Everyone loved the writing but most (if not all) agreed it was like viewing the Mona Lisa in a sewer. Big unanswered question - what was intent of the author? (Of course we don't believe what he says in the epilogue). Was he just enjoying thumbing his nose at the reader in contempt or laughing at us as he was forcing us to endure the putrid environment so we could enjoy the beautiful writing or was it autobiographical to some extent or what?
As usual, I always have more questions afterwards. Apologies that this is such a short entry (maybe some of you will be glad, LOL) but thought it was better to put something short here rather than nothing at all (especially since it has been so long since I've written here).
Next time on May 3, 2012, we will discuss selected essays from LETTERS FROM THE EARTH by Mark Twain. More details at /www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/.
]]>Jean was a very capable moderator of twenty-one (21) attendees whose opinions were all strong but widely divergent. FYI - Jean moderated because she was the one who originally submitted the title for our ballot. For those not aware, we vote every six months on books which generally are winners of major literary awards or whose authors are winners of major literary awards or whose authors are writers of traditional classics such as Tolstoy, Hemingway, etc..
In response to one of Jean's first questions, many attendees were very quick to voice the opinion that they thought Harry Angstrom, otherwise known as "Rabbit" and the main character was a narcisistic, immature, misogynistic, jack-ass. My contribution to this was the opinion that Harry was missing any self-awareness, consequently he was always making "messes" and didn't appear to understand how he might be responsible or how he might avoid making mistakes in the future.
One of the questions Jean asked the group was why Harry was given the nickame of "Rabbit" by the author. I thought one interesting observation that came later but was very pertinent was that Harry had many animal qualities, driven by hormones, fear, pleasure, and stimulation. He didn't seem to have much cerebral activity going on though nearly every one seemed to agree he was fairly smart. Everyone laughed when someone else commented that Harry seemed to procreate like a rabbit. One of his final acts in the book was the act of "running" from a woman whom he had gotten pregnant and who wasn't his wife and who had wanted to use contraception but Harry was opposed because he liked for things to "just happen".
Most agreed that the story was an accumulation of incredibly mundance observations and details, so mundane that it was very tedious and/or uncomfortable to read. All agreed that the author was great, brilliant, a genius or pick your adjective if it relates to a writer with great talent. But many though not all agreed that the style of writing was not appealing to those who enjoy efficient verbage which accomplishes the most vivid mental pictures with the least amount of words. This is pretty much opposite of how one would describe John Updike's style in this book.
The mundane details were astonishing in the first sex scene between Harry and Ruth. Though in general, the book seemed "dated" to me and not characteristic of a more modern style that I prefer, the details in this sex scene appeared to be more modern than not, and one attendee commented that this seemed to be amazing in how close it comes to being pornography without being pornography, a type of writing that seems much more common now than it was back in the 60's when this book was written.
Another aspect of Updike's style in this book which I mentioned in the discussion was the reference to body parts in almost every encounter Harry had with others, whether female or male, parent or child, sexual or not sexual - legs, thighs, mounds of flesh and lots of references to "faces", whether it was at times where Harry couldn't look at someone's "face" or whether he was petting someone's "face" or whether he noticed how angry their "facial" expression was. In one case he dreamed about "Janice's face" rather than dreamed about "Janice". These of course can be important details but why weren't the descriptions about someone being angry rather than their face being angry? We didn't have an answer for that question.
All of the characters were discussed either in depth or at last partially including Harry's high school coach Tothero, Harry's wife Janice, his parents and his prostitute girlfriend Ruth, the Episcopalian minister Eccles and his wife Lucy as well as Janice's parents and Harry's son, Nelson.
One final question I'll mention that was brought up in our discussion but which remained unanswered was the theme of religion. One of the characters was an Episcopalian minister who tried to be a mentor to Harry but was unsuccessful. What was Updike trying to accomplish with this character as well as with many other settings where a church was included or where discussions about Harry's belief or lack of belief in God were included at various stages in the story? Something to ponder about and research the web about which is what I like to do AFTER the discussion, not before. This is a particular rule I like to follow so I can remain ignorant about authoritative interpretations of a work until later after I have formed my own opinion.
Looking forward to our next discussion November 3rd at Houston Freed Montrose Library from 6pm to 8pm. Discussion will be followed by socializing at the Black Lab restaurant next door to the library (we don't normally do too much socializing during the discussion). The book next time will be HUNGER by Knut Hamsun. More info on our website at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose
]]>Alice began with biographical information of the author and then proceeded to ask numerous open-ended questions of the group as the moderator is supposed to do. Most of us (except one) had never heard of the author. But all were impressed with the amazingly beautiful writing and the characterizations. The characters who grew up during the course of the story were particularly endearing - many in our group shared how they could relate to the innocence and also deviousness of Evelina, Joseph and Corwin as they navigated with difficulty through their childhood in a community where secrets and clannishness and bigotry were prevalent.
Also, appreciated by everyone was the humor portrayed by characters such as Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather who enjoyed irritating Father Cassidy, the Catholic priest who continued to promote regular Sunday mass attendance despite an unwilling audience.
The book also included more serious aspects such as abhorrent behavior by the leader of a religious cult who abused his wife and children. Also serious was the juvenile delinquency of a young man who is nearly imprisoned for robbery until Judge Coutts uses creativity in passing punishment requiring that the young man learn to play the violin from the old man, Shamengwa (brother of Mooshum). We all learned that the musical skill that developed so beautifully was a gift that the young man inherited from his forebears and which he almost missed the opportunity to develop had it not been for the wise Judge.
Evelina early in the story as she narrates the first part describes "romantic trials" that she learns about when she "listened to Mooshum not only from suspense but for instructions on how to behave when our moment of recognition or perhaps our romantic trial should arrive." After thinking about the story during and after the discussion, I've come to the conclusion that this statement summarizes the book best. I've become convinced that the fragmented nature of the stories are not fragmented if you consider it to be organized around "romantic trials" or pairs - such as Mooshum and Neve, Aunt Geraldine and Judge Coutts, Cordelia and Judge Coutts, Evelina and Corwin, Mooshum and Junesse, Marn and Billy, John Wildstrand and Maggie, John Wildstrand and Neve, Neve and Billy, Evelina and Nonette, Evelina and Sister Godzilla, etc. etc. - lots and lots more, too many to include here even if I remembered them all without looking back at the text.
But as we went around the room giving everyone a chance to give their final general opinion or mention something they hadn't had a chance to mention earlier, there was a majority who said that the quality of the writing was what they liked best about the book. Though it was definitely fragmented as many mentioned, the skill of the author linking all the characters together relating them to one incident in the past, the unsolved murder, was phenomenal. Definitely a great book in my opinion, one that if read again, I'm sure I would gain even more insight and pleasure.
Looking forward to next months discussion of ONE AMAZING THING by Chitra Divakaruni on September 12th by our Houston Central Market Book Club
FYI - Our September book was chosen as part of an annual Houston city-wide initiative to promote the reading of one book by everyone in the city. There will be other discussions around the city also. Check their website at http://www.gulfcoastreads.org/ for more details.
]]>One of the themes of the book included the religion of Islam. One of the characters, Taha, wanted a job as a police officer but was turned down because his father had the job of doorkeeper, a job with no status. Though Egyptian laws prohibited rejections like this, because of corruption, Taha had no channel for justice. As a result, his bitterness drove him to protesting with students, and subsequently being tortured and ultimately becoming a terrorist. In a terrorist operation by a group he joins, he kills the man who tortured him.
The book was a "slice of life" as described by one attendee. Because it was intended to represent reality rather than using symbols and metaphors for its message or messages typical of a "roman a clef", there were many themes including Egyptian culture and history and customs, poverty, corruption, homosexuality and heterosexual sexual and romantic liasons, political unrest, family loyalty, and rights (or lack therof) of Egyptian Islamic women.
Though the story had some stereotypical characters and some Danielle Steele type story elements (i.e. a soap opera of wealth and poverty, idyllic romance and/or romance gone sour,etc.), I am still glad I read it. I enjoyed the originality of the context and location of the story which was the community of people, mostly Islamic, in Cairo, Egypt living in and on the roof of a building that exists there today. And also the quality of the writing was first rate. The author is quite a story-teller. I found this to be a bit of a "page turner" especially once you get into it and get accustomed to the foreign names (there are lots of them). The translation has won awards and may be part of the reason the quality is not lacking.
I especially recommend this if you're American and would like to visit a place that is probably foreign to how you live in your day to day life. Our group reads so many (though not all) American and British authors, I was glad of this chance to visit a place totally foreign to anything I have ever experienced.
Following the discussion, we elected new titles to be added to our existing reading list. New titles selected include:
Looking forward to next months discussion of THE CYBERIAD by Stanislaw Lem on July 7 at 6pm at The Havens Center, 1827 W. Alabama, Houston, TX.
]]>One thing I definitely haven't forgotten and probably won't is that Jackie was a great moderator for this discussion. Given the facts that the book was 800 plus pages long and that there were twenty attendees including three new members also increased the skill required for moderating the group but Jackie handled it very well.
One of the primary themes of discussion was of course Tolstoy's portrayal of Anna - was he sympathetic to her problems? what were her problems? how did they differ from the problems Vronsky, her lover encountered as a result of their affair? how did the way Anna dealt with her problems differ from how Levin dealt with being disappointed in love, at least at first?
Considering the stature of ANNA KARENINA as a masterpiece in world literature, much has been written about all of this and more on the web. Because ANNA KARENINA was an Oprah's Book Club selection several years ago, this means that those of us interested in reading what the world thought about the book had even more material to help in forming our opinions. But in our book club, which is affiliated with Great Books, we discourage bringing in outside sources, at least during the main part of our discussion. We try to arrive at our own conclusions without help from outside reviewers.
If any attendee has read the outside reviews, and of course I'm sure there were several who did, we ask that they present the ideas as their own and more importantly, be prepared to defend the ideas in their own words, not always an easy thing.
As I'm writing this, I haven't yet explored the web for literary opinions. I plan to do that but I wanted to finish this write-up first so I wouldn't be tempted to include ideas not covered in our discussion here. My first reaction to the discussion was my amazement that we had such a good turnout given that most of the attendees are people who work outside the home and some even with children at home. I was impressed that there was so much interest in reading literature of great quality and stature.
One of my questions and comments during the discussion was my observation that Tolstoy spends quite a bit of time at the beginning of the story introducing Stiva, who is Anna's brother. I was a bit impatient waiting for Anna to come on the scene. I wonder if this might have been one of Tolstoy's reasons for this technique, which causes the reader to endure the suspense before they can finally "see" Anna. One viewpoint from the group about this point explained that the verbage about Stiva and his wife Dolly was also necessary to set up the story as it depicts the happiness or unhappiness of the main characters or couples, i.e. Stiva and Dolly versus Anna and Vonsky versus Levin and Kitty.
We talked about the descriptions of the different forms of passion that can be applied to all the main characters in these relationships. Stiva had no self-control and felt no inclination to feel any guilt about his affairs or even to try to change despite how much it hurt his wife. Dolly was worn out and disappointed in dealing time after time with Stiva's affairs but remained tied to the marriage in the end because of her children. Levin, though tempted on a couple of occasions including once with Anna, because of his dedication to his work was able to keep from following Stiva's example. In fact, Levin seems not to understand Stiva's propensity for extravagant spending and womanizing. We all agreed that "Levin versus Stiva" was another metaphor for the "traditional versus liberal" and "Moscow versus Petersburg" and "country versus city" dichotomies.
We all seemed to agree that the inclusion of "women's issues" by Tolstoy was definitely present though we didn't come to any conclusion about to what extent the treatment by Tolstoy was similar to modern feminism. Given the time the book was written and the culture of Tolstoy's Russia, we thought it certainly was a sign of advanced thinking regarding the inclusion of intelligent, educated, aristocratic women being bored along with the depiction of a double standard leading to a difference in how Vronsky suffered from the affair versus how Anna suffered as a result.
An aspect to the same issue was that Anna, unlike Levin had no activity that could help her keep her mind on constructive activity. Her isolation from her friends in society was imposed on her because of her separation from her husband Alexei. Vronsky felt no such repercussions and was able to be part of political events and his hospital charity without any concern that he would be ostracized as Anna was in the scene where she ventured to the theatre with her Aunt. Though Tolstoy doesn't allow his description of Anna to be totally sympathetic because he paints her as blaming Vronsky unfairly for things that aren't his fault. He also shows her using her high degree of beauty and charm to dally cruelly with the feelings of Levin, no matter how brief. He paints her as a character deeply conflicted because of her basically having to choose between the love of her son versus the love of Vronsky.
We talked about the religious theme and how many of the characters whom the author depicted sympathetically chose to practice their religion differently. The main example of this was Levin and his wife Kitty. Levin who initially was an unbeliever but who was converted during the course of the story chose to practice in a way that was different from the more traditional religious practice of his young wife but from what we could tell, this wasn't necessarily a negative difference. Instead Tolstoy was using this as an example of how we are all different. The complex descriptions of the characters and especially their mental thoughts and the process by which they came to conclusions and decided to act or not act was exceptionally rich and a pleasure to read. As someone mentioned, Tolstoy even tells us what is going on inside the mind of Levin's dog when he is hunting and taking directions from Levin.
We discussed many other characters, themes, incidents and conclusions in the book. I am happy to report that in my opinion, we covered the major elements fairly well. From what I could tell, others agreed with my conclusion. I was pleasantly surprised that we could do such a good job and a satisfying one of talking about such a complex literary masterpiece within the 2 hour limit (minus a few minutes for conclusions as we go around the table the last time).
At the end of the discussion, we elected a new slate of titles for July thru December. I'll be posting those soon at www.houstonbookclubs.org Looking forward to our next discussion on May 10, 2010 of SURFACING by Margaret Atwood.
]]>I thought the first responder in our group was very enlightening when she noted that this sentence used the word "heard" at the end of it indicating that the narrator of the story was distancing himself from the story when in fact, he was a very key participant and not just one on the periphery listening. This was one of the first indicators of the immense denial that the narrator suffered from.
Others in our group described him as a "pushover" and also as guilty of "lying by omission". The comment about "lying" led Jackie to ask us about the credibility of the narrator. Did we believe him? Was he telling us the truth? It was noted that at one point, the narrator whose name is Dowell tells us that Florence, his wife, was never out of his site and then shortly after that, he comments that in fact, yes, she definitely was out of his site, especially since she locked her bedroom door every evening, a bedroom that was not shared by both the narrator and his wife. What are we to think?
