Secret River – Kate Grenville

Late November 2009

No notes survive of our deliberations on this book. The score was on the high side. I (Steve) recall an engaging and relatively well-written book. The initial section in London which told the back story to the protagonist's arrival in Oz was maybe rather one-dimensional and Blackadder-ish. The section in Australia felt more authentic. The profound contrast between the immigrants' greed for land/property/wealth and the nomadic season-driven tempo of the aborigine lifestyle was very effectively drawn. Google Maps proved very useful, to help pinpoint and orientate oneself. There was a sense that this book was a real eye-opener in Australia, telling a story which has been downplayed in history.

If anyone can remember anything else that we talked about, please comment.

7.18

Sacred Games – Vikram Chandra

29th October 2009

All present at the Devonshire Arms apart from Will for a discussion on Sacred Games. A generally positive response to the book, with one or two excpetions.

Not surprisingly, the length of the book was the subject to a number of comments, with views varying from far too long, through could have done to be about 200 pages shorter to 'what's the problem?' Once we got beyond that, the comments were overwhelmingly positive, encompassing elements such as:

Really nice, easy to read writing style

Good characters, most or all of whom evoked positive feelings from the reader (even if they were being gangsters) in terms of us wanting them to have a positive outcome in their life

Evocative descriptions of life in India, including the corruption that underpins elements of society, life in the large cities etc

The different stories intertwining throughout the novel, with their clever connections (though some felt that the gaps between revisiting each story were sometimes too long)

There were no real negative elements that had common agreement, with the possible exception that the guru element of the story got a bit laboured on occasions.

A number of facets did generate disagreement/different views, though with the exception of the frist bullet point below we didn't really explore any of them to any form of conclusion (see comment at the end of this email), For example:

The use of non-english for individual words, terms (e.g. money) and extracts from songs or poems. Some felt this unhelpful if not annoying without an explanation, whereas others took the view that this was part of creating the atmosphere and context and full understanding of every bit of meaning was not essential. (Linked to this were questions about who the book was written for - possibly English speaking Hindi and other people who are more used to interchange of language that the English are so who are we to complain?)

The use of literary devices such as killing people off and then having large sections written with them in the first person in order to 'paint a picture' and enable the reader to create their own understanding of the novel versus that (and other things) not being 'realistic'

Similarly the books leaving the reader to fill in the gaps themselves around the central elements of the story versus a non-explanation of the detail of how certain things happened being annoying

Was it a detective story, or a thriller (as claimed) or about something deeper such as individual loneliness?

However, generally a positive view of the book and it is up in the top quarter of our all time novels.

7.34

A Most Wanted Man – John Le Carre

There was a fair degree of agreement about A Most Wanted Man - as follows:

Disappointing in terms of what we had expected. The Le Carre history and/or reputation for well told, complex plots that were atmospheric and gripped the reader proved unfounded in relation to this latest offering. General feeling was that this book lacked sophistication and generally failed to 'grip' people

It was as though Le Carre had tried to adapt to a 'post Smiley' world in his writing - but failed. By trying to deal with Islamic terrorism (rather than the cold war) and introducing real relationships between men and women (rather than simple cameo's of separated ageing spies and their mistresses) he appeared to enter territory that he simply didn't have the knowledge about. If the Islamic terrorist threat was to be effectively written about, then it needed greater depth and insight than he offered, and his writing about relationships was generally considered to be just awful - people suddenly were stated to have fallen for each other without any build-up, tension nor rhyme nor reason offered.

Somewhat one-dimensional - with a slow build up to the one central event, rather than the usual Le Carre complexity of several things happening at different points in the novel.

There were different views on the ending. Most thought it was weak and hurried, whilst Rob (alone?) rather liked the swift brutal conclusion

General consensus that we enjoyed the Yank bashing, which almost saved the book from itself.

Some of the writing was of a very disappointing quality (who is Le Carre 'when he was at home' - P58) - though Ras took offence at Rob's suggestion that on occasions he was beginning to fear he was reading Jeffrey Archer writing under a stolen name.

