Date: Feb 28, 2008
Meeting venue: Fox and Badger, Wellow.
Present: Rob, Chris, Steve, Neil, Mark T, Mark Th (later)
A double dose for Feb 08. Ian McEwan's Chesil Beach had been bubbling under for a while: several members had said they'd like to read it, but equally others already had, and as a matter of preference we aim to choose something that no-one's read before. So given that it's a short book (apparently nearly turned down for the Booker on the grounds that it was too short), we agreed to discuss it along with this month's 'proper' choice (A Thousand Splendid Suns - notes posted separately).
These are Rob's notes, so 'I' means 'Rob'...
Greater consensus about Chesil Beach than Thousand Suns. I recall Chris being particularly flowery in his praise of McEwan's writing style and capabilities. There was general appreciation of the humour in the description of actions in the hotel room, fond memories of how completely naff so much of our culture was at that time (e.g. the food) and slightly less fond memories (from some) of similar sexual discovery/failure in our youth. Some discussion about whether and how it would have been possible for the communicative failure between the two central characters to have been resolved (they just needed a good psychologist) or was it so deeply ingrained in the cultural norms of the time that neither could have been helped out of the predicament. General (but not unanimous) view that it was an extremely sad book - wasted lives etc. because of an inability to be honest and open. There was also discussion about Richard's strong view that the last fifteen pages should have been around 150 pages and have told the rest of the story. Others (Steve in particular if I recall rightly) felt the last section to be totally unnecessary and that the book should have finished as she walked away down the beach. I think McEwan got it right - and the brief outline of the damage to the rest of his life from that failure to act gave exactly the right emphasis to the central message of how compliance with societal norms, if unchallenged, can destroy lives.
Generally very high marks so far - right up there near the top with 7.37 - Will's score still to come. However, I cannot help but feel that the high marks were linked to it being so short (which is fair enough as we are marking it on the whole package) but I wonder if it had been a normal book length it might have come out a bit less well - with its brevity making us feel extra positive at the end as we finished it so quickly and easily.
Saturday 8 March 2008
Friday 7 March 2008
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Date: Feb 28, 2008
Meeting venue: Fox and Badger, Wellow.
Present: Rob, Chris, Steve, Neil, Mark T, Mark Th (later)
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
This was the first time we'd re-visited an author. Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' was the club's first book.
Instantly disliked by some (Steve) for costing £11.99 despite being a paperback. Rob's slightly edited notes:
Overall a positive response, but with two varying levels of enjoyment. Neil, Mark T, Rob and Richard (by email) found it an extremely enjoyable book. The writing style is clear, easy to read, with effective use of language, evocative descriptions etc., good strong characters, good historical/political insights.
On the other hand Steve and particularly Chris were less impressed. Both were critical of the writing style and the story line - it was 'like a soap opera with soap opera characters' ["Leave 'im, Mariam, 'e's not worf it..."] and 'written for the film script' (what a cynic).
In trying to identify the reasons for these differences of opinion, we discussed:
(i) The writing style. Chris complained there was too little substance to the writing style. Steve called up the evergreen Chinese meal analogy: quickly wolfed down but ultimately leaves a hole. Rob however enjoyed the low key style, feeling that he achieves a high level of tension and descriptive capacity.
(ii) The story line. Suggested by the negative entourage to be predictable - but others cited several twists and turns that were unexpected (e.g. Tariq's re-appearance).
(iii) The characters. Felt by some to be parodies, along with their actions (such as trying to bury the dead husband under the, er, patio), but by others to potentially be what life and people are/were like in that culture at that point in time - should we expect people to behave in 'western' styles in middle eastern settings?
From there the discussion went two ways. One strand connected to some of Ras's comments about the contribution of Hosseini's books to an understanding about Afghanistan, its politics and its culture. Again, the discussion divided along broadly similar line. We mostly agreed that both books had greatly increased our understanding (and western society's as a whole) of Afghan history and its current predicaments in a way that was a very constructive antidote to the simplistic prejudices of the Murdoch press - which is where the UK gets most if its Afghani perceptions from. On the other hand there was a feeling that he was allowing or using his position as a US Goodwill envoy to the UN to take over - he had ceased to be a novelist and was rather a revisionist (as in US style perception) Afghani publicist.
