The Major...

The book club met in the beautiful setting of Serra, graciously hosted at the home of Pietro and Marijke. Lingering over the stunning view of La Pania and the delicious edibles brought by members, we eventually got down to discussing Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. As usual, the novel met with mixed reviews and vast differences of opinion. Taken on the surface it seemed to have been an enjoyable read, light, funny, poignant in parts, a little light in the summing up but overall many members seemed to have liked it.

The story follows a connection between two British family groups, the traditionalist Major Pettigrew and his modernist son and a more traditionalist English Pakistani family, all contending with modernist changes. In the generous, astute and objective view it is a story of tradition, preconceptions and cultural baggage as played out in a small English community. The opposing views found it trite, patronizing, bigoted and clichè ridden. While some felt the principle characters were contrastingly drawn from pompous to sublimely elegant others saw more variety and attributed thematic depth.

Though members mentioned that each book we read expands horizons by recommending something we would not normally chose to read, this book would not be highly recommended by many.

The upcoming dates and books are as follows:

June 13th at to be advised - Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi July 25th at Isobel's - Two Women (original title 'La Ciociara') by Alberto Moravia September 19th. (venue to be advised) - The Man who Loved China by Simon Winchester.

Thank you very much to all who participated!

We look very forward to seeing you in June,

Kerry

The Snowman

Hi Everyone,

I’m sorry not to have been at the meeting as it sounds like it was a very interesting one. New and returning members were welcomed and the discussion was lively. Here are the excellent notes of everyone's thought provoking comments that Krysia submitted on The Snowman by Jo Nesbo. The general consensus seems to have been that this was not his best novel,though complex, it was gratuitously violent and overly dark.


Krysia’s Notes:

Dear All,

We had a very enjoyable evening at last Wednesday’s Book Club meeting. Thank you Selene for making us feel so welcome in your lovely home and thanks to everyone for contributing to a splendid supper. The meeting was well attended and it was great meeting friends that we hadn’t seen since last year. Everyone had lots to say about Jo Nesbo’s ‘The Snowman’. The opinions were very mixed; some loved it and others found it gratuitously violent and disappointing. See Kerry’s blog which will be up on http://bargabookclub.blogspot.com sometime next week.

We talked about contributions for the purchasing of books which Margaret organises. At present funds are rather low consequently we aren’t able to buy more than two books per month and therefore I can’t guarantee that you will receive the book in time for the following meeting. If you would like Margaret to order your book as opposed to buying your own please contribute either €20 for the rest of the year or alternatively a few euros per month.

At the May Book Club meeting which is to be hosted by Marijke & Pietro we will be discussing the book ‘Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand’ by Helen Simonson. The June meeting will be in the garden of Palazzo Salvi (weather permitting) and we will be talking about ‘Stones From The River’ by Ursula Hegi.

I’ve received a suggestion for July’s read; The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester. Read about it on http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Becker-t.html. It was also pointed out that seeing as this year is Charles Dicken’s bi-centenary perhaps we should put him on our reading list. We might go for a Dicken’s that we know quite well like Great Expectations or David Copperfield or perhaps Dombey and Son or Little Dorrit. What do you think?

Comments:

Enjoyed the book in moments but got bogged down with red herrings being thrown in all over the place.

Loved the book but there were a few weak points e.g. after twelve years finding a murder victim in a freezer in a remote country house which hadn’t been frequented since then. Was the freezer plugged in for twelve years with no-one being there? Would the freezer have continued functioning for twelve years? And why didn’t the Police search the house properly when the victim first went missing?

Lots of hype. Jo Nesbos books are getting more and more violent because he probably writes them with TV series and movies in mind. They are carefully constructed for this purpose.

Why is there such an interest in Scandinavian literature. Is it because it is dark, violent, sombre, depressing? Reflects these times of recession and economic crisis ? (KB: Bergman comes to mind)

Too many clichés but could this be a bad translation?