In response to this, we also talked about how the narrator changed his opinions numerous times from one extreme to another as he told the story. The key characters about whom his opinions changed were Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, a married couple whom the narrator classifies, numerous times as "good people". It was their dysfunctional marriage and the fact they were so mismatched that was also an example of the "saddest story" in my opinion. At times, the narrator loves them and other times, he hates them. It was at this point, I think that it became clear or clearer to me that the author was showing the "silent reader" how someone can psychologically change their mind based on events, change again and change once more. It happens. It was pointed out that this is actually a very realistic type of phenomenon. That people have both good and "dark sides" which is a theme that I greatly enjoy reading about whenever it comes up and it comes up very often in Great Books (uppercase "G" and "B").
And Edward Ashburnham definitely had a dark side. Initially, the report by the narrator is negative and in my opinion, it grows more positive and then with a diversion represented by a "vulgar" affair, becomes negative again with a final conclusion of being positive. (And maybe even more changes back and forth than what I've described here.) I don't want to provide any "spoilers", i.e. details that will impact the suspense that someone will experience not knowing how this ends so I won't continue further with events concerning Edwards mistakes or missteps or with events that were positive. But we are privy to quite a bit of information in this regard which basically constitutes most of the substance of the book.
Reading this, one might ask, what makes this story special since immoral characters or ambivalent ones are very commonplace in literature. We talked about one of the key aspects of the story being the way the author has the narrator ramble back and forth in time. It is somewhat confusing but I believe the author is simply letting us participate in the confusion the narrator experiences as he reflects on what has happened. We are viewing how the narrator arrives at an understanding about himself and the other characters. This is often something that happens in real life only after some "mulling over" or ruminating about details until things become clear. And oftentimes, the ruminating is not "linear" but instead consists of re-tracing occurrances trying to view them from different sides from the viewpoint of different people recognizing ones own lack of certainty along the way, something that the narrator does very often. This is the best part, I think - the part where the reader is privy to the psychological machinations of the narrator's mind, how it works at arriving at conclusions about himself and others after being in denial for so many years, at least twelve to be exact which was the number of years he was married to Florence. The author describes this psychological journey very well, in my opinion.
We covered details about the nine years that the narrator didn't remember really doing anything. One attendee suggested that he might be gay and I agreed this might be a possibility or at least thought that he was passive and effeminate because of his references to inadequacies in the realm of "sexual instincts". The narrator was married to Florence who didn't love him, and who was an invalid because of a heart condition or at least this is what we are led to believe in the first part. This caused the narrator to basically become her nursemaid, something that he did very well but he owns up to the fact that if he had a choice, this was not something he wanted to be.
Jackie led us back to her earlier question asking us again about "What kind of an unreliable narrator was he?" I spoke about his unreliability being due to the fact that he was not consciously aware of his real feelings and hence this ignorance impacted his reliabilty. How can you be credible about things you don't know or understand? Someone else mentioned that they couldn't imagine him not on some level understanding that his wife was deceiving him. I wonder if this isn't the weakest part of the story, that the author really stretched credulity in having us believe the narrator was deceived for so long. There were many in the group who nodded their heads at this point.
Other parts of the story we discussed included:
Besides the discussion, we also elected new books for our reading list. Check out our web page at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/CentralMarket to see the list. (Though it may take me a week or so to get the dates coordinated and posted so stay tuned. Haven't done this yet as of this writing.)
Looking forward to our next discussion of THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene next time, November 9, 2009 at 7:00pm in the Community Room upstairs at Houston Central Market.
]]>One reason offered by one of twelve attendees of the Montrose Great Books book club at our discussion last night on Thursday, October 1, 2009 at Houston Freed-Montrose Library was that since the story was about Janie finding her own voice, it was appropriate to have that happen as she told the story. Even in the courtroom scene at the end of the novel, her testimony and voice wasn't recorded in the book. It was pointed out that some of the revelations uncovered as the story unfolded might not have been uncovered during the novel if Janie hadn't of had the benefit of time and more maturity to discover later exactly what self-revelations she really experienced. Her journey in the novel "reframes her whole life" as someone said and this can best be understood with hindsight. This seems to support a very significant theme: that introspection and looking inward is a very good thing in order to find happiness and self-satisfaction and even more importantly to find yourself and your identity.
Some pointed out that there was more than one narrator or that Janie wasn't really the narrator. That there was an omniscient narrator even though at the beginning it is explained that Janie is telling the story to Phoeby. For example in Palm Beach after the storm when Tea Cake was "kidnapped" by two men with rifles and ordered to help dig graves for dead bodies. Janie wasn't there but the reader hears the details about the events along with Tea Cake's frustration about not being able to get back to Janie. No one felt this was confusing, just "poetic license" more or less.
One of the first topics to surface as a result of a contribution from an attendee and not as the answer to a question was the opinion voiced by one person that the book was an extremely derogatory portrayal of black culture. The discussion got very animated with nearly everyone in the room disagreeing except the person who voiced the opinion originally. What is rather amusing is that initially, I also disagreed and didn't think the portrayal was so negative but as we ended the discussion, I remembered my opinion that the portrayal of the black people at least at the end of the book during the trial WAS very negative. Funny how opinions and comments can come full circle with disagreement at first and then sometimes followed by agreement later. Discussions are always very dynamic and can be quite a learning experience, they are for me anyway. And as I've said numerous times here and at our meetings, there is no requirement that we all agree.
We talked about the symbol of the Pear Tree. On page 11, Janie remarks as she sits under a pear tree: "Oh to be a pear tree, any tree in bloom!" This would be much more desirable to her than as she goes on to say later, the "things" that her grandmother wants to offer her via a marriage to Logan Killicks, a very old and relatively prosperous landowner and widower.
Why was Janie so hostile to her grandmother about the marital arrangement? Couldn't she see that her grandmother loved her and wanted what was best for her? Some thought maybe it was because she felt like she was "sold to the highest bidder". Others thought she basically was in a loveless marriage and once she realized this, her desperation was understandable, especially given her young age.
The book, as everyone agreed, is a "coming of age" story and Janie's drive away from the "things" her grandmother wanted for her becomes stronger and stronger as time passes as reflected in passages such as on page 89 where she explains that she is "getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people".
Some thought her statement on page 89, where she says "she hated her grandmother" (after she had time to think after her second marriage) was too strong, and not understandable. Others in our discussion reminded us of Janie's words: that her grandmother, Nanny, had taken the horizon and tied "it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her." "Horizon" is a strong theme and is brought up again in the end symbolizing freedom and independence and the search for ones identity plus the satisfaction of having found and strengthened ones identity with more opportunity always being just out of reach. Her grandmother had been an obstacle and almost prevented Janie from her self-discovery, something she valued more highly than anything. even her blood-relationship to her grandmother who had raised her because her own mother disappeared.
It was noted in our discussion that the fact that Janie didn't have children allowed her freedom that she otherwise wouldn't have had. Some thought no matter how much she loved Teacake, (the love of her life) she wouldn't have gone off with him had she had children to take care of. Also, if she had had children, she probably would have understood her grandmother better.
We moved on in the discussion to the subject of Jodie her second husband who everyone thought was very domineering. Despite this negative trait, most in our group didn't think of him as a bad guy. He was an exceptional leader for the town, though his pinnacle of success seemed to be when he had unequivocal power with no threat from anyone else. As someone in our discussion described him, he was a "big fish in a little pond" and seemed just fine with that and didn't seek other channels to try to improve himself or his town. In other words, his horizons were basically limited despite his initial ambitions when he first met Janie. He was of course flawed and for cultural reasons, perhaps reasons embedded in the black culture during this time (1937), his attitude toward women and how a marital relationship should be was seriously flawed also. It was commented that Janie might as well have been a slave. She was in yet another loveless marriage that as passages in the book explain, she didn't feel she had any other options. This low point basically showed that she still had a long way to go on her journey in finding herself.