Why did he write it? A publishing commitment he couldn't get out of? Lost money in the banking crash and needed to top up the pension? The general view was that it was as though his heart wasn't really in it and he dashed it off without his previous degree on in-depth writing and research.

In summary, views ranged from it being a pleasant but uninspiring read to being a bit of a waste of time.

5.26

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday

24th Septmber 2009

Notes missing

6.33

A Blinding Absence of Light – Tahar Ben Jelloun

Late June 2009

A pleasant evening in the garden/patio/car park at the Bear last week to discuss 'A Blinding Absence of Hope'. All present bar Will. Not the greatest success in the history of the book club in terms of its popularity. The underpinning problem was the bleakness of the book, a general view being that we had been looking for/hoping for an uplifting ending and/or message of positivity for the future - which failed to materialise.

There was a general admiration for the authors attempt, (in some ways successful), to create a book out of essentially no material i.e. someone sitting alone in a darkening room for eighteen years doing nothing. This resulted in divergent views with some wanting to know what happened to the central character afterwards, whilst others (I think the majority) took the view that the book could only work as a concept if it did focus solely on the experience of being in the prison and creating a 'part two' about life afterwards would have destroyed the integrity of the concept. Similarly, there were a number of related topics that it would have been interesting to find out more about (e.g. the Polisario rebellion, the nature of life in Morocco under the royal dictatorship), but again a recognition that this book was probably not the right place for elucidation.

The writing style was recognised as pretty good, without ever sending anyone into raptures of praise as other books have done.

There was some discussion about how honest and valid some of the story's central tenet and claims actually were. For example, some of the content implied that there was an underpinning low level of light in the cells. If there was no light, how would any of the prisoners have managed to enter daylight with such apparent ease for the funerals?

As always, there were some interesting spin-off discussions, most notably:

strategies for handling desperation i.e. the approach advocated in the book of denying existence outside the immediate as opposed to using positive memories to sustain hope for the future

Experiences of being effectively 'imprisoned' which encompassed experiences of that nature arising from Chris's past illness and Ras's life in a submarine.

All in all, only Mark T. was really positive about the book (and then not hugely), with the other extreme being myself who found it so depressing I could only facing reading the first 40% and then the last 10% to see if it did have an uplifting ending (hopes dashed) - why would anyone read a book to depress themselves?

4.59

For Whom The Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

Late May 2009

A small but elegant group (in the words of Steve) at the Star last Thursday - Steve, Ras, Neil and myself. Plus, emailed comments received in advance from Chris W.

Despite the small number of people - and indeed a remarkable degree of agreement amongst those present - the debate about 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' (I will henceforth adopt Mark Th's abbreviation of 'Frome') was full, lively and varied. Despite CE's departing comment that Frome drove him over the edge, we all rather liked it. Not only was the writing style appreciated (with one caveat - see below), we collectively found it educational, thought provoking and almost moving in some ways. One of the best things about the book was the way in which it prompted us into debates at the meeting about issues connected to both the story and its context. As Neil said at the end, one of the good things about the book club is the way in which the discussion helps us to see and/or recall things in books that we perhaps hadn't been fully conscious of at the time of reading it.

So, brief summary of some of the main areas of discussion:

All very impressed with the writing style and in particular his ability to paint a picture of a place, event or person.

The one significant disagreement around writing style was around his 'Thou', 'Thee' and 'I obscenity in the milk of your mother'. Ras, Neil and I found it very annoying. Steve and Chris didn't.

Unanimous agreement that the description of the lynching of the Fascists in the village square was incredibly powerful and well written. Using the style of monologue through Pilar worked well and drew us all into the story - to the extent of each thinking how they would have behaved in that situation. An ensuing discussion was around the nature of peer group pressure to behave in ways that might be alien to individual characteristics but perhaps bring out deeper (and darker) elements of human nature.

