Discussion Summaries 2022
Wednesday, December 14, 2022: Free by Lea Ypi
Lea Ypi describes her growing up in (post-)Stalinist Albania from the perspective of a ten-year-old child and during her adolescence. Her childhood seems safe from her perspective, and she feels a sense of security in this system, in her family and neighborhood and identifies very much with this country that has completely closed itself off. As readers, we become aware of inconsistencies, strange occurrences that are not being talked about openly. In the early 90s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, everything changes fundamentally. Lea discovers that she has been living in a state of ignorance, the adults had a special language code with which the unspeakable was discussed in a coded way. Soon there were uprisings all over the country, people demanded better living conditions, free elections, a large number of people left the country on overcrowded ships towards Italy, from where they were turned back again.
From now on, Lea Ypi thinks more and more about the concept of freedom. What exactly is freedom? In the book itself, Ypi uses her family to elaborate on different concepts of freedom: a positive concept for her father, it meant being able to do certain things and having access to different opportunities. For her mother, a negative concept of freedom applied: you are free if the state doesn't tell you what to do, what to say, what to wear. And her grandmother was convinced she was morally free as long as she had the freedom to act responsibly and take responsibility for it, despite oppression.
During our discussion of the book, we questioned whether Lea Ypi idealizes the past, since she does not find life in this socialist country thoroughly bad. She raises the question of whether one is actually more free in a liberal society, where certain structures also put limits on one’s life and prevent one from taking full advantage of one's opportunities. The abrupt collapse of socialist Albania, where she felt free, makes her doubt ideologies in general: isn't our Western concept of freedom also based on an ideology that may turn out to be a delusion over time? In conclusion, we found that this autobiography, which combines the personal experience of the child and the adolescent with the political events and philosophical thoughts, offers a lot of discussion points. UA
Wednesday, November 9, 2022: The Promise by Damon Galgut
Having an expert, personal view of the excesses and tragedies of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, is not absolutely necessary to understand the hidden motivations and the themes of this 2021 Booker Prize winning novel. But our discussion group was delighted to have just such a person present with us to answer our questions in the Lesesaal this month.
We generally thought that the frontispiece quote in italics concerning Fellini was particularly apt: a woman had asked Fellini this question “Why is it that in your movies there is not even one normal person?” Of the four funerals, one Jewish, the others Christian - one a natural death, and the remaining three all violent, two involving guns - there is one character, Amor, who stands with the omniscient narrator aside from the action. She holds the memory of this promise made by her mother on her deathbed, that their long-serving black servant, Salome, can be given the house and land upon which it has stood. Many of the group thought the characters leaned towards being caricatures, not rounded out, and this equally applied to Amor, even though, as Desiree points out in the narrative, Amor is the guardian angel of the promise.
The broader questions of the ownership of both land and slaves/servants; the quality of the land and its questionable productiveness; the family as damaged people, perhaps victims of the broader ills of the society which fate has dealt to them; and finally we arrived in conversation questions concerning the future of this troubled land. The land on the “other side of the earth” which held so much promise for three groups of people originally; Black Africans, Afrikaners and the English who settled there, and whose future is, at best, in doubt.
The most controversial aspect of Galgut’s narration is possibly one of the reasons for the accolades this novel has collected. Our discussions showed that the curious style of mixing stream-of-consciousness of the characters, with facts, and with Galgut’s own funny and at times apologetic commentary did not please everyone. HF
Wednesday, October 12, 2022: The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
All the seven members who attended this discussion admitted that they had struggled with Shirley Hazzard’s style. We were baffled at first by the dense, multi-layered language, the jumps in time and location, the references to astronomy, historical events and English poems long out of fashion. But once we persevered, we were rewarded with a richly satisfying novel that works on both the personal and historical level.