I reported some biographical information at the beginning of the discussion regarding the fact that this book by Zora Neal Hurston was vilified by many in the black community including most famously by Richard Wright, author of NATIVE SON because there was no focus on rascism and on the anger of the black community. When we next talked about the theme of sexism in the book, most if not all thought that any anger in the tone of the book was focused more on the sexism as demonstrated by the black men in the little community of Eatonville, Florida where Jodie was mayor and where Janie was expected to be on a pedestal above the common black folk rather than on racism by whites.
We noted there were a few negative descriptions of white people, especially right after the storm but for the most part, most negativity was aimed at men. Even at the trial at the end of the book, the author is very generous with the white folks who side with Janie and not very generous with the black folks who unfairly turn out against Janie until all is finally forgiven. For me anyway, it became clear that the author was ahead of her time regarding the issue of sexism and that spokesmen for the black culture who were all male at the time held her accusations of sexism against her preventing them from being able to appreciate the quality of her writing.
Included at the beginning of the story were details about Janie's growing-up and about the fact that Janie's mother was half white. Janie's light and somewhat Caucasian features with straight hair contributed to Janie's isolation. As a result, she wasn't accepted so easily by blacks and of course not whites. She was accepted however by Mrs Turner, a black woman Janie met while traveling in Florida to the "muck" with her third husband, Teacake. Janie didn't welcome the friendship. Mrs. Turner was another example of the author being critical of her own race. Mrs. Turner felt herself better than most of the other blacks who unlike herself did not have Caucasian facial features and hence Mrs. Turner was a clear example of internalized racism.
This character was part of the broader picture that the author paints regarding the black community. That there are parts of this community that are dysfunctional, including sexism and their own brand of racism that contributes to the reader having a sense as described by one person in our group that we are getting a view of an anthropological study and I couldn't agree with him more. This best described what I liked best about the book, a view of the black community that I have never been shown before so eloquently. Many in our group found the story very upbeat and for some even "joyous". Just as there was negativity in this "anthropological study", there was also a lot of positive community connections in Eatonville as well as in the last part of the book that covers the time Janie spends in "the muck" with the "real love of her life" named Teacake whom she met after her second husband died.
We also talked about
Scott led the discussion of fourteen attendees beginning with some brief biographical information about the author, Joseph Heller including the fact that it took him eight or nine years to write CATCH-22. The story is basically about American servicemen during the latter part of World War II. Scott's opening question to the group was one asking us what we thought about how the story unfolded. There were quite a few comments about the "time regression" in the story which caused me to be confused and as I said in the group, if confusion is obvious when reading a book, then in my experience, it is confusion that the author intends us to feel. There was no resolution about why the author chose to be so "non-linear" though I remember someone remarking that the confusion we felt was to help us relate to the confusion that Yossarian, the protagonist felt in such a chaotic world.
A question was asked about the numerous repetitions of various vignettes, or events, or visual cues. Someone said they thought this plot device of using so many repetitions was related to the insanity of the characters. And also, that the time regression which actually seemed circular in many cases reflected the circular nature of a catch-22, which is basically a no-win situation as it is known today.
In the book, "catch-22" primarily though not totally focuses on Yossarian wanting to be grounded and not allowed to fly any more missions. Being crazy is a criteria for being grounded but since Yossarian was sane enough to want to be grounded then that meant he wasn't crazy afterall resulting in him being required to fly more missions, as many as Colonel Catchcart required.
And the number of missions required before a serviceman can go home on leave kept increasing every week, in some cases every day or every hour. Which was crazy but only Yossarian seemed to be willing to seriously complain.
It was clear to me that if you are someone who only enjoys stories that are linear with a protagonist and antagonist(s) who are relatively normal, you will not enjoy this book. Checking the web for reviews, I found many social network literature forums where comments were very negative. Since this was one of the best books I've ever read in my life, it is hard for me to believe there are those who disagree so vehemently but ..so it goes.. As we went around the circle at the end of our discussion as we normally do, there were those in our group as well who were not as enthralled with this book as I was. But I didn't hear anyone express actual dislike. But sometimes people reserve their opinions more than I seem to be able to do.
The book starts with a chapter titled THE TEXAN corresponding to a "good-natured, generous and likable" character who joined the hospital ward where Yossarian and his buddy Dunbar were staying after being admitted because of false complaints they conjured up. The chapter includes the comment: "In three days no one could stand him." There were comments in the discussion that Yossarian was crazy because he said so many opposite things like this. I commented that I thought that this device of "opposite comments" was used by many of the characters, not just Yossarian. This story was about the insane world of the military and therefore, the author took every opportunity to illustrate craziness that he could. Most (or maybe all) of the characters at one time or another called all of the other characters "crazy" or "insane" on nearly every page. And if they weren't calling others "crazy", they were describing crazy behaviour or they themselves were acting crazy.
As we were talking about the character of Yossarian, one attendee in our group who had been in the Air Force, flown and was shot at shared that he had the same experience that Yossarian had when he was shot at, that he took it personal. He said he got angry about the person in the plane shooting at him who didn't even know him. It was amazing to me how this compared so well with how the author describes Yossarian's experience.
The character of the Chaplain was introduced into our discussion as second most important to Yossarian. Some thought there might be some kind of "yin and yang" set up between Yossarian and Chaplain. Both characters are caught up in the war in a very negative way and both have lots of self-doubt. The book starts with both Yossarian and the Chaplain and it ends with both characters as well after they have changed their personalities and have learned how to survive more effectively. Some in the group reminded us of how the chaplain did in fact speak up about the requirement for flying missions as being too severe, that he wasn't a total coward that some mentioned. And that he, like Yossarian, was a bit of a recluse, living in a tent away from the base camp just as Yossarian lived in a tent without a roommate and was very resentful when he lost his privacy to new roommates after his old roommate, Orr was lost on a mission.
The most difficult part of the discussion was covering all the topics of the book or even most of them. The book was very dense and somewhat long at four hundred fifty pages. But we did the best we could. It is never possible to cover a book entirely.
We talked about Doc Daneeka who was declared "dead" because of a screwup in the Air Force bureaucracy and as a result, he couldn't communicate with his wife and she couldn't communicate with him. Though this was very comical, it was also part of the process of the author making the humor darker and darker. As we got to know the characters better, the comical disasters seemed more tragic and not as funny. Also, it wasn't simply a process of the reader getting more involved in the book, the author was intentionally allowing the reader to see the tragedy of events and not just the comedy as most of us agreed in our discussion.
Other topics we discussed were:
Normally in my writeups about our discussion, I try to list all the topics here even if I don't go into our comments very much on the topics but in this case, there were so many more, I will stop here and say once again that the book was very "dense". It was hard to do it justice in one discussion.
One last note about my own understanding of the book includes my epiphany when I realized how many platitudes were used in the story. Usually on every page. So many such as:
In most cases, these platitudes were used by someone trying to convince Yossarian or the Chaplain that they shouldn't be sane, that they should join the other crazies in the story for some superficial reason as given in the particular platitude being used at the time. It would not be illogical in my opinion to speculate that the author wrote the story using a collection of such platitudes as the foundation especially considering his background at a small advertising agency before he was first published,
Looking forward to our next discussion on October 12 at Houston Central Market in the community room upstairs. We'll be discussing THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford. For more info about the Central Market Book Club check out our web page at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/CentralMarket/.