The story was good, violence gratuitous, annoyed at how the reader was held in abeyance and not really let in to Harry Holes private thoughts and some of us agreed that that is when a good crime novel or thriller is really interesting and gripping i.e. when you are privy to the protagonist’s thoughts.

Scenes were set well, characters developed well and although there were disappointing moments couldn’t wait to turn the page. Thrilling!

For those who are Stieg Larsson fans, this was a disappointment. And they were expecting something much better. Unlike Laarson who focuses on the positive aspects of his protagonists Nesbo prefers the darker side.

Pulp Fiction, trashy and formulaic. The story was implausible.

This thriller didn’t thrill me.

Harry Hole is modeled on Henning Mankell’s Wallander who in my opinion is a better drawn character than Harry. Harry is an alcoholic, workaholic, a lugubrious fellow, usually monosyllabic, not particularly good looking, and very thin possibly due to the bacterial fungi found in the walls of his apartment. Women find him irresistibly sexy and young boys like his xgirlfriend’s son see him as the ultimate role model. Why?

There were three suspects before the real killer was unveiled, Harry Hole’s female colleague, the Doctor and the Magazine Editor. All of whom we knew wouldn’t be serial killers because they didn’t have the right credentials and anyway they came in around Page 350 when there were still another 200 to go.

The killer’s death instrument, an electric noose used to dismember still born cows, was used to decapitate the victims, together with a bit of slow torture before the final act and cutting up of bodies afterwards. So presumably the person they were looking for was a highly disturbed psychopath who probably had a very checkered childhood to say the least. Now Mister nice guy no-nips Mathias, alias the Snowman as it turned out. when asked why he did these terrible deeds replied ‘because my mother was a liar and a whore’. Is that all it takes to become a serial killer? I found the image of The Snowman quite eerie and also the idea of Harry’s walls being dismantled during his absence disconcerting. In fact the wall’s man was quite a good red herring I thought and a much more likely case than no-nips Mathias

I think it would make a good comedy with Jim Carey as Harry and Will Ferrell as Mathias.

From Kerry:

For general interest, here is a short list of recent fiction from prize nominations from both sides of the pond.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nominees: (No prize awarded)

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

A novella about a day laborer in the old American West, bearing witness to terrors and glories with compassionate, heartbreaking calm.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Alfred A. Knopf)

An adventure tale about an eccentric family adrift in its failing alligator-wrestling theme park, told by a 13-year-old heroine wise beyond her years.

The Pale King, by the late David Foster Wallace

A posthumously completed novel, animated by grand ambition, that explores boredom and bureaucracy in the American workplace.

The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman

Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues
Anne Enright The Forgotten
Georgina Harding Painter of Silence
Madeline Miller The Song of Achilles
Cynthia Ozick Foreign Bodies
Ann Patchett State of Wonder

Cold Comfort Farm

The Book club met on Wednesday the 21st of March, in one of the lovely homes of Janet and Elliot Grant, to discuss Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

Written in 1932 it was reportedly a parody of romanticized melodramatic stories of rural life of the period.

Elliot propounded an innovative approach to the book review process and had each member answer six pertinent questions in turn, from how dated was the book, and what is it a parody of, through how funny was it and which character was the most irritating, to what does the book say about the class system and out of five stars, what does it rate. Some readers really enjoyed the book and the answers were all over the map, but lie in the questions themselves.

The book we will discuss on April 18th will be Snow by Jo Nesbo. The following month we will discuss Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson and in June we will talk about Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi.

Thank you very much to our gracious hosts and to everyone who participated and provided such delicious fare.

We look forward to seeing you in April.

Heart of Darkness

The Book Club met on Wednesday to discuss Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
Needless to say, opinions were mixed, at best.

Written around the turn of the 20th century, Heart of Darkness serves as a potent chronicle of colonialism gone wrong. While he and several friend boatmen wait for the fog to lift on the River Thames, Charles Marlow narrates the story of leading a riverboat journey into the darkest of the Belgian Congo to repatriate a rogue Ivory trader. The trader is the legendary Kurtz, known also as musician, painter, journalist and otherwise genius, who has managed to enthrall and subvert the natives at his trading station and wreak unknown havoc in the area. The riverboat journey is in part a recollection of one of Conrad’s own aborted journeys in the Belgian Congo.