Two Australian girls, orphaned at an early age after their parents die in a shipwreck, are raised by their manipulative, unstable half-sister. The three move to London after World War II and embark on different but interconnected paths. Caro, the older, independent sister, pursues a career in civil service, rejecting the man who adores her and falling in love with a narcissistic playwright who is engaged to a wealthy woman. Grace, the younger, agreeable sister, marries the son of a famous professor and devotes her life to her husband and children. Hazzard minutely explores the complex power plays between the characters as they use wealth, position, knowledge, sheer will or sex to gain mastery over other people or allow themselves to become victims. Underscoring the theme of power is a steady stream of references to wars and conflicts, from antiquity to the Bay of Pigs. Selfless love, the antidote to power, is shown in relationships such as the bond between the sisters, the love between Grace and her children, and the attempt by Adam Vail, Caro’s husband, to help a persecuted writer.
The novel is laced with sarcasm and humor and we enjoyed reading aloud some of our favorite passages, from the definitions of correct behavior by the professor’s wife to the scene of the ageing playwright riding the New York City subway. Many of us intend to read additional works by Shirley Hazzard, including her short stories and non-fiction. ML
Wednesday, September 21, 2022: Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
This classic novel turned out to be particularly topical in light of recent events, i.e. the war in Ukraine and the death of the Queen. It has been called an elegy for the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, nostalgic, melancholy, and at times humorous, with brilliant descriptions of that world before WWI. Roth doesn't romanticize it, he also paints all the muck and vice in the empire, but he doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and say the whole thing was useless.
The duel with Dr. Demant, the death of the faithful servant Jacques, the District Commissioner Trotta's meeting with old Kaiser Franz Josef, are a few of the heart-wrenching set pieces presaging the cataclysmic end to this world with WWI.
We remarked on the near absence of women in the novel, except for Carl Josef's furtive affairs with the voluptuous wife of the sergeant-major and later with Frau von Taussig. The poor, pathetic fellow needed a mother!
Though it was written in 1932, the novel seems modern. Some of our group read it in the original German, and we appreciated the difficulty of translating Roth's distinctive style.
We wondered why Roth is not more widely known, when he is considered one of the premier Austrian writers of the 20th century. After reading his masterpiece, some of us have become Roth enthusiasts and intend to read the Gesammelte Werke. MH
Wednesday, August 17, 2022: Recitatif by Toni Morrison
"Recitatif" is the only short story that Toni Morrison wrote. Her premise was to tell the story of two girls, one of whom was black and the other white, in a race-neutral fashion, meaning that, in the end, the reader could not determine the racial identity of either character.
The story begins at a children’s home and orphanage when the girls are eight years old. They spend four months together and become fast friends at the institution but lose track of each other immediately upon leaving. It picks up again when the women, now young adults, meet in a chance encounter. Twyla is working as a waitress at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant, Roberta is underway to a Jimi Hendrix concert with two “hairy” men. The story skips forward another 12 years when they encounter each other once again by chance. Roberta has become wealthy, and Twyla leads a typically middle-class life. They find themselves on opposite sides of protests regarding the busing of children to force integration of public schools.
"Récitatif " is French for recitative, a style of musical declamation between song and ordinary speech. A now obsolete use of the word is "the tone or rhythm peculiar to any language." Morrision appears to draw upon this sense in choosing her title.
Was Morrison successful in writing the story in such a way as to obscure the race of the characters? I think that she was. She did so, in my view, by playing upon the reader’s own preconceptions of what characterizes a person of one race as opposed to another and mixing the signals sent.
This story was first published in 1983 in an anthology entitled "Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women," edited by Amiri Baraka and Amina Baraka. It was repackaged in 2022 with an introduction – actually an essay about the story – by Zadie Smith that appeared in the New Yorker. The introduction was longer than the story. Several participants regretted having read the introduction before reading the story. mac
Wednesday, July 13, 2022: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
"Northanger Abbey" was written in 1798 and published posthumously in 1817 as two volumes with the four of “Persuasion”. Austen's biting social commentary on the landed gentry’s preoccupation with conventions, fashion, gossip, money and matchmaking makes for amusing reading. The main character, young Catherine, lacks the necessary grooming and flounders for part of the book because her knowledge of the world is limited to reading “Gothic” mystery novels, the main staple of inspiration for women at that time. We appreciated Austen’s mastery in character descriptions with sarcastic takes on human foibles and think this is why this love story, with the predictable happy ending, continues to fascinate over 200 years later. EK
Wednesday, June 8, 2022: Dog Park by Sofi Oksanen
The story takes place in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the center is Olenka, who makes a career in the fertility business and inadvertently comes into conflict with the criminal oligarchs and is on the run. The second main character is Daria, who, like Olenka, escapes from poverty and finds a - temporarily - better life as an egg donor for rich couples.