The second linked discussion considered whether his repertoire was limited. How different was this book to Kite Runner? Some felt it was telling the same story again, whilst others suggested that a novel set in Afghanistan is so rare that this makes it feel similar because we are so unfamiliar with such settings, whereas the content was really quite different i.e. would two novels by the same author about people, relationships and politics in modern Britain be considered to be basically the same story? Plus, many other authors write several books with the same setting, why should that be a criticism for Hosseini?
Steve adds: One thing that is clear, on re-reading the above, is that we probably didn't give due time in the discussion to what is for many readers the key point of the book: that it is written by a man from a female point of view and that it aims to expose and elicit sympathy for the plight of women in Afghanistan over the past 30 years. I don't think that we missed this, so to speak, but perhaps being the Bath Blokes Book Club, these issues didn't resonate for us quite as much as they might with a mixed or female group. Perhaps this is therefore a triumph for Hosseini's style, in that he didn't allow his achievement in doing this to detract from the plotting and structure - enabling us to talk in terms of soap operas and character development, rather than the gender-based issues? But I'm not changing my score!
Average score: 6.8/10 (with Will and Mark Th's scores to come)
When we've figured out how, we'll post a spreadsheet with all the scores updated.
Meeting venue: Fox and Badger, Wellow.
Present: Rob, Chris, Steve, Neil, Mark T, Mark Th (later)
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
This was the first time we'd re-visited an author. Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' was the club's first book.
Instantly disliked by some (Steve) for costing £11.99 despite being a paperback. Rob's slightly edited notes:
Overall a positive response, but with two varying levels of enjoyment. Neil, Mark T, Rob and Richard (by email) found it an extremely enjoyable book. The writing style is clear, easy to read, with effective use of language, evocative descriptions etc., good strong characters, good historical/political insights.
On the other hand Steve and particularly Chris were less impressed. Both were critical of the writing style and the story line - it was 'like a soap opera with soap opera characters' ["Leave 'im, Mariam, 'e's not worf it..."] and 'written for the film script' (what a cynic).
In trying to identify the reasons for these differences of opinion, we discussed:
(i) The writing style. Chris complained there was too little substance to the writing style. Steve called up the evergreen Chinese meal analogy: quickly wolfed down but ultimately leaves a hole. Rob however enjoyed the low key style, feeling that he achieves a high level of tension and descriptive capacity.
(ii) The story line. Suggested by the negative entourage to be predictable - but others cited several twists and turns that were unexpected (e.g. Tariq's re-appearance).
(iii) The characters. Felt by some to be parodies, along with their actions (such as trying to bury the dead husband under the, er, patio), but by others to potentially be what life and people are/were like in that culture at that point in time - should we expect people to behave in 'western' styles in middle eastern settings?
From there the discussion went two ways. One strand connected to some of Ras's comments about the contribution of Hosseini's books to an understanding about Afghanistan, its politics and its culture. Again, the discussion divided along broadly similar line. We mostly agreed that both books had greatly increased our understanding (and western society's as a whole) of Afghan history and its current predicaments in a way that was a very constructive antidote to the simplistic prejudices of the Murdoch press - which is where the UK gets most if its Afghani perceptions from. On the other hand there was a feeling that he was allowing or using his position as a US Goodwill envoy to the UN to take over - he had ceased to be a novelist and was rather a revisionist (as in US style perception) Afghani publicist.
The second linked discussion considered whether his repertoire was limited. How different was this book to Kite Runner? Some felt it was telling the same story again, whilst others suggested that a novel set in Afghanistan is so rare that this makes it feel similar because we are so unfamiliar with such settings, whereas the content was really quite different i.e. would two novels by the same author about people, relationships and politics in modern Britain be considered to be basically the same story? Plus, many other authors write several books with the same setting, why should that be a criticism for Hosseini?
Steve adds: One thing that is clear, on re-reading the above, is that we probably didn't give due time in the discussion to what is for many readers the key point of the book: that it is written by a man from a female point of view and that it aims to expose and elicit sympathy for the plight of women in Afghanistan over the past 30 years. I don't think that we missed this, so to speak, but perhaps being the Bath Blokes Book Club, these issues didn't resonate for us quite as much as they might with a mixed or female group. Perhaps this is therefore a triumph for Hosseini's style, in that he didn't allow his achievement in doing this to detract from the plotting and structure - enabling us to talk in terms of soap operas and character development, rather than the gender-based issues? But I'm not changing my score!
Average score: 6.8/10 (with Will and Mark Th's scores to come)
When we've figured out how, we'll post a spreadsheet with all the scores updated.
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