Water imagery, vision and obscurity, from dusk to dark, visibility to fog, the story was a study of contrast and occlusion.

Themes of darkness, death, morbidity, slavery, human trafficking, abuse, and rape of a people and their land ran throughout. The contrast of supposed high civilization to pretentious, absurd, even obscene degree with the natural imagery going from light to dark was stunning. The reader was transported from the romance of The African Queen to the river Styx. The madness of extreme colonial exploitation.

Krysia commended the imagery of Conrad’s prodigious descriptive powers. Margaret, cited a fascinating and baffling dream sequence. Several readers gave up in disgust. One reader, having had first hand knowledge of African colonialists comportment could not finish the book saying it brought to mind horrifying circumstances. Circumstances which were the point of the story. A Heart of darkness, the heart of darkness. In the words of the dying Kurtz: "The horror! The horror!"

Thank you to Liz who generously hosted in the splendid venue and provided the delicious main course, and to all who brought other delectables, and to all who participated.

The March 21st meeting will be hosted by Janet and Elliot Grant and we will discuss Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. The following month we will discuss The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.

Thank you again and we look forward to seeing you next month.

The Black House

The Barga Book Club met on Wednesday, at the warm and welcoming home of Krysia Bell. A heated discussion ensued of The Black House by Peter May. Opinions diverged sharply but overall more enjoyed the book than did not.

It is the story of a young detective investigating what seems to be a parallel or copy cat murder. He is sent from his base in Edinburgh back to his native Isle of Lewis. What ensues is a tale delving into his own childhood in a drama with psycho-social and religious overtones which are intertwined into the crime mystery.

The predominant positive feedback from the group had to do with the author’s skill in evoking a sense of place and using all the senses to set the scenes. There were spectacular story within the story sequences. Social, historical and strong religious imagery are used to establish the background of the motives and drives of the principle characters.

Some readers enjoyed the book as just the very good page turner crime mystery it is. Some could identify with it through first hand experience of the area, but it was drawn so well that there was universal appeal. Others of us were compelled to dissect the story like coroners in the crime morgue and found that clues didn’t hold together and felt we were blind sided by the ultimate revelations. There will be two more books in the series.

The book we’re reading for the meeting on 22 February is a classic: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The following month is humour: Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons.

Thank you very much to Krysia for, as always, gracious hosting and to everyone who participated and contributed to the lively and engaging discussion. We look forward to seeing you next month.

One Day at a time

A good representation of The Barga Book Club met Wednesday December 21st in the village of Santi with Sheila as genial host. The book under discussion was One Day by David Nicholls. It was the story told of two principle characters’ lives over a period of 20 years with one day, St. Swithin’s Day, July 15th, as the marker. The book follows the lives of two characters Emma and Dexter, who connect at their graduation from University. It seems to have rained on St. Swithin’s day and continued for the following 20 years.

As per usual, opinions varied, widely. The dislikes outweighed the likes by a considerable degree.

Thematically it seemed to be representative of the disillusionment of life, its twists and turns and how the dreams of one’s twenties devolve. It was enjoyable overall only in retrospect when all loose ends were tied, but many were disappointed with the resolution. Some found the story contrived, artificial, manipulated. Other adjectives included banal and mundane.

On the other hand there were a couple of readers who did enjoy it thoroughly, and had real affinity for the characters and their circumstances. Everyone seemed to project his or her own experience into the reading and some found the characterization shallow and not credible and had difficulty identifying with them. It was seen as a story of the lives of two characters who were frustratingly inept or downright self destructive with no redeeming values.

The book we will discuss on January 18th at the home of Julie Flynn, is Black House by Peter May. The following month we will discuss Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and to lighten things up a bit, in March, we will read Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

Thank you to everyone who participated, and for the delicious offerings and to Sheila for her most congenial hosting.

