My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante

Coeur de Lion, Bath, November 7th 2019

The coming-of-age story about two adolescent girls growing up in an impoverished neighbourhood in Naples in the 1950s/1960s. Lena who recounts the story in her retirement takes the path of education and hard academic work while Lila (whose parents do not support her education) uses her wits and beauty to prevail. There is a constant undertone of admiration/jealousy between the two main characters which inspires them throughout the story.

Andrew had already seen the story on Netflix and wondered whether this had influenced his perception of the book which he thought was very good. This was a compelling love story about two friends with their gritty background brilliantly presented. Lena- One of the two main protagonists was at times fearless, bold and impulsive and yet at others considered in her actions. She knew that she had power over others and particularly the men of the neighbourhood. The story depicted the lives of women in a neighbourhood who bottled up their anger and grudges. He liked the descriptions and felt the book had a dreamy quality running throughout. He planned to see the remaining three parts on Netflix.
 
Mark W who enjoyed this book started reading in Italian and then halfway reverted to English. He felt that the book lost a lot in translation. This was a book about relationships between two girls/women surviving in a male environment/culture. He highlighted the scene before the wedding when Lena is helping Lila bathe and who she has seen naked for the first time. The book tells of the anticipated “impregnation“ of Lila by Stefano who will later “sully“ her body in the anticipated brutal wedding night that all new brides have to expect.

Mark T enjoyed this book immensely and look forward to reading the next chapter. He highlighted the chapter about the girls leaving their neighbourhood through the tunnel and the terror they experienced when presented with life outside of their own environment.He felt the book was well described particularly Lila and the fact that she dropped everything for marriage.

Richard liked the book very much although initially confused with a large number of similar names he went with the flow-he felt that it didn’t really matter who was who as the characters fell into place. This book about two girls presents both girls views of the other and the respect and admiration they had for each other. Richard had spent months in Naples many years ago carrying out research so knew the localities and the descriptions which were evocative of the Italian lifestyles that he knew from that time. Sadly he commented that a lot of things have not changed. Men blame women for everything. The solution is education which together with parental support is vital to bring about change to the way of life depicted in the story.

Willm enjoyed this book immensely which “he could not fault“. The story about the sociological and psychological study of two relationships. He liked the directness in the style of writing- nothing overdramatic. Lena is always comparing herself with her friend Lila. who picks up on an idea and then moves on fast to the next. In direct contrast with Lena’s lifestyle of academic drudgery Lila confines herself to enjoying and living a wealthy lifestyle. She seems trapped by her socio-economic status and although she can imagine a more fulfilling life and is capable of attaining it ,she seems psychologically and emotionally unable to move beyond her community. She thus drops her education. Lila has an aggressive response to any problem. She is fearless. Willm liked the scene during the firework display when the competitive firework launches ended in the Solara Bros shooting back with pistols!

Chris B disagreed with the comment by two others that the girls were in love with each other. He felt that it was rather simply the intensity of an adolescent friendship that was being described. It didn’t bother him who the characters were - he just read on. He thought that there were similarities with the recently read book Educated by Tara Westover where the protagonist would have to accept the life that she was living and even though she knew that there was something else out there. 

Chris enjoyed the tension in the relationships between the girls and found the plot not over important. The book used shoes as a symbol of aspiration with Lila seeing herself at the top of the tree… In Educated it was interesting to note that the three kids who got an education then left home thus alienating themselves from their family. Elena is a “foil” in contrast to Lila. This was a well written depiction of life but with no key themes. It didn’t tell you more about society generally.

John struggled with this book particularly the middle part he felt there was too much teenage angst. He observed that the chapter about the girls leaving their neighbourhood through the tunnel was a metaphor for the 1950s creating a “pressure cooker“ and period of change. Lila was not a nice character - she had a dark side to her. The wedding created a focal point at the end of the story and offered a parents perspective looking down on the intense relationships of the girls.

Steve made connections between the wedding in the story and the film the DeerHunter. He liked this book with some very “powerful” scenes depicting the rites of passage of two young girls with each trying to work out what and why she feels about the other. He found the description about the storm and the girls leaving the neighbourhood through the tunnel very memorable as was Lenas stay in Ischia and her relief at being able to escape the entrapment of her neighbourhood. He found several parallels with Jane Austen but as ever criticised the translation of the book which had far too many Americanisms.

Chris W felt that this was a ”marmite“ book with good and bad facets. He disliked the numerous characters with similar names and found the first half of the book did not appeal and that the characters did not did not come alive. however he liked the gritty description of the impoverished Neapolitan neighbourhood and the detailed and precise writing style. The story constantly described the pressures imposed upon women by the macho men in the community and in particular the underlying fear and threat of the powerful Solara family.
There were similarities in this book with the underlying fear described in “The Milkman” which the group had read recently where the protagonist had been selected by the local leader of the IRA to be his woman.