]]>Brian led the discussion with a few interesting bits of biographical information such as the author, Philip Dick considering himself a "fictionalizing philosopher". Brian then began with a question about the beginning of the book asking "how effective is the writing in the beginning?" (or something to this effect.)
Everyone who responded to Brian's initial question mentioned how the language was "ordinary". Most of us did not have a background of reading much science fiction. I say this because I wonder still if the technique of using ordinary language to write about extra-ordinary things such as telepaths, half-lives, moratoriums and talking doors isn't often used by other science fiction authors. Hopefully some day I'll be able to answer this question once I have more experience with the genre. In the meantime, I delighted in the juxtaposition of these two contrasting worlds. When I say ordinary, I mean things like the bureaucracy of the moratorium, the problem of coming up with the coins to put in the machine to get coffee, the problem of having a messy apartment (such as that belonging to Joe Chip, the chief protagonist), the problem of finding where the bathrooms are when they arrive on Luna where they've never been before.
Some of us thought the use of the ordinary language made the world described very mundane and boring. The ordinary language for me was a great prelude to the part of the story where a group of characters are standing around waiting to go to Luna on the space ship and Pat Conley after being asked to show her talent, proceeds to project everyone into the future, including Runciter as someone who has had a heart attack and has retired. This part is written so skillfully that one really feels how the author is playing with the reader's mind. It is easy to get lost before coming back and understanding what is going on. This was the point when I really started enjoying the book. Great fun, in my opinion.
As a result of more questions from Brian, we transitioned into an extensive discussion of half-lives. What is a half-life as it is used in the book? Someone suggested that it didn't coincide with a "half-life" as known in the world of chemistry. Another suggested that perhaps it was meant to be the opposite of a "full life". In any event, Runciter who was Joe Chip's boss and another major character in the book wondered on page 12 "How did it feel to be in half-life?". I was one in the group who thought this was a precursor to a major theme of the book. Does anyone understand what a half-life is? Do any of the characters OR readers? My answer is no. According to some paragraphs in the book, it is an amorphous experience where our normal concept of language is not used. This last made me think of Jung's "collective unconscious". In other paragraphs, there is an indication that battles go on in cold-pac, the place where half-lives are restricted to in order to keep vital signs of those in half-life from going completely dead. Some in our discussion thought the whole concept and how it was described was the result of nonsensical drug-induced mindlessness of the author.
It was revealed near the end of the book that as a result of the battles, some half-lives in cold-pac invented Ubik, a spray that would help in the war against the more agressive domineering half-life members. We discussed briefly how this kind of invention could be invented while in half-life. And this discussion led us further down the path of being totally confused about what half-life was like. We fairly quickly left off discussing this concept of "invention in half-life" just as we did with other topics that were about the logistics of how things existed such as inertials, precogs and Pat Conley's talent of being able to change the future which everyone who spoke agreed was a red-herring. It was concluded that she was one of several red-herrings that had us thinking she was the bad guy in a mystery about whether or not Runciter was dead or in half-life and whether or not the others of a group of 11 who experienced an explosion on Luna would be dead soon as a result of some evil force. And who or what was the evil force? (More about that later.)
It was to Brian's credit and also to the credit of the members of the discussion that we didn't get bogged down in talking about all the logistics of the story that did not make sense. Instead we chose to talk about larger issues such as "what would happen if we could talk to others after death?" as was described in the story. And "What impact would this have on our experience of grief?"
We spent a fair amount of time talking about Joe Chip who was an ordinary guy who seemed to be a pawn used by others more devious or smarter than him. Some members of our group objected to his character as very unexceptional. Others thought the depiction of him as an anti-hero and as someone who was likable, cynical, "under the radar" and who eventually showed how smart he was and how powerful he was, was well done by the author. Others suggested he was a "classic dick" and we all laughed. Someone else reminded us of the fact that he called himself "the norm". As usual, there is no rule that we have to agree so we didn't spend a lot of time disagreeing.
Someone asked what was the significance of the author giving us the viewpoint of Joe Chip only. (Actually Al Hammond's thoughts and viewpoint, another one of the eleven who went to Luna at the beginning of the story, was briefly revealed at one point but not for long.) Some observed that because we had Joe Chip's viewpoint and not the viewpoint of one of the characters with special paranormal talents, it limited us in being able to solve the mystery causing some frustration but also increasing the tension of the story, not a bad thing.
Brian asked us "what were the opposing forces" at play? We couldn't answer directly, which made this a good question, by the way. There were numerous characters in the book, Hollis was identified as a hostile force but the author didn't give us enough information to be clear that he was in fact the bad guy that needed to be destroyed or at least caught. Pat Conley also was a possibility but in my own experience, the author tried so hard to lead us in her direction as the "bad guy" that I wasn't taken in. Guess I've read too much Agatha Christie.
We talked about the product called Ubik (which is short for ubiquitous). Some thought the Ubik advertisements at the beginning of every chapter were Ella, Runciter's wife who was in half-life talking to us. Others thought it was God in the form of Ubik talking to the world in a very commercialized way because that was the only way the world could understand since it was so mundane, boring and concerned only about money. If Ubik is God, why does Ubik spray last for only about an hour? - We didn't have the answer for that.
The topic of money comes up very often in the story in the form of Joe Chip (or others) constantly needing coins to open their door, to get a newspaper out of a machine which they have in their own apartment, to get coffee from machines and also to hire a plane to fly to DesMoines for Runciter's funeral. Coins are often used in the various story lines. Some are out of date, some are totally invalid because they have Runciter's picture on them, even a coin shop is included a couple of times. We weren't sure about the significance other than to symbolize crass commercialism.
Other themes and questions we talked about included:
Most of our group enjoyed the book. As a minimum they found it entertaining. Some loved the book. Several thought it was disappointing and at least one thought it was nonsense and commented that "just because a book is published doesn't mean it's not nonsense." Several in the group as we were going around in the circle at the end evaluating and adding final comments, thought that the book had too many holes to have credibility. From having read some of the background of the author, I would agree with this last statement about the "holes". Philip Dick wrote this book along with 10 others in the space of 5 years, a time period that didn't allow for much proofreading and "dotting i's" and "crossing t's", in my opinion.
The book may not have been a Great Book (uppercase G and uppercase B) but the fact that the author didn't "spoon feed" the themes and issues of the story made it much more challenging and hence enjoyable to read in my opinion. Also, the little twists the author makes with the story playing with the reader's mind make up for a lot of flaws and added immensely to my enjoyment.
Looking forward to our next discussion of THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neal Hurston on October 1st at Houston Freed-Montrose Library. Our discussion will be included in many that will be held at Houston Libraries as part of the citywide initiative called Books On The Bayou. Check out our web page at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/ for more info.
]]>The opening question in our discussions is the most important part of being the moderator. We rotate moderators according to who suggested the book for our ballot (and of course the book has to get a bunch of votes for us to even have a discussion.) This opening question was exceptional in my opinion because it generated a lot of energy in the followup commentary by everyone present. I was surprised to find out that my opinion was not agreed to by everyone (LOL). I thought the mother definitely did the most damage by providing Georgie with an environment where he never received criticism and was viewed always as an "angel" no matter what he did and because of his maternal grandfather's wealth had considerable money to flaunt and use to gain undeserved power among friends, such as in the "literary club", a social group for card-playing where he literally bought his way to the presidency. The story describes many many obnoxious things he did being rude, insensitive and spoiled. But others thought the Aunt had done the most damage being a petty, mean gossip who manipulated Georgie's behaviour by feeding him information about his mother and Eugene in a manner to incite his biggest concern, that "people were talking about his mother" in an unfavorable way.
