June 2009 Archives

The Houston Central Market Book Club met last Monday, June 8, 2009 to discuss WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sara Gruen. The novel is a circus story and all of the seventeen attendees of our discussion agreed that the best part was the vivid description of circus life and the supporting characters that exemplified circus life during lean times, in this case the depression era. Most of us also agreed that the part we liked the least was the author's inability to provide main characters that had "meat on their bones" (my phraseology, not the group's), main characters who had very little complexity and could be described either as "bad" or "good" with not much gray area.

Our discussion began with a question from the leader, Mia who asked about the prologue where the author gives us an advance excerpt (supposedly) and describes the animals let loose in the circus with Marlena being involved in the killing of some person or some animal, it isn't exactly clear. This technique seemed to be effective in enticing the reader to move quickly into the story hoping to find out what happens in the case of such a disaster.

One attendee mentioned the connection with the biblical story of Jacob which was interesting but not something we talked about at length. The same attendee had worked at a zoo and was knowledgeable about exotic animals and though we normally don't like to talk at length about outside books or experiences that the rest of us have no knowledge of, in this case, she was brief but was able to confirm that the details about the animals in the book were very realistic in her experience. We talked a bit about elephants since one of the more endearing parts of the story focused on Rosie, a very smart elephant but who responded only to commands in Polish, which conveniently was a language that Jacob, the main protagonist, understood because of his family background.

I criticized Jacob who was a young man recently in veterinary school (though not graduated yet) at Cornell. He seemed to rarely demonstrate any behaviour except that which was above reproach. He seemed so one-dimensional. One of the guys in the group commented that he thought the author was not good at describing men especially since the author was female. Others commented that they didn't think the author did a good job of the female either, though most of us thought the "old timers" of the circus were characterized much better. For example, the characters of Camel (the old guy who was an alcoholic) and Walter, the dwarf with his beloved dog, Queenie were described particularly well.

Also discussed was what many thought was a contrived ending with many parts of the story disposed of in a manner that seemed way too convenient for several of us. I won't discuss details to avoid being a spoiler.

We hadn't gone too far into the discussion when Mia asked what else we wanted to talk about. Normally the moderator doesn't run out of questions so quickly nor do the attendees run out of things to talk about. I took this opportunity to begin a discussion about my opinion that the book was "light fiction" and not the type of book we normally read, hence the reason that finding questions for discussion was somewhat difficult, at least questions that were related to issues with any depth. Most of our discussions cover books that are in many cases even tedious to read but the discussions make the work worthwhile. I wanted the opinion of others about how disappointed they were in the book.

Surprisingly, many of the attendees, at least the ones that were vocal said that they weren't sorry they had read the book even though they agreed it wasn't very typical of the type of books we discuss. I was relieved to feel that the others didn't blame me (at least too much) for wasting their time. We did a lot of talking about how we felt about reading classics or more serious fiction. Several in the group indicated that they had a background in English Literature and that the last thing they wanted to do was to read boring literature since they had had to do too much of that while going to school.

After the discussion, we continued to talk about the subject over glasses of wine downstairs in the cafe at Central Market. There were at least nine of us and I concluded both from our discussion earlier as well as from the discussion later that most are very interested in reading good literature but we don't want to read literature that is the kind you count every page. We also talked about how we might split up some of the great works such as WAR AND PEACE by Tolstoy and BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens in order to keep the amount of pages needing to be read every month to a moderate amount.

In the case of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, I didn't follow the usual criteria in determining whether to include it on the ballot. It has won no major book award nor is it a classic. I did read a promising review in the New York Times as well as have a good impression of Mia and her prior contributions to our group so I decided to include it on the ballot. I definitely do not blame Mia. I myself have suggested titles before that turned out to be ones I regretted. This can happen unfortunately no matter how dilligent we are in picking our titles.

It has taught me that if I relax the criteria, I risk wasting the time of the readers of this group though most were very polite and not complaining. We all agree that just because a book is an award winner or written by a classic author, this doesn't mean it will be a Great Book but at least it improves the odds. I think that is all I can ask for at this time.

I plan to talk about the criteria in our discussion (at the beginning and end) in the future so others will know more about what we want on our reading list. Currently, my criteria is that it must meet one of the following:

  1. A classic (GREAT GATSBY, MRS. DALLOWAY, etc.)
  2. A book written by a classic author
  3. Be the winner of one of the following major literature awards,
    • Pulitzer
    • Booker
    • National Book Awards
    • Independent Publisher's Book Awards
    • Pen/Faulkner Award
  4. written by an author who has won a Pulitzer, Booker or won the Nobel Prize.
  5. Be on the lists of "great literature" as can be found on the web such as:
    • Times Magazine list of best 100 book written since 1923.
    • Time Magazine list of best 100 books of all time
    • Modern Library List of best 100 books
    • Random House list of best 100 books
    • Penguin classics
    • Chicago Great Books list as reflected in their anthologies or on their web site at http://www.greatbooks.org.

  6. International award winning books - this will have to remain somewhat nebulous since it is not always easy to get information about the literary awards of foreign countries but using Wikipedia.org, I have found it to be easier in recent history. Anyone wanting a foreign book by a not so well known author needs to submit the title to me and I will research.