Wednesday November 23

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

Margaret contributed these observations:

The book discussed this month was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Anne Shaffer. It is written in the epistolary form which all agreed is a very arduous undertaking and the general consensus was that the difficulties inherent in this form were not overcome. Set in 1945 the book did not ring true with regard to London post war. Despite research it was felt that the author was unable to recreate the atmosphere either there or in occupied Guernsey. The language used in the letters is unconvincing, and perhaps as an American the author did not understand speech usage of the time (or moreover, at all, kb).
The first part of the book deals with Juliet’s (the main character, an author) first contact with the literary society, which was set up in Guernsey on an impulse, to deflect the attention of the German occupying forces when a curfew was not respected. One of the members, Darsey, finds a book with her name in it and writes to her. There then follows a series of letters about the members of the society and she becomes intrigued and eventually goes to Guernsey to meet them.
The main interest for most was the fact that Guernsey suffered five years of German occupation of which many were unaware. That this was inevitable is proved by the fact that the British authorities evacuated all the children from the island, before the arrival of the occupying forces. The occupation is the focal point of the book. From it came about the society, with an unlikely choice of books, Charles Lamb and Seneca. The other character of great importance is Elisabeth, who invented the society and she is a strong character, despite her physical absence, probably the most convincing in the book. She was arrested and deported for harbouring a Polish worker who was starving to death. Her child, the result of a love affair with a German officer who is sickened by the war, will help bind Juliet to Darsey.
The general feeling was that the book was unconvincing for the era in which it was set, superficial and at times flippant.

Krysia added:

We examined the book in detail and everyone contributed to a most interesting critique. We ate supper most elegantly and most deliciously. Next month's meeting  on December 21st.will be at Sheila's. The book is 'One Day' by David Nicholls. Several of us have already read the book, but if you haven't, there are copies circulating. Let me know if you need one.

I found the epistolary writing style of this novel rather difficult because it took a long time for the characters to be developed. Even the main character Juliet Ashton took some time and until the characters came alive I wasn’t really pulled along by the novel. And of course there are lots of characters. Also the quaint way the letters were written in a kind of PGWodehouse nineteen twenties style, irritated me after a while so at times the book didn’t really engaged me. I kept on thinking about whether people at that time really spoke like that or wrote like that.
Those who had rarely read anything more than scripture, seed catalogues and the Pigman’s Gazette would they have read ‘Selections from Shakespeare”
selected essays of Elia by Charles Lamb, ‘The Letters of Seneca”


However the things I liked about it were:
It was accessible and easy to read and not too long thank goodness.
I liked the warm heartedness of the characters and the way they were brought together through books, and their wartime camaraderie which continued after the War.
The book was a great idea; the Nazi occupation of Guernsey, which historically is very interesting. It prompted me to think about what it would have been like if the Germans had occupied England and how my grandmother learnt German when war broke out in case England was invaded. She said that if she was going to be dominated by a load of foreigners she at least wanted to know what they were saying. It made me realise that the fear of occupation must have been ever present.
The contrasts between the horrific stories of Nazi brutality and the gentile lives of the characters.
I also liked the romance between Juliet and Mark

Kerry:

Overall, while most felt that the premise was fascinating and well covered through research, Anne observed that it sounded like writing by number and detracted from any interest one might develop in the actual story. Taken as a light read, as Diane suggested, it was enjoyable, but that was difficult to do considering the subject matter.

Krysia also thoughtfully compiled a list of classics from which to choose the book for February which will be: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The list also included:

Dickens, Bleak House, Great Expectations
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
Wilkie Collins, Woman in White
Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea
Murakami, After Dark
Guy de Maupassant, Bel Ami
Collette, Cheri
Simone de Beauvoir, She Came to Stay
Melville, Typhee
Raymond Chandler, Farewell my Lovely

It was a lively discussion in any case and thanks to everyone for making it such an enjoyable evening.

We look forward to seeing you all on 21 December at Sheila's.