It wasn't that I disagreed that Aunt Fanny was petty and mean and had definitely created an unfortunate effect in young George. My main point was that if it hadn't been Aunt Fanny, it would have been something or someone else because Georgie from the very beginning of his introduction to Eugene Morgan had disliked him and when learning he and his mother had a prior relationship before he was born, he intensely hated the man. If Aunt Fannie hadn't got Georgie stirred up, something else would have been a "tipping point" because as a result of his intense feelings, there was no way he was going to allow his widowed mother to marry Eugene Morgan.
Later, when he asks, "why didn't you stop me", his Aunt commented that "you were too strong" and that "she loved you too well". Both of these comments were the crux of the story, i.e. what damage a child (even though Georgie was about twenty two I think) could do when given no feedback as to his own infallibilty coupled with having tremendous personal strength of will along with being involved in an oedipal relationship with his mother. He could aptly be described as a surrogate spouse and one for whom his mother was willing to sacrifice all her happiness.
As I've said before, one of the great things about our discussions is that there is no insistance that we all agree. I don't think I convinced others who disagreed with me about "who did the most damage" and they didn't convince me but we still had a great discussion and I believe we all learned or understood better our own opinions because of the requirement that we articulate them to a group and if the group is as highly charged as it was on this issue, the need to articulate clearly becomes an even stricter requirement. Not a bad thing, IMO.
I brought up that youth also was a source of Georgie's damage. Many of us who now have gray hair of course remember how youth can be very arrogant. Though Georgie was an extreme case of youthful arrogance "gone awry", his behaviour was not totally outside the realm of normalcy. Also, we are given a clue via the character of Lucy Morgan, Eugene Morgan's beautiful daughter who Georgie fell in love with and wanted to marry. She kept commenting to Georgie (and to the reader of course) that he was "too young". Georgie was the namesake of Uncle George, Isabel's brother who seemed more sane than any of the other characters except for his penchant to dabble in bad financial risks. Uncle George makes quite a few comments about youth especially his own when he says to Georgie "When I was your age I was like you in many ways, especially in not being very cool-headed ... Youth can't be trusted for much, except asserting itself and fighting and making love." I believe that as far as who does the most damage asked in Connie's leading question, the author is basically telling us through Uncle George that youth plays a big part in the fiasco that results when young George decides to take matters into his own hands.
One of the major themes besides the spoiled nature of young George was the changes in the neighborhood as time passes from young George's childhood until Major Amberson, his maternal grandfather dies and leaves him and his aunt basically penniless. Many in our group thought that the story depicted very well the changing technology as represented by the "horseless carriage" and which was the business of Eugene Morgan, and the changing architecture and growth of the city of Midland as represented by a type of "urban sprawl". As a result, those in the old neighborhood of Amberson Boulevard were left to live in an area that was no longer the best neighborhood of the city. The social changes were such that no longer was the Amberson family talked about, something young George greatly feared, because the population had increased so much and the Amberson family was no longer the wealthiest family. The author seems to have done a great job of showing the changes both in a gradual way and also in a rapid way depending on what perspective you chose.
The story was very dense with themes and characters. Some which we discussed but which I have not written about here include:
In the end, as we went around the circle for input on who liked or didn't like the book (and anything else they wanted to add and hadn't had a chance to), most liked the book. Though almost all felt the ending was too contrived. For my part, there was a fair amount I didn't like about the book. It seemed more in line with the tradition of storytelling rather than literary novels but I loved the character of young George. I loved the fact the author took such a risk in giving us a leading character so arrogant, pompous and snobbish that we didn't like him and also that the author did such a great job in developing the character into someone the average reader hated. I don't remember disliking a main character to this extent in the fifteen years I've been reading in groups affiliated with Great Books. As a result, I heartily recommend this book for its originality.
Looking forward to our next discussion on Monday, September 13th when we will discuss CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller. Check out our website at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/CentralMarket/ for more details.
]]>As a result, Susan's job of leading the discussion was almost too easy and left her wishing we had more time for her to ask all of the questions she had prepared. This is one of the difficulties that can arise when we discuss one of the longer Great Book classics. The two hours of our discussion isn't really adequate to do it total justice but I think we made a good try and I left feeling satisfied that we had covered most of the main themes.
Susan started by asking who in the group had grown up in a small town. Four raised their hands with someone else indicating they had lived for a short time in a small town and found it to be very much like the town depicted in MAIN STREET. One of the four reported later as we went around the circle as we always do at the end of the meeting that she liked growing up in the small town. Someone else commented that she guessed the person who liked growing up in a small town much have been in the inner group of the town. Someone else indicated that her family must have had some money. Lots of generalizations and stereotypes going on about small towns. Do they deserve the criticism? Most felt they did
Susan began by asking about the preface to the book and the response by everyone who answered indicated it was thought the preface referred to the smugness of the town which was called Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. In the preface, the author uses the phrase "betray himself an alien cynic" and this seemed to be well received by one of the more vocal participants, with the comment that the book was overall very cynical. This same participant brought up the "cynical" adjective numerous times throughout the discussion and no one disagreed (that I heard).
Initially we focused on the main character, Carol Kennicott. The story begins with her attending college and following her to her first job in a library after graduation, and then with her disillusionment that she wasn't going to make her mark on the world as she had hoped. Then came her decision to marry Will Kennicott, a man older by fifteen or so years and also one who was from Gopher Prairie, a small town which appeared to be pretty from the photographs that Will showed Carol but which culturally was completely different from St Paul, Minnesota which is where Carol went to school and even more different from New England where Carol spent part of her childhood.
Our first comments focused on her isolation from family, her mother died when she was young and her father died while she was still in St Paul. Her character wasn't someone who had known much about how communities function. She didn't understand things like the fact that it takes a very long time to be accepted by a community in a small town. She had the advantage of being married to a popular doctor in the town (though there were other doctors) therefore most in the community were very polite to her, almost too polite. They were condescending in their thinking that she would eventually settle down and behave more like those in the Gopher Prairie community rather than what they perceived was behavior probably common to pretentious people from the big city of St. Paul.
One in the group described her as a "twit" but that same person clarified that even though she was a "twit", that didn't mean that her opinions about the population of Gopher Prairie were incorrect. Some of us defended Carol, the main character and reminded the rest of the group that she was young, about 22 at the beginning of her marriage. Also, the author spent a fair number of paragraphs showing Carol as honestly trying to fit in with thoughts such as "they're just trying to be nice" and "they aren't so bad", etc. But her critical, analytical side always returned with the opinion that the citizens of Gopher prairie had no taste, or intelligence or appreciation for art and beauty. This included her husband as well. Initially, the book focuses on the horror she feels when she first sees how ugly the buildings on Main Street actually are, nothing like what she remembered from the photographs her then fiancee showed her when she was still in St. Paul. We discussed her decision to marry and several thought she took the easy way out and as a consequence of her bad choice, she had to endure major suffering later. Why didn't she make a better choice? Lots of fodder for discussion on this point.