Sofi Oksanen shows in several layers and flashbacks how Ukraine re-establishes itself as an independent state, under what conditions the oligarchs come to power and the social transformations between about 1991 and 2016. The focus of the book is specifically on the business of egg donation and, also, surrogate motherhood. In light of the problems first related to the Corona pandemic and now the war with Russia, the problems of this business ("ordered" babies cannot be delivered), come to light and are discussed. In addition, the book also sheds light on the practices by which the egg donors are selected. Not unlike the modeling business, the women are chosen for their beauty, and, in addition, resumes are falsified to meet the demands of the ordering parents.
All in all, this book - as well as other works by Sofi Oksanen - sheds light on the living conditions in the former Soviet republics and how people deal with each other to free themselves from poverty and seek their place in a new social system. UA
Wednesday, May 11, 2022: The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
A book about the history of a dictionary can seem like the very definition of tedium. Yet "The Meaning of Everything: the Story of the Oxford English Dictionary" is a dynamic and often gripping read. The book covers the individual, political and economic odyssey that produced the 12-volume OED, which was started in 1860 and was released as its first edition in 1928.
Simon Winchester is a journalist and prolific non-fiction writer. His narrative non-fiction format and deep research results in a fascinating, often humorous account of the origins and massive undertaking in compiling this comprehensive historical dictionary of the English language. Hundreds of volunteers worldwide each scoured assigned books for selected words and copied out the quotations that give the words context and meaning.
Winchester includes a brief, engaging history of the English language and the earliest published dictionaries. These histories give an appreciation of the vitality of this living, growing language and a sense of the enormous, life-long complexity in capturing and keeping definitions up-to-date.
Winchester’s sophisticated writing style often sent us, appropriately, to a dictionary to better understand rich terms and concepts that we rarely encounter in our pared-down, fit-for-texting modern language.
The eight of us meeting this evening enjoyed the book. We had a lively discussion about Winchester’s writing style, the process of determining definitions and their etymology, and the many people leading the effort and contributing to the definitions. Our one critique is that how the words to be defined were chosen is a mystery that Winchester did not describe.
Book Group fun fact: In 1971, to help Oxford University Press make money, the first edition was micrographically reproduced to compress the now 13-volume OED into two volumes. These were sold “…in one big blue box, along with a handsome magnifying glass in a nifty little drawer at the top – and it sold like hot cakes…” Three of our Book Group members still have these “hot cakes.” KS
Wednesday, April 13, 2022: The Overstory by Richard Powers
Five of us gathered to discuss this – one could almost say “novel” – novel. A sixth member of the group (DD) sent us her thoughts and discussion points in writing.
The story is divided into 4 sections, each named after part of a tree. In Roots, the characters and their back stories are introduced. In Trunk, the characters’ fates flow together as they become activists in the common cause of saving old-growth trees. After failing to save a giant redwood, which was occupied by two of the now-activists for months, the individuals become radicalized and start burning logging equipment. This ends when an arson attempt goes awry and Olivia (a.k.a. Maidenhair) is killed in an explosion. The Crown recounts the aftermath of the explosion, including the surfacing of a journal kept by activist Doug, which recorded the group’s arson activities. He is arrested with Adam, whom Doug named as an accomplice. Seeds serves as an epilog of sorts to the story.
DD, who proposed the book for discussion, has read it twice and rates it very highly. No one disliked the book or thought that it was a waste of time (although it did require a great commitment of time to read), so the overall tenor was positive, when not quite as enthusiastic as DD’s. We were unanimous on the following points:
· The book is (too) long and very intricate. It is not an easy read.
· Richard Powers’ prose is at times very powerful and captivating. For one of us, this was particularly evident in the way he wrote about trees.
· The book included numerous scientific assertions, which we believed to be plausible and did not challenge. That trees communicate with and support each other in a non-sentient manner is one example.
A few participants felt that the characters were not presented in a believable way; they were, rather, stereotypical constructs developed for didactic purposes. Other critical thoughts were that the book could have been improved by editing out several characters as well as the spiritual beings that Olivia encountered in her near-death experience.
I would like to close the review by repeating something that DD wrote:
It’s this book that made me realise what miracles trees are. […] Richard Powers was at the Kaufleuten in Zürich […] and made a very good impression on me for his knowledge, compassion, and humility. I’ll never forget his saying confidently and softly, “Trees will be here long after we are gone."
mac
Thursday, March 10, 2022: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
We were grateful to read an uplifting book, especially after enduring two years under the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine. Using humor and fantasy, “The Midnight Library” takes on the serious topic of depression, showing the journey that Nora Seed takes from questioning whether she wants to live toward understanding the sources of her regrets and discovering what she really wants. Under the guidance of a stern but patient librarian, Nora checks out the books that allow her to enter and explore the different paths that her life could take.
Unfortunately, the book became monotonous after several examples of Nora trying out and rejecting different lives, with predictable situations and characters. When the book reached its climax, with Nora’s realization that she could control her own life, it seemed like an afterthought. We ended our discussion after thirty minutes, most of us feeling that this self-help book does not live up to its rave reviews. ML
Wednesday, February 9, 2022: The Lightless Sky by Gulwali Passarlay
This book relates the story of a twelve-year-old Afghan boy who travelled a migrant route, from Afghanistan to England, between 2006 and 2007.
When the US troops withdrew from Afghanistan, both the Taliban and the government tried to recruit youngsters for their own ends, which led to such children being in deadly danger. Gulwali`s widowed mother decided that her two oldest sons stood a better chance of survival in Europe and paid for people-smugglers to ensure the boys reached Italy.
Unfortunately, the brothers got separated soon after their horrendous journey began, so that Gulwali had to endure terrible hardships alone, including being flung off a moving train and nearly drowning in the Mediterranean. Such traumatic experiences left their mark on him. After a year, however, he reached the UK and was reunited with his brother Hazrat. He was only thirteen, which made him eligible to attend school and have foster parents, but the authorities claimed that Gulwali was sixteen, probably because, as an adult, he could then be deported. This attitude is apparently still prevalent and not only in England.
Some of us felt that the book, although simple in style, helped us gain fresh perspectives e.g., that the Taliban were welcomed in rural Afghanistan because they brought stability to war-torn regions. The group had mixed feelings about Gulwali`s family, who were Taliban sympathisers, but understood the mother`s motivation. Gulwali himself says that, "My mother sent me away to save my life."
We learned of the cold-blooded system, by which only one stage of a migrant`s route is paid in advance. Until the money for the next stage of the journey is in place, the migrant remains where he is, stuck in cruel limbo. As for the smugglers themselves, Gulwali acknowledges that some are decent and kind and that not all of them look on the migrants as "commodities."
This is a remarkable story of resilience. Gulwali, despite difficulties with his mental health, went on to study in England and is very involved in humanitarian work to raise awareness on behalf of child migrants. He plans to one day become President of Afghanistan. DS
Wednesday, January 12, 2022: The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
This author was unknown to all of us, despite having been nominated four times for the Booker, winning once. The Beginning of Spring takes place in Moscow in 1913 just before the Russian Revolution and the tense and uncertain atmosphere is brilliantly evoked. Most of us appreciated the subtle (very British) humour that comes from the entanglements between reserved English and extravagant Russian ways of behaving. Characters are not fleshed out in this miniature comedy of manners, and one, Lisa, remains a mystery. For most of us, Penelope Fitzgerald was a happy discovery. MH