction?” To which the answer appears to be “Yes”. However, it could be sub classified as “autofiction” with a twist—the author has explained the “auto” part as a device for sidestepping satire in his portray of society rather than related to his seeking personal truth.

“I learned a lot”. “Reading this book resulted in my appreciation of myself as a “white unaware”. “Wonderful scene painting, almost too much—too intellectual, too many ideas, too many references. There were mixed reactions to the sexually explicit sections; “gratuitous”, “went too far”, “for commercial reasons”, “part of the scene”, and “didn’t both me”.

Rating