Though the author is not always kind to Carol's husband, Will, it is clear that he had had an unrealistic understanding of how she would fit in. We spent quite a bit of time talking about what is required to "fit in". An interesting description was posed by one of the attendees regarding "boxes". That small towns did not have very many "boxes" that a new comer could aspire to fit in. That the advantage of larger towns was that they had more "boxes" for their citizens to "try on" and thus provided better options for people who might have otherwise been lonely and isolated in a small town because there was no where for them to fit in. This precisely describes Carol and the predicament in which she found herself even regarding her relationship with her husband's relatives such as Aunt Bessie as well as with someone whom she thought was her friend, Mrs. Westlake who turned out to be a terrible gossip revealing everything Carol told her in private to anyone and everyone.
Susan asked about what part religion played in the story. We all felt it wasn't significant, that neither Carol nor Will attended church regularly. That one of the main references to religion applied to Mrs. Bogart, the vicious, hypocritical character who had a delinquent son but would not admit it and who always found someone else to blame for her own son's shortcomings. This was illustrated especially well in the event of the new young school teacher named Fern who was accused of getting Mrs. Bogart's son drunk and as a result was asked for her resignation in a way that would destroy her career. Carol tried her best to defend Fern. And this was somewhat of a turning point for Carol because she went to each school board member's house asking that they not see Fern as the guilty person. We all thought this was somewhat of a change for Carol, that her timidity reflected in her initial actions when she first arrived seemed to be reduced to some extent for the first time when she confronted townspeople on an issue that wasn't very popular.
We discussed whether Carol's behavior was "heroic" or not. Some of us were more forgiving than others, believing that her youth prevented her from standing up to the town regarding the issues concerning discrimination of and poor treatment of the Scandinavian immigrants. It was brought up how she didn't eat in the kitchen with her maid whom she liked very much, even when her husband wasn't home. In one scene, she was talking through the kitchen door to her maid, Bea and her maid's visitor, Miles while they were eating. It was described as very awkward and snobbish of Carol by the author. This behavior changed dramatically later when she became nurse to Bea who became wife to Miles, a talented, resourceful Scandinavian immigrant who was intellectually independent and very critical of the townspeople of Gopher Prairie and someone whom Carol found kinship with. It was commented that Miles might have been a character meant to represent the author's views.
Later in the book after Carol has appeared to reach the point where she can no longer tolerate Gopher Prairie and that includes her husband as well, she takes an extended trip to Washington D.C. with her child Hugh. She is lonely in Washington but there are definitely things she likes about the big city. One interesting note is how friendly she was to the Haydecks when she accidentally ran into them in Washington. She couldn't have been more delighted. Her delight causes the reader to wonder that maybe there were some good things about Gopher Prairie after all. And this led us to discuss the "community spirit" that can be nurturing in a small time and something you don't find in a larger one. Though there were definite cynics in our group who commented that the "community spirit" was only nurturing if you were in the "in group".
I won't spoil the ending with my report here but want to comment that there were several women in the group who were not happy with the ending.
There is much that I have not mentioned here that we discussed such as:
One of my own conclusions about the novel came into my head after the discussion. This often happens because the discussions are always thought provoking and fodder enough for me to keep thinking about the book long after the discussion. What I thought of later was the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child". That children raised in small towns are actually raised by the whole town because everyone knows everyone else. This is not always a bad thing. I wonder if it isn't largely responsible for that "country boy" personality type (or "country girl") that we are all familiar with - someone who is very polite when those of us raised in big cities are more likely to rage in the same situation.
But on the negative side, as one participant mentioned, most of the school tragedies that have occurred with young students killing other students have occurred in small towns (according to what she had heard). It seems one might draw a conclusion that for those children who do not fit into "a box" provided by the small town as an option, they become misfits and if one follows this logic, ultimately because of their own inability to find another pathway to "a box" that might be more compatible with their eccentricities, they choose to be destructive instead.
Well, since I am more inclined to be eccentric (at least my husband tells me I am), I am grateful that I wasn't raised in a small town like Gopher Prairie though my home town wasn't as big as I would have liked it to be.
Looking forward to our next discussion of UBIK by Philip Dick. More details about our group or our readings available at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/.
]]>There was at least one in the group who didn't speak but who as I learned later after the discussion in the cafe downstairs believed that the use of a crazy person as narrator didn't make sense. That the chief's credibility hindered the story line but she also said afterwards that she liked hearing the opinions of those of us who disagreed. That she understood better why the book was written that way. Because of the chief's invisiblity as a result of being thought to be deaf, he could hear and subsequently report many of the incidents of the hospital which were crucial for the reader to know in order for the story to progress as it was intended. In my opinion, this kind of narrator is always better than one who is "omniscient", a technique which I think imparts a "heavy hand" to a story and makes a book less enjoyable.
What is it to be disturbed? What is it to be crazy? What is it to be different? These are questions that Scott brought up as being questions that the book basically asks the reader. Most thought that the Chief was disturbed and not crazy. After we discussed some of his background and what brought about his incarceration in the mental hospital which is the primary setting of the book, we talked about McMurphy, the outgoing unconventional protagonist who was incarcerated because he was diagnosed at a work farm where he was being punished as a psychopath. He had manipulated his incarceration because he thought it would be easier than his term at the work farm.
We discussed the intelligence of Chief Bromden who was cautious and observant and not participating actively in relationships with other patients or employees of the hospital as compared to the intelligence of McMurphy who from the beginning displayed significant social skills including laughing and game playing with the other patients. One attendee asked the group what we thought McMurphy would have become had he had education and was absent a police record. Another answered "a politician" and we all laughed.
Scott and others in the group talked about the author's skill in depicting the stories of the other patients of the hospital. Two of the members at the discussion had worked in hospitals or were familiar with the workings of mental institutions in the 60's (the book was written in 1962) and said they were amazed at how realistic the portrayal of the treatment was. But also included the additional information that shock treatments were not customary in mental hospitals in Illinois at least at this time but may have been in Texas.
We discussed whether or not McMurphy changed during the course of the book. Most thought he had. We spent some time trying to find that point at which he made the change where he was no longer the small-time conman looking to make a buck either gambling or overcharging the other patients for one thing or another. Nurse Ratched was an extremely abusive nurse and adversary of McMurpy's from the first minute he entered the hospital. When she denied the "tub room" privileges (which they used for playing cards) as a result of their misbehavior watching (or not watching) the World Series, he "ran his hand through the glass" window. He said "he completely forgot it was there".
The reason this seems like a change because it wasn't in his self-interest to aggravate Nurse Ratched since he learned shortly before this incident that he had to depend on her approval in order to get released from the hospital. He hadn't realized how important it was for him to get along with her and yet, as a result of the mistreatment by the nurse of the other patients, he still proceeded to try to upset her.
His behavior becomes more in line with being called "heroic" from this point on because he seems to be mainly thinking of how he can defend the other guys against the abuse of Nurse Ratched or at the very least, show them that he has guts enough not to stand for her abuse. He shows them that he is not giving in to her authority without a protest.
We talked much more at length about Nurse Ratched, whether she was evil or just seriously disturbed. Most thought she was evil because her actions were so premeditated. Most thought she was too functional to be disturbed though we all thought that it was she who belonged in an institution, not the characters in the story. Her manner of approaching Billy, a very fragile patient, after his escapade with Candy the whore brought in by McMurphy was painful to read as the shame Nurse Ratched caused Billy to feel was described so well by the author. I won't spoil the ending by discussing this incident further but we believed this was the defining moment for Nurse Ratched.