In conclusion the majority really enjoyed this book with a sizeable minority who were less inspired.

Home Fire by Shamila Shamsie

Chris B reports:

This book began quietly and grew in pitch and intensity. On re-reading the first chapter I enjoyed the subtlety of it more. I also liked the structure where instead of flitting between chronological times with different characters, the action progresses through time but from the different perspectives of the actors. However some of us also felt that this prevented a free flowing story and meant Shamsie was unable to explore the characters in depth or over time. Steve took to it at the beginning; drawn into gentle relationship with Isma, the difficulties in getting out of UK, establishing life outside the UK, and references to the rest of the family. Lovely description of Isma calming Aneeka. A great writer with good character development. 

I liked the themes of love and betrayal in both individual relationships and in relation to country and religion. I liked the variety of attitudes to being a committed Muslim in the book from apostate to jihadi extremist and shades in between, especially between Isma and Aneeka. I liked too the portrayal of the challenge of integration. Do you leave your culture behind and spend effort on proving this to the Daily Mail? Do you maintain some aspects such as religious beliefs and practices and try to be an ordinary citizen of your country in the face of other people’s suspicion and prejudice (e.g. in the interrogation room). Do you take up the challenge of supporting your fellow faithful in different conflict zones? Do you take on the mantle of the jihadist to eradicate the western materialist and oppressive world? And despite my feeling that some of this was portrayed a little too obviously, in fact there were lots of shades of gray. Parvaiz is a reluctant jihadi more concerned with living up to his father and the father figure, Farooq than either political success or religious fanaticism, Eamon shifts from an establishment figure to one of siding with Aneeka against his father, albeit for love rather than for belief.

For Richard, there were lots of echoes of his own experience and hence a very personal read. He liked too the subtlety e.g. in Parvaiz’ grooming and the relationship between Eamon and Aneeka. And the issue of how far to assimilate and how far to remain the outsider e.g. Lone becoming Christian. He recognized Parvais’s feeling that “we are in the majority in the Caliphate” and an attitude of “we’ll do to you what you do to us” from his visits to Israel. 

There is a lot of personal betrayal in the book too; Eamon by his father, Karamat by his son, Aneeka and Isma by Parvaiz, the Pasha children by their father. And the results are a personal tragedy for them all as it is in the Antigone story that Shamsie based some of this story on.  A lot too about secrecy and its negative effects but also how hard it is for people in public life to be open about their attitudes and ambiguities. Isma’s professorial friend seems to sum up the risk of personal secrecy: ‘I’m driving at the fact that habits of secrecy are damaging things,’ Hira said in her most professorial voice. ‘And they underestimate other people’s willingness to accept the complicated truths of your life.’

Several of us admired the wonderful description of grief: rivals the one on love in Corinthians in the Bible I thought she brought out the inner life of the characters and the character descriptions (e.g. the contradictory nature of Aneeka) beautifully. I liked all the descriptions of the closeness of the siblings e.g. helping Aneeka go to sleep and the contradictory feelings Eamon and Karamat had for each other.

Good but not intrusive descriptions of places and houses, US, UK, Syria, Turkey. Gave a good context and sense of place for the human interactions. 

What didn’t I like? Were the characters’ attitudes a little caricatured? The story a bit too obvious? British Muslims, jihadi groomers, British politician of Pakistani origin? Family broken apart by the very different reactions to prejudice and the harsh actions of a hard man proving himself? True love for family and the beloved? Were the coincidences a bit too contrived? Isma meeting Eamon in a cafe in a small town in America where she happened to be at college and his Mum’s family came from? Richard found the book two dimensional and felt it deteriorated e.g. in the conversation between Karamat and Eamon.  He also thought it sloppy that despite her showing she knew the top British diplomat in Pakistan is a High Commissioner, she referred to them as ambassador.

Overall, I liked Shamsie’s telling of the story and the characters and thought she treated well the challenge of integration as a first, second or third generation after migration, of being in a minority religion around which there is plenty of prejudice and discrimination and of being a person of colour in a predominantly white society. 

But Mark T found it hard going, clunky and hard to read  (perhaps due to his long days in the saddle and his first ewxpereine of the Kindle). But he liked the relationship with Aneeka and the surprise of her sexuality. Also, the intriguing history of Islam and that the family thought P’s change of attitude was due to a love affair not grooming. And it rang true that he would want to come back. The life of the Home Secretary and coping with the media were good. 

Chris W enjoyed reading a book with contemporary issues; the Home Secretary in real life is doing what the character does. Some scenes in particular made him think e.g. the interrogation scene and grooming. Yet the characters were not quite right; e.g. the home secretary in his relationship with his son. 

Steve felt that despite a good start, he didn’t quite connect with the characters, though he enjoyed it and was gripped by the perilous situation of Parvais, as a young man. Was she trying too hard to follow the Antigone story? Apparently she took up a challenge to write a novel based on Antigone. Literary elitism? Did this constrain her too much? Overall, he was disappointed. 

Mark W too was disappointed. He enjoyed first chapter; full of mysteries; second chapter still held; but it felt contrived to keep changing character. He became more irritated and felt the book ended suddenly. He found Isma the most interesting character but most irritated him. Whereas the men were either well meaning but dim or bastards. Food for thought: moral dilemma of response to people who leave to fight your country. 

 Andrew (from afar) enjoyed this story of faith and family, identity, rights and belief, acceptance and extremism, religious vs. national law, with its clever reworking of Antigone. He liked the story and its structure with the succession of voices although He thought it lost its way in the third quarter. Its focus on the politics of terrorism (and otherism) rather than the mechanics of terror made it more interesting for me and more difficult for Shamsie who deserves credit for the plot. The tension increased once Parvaiz got to Raqqa but for me it wasn’t a real page-turner. The section on Raqqa gave a good feeling of what it was like it was like to live and work there. And he liked the description of how it feels to be a Muslim in contemporary Britain. And, although the beginning and the end were excellent, there were few other stand-out sentences, and quite a few were clunky. This novel took me to places and lives which were new to me and made me think, but overall felt a bit thin and didn’t have the impact it might have had.

John (also afar) found it an interesting and provocative novel that kept you reading – with a real echo of Antigone running through the story.  Not only did it have all the elements of a torrid family tragedy, but also offered an insightful description of a community and context that don’t you often read about in novels (Muslim North London, Islam and ISIS, the family dynamics of senior politicians, etc.). He liked the different perspectives format and this novel seems to have all the elements of one he would normally relish, yet he felt strangely disengaged from the story and the characters. He felt oddly unmoved by it. He had the feeling of being just a distant observer rather than an engaged reader. 

He struggled to explain why this?  Maybe it was because it was about a context and issues he have so little exposure to; maybe because the story was too much of an artifice – too engineered, too much trying to echo Antigone: maybe because he have become inured to some of the issues, particularly around ISIS and British jihadis, through too much media coverage or journalistic commentary.  There are clearly many possible explanations.  In hindsight he think it was because he never warmed to the twins as characters and felt little empathy for them or interest in them as individuals – they came over as merely a device to carry the story.  In contrast he warmed to the older sister, Isma, and felt her character was better developed and he felt more for the struggles she faced.  He was glad he read this novel and will remember it for the conundrums it threw up.

In the Antigone story as told by Sophocles, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, defies her uncle Creon, King of Thebes and is sentenced to death but takes her won life before she can be executed. Her fiancée and Creon’s son, Haemon, kills himself over Antigone’s body. Some people found Shamsie’s ending too abrupt. But we can be in no doubt about what happened.

Discussion: We all face the dilemmas of the personal, religious vs. national, legal which the book explores. But the author was constrained by the Antigone story, which is why it doesn’t fully work.

SCORES Willm: 7, Mark W:  6 Steve: 5.5 Richard: 7 Mark T: 5.5 Chris W: 6 Chris B: 7, Andrew: 6 John 6.5

Kitty held by CB: £3.10

The Shepherd’s Hut, by Tim Winton

The Shepherd’s Hut, by Tim Winton

5 September 2019, The Hop Pole: book choice AA, apols MT.

I chose this book because I am fond of the Australian outback and really enjoyed Cloudstreet and Dirt Music by Tim Winton. I think he writes beautifully about Australia with evocative prose which brings land and people to life - like his compatriot and Nobel Laureate Patrick White - but in a more lively and contemporary way.

He starts his books with a place – in this case the salt flats of Western Australia (WA) – and here gives us a tale of survival and self-discovery, trust and faith, penance and salvation, masculinity and the possibility of redemption.

Most of the group found it compelling stuff from the start with a great sense of place and suspense all the way through. 

RV wanted to keep reading, thought the characterisation was excellent, Jaxie’s voice authentic, Winton’s language wonderful, and that the book was full of interesting ideas and descriptions. He found Winton reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy in the way they capture place and people:

Just before a summer storm one time when the Cap was away shooting horses and sawing them up into prime Angus beef. The sky was black and the paddocks the colour of bread. 

However, the end was far too quick and disappointing. Overall, a little thin despite all the positives, and didn’t seem to live up to the high praise in the long list of review quotes at the end of the book.

WM, who grew up in rural NSW, found the prose evocative and Jaxie’s language perfectly apposite, enjoying the “whole immediacy of the book”. He found Jaxie’s character believable and the descriptions of the bush good. He wondered if commitment issues might explain Jaxie’s delay in ending Fintan’s torture and noted that Lee was probably also unstable in view of her behaviour including her shaved head. Overall, great, a striking book, really enjoyed it.