Looking forward to our next discussion on July 13th of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEXT by Ken Kesey. See Houston Book Clubs website for more info.

The Montrose Great Books discussion at the Freed-Montrose Library last night (June 4th) of TOO LOUD A SOLITUDE by Bohumil Hrabal was led by Jo and was interesting but in the cold light of day as I'm beginning this report the next day, I realize that my understanding of the book is not much better than before the discussion. This happens sometimes, for me anyway. This book seems to be one of the most enigmatic books we've read in recent memory. There were seventeen of us and we covered many themes and opinions of the work last night and we had many questions but I don't remember too many definitive answers or conclusions.

Jo after presenting some brief biographical information about the author began the discussion by asking "How apparent is it that this is the last book of an aging writer?" The main reaction was that we were surprised to find out this was his last work. Some asked the question about why there was such a long period between the self-publication of this book in 1976 and his death in 1997? Hence the beginning of the pattern we seemed to fall into of having questions without answers.

The narrator named Hanta reminds us many many times that he has worked for thirty five years in the cellar compacting trash and educating himself on the sly using the great books he rescues from the trash. As a result of not having many definitive conclusions about the book's message, I think I will focus more than I usually do on the questions we raised, beginning with the rats and mice.

One of the numerous recurring themes was the various encounters by Hanta the narrator with the mice and rats in the cellar where he worked. Most thought the narrator was sympathetic and almost affectionate to the mice who wanted to proliferate and who possibly were a metaphor for the masses and the common man as opposed to the brown and white rats who were agressive, at least with each other and who had bitter wars that once over would always start again with never a resolution. Some in our group thought the rats might represent political leaders, in other words those with ideological axes to grind. Though Hanta was sympathetic to the mice, he still crushed them into the bales of wastepaper with his press when they got in the way. One thoughtful attendee suggested that Hanta's sympathetic but cruel actions might represent the behavior of a leader (since the narrator actually says that "I'm a bit of a rat myself"), who was demonstrating responsibility taking necessary measures but feeling sad and guilt about many of the unavoidable consequences - isn't this how all leaders should be? -rather than be insensitive to those whose lives they disastrously affect?

Someone commented that this book was a bale of crushed books, itself. We all seemed to agree especially considering the narration style which was free-flowing prose, not exactly stream of consciousness in my opinion, but especially rich in visions and illusions and fantasies made possible by Hanta's wide reading.

Someone else mentioned that even if a book is destroyed and never read, it is still an important book according to the author. And this is the kind of point that makes me glad I read the book even though I don't understand much of it. The prose is wonderful in my opinion. For example, the narrator says that "inquisitors burn books in vain", "if a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself"

I read somewhere on the web "Often, one senses that Hrabal has taken a brief comic tale heard in the pub, and exaggerated its comic essence" and "Hrabal is an early magical realist". I think this must definitely apply here. We didn't discuss the humor much. I think our time trying to understand the meaning of some of the absurdity might have been better spent simply laughing at some of these incredible contortions of human behavior - comic relief coupled with magical realism is how best I would describe this book. This in particular applies to the ending which I won't describe here since I don't want to be a spoiler.

On one key issue we disagreed which was the theme of religion, whether there was such a theme or not. I find this part of our discussion quite perplexing. How can the author have the narrator make so many references to "Christ" and "divinity" and "heavens" and "church" without considering a religious theme? Also, as pointed out by an attendee, the ending which involves messages attached to kites may also be a religious reference because kites were used by Tibetan monks to send messages to deities, (I believe that was how it was described). But as someone who has read other books by the author pointed out, his books tend to be autobiographical and his biography shows that religion isn't a significant part of his life.

We did discuss briefly that perhaps the theme was spiritual instead of religious. I don't believe there was a "Christian" theme but still seems too many references without some point being made. Of course there is always the possibility that the author is using absurdity or sarcasm. The narrator who is treated as a simpleton except for his amazing self-education perhaps is being shown to still be traditionally religious because as he is described, he is still very much a worker and member of the "old guard" (that's yet another theme, old versus modern.) This is a good time to mention one of our rules, that we don't have to agree and we definitely didn't on this point.

As I've mentioned before, the discussions for me always seem to generate more questions than answers which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. We didn't talk about the philosophy professor or Manca very much. We talked about several other themes including gypies, excrement, communism, whether the narrator was an artist, the tiny gypsy which was the love of his life and the use of the title of the book "too loud of solitude". The narrator says that he is "alone but not lonely". The title basically seems to refer to an intensity in his aloneness when he on two occasions in the book gets extremely (obsessively) involved in his work.(These last words are mostly mine but also a paraphrase of the groups ideas on this.)

One member as we were going around the group at the end explained that for him, there were too many metaphors that he didn't understand and therefore that he didn't connect with the book. Though many liked the book, especially the writing, I believe this is one of those books written mostly for other writers with so many references that are over the head of most average readers (with average education and I'm speaking for myself here). So I agree with this last reviewer, that there were too many metaphors over my head. However, the writing was still wonderful and I'm not sorry that I had the opportunity to read and discuss.

Looking forward to next time, on July 2nd at 6pm at the Houston Freed-Montrose Library when we will discuss SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury.

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