A bit like the previous book (Quiet American) it was set in a time and political situation of which we all had a vague outline knowledge, but didn't really know the detail. It therefore had an educational component. Resultant discussions around this element included (i) the extent to which it was written in a politically 'neutral' manner. On one hand it did appear written in a fairly balanced way, but is it really possible to write without personal political prejudices coming into play and Hemingway clearly must have had those given him living through that period in the area., (ii) the extent to which the scars of that period are still around in Spanish society today. Given that people are still alive who lived through it, there must surely be some residual animosity around the place, and it is, after all, only around 20 years since Franco and his repressive regime were ruling the country. This led into numerous other discussions covering topics such as Gibraltar, why Spain has returned to a monarchy and the extent to which his description of the role of the Russians was influenced by wider political events on the early 1940's and how it made sense to describe their involvement in Spain. Finally, the interesting question of how and why fascist Spain stayed theoretically 'neutral' in the 2nd world war and how, had they not, the whole course of the war and subsequent history would have been different e.g. the Allies would almost certainly have lost control of the Mediterranean

The extent to which some of the writing style might have been innovative for its time e.g. the reflective wondering out-loud by Robert Jordan about the risk of imminent death, elements of his life etc. It didn't really feel like a book that was nearly 70 years old (apart from the thee, thou and obscenities).

The sex scenes were particularly appreciated - not because of the sex (as it wasn't really there in terms of the words) but because the writing style of those paragraphs eloquently described the emotions without being at all graphic.

Some suggestion that Hemingway had actually written very sympathetically about the female characters (surprising for a man with a reputation as a misogynist) i.e. Maria showing strength after the rape, Pilar being the strongest character in the book. I was a bit less convinced about this, thinking that Maria was being portrayed as an accepting, obedient subservient female whilst Pilar was enabled to be a strong person by having had most of her feminine characteristics stripped from her.

Robert Jordan's death scene - generally felt to be well written - which in turn led to a conversation about how we might react when faced with death - deep stuff eh?

In true Stalinist tradition, CE has now been erased from the records of the book club and shall forever have a 5.6 average and be just slightly grumpy about the books in our memories.

7.47

The Quiet American – Graham Greene

Late April 2009

In broad terms we didn't disagree much with what Richard said in his note below - so that will have to do as a summary plus whatever anyone else wants to send around by way of addendum. I recall some discussion about the pre-American Vietnam and how generally (expect for the History Teacher Man) we knew little of that era and so were interested to find out more - albeit from the perspective of Greene which some of us, myself included, suspected of a degree of personal political bias. The male/female power relationship element noted by Richard was also discussed (though without getting into comparing notes on numbers of partners) along with a conversation about how times have and have not changed in terms of social attitudes and norms. Rob found the juxtaposition of good and bad in terms of personalities and sense of moral judgement between the two prime characters quite interesting. i.e. Pyle had a high sense of personal moral behaviour in his direct dealings with people but no sense of moral right or wrong in the wider impact of what he did, whilst the central character (can't recall his name - sorry) was clearly unpleasant to almost everyone around him but had strong and generally sound moral judgements on wider society. Was Greene trying to make a point here I wonder?

Generally felt to be a good book without completely stirring people into paroxysms of delight.

From RV:

There were lots of things I enjoyed about this book:

* it was quick and easy to read;

* it was very interesting to read about Vietnam before the USA Vietnam war;

* Greene was very interesting on relationships (p 100) and how relationships are infused with hurt and pain and possession etc, and his writing on religion is especially interesting given his conversion to Catholicism;

* It was really interesting to read about people's views of 'old age' in the 1950s (p 96): "I've reached the age where sex isn't the problem so much as old age and death. I wake up with these in mind and not a woman's body. I don't want to be alone in my last decade." - and yet he is meant to be in his 50's! I could imagine now someone writing that about someone in their 70s or 80s!

* It was also interesting to read about Greene's view of the average number of sexual partners people have! (pp 94-96 in my edition) - the character says he has had sex with about 45 women (and this is in the 1950s!) and then says "I'm sure it is below the Kinsey average". UK surveys show that the mean number of partners over a lifetime is actually 9.5! USA averages are between 6 and 8.

*many of his descriptions are incredibly real and vivid - for example, the brilliant brief description of a plane destroying a boat on the river and the dead civilians (page 142), or the one of the bomb exploding in the market (pp 151-155).

The worst bit of the book was Zadie Smith's boring and rather verbose introduction! But her last paragraph is very good - too long to write here, but her last two sentences will suffice:

"There are many natural storytellers in English literature, but what was rare about Greene was the control he wielded over his abundant material. Certainly one can imagine nobody who could better weave the complicated threads of war-torn Indochina into a novel as linear, as thematically compact and as enjoyable as the Quiet American."

However Richard did not really warm to any of the characters, so it was not a brilliant book for him, just a very good one.

7.46

When the Rain Comes – Jonathan Coe

Bath Big Read – optional extra book for March 2009

Most had read it and four of us (Neil, Mark, Chris and Rob) had gone to hear Jonathan Coe talk about it in the festival - being almost the only men in a room full of several hundred women book club members. The majority view (interestingly those who had read it and been to the talk) of it was very positive, with the device of using the pictures as chapters to describe the story as working and creating a nice, readable framework (but with a contrary view from Mark and Steve). Similarly, the use of the picture as a tool to describe the scene worked for most, but not all (Steve thinking the words became a bit predictable). The only bit that really grated with people was the fate of Imogen - repeating an earlier scene in the book. The ratings put the book around the top quarter.

7.01

According to Queeney – Beryl Bainbridge

Late March 2009

A general view that it was hard going - certainly the first half, though both Mark Th. and Chris E got into it more as the book progressed. Some of the things discussed were:

Some good descriptive bits (dogs, rain and diamonds springs to mind) but a contrary view that an occasionally inspired sentence doesn't make a novel

Some very funny passages and in particular some good one-liners from the folks living in Johnson's house

Does a novel set in a historical context need to tell /inform you anything about the history (Chris - no, me - yes). Whichever, a general view that it didn't.

Felt to be an interesting book about social behaviour and settings of the period (if you're interested in that kind of thing)

Given our oft-discussed point about whether we warmed to the characters - a general view of not doing so, whether that be Johnson, Queeney, Mrs Thrale or whoever.

Apart from the somewhat strained concept of returning to the theme at the end when Johnson died, some confusion about the point of the opening scene (though was widely felt to be the best bit of the book).

So, not highly rated, though Steve, Mark Th. and Chris enjoyed it to an extent.

3.94

The Reader – Bernhard Schlink

Late February 2009

Thursday night's discussion was one of the best we have had - driven by a book with much to talk about.

Only Chris amongst those present had seen the film of The Reader, so we came to the book free from too many images of Kate Winslet to distract us. Before getting into the content, there was much comment on the writing style, which worked for everyone with perhaps the exception of Steve. THe precise adjectives used escape me two days later, but things like 'spare' and 'precise' were used. The basic drift was Schlink's ability to write about complex issues is clear, concise ways and cover ground over a few pages that other authors would have taken an opus magnus to cover was generally complimented. Steve had his traditional problem with being disconnected from the writers pen through the translator and found some of the description a bit clunky - 'Germanic' I think was the phrase. However, equally everyone found some very clever and insightful one liners in the book (e.g. the one Richard identified about remembering beauty).

To the subject matter. There were essentially three different story-lines identified in the book:

· The tension between different German generations in relation to their response to, and culpability for the atrocities during the war (e.g. Will)

· A love story (e.g. Chris)

· How a person's communication problems create barriers between them and the world around them, resulting in an inability to sustain relationships and even understand personal responsibility for actions such as murder (e.g. Rob)

Or indeed was it about all three?

(Post meeting note: Neil added a fourth option - it was about how women can screw up men's lives)

There was much discussion about Hannah, and our reactions to her. which varied from strong dislike from the outset, to those who quite warmed to her. The former saw her as an essentially evil woman who preyed upon an innocent young man for her own needs, then abused and denied him, rendered him unable to sustain a relationship for the rest of his life, and was basically a murderer who not only saw no personal responsibility for her actions but didn't even show a willingness to consider anything other than herself. The latter saw a woman damaged by society's responses to her illiteracy, unable to cope or know how to handle that other than to run away and ultimately destroyed by (for example) the legal systems need for an easy victim in the court case and then her inability to handle the shift in the power relationship with her 'kid' on her potential release from prison.

Other issues covered ranged about and beyond the book itself, including:

Neil's question about the outcome for Hannah. There was no consensus but suggestions ranged from (i) the above point about not being able to accept the shift in power in her relationship with her former child lover in him being the person in control and providing upon her release from prison, (ii) it was her final rejection of him (iii) her having learnt to read meant she no longer had anything in life to strive for (iv) her new-found ability to read meaning she had begun to understand the implications of her actions in the war and thus finally accepted responsibility and did what she did. Who knows?

The difference in 'acceptability' to readers between a woman in her mid thirties seducing a boy of 15 compared to a man in his 30s seducing a girl of 15 (inevitable comparison with the seediness of Humbert Humbert in Lolita) but of course Hannah was really doing him a favour by initiating him into the delights of sex (allegedly)...

The extent to which people are responsible for their actions when their life and/or the world around them creates situations whereby the degree of 'free choice' they have over their decisions is debatable.

So in conclusion a general thumbs-up, other than from Ras and with Steve not completely certain yet having only just finished the book that morning and wanting to give some time for it to mull or ferment in his mind (or other alcoholic analogies).

7.04

Never Never – David Gaffney

Late Jan 2009 (double header with Engleby)

Unusually it received a range of opinions, and I think was unique as a book if only in its ability to move Mark Th to passionate dislike; I would go as far as to say it annoyed him. A rare thing. Equally rare was Richard's disliking and his score. Despite these firsts, the general opinion was that there was little merit in his writing abilities: unbelievable characters, unlinked plot lines, sneering in the place of humour.

On the positive side, he definitely captured West Cumbria, for those of you who have been. And he provoked a lively debate amongst us about debt, its management, and its power to alter and destroy relationships. The general feeling, however, was that instead of a sympathetic dealing of people with genuine interesting dilemmas, he created absurd one's and invited us to 'enjoy'.

From RG: 'Never Never' didn't really do a lot for me. Despite being fairly easy reading in some ways, I found it difficult to get into in a chunky way and neither the characters nor the story line really grabbed me. What struck me after a while was that the style was strangely reminiscent of Tom Sharpe novels i.e. taking a largely realistic scenario and then applying unbelievable and extreme occurrences to it, with an amount of attached slapstick. However, he didn't take this as far as Sharpe and thus failed to genuinely get into the surreal humour, whilst by stepping beyond the realistic he blew it on both counts. I ended up not knowing whether he was trying to present a realistic account of what happens or not. I was surprised to read at the end he was once a debt counsellor in Moss Side as I had assumed that the debt counselling materials were an extreme parody (maybe they were not) - though I could see some parallels between the people and settings from the advice centre with those whom I met and worked with in my days of developing and funding the voluntary/charitable sector. Talking of which, he finally blew any credentials to be writing an informed story when he did the grant application bit - completely divorced from what really happens. Similarly the Bennett character was totally unbelievable - people like that just don't exist and operate in the field he was supposed to be in.

3.73

Engleby – Sebastian Faulks

Was an 'extra' book and was very well received by all. Faulks has amazing versatility and may have found his comfort zone with abnormal psychology (we read Human Traces a while ago). His portrayal of Engleby's detachment and general lack of social judgement and empathy, coupled with partial insight and intelligence was for me alarmingly accurate. In general the whodunit plot was well received with most people thinking he did it, and some arguing it was one more fantasy, perhaps his biggest fantasy. Perhaps, someone suggested, the whole story was his fantasy.

His description, and the humour, from 80's London was enjoyable and accurate, and sparked a discussion about how difficult it is to capture events in recent memory and the relative merit of introducing real characters in fiction (eg., Archer, Mandelson).

The highlights for Rob, who hadn't finished it at the time of the meeting, were his brilliant description of Engleby's (first?) breakdown and the references to both the music and the culture of that period when I was a late teenager/student. Very evocative. The tirade about ELP was wonderful.

7.61