Dombey and Son

A small group of Book Club members met on Thursday to discuss Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens. 

The narrative is set primarily in London with side trips to Brighton. The main character is a wealthy Bank owner and the story opens as his first wife dies after bearing his much desired son and the only heir he recognizes although they also have a daughter, whom he all but ignores throughout her life. The son dies young and Dombey eventually remarries and this is where the plot thickens. Dombey’s second wife is a force to be reckoned with and nothing goes as planned.

Most felt it was overly descriptive and verbose, but agreed that that was due to the nature of its original serialization.

Helen had recommended it to fulfill our classic selection challenge, as a true classic, but one of Dickens’ lesser known novels. She felt it was typical Dickens in societal theme, addressing power, patriarchy, wealth, control, dominance, pride and cruelty. The characters hierarchical positions changed from time to time in the power struggle but Helen didn’t feel she came away with a better understanding of Dickens’ own belief systems although he did always seem to be sympathetic of the poor and suffering and tended to ridicule wealth. Dickens’ typical confrontation between good and evil once again resolves somewhat happily ever after. 

Krysia was disappointed that this novel really did not live up to his others.  She cited research which confirmed her own sense that the characters and circumstances were not plausible. The characters turned into caricature using inappropriately elaborate language in convoluted circumstances. 

Kerry enjoyed its complexity, the elaborate plot and often comic circumstances, the fascinating descriptions of the character’s motivations, reasoning and interaction.

Isobel, in the true spirit of the Book Club, just enjoyed the book, which is really what it is all about.

Very best wishes for the holidays and thank you to everyone for participating in and contributing to a year of fascinating reads. We look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

January 22 at Salene’s The Prague Cemetery, Umberto Eco

February at Isobel’s Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

The Following Story

To chase the damp chill of a late November evening The Barga Book Club met in the warm, intimate, fire lit sitting room in Albiano to discuss The Following Story by the well known Dutch author Cees Nooteboom.  As usual reviews were mixed. Marijke, whose favorite Dutch author he is, and who will have read it in its original language, loved the book citing it included everything a writer needs in a novel, history, past and present, realism, existentialism and fable. 

The story is somewhat autobiographical. It opens when the protagonist, a former Latin and ‘dead languages’ scholar and teacher, then travel writer, finds himself inexplicably in Lisbon, thinking that he had gone to sleep in Amsterdam, in a hotel room in which he had an affair 20 years ago. He is disoriented and the story unfolds in flashbacks and reminiscences of the period since the affair and its, and therefor his, history.  It is a complex narrative, shifting back and forth in time and place.

Pietro found the translation too literal, which was perhaps why he felt so-so about the book. He thought it started well but had too many flashbacks. He drew a reference to Kafka’s Metamorphosis, but felt it was too dispersive and missing something. 

Anne was disappointed initially but eventually found interesting aspects, in the teaching and the text itself. As with Margaret, she felt she would like to read it again. 

Margaret loved the idea, the beginning, themes of precision, order, constraint, rigid confined rituals, obsessiveness, not going outside certain boundaries, how sex was an intrusion after his downfall, nomadism, the concept of time and our perception of it, how it is not linear. The ‘now’.  In short a book that raises questions, but was ultimately a little depressing, but there was something of Coetze’s, Disgrace about it, which made it fascinating.

Helen thought it didn’t flow, was a difficult read, cynical, the cynicism came through as fundamentally self criticism. The references to the classics he seemed to be hiding behind to not show himself. Pretentious, provocative, snobbishness,  couldn’t get to the heart of what he was about, flipping between time and place, the classics vs. the now, fantasy of travel. Death is a woman and he was dying. The ending had hallucinogenic qualities.

Isobel also found it difficult, the theme of death was upsetting, latin references and 2nd part she found weird, all past tenses. 

Kerry found the philosophical aspects interesting, including a brief allusion to Zen in the concept of I. 

In other words, it might very well be worth re-reading.

Thank you to everyone who participated and to Anne and Rigo for the warm welcome into their cozy home. 

The next books are as follows:

Thursday December 18th at Kerry’s, Barga: Domby and Son, Charles Dickens

January, date and venue to be announced: Cemetery of Prague, Umberto Eco

February, date and venue to be announced: Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn