Next time on Book Club For One...

Hi everyone!

I've had a great suggestion from one of my readers. He suggested that from now on I give everyone a heads up on the upcoming book so that everyone has a chance to read it in time for the next post, so here goes. The next book chosen by my dear friend is Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk about Kevin. I'll look forward to our discussion when I blog my next post, hopefully sometime in July! 

I woke up into a nightmare

Where do I begin on this one? I'll be honest and try not to be too harsh. I sincerely disliked this month's pick. The book: It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini; the plot: a poor little rich kid with a bad case of First World Problems. It was chosen thanks to the recommendation by Amazon and I was sorry that our Book Club session was wasted on such a bad choice.
Now to be clear I am very sympathetic to depression and the horrors that come with it, but I didn't find this book to be sincere in being an advocate for mental health. It's Kind of a Funny Story follows a depressed teenage boy who, after contemplating suicide, checks himself into a psychiatric hospital.
From the offset I hated the protagonist and narrator Craig. Brought up in upper middle class New York by wealthy parents, he attends a highly prestigious school surrounded by competition. Typical of a teen novel he falls victim to the ever evil unrequited love. What bugs me so much throughout the novel is that this boy has no real problems. Yes, he's socially awkward, but what teenager isn't? His problems of falling behind in school could be easily solved if he stopped smoking marijuana and did his homework! Not since Holden Caulfield has a character in a novel annoyed me so much.
The time spent in the psychiatric ward was too One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest for my liking. Maybe its hard to write a novel in that setting without referencing Ken Kesey but I felt that it was a poor man's version. Craig lacked any dysfunctional relationship with his parents that might attribute to his negative view on life. His parents were supportive and loving and completely baffled as to why their son was contemplating ending it all. Craig lacked any goals, he was lazy and had every chance to get his life together.
Our meeting of the club didn't have a great turnout, perhaps other people felt like I did. Those that were there didn't have many positive comments and even the host du jour spent a suspicious amount of time referencing the film, leaving me wondering if a bad movie was better than our book choice.
All negativity aside, I think it was welcome to have a book that we all seemed to dislike and if anything at least we got to widen our genre selection. I'd love to hear your opinions on the book if you've read it, maybe you could try and soften my cynical side.

What is the meaning of life?

            I was a coward. I chose a book that was safe and was guaranteed a reaction. My friend Ailbhe was braver. (It would go in alphabetical order from now on, it probably should've started that way). Ailbhe is studying English, the same degree I did actually and decided to kill two birds with one stone and choose a book from her module reading list. Typically enough it was one that I hadn't read but that was a good thing, I wanted to expand my horizons. Ailbhe daringly chose Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, a book that arguably lacks much plot but allows us to experience the modernist movement through prose.
Woolf's writing style wasn't too unfamiliar to me, I didn't find it hard to get a grasp on it, perhaps because we studied texts like it in my degree, perhaps I related to the sleepy, hypnotic beat.
           The reaction was a mixed one, which again I think is what makes book club fun. A lot of my friends didn't like the book, few even went as far to say that they hated it, one compared it to a Jane Austen novel which mustered up many disagreeing comments, comments which I stand by.
           Written around the time of such great minds as Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, To the Lighthouse reflects the innovative methods of the scientific minds of the time. Woolf successfully incorporates these changing times into the style of her novel, and yet does not neglect the personal aspect that readers yearn for, as we get a glimpse into what has been arguably Woolf's most autobiographical work.
            With regards Ailbhe's choice, I think it was a gem. By choosing such a literary masterpiece it broadened our minds, gave us material for a healthy debate and raised the bar for the next books. However in saying that it gave us some leeway to read the more stereotypical books too, after all we are just a bunch of girls with a fondness to a discussion about anything regardless of how high brow it is!

         

He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.

           As mentioned in the previous post picking a book for book club was to prove a difficult task. After trawling through my modest collection of novels and much deliberation I finally settled on Perfume by Patrick Suskind. I read it before as a teenager and the little frog like man really spoke to me. Although I’m not sure what that says about me. Does anyone know what I mean? That such an inhumane character who murders for greed and lust can pluck such human emotions as empathy, compassion and something almost maternal. I felt confident that at least half my friends would like the book and those that didn’t would dislike it so much that the discussion would have tremendous depth.
           When the big night came my nerves were ridiculously shattered. Having my friends over for seemed like the most daunting experience in my life to date. Would there be enough chairs? Would there be any uncomfortable moments of silence? Would they like the chicken soup dip courtesy of my sister’s secret recipe? All these worries and more crossed my mind.
            Now I didn’t want my Book Club baby to turn into one of those Eastenders type Book Clubs where they all just sat around gossiping and drinking wine. I didn’t want it to be the subject of eye rolling when I mentioned it to my male friends. Nevertheless people brought wine; I myself was guilty of buying a bottle. And you know what, I think we needed it. It broke the ice, as crazy as it sounds even though they were all my friends it was a little bit awkward to get started. I suppose it was a big change in the dynamic of our usual conversation topics.
           Once the wine flowed the conversation followed suit. I was delighted that my predictions for the responses were correct, some loved the book and others simply hated it. One friend in particular thought there was something wrong with those that identified with it. And perhaps she was right. The book held so many themes that it made for perfect deconstruction. The very essence of Grenouille’s core being was brought into question. Just what exactly was this man, was he an orchestrator of death as was discussed? Aside from the murders that he actually committed it could be argued that he was responsible for the deaths of so many others, just by being in their company. Ironic and filled with black humour, Perfume hinted that Grenouille cursed the people in his life starting with his mother and ending with a village full of people. He took the hate, greed and lust that people felt inside and used it against them (whether intentional or not) and the characters got their comeuppance in the end.
           I won’t talk about the ending simply because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone that hasn’t read it. I will say however that it was as apt as could be. I thought it was perfect, I think even if it grosses you out you’d appreciate how symbolic it was, and frankly the book couldn’t possibly have ended any other way.
And so it was, the pilot meeting of Book Club was a success, as my friends left and the texts rolled in about how much fun it was I felt really proud that I had pulled it off. Well at least I did the next day, the one bottle of wine I had turned into three and I wasn’t thinking much at that stage. I did, however, begin a tradition that the hostess will always end up the drunkest. It’s got to be those bookworms in your stomach.

A great read, let me know what you think!

The Birth of Book Club

 My mother and I played book club, to a certain extent, when I was growing up. Rather my mother humoured me as I nagged about having a book club while I was growing up. She’d dish out suggestions for me to read and I’d read them and tell her if I liked them or not, I never really asked for her opinion, which I suppose didn’t make it very clubby. It got easier as I got older; there are more books to offer once you open your mind past Enid Blyton. Summer time would come and I’d get antsy without my regular routine and my mother and I would walk to the library and choose some books. Getting into the Stephen King books were fun and a kind of coming of age type moment, Carrie became a woman in the locker room at her school, I became a woman in poetic sort of way in the dusty old library of my hometown.

                As fun as my discussions with my mother were, I wanted more. Now don’t get me wrong this first “book club” was influential in a way that I will never shake off, she became the yard stick for all others. My friends and I didn’t share the same passion for the same themes. Sure we loved books but diving into the narrator’s psyche or the heroine’s repressed sexual frustration wasn’t  a popular topic with most 16 year old girls, old couples with Alzheimer’s however, ah a literary masterpiece! If I thought I’d find my much sought after literature forum at school then I was sorely mistaken. For the five years spent at school I was assigned to read four novels. Oh how I longed to read a book a month and connect to each protagonist in a deep and meaningful way.

                Enter university. Studying English at university was like giving a blind man his sight. I had so much reading to do! I engrossed myself in the delights of fiction from all genres. I experienced the eccentricities of Geoffrey Chaucer, the loneliness of Mary Shelly, the innate ability of Charles Dickens to capture the soul of the ordinary people, and so much more.  

My all time favourite book from university was Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The book stirred something in me that allowed me to see Jane Eyre’s wounded and tormented but ever strong spirit. The Freudian aspect to Bronte’s writing was so apparent that it gave me great joy to dissect the repression and transference that went hand in hand with the sexuality theme of the novel. At last I felt at home being able to discuss the things that I found so important with my peers who felt the same.

How sad it was when university ended and I no longer had the safe environment of a seminar to discuss the ins and outs of Victorian literature. What would fill this book shaped hole in my life? So for a few years after university I went back to the process of reading a book and then finding some friend in the bar at the weekend who also read it. I’d proceed to drunkenly talk about the book’s characters and underlying themes and once morning came I’d hold my head in my hands in embarrassment. Was it necessary for me to go on and on like that? Could I not have talked about the latest episode of Eastenders like normal people? I’d go see a film based on a book that I’d read and whine to my boyfriend that it didn’t happen like that in the book. I’d inform him of the significance of such and such wearing green all the time, while he kindly agreed that that was fascinating.

Then one day, with thanks to Carmella Soprano I have to admit, it occurred to me to set up my own book club. I had enough friends that liked to read to host a monthly group meeting. And so I emailed my friends and they all thought it was a great idea. Why had nobody thought of doing this before? After around 8 of my friends agreeing, the book club came into formation! How exciting! I was left with the difficulty in choosing the first book. What a difficult task I had in front of me, should I choose a crowd pleaser, a classic, or something totally unheard of?

Until next time...