The fishing trip that McMurphy planned for the guys was another sign of his change. He originally wanted to make a few bucks but even when it became apparent that he was going to lose money on the trip, he continued to go along with the planning demonstrating further that his own self-interest was not his primary motivation at this point. One attendee in our group called him "heroic". But this same attendee called him a "loser". Most in the group defended McMurphy heartily.
Though it made me feel like I was a supporter of Nurse Ratched, as a result of the comment about McMurphy being a "loser", I felt I had to bring up the point that McMurphy risked the guys lives taking them on the boat after stealing it and designating someone who he wasn't totally sure about as driver of the boat. Some in our group thought that even if they would have had a deadly accident, it was better that they have this wonderful joyous experience fishing and drinking and having more fun than any of them had had in a long long time, even the doctor.
At risk of alienating almost everyone in the group (LOL), I brought up the point that responsible living in a civilized society requires the ability to control one's impulses. As we talked about this, I realized this kind of thinking, i.e. talk about controling impulses, is what actually is responsible for institutions such as this. But that the book demonstrates that this kind of thinking can "run amuk" and that is what happened as reflected by Nurse Ratched's abuse and the continued ineffective therapy for men who were not insane but who lacked courage to go out into the real world, men who if given a "boot in the seat of their pants" by someone like McMurphy might actually be able to function eventually on the outside rather than stay hiding on the inside.
I've concluded at least for myself (and the rule is that we don't all have to agree) that yes, controlling impulses is important but over-controlling to the point of abuse can be deadly and damaging just as much as the type of risky behavior that McMurphy seemed to thrive on.
Additional topics in our discussion included:
As pointed out by Scott, there was a wide gamut of emotions covered by the story including humor such as the World Series incident which I haven't written about here to any great extent. I won't spoil it for others by talking about the ending which was believed to be both hopeful and tragic by most attendees of our discussion. One attendee summarized one of the themes well, she said "sometimes you have to break the rules". Another attendee also summarized the ending by commenting that McMurphy "defeated the wicked witch."
Looking forward to our next discussion August 10, 2009 THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington. For more info about our upcoming reading list, check out our web page at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/CentralMarket/.
]]>Before the discussion, my opinion was rather negative because I thought the main characters were unoriginal. After hearing so many people express how much they liked the book, I wasn't quite so negative.
After giving brief information about the author's background, I started the discussion with a question about the relationship between two of the main characters, Charles Halloway, the father and Will, his son. What was their relationship like, why did Will ask himself in the book "why this woman was so happy and this man so sad" referring to his parents? After comments were made about the father's introversion and personal observations by attendees about similar relationships they have observed, I asked about the part where Charles Halloway is awake at 3am when the carnival arrives and is setting up and he thinks "men in middle age, they know that hour well" but "women never wake then". Some in the group disagreed but others thought it was a reflection of the time when the book was written (1962) and that women were more isolated then from the seriousness of the world. Of course, we talked about how this wasn't really true since women had numerous serious concerns if they had children. I would summarize by commenting that the book WAS sexist but as someone said, that doesn't make it not true.
Next, I asked about the relationship between Will who was born one minute before midnight on October 30th and Jim Nightshade who was born one minute after midnight on October 31st as we are told in the prologue. Their birthdates were meant to indicate that Will was basically ahead of Jim in maturity and good judgement; that Jim tried to catch up with Will but for numerous reasons, one being his family background where he was the only surviving child of a single parent, was unable to have the good sense that Will reflected. According to Will on page 48, "I talk, Jim runs" which summarizes pretty well their relationship, at least in the beginning of the book.
We talked about the lightening-rod salesman and what was meant by all the action about whether or not Jim Nightshade installed a lightening-rod on his house, whether he would remove it, when he removed it, etc. It was commented that the storm as predicted by the salesman was actually the carnival or could said to have been stopped by the carnival and the majestic way the tents were put up using and draining the storm clouds in the sky. And it was also commented that Jim Nightshade was drawn into the power (my words) of the carnival because he wasn't protected by the lightening rod.
What I concluded at this point as a result of numerous contributions from the group was that Jim was weakened by his attraction to the carnival; that he became more and more mesmerized thus damaging his friendship with Will and most importantly of all, risking his own future life possibly becoming a victim of the carnival and Mr. Dark, who was the proprietor of the carnival.
As regards "being mesmerized", we talked about this state as part of being "trapped" by Mr. Dark. In the case of the lightening-rod salesman, the trap was THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD inside a slab of ice in an empty store. In the case of Miss Foley, a lonely teacher, she was enticed and subsequently trapped as a result of viewing a little girl in the MIRROR MAZE; the little girl being a replica of herself at a much much younger age. In the case of Jim Nightshade, he was tempted using the possibility of getting older, something he desperately wanted.
We spent a fair amount of time discussing whether the carnival was evil. There is a monologue by the father, Charles, where he talks about what is good and what is bad including comments about the Devil. Specifically, he says "really knowing is good", "not knowing or refusing to know is bad or immoral" and that Mr. Dark is "not the Devil but a type of creature that has learned to live off souls, not the souls themselves" and "the carnival gorges on fear and pain (page 202) and "uses Death as a threat". (page 205) In my opinion, this monologue was rather "heavy handed" for an author, basically saying to us, "here is the main point of this story since I don't think you can figure it out yourself". The points are interesting but really great writing doesn't resort to this kind of "heavy handedness".
Knowedge as represented by the library is a "good thing" and was a "character" in the book - something everyone agreed about, at least everyone who was verbal anyway. Though one member asked how did the library or knowledge really help them conquer Mr. Dark. My answer though I'm not sure I convinced anyone is that it helped the father become skeptical once he did the research on carnivals using the library and his skepticism helped him see the little boy in the end for what he was, trying to hamper the father's saving the life of Jim. Guess I've written too much at this point so that makes me a "spoiler". Apologies to anyone who didn't want to know the ending. I thought the ending had a very nice high level of suspense, kind of surprising given that some of the book dragged too much in my opinion.
There is much I haven't included in this summary that we talked about. In particular, we discussed the "Mirror Maze" at length, the section of the book that specifically addresses "love" and also the description by the father of "autumn people".
One attendee commented that they didn't think the sins were major enough to warrant the "sinners" becoming victims of the carnival. Our response was that those who became victims were not "punished" in relation to the seriousness of their crimes or sins but instead by their own lack of strength and lack of ability to avoid the temptations which held out an easier life or one without "winter chills". As the father says "Since when did you think being good meant being happy"(page 134).
Another attendee helped us by describing how the tone of the book migrates from light-hearted childhood to a serious darkness of growing up and facing issues such as aging, fear, death.
There were numerous comments about the writing style and what I thought was awkward lanaguage, something we discussed at the end of the discussion. This is how my opinion changed from the beginning of the discussion til the end. Many of the attendees strongly defended the writing style and genuinely enjoyed the language which was described as whimsical by some. These comments caused me to make a note to go back and read parts of the book again.
This is one of those great things about discussions - that you get feedback about a book from a different point of view causing you to re-think and consequently enjoy the book or at least understand the book at a deeper level. There were others besides myself who were critical of the book, by the way.
Looking forward to our next discussion of MAINSTREET by Sinclair Lewis on August 6, 2009 at 6pm at Houston Freed-Montrose Library. See http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/ for further details about our group.
]]>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:
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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