CW, who has an Australian brother and lived there for a year, including months camping crossing the Nullarbor Plain, enjoyed the vocabulary and thought the characters were fantastic – spot on, their voices real and natural and enjoyed the contrast between them. He found Jaxie clever with intuitive ideas and excellent survival skills – ironically something he had learnt from Captain Wankbag. He really enjoyed the tension and suspense throughout and also commented on how Jaxie was right to be so scared of the drugs culture. However, he felt disappointed as the book ended too quickly and would like to have seen Jaxie getting out with the priest so they could have survived together allowing the opportunity for confession. He thought the signposts towards the end of the book eg: “If I’d known now…” broke the suspense, but absolutely loved the characters and the atmosphere of the outback.

SC came to the book unaware of the author or the setting and with the title conjuring up for him the type of expensive garden office installed by David Cameron for writing his memoirs. Not until page ten was he in Australia and although he found the language a distraction at the start and thought it could have been a bit more nuanced, he then got thoroughly immersed in it and totally drawn into the plot. He had huge empathy for Jaxie and wondered if Fintan was more myth than character – a cypher for Jaxie. He thought the scene with the two of them sitting on the salt flat discussing the stones and the moon was fantastic, but lost interest after the sudden plot change with the drugs gang. The magic of the middle of the story was undermined by the need to wrap it up. Overall, thoroughly enjoyed it.

CB, arriving promptly from Manchester despite British Rail, smartly besuited and with suitcase, found it a satisfying read with fantastic energy, excitement and tension. He loved the way Jaxie’s character emerged through his vernacular language, and how his relationship with Fintan emerged subtly and sensitively despite the brutality of their outback environment. However, he felt cheated not knowing why Fintan had been exiled, and that the torture scene didn’t work other than as a plot vehicle. Overall, like a fine meal, the book was enjoyable at the time but didn’t stay with him. There was nothing important about it. Enjoyable but not enduring. 

MW, suitcase-free, but just off the plane from Glasgow, found it a compelling and enjoyable read and, like RV, disagreed with the reviews at the end of the book which called it a masterpiece. It gave him the flavour of the old road movies with not much plot – all about the experiences of the characters on the road. Like those characters whose backgrounds are hazy or absent, we don’t get to know Fintan’s crime. The relationship between Jaxie and Fintan was the dominant theme, and he found this original and enjoyed it. He didn’t like the intrusion of the real world when the gangsters turned up with their mull farm and torture. He didn’t find Jaxie particularly likeable or engaging and the style took a bit of getting used to, but the relationship between the two actually was interesting and well observed and developed. The priest’s big secret, hinted at rather than disclosed, formed a large part of the relationship, with Jaxie’s subtle character development the other main theme. Overall, enjoyable – good but not great. 

JH, bang on time despite having submitted himself to the vagaries of Britain’s mass transit system from the smoke of Shoreditch, and who had lived for three years in Australia, started by saying that this was not the Australia he knew. The only member of the group to have read some Winton before, he enjoyed Breathbut absolutely hated Cloudstreet, and this book didn’t start well for him. After twenty pages he though ‘sod it’ and only tried again after seeing SC’s email calling it a ‘right, rollicking read’. He then picked it up again and read it in one go, finding it hard to put down and really enjoying it. Some lovely use of language and imagery. He wondered who the book was about – was it a parable about Fintan with Jaxie as the centurion while Fintan was dying on his cross. Was the story about Fintan, who he found the more interesting character, rather than about Jaxie?

MT, heading southwest with his bicycle courtesy of Great Western Railway, emailed from his carriage to say he had initially hated the book passionately.  He didn’t like the bad language, the un-PC comments eg. ‘spastic’, the writing style and all the words he had no idea of e.g. roo, euro etc. He didn’t like the abrupt change of time, and after 20 pages found it agony but slowly kept going. He even started to enjoy it slightly and found bits actually enjoyable. He liked Jaxie’s growing relationship with his cousin Lee and the sadness about the last bits of that. The violent father reminded him of past violent fathers.  The wild camping perked up when he met the priest and he enjoyed that. The discussion about God was good as well. The tension at the end was well done as well. In the end, not a bad book and the strange words made sense in the end.

AA had wanted to introduce those who hadn’t read Winton before to his beautiful prose, but this story is narrated by Jaxie rather than Winton. However, I thought the narration by Jaxie worked well – and I enjoyed his often humorous phrasing and way of seeing things, and his raw style seemed to fit with the brutality of the landscape and life in the desert. And I liked the directness of Jaxie’s young voice – hearing exactly what he is thinking:

I tried to get me thoughts straight while I went. But there was too many of them. Then for a long time, hours it was, I had no thoughts at all. And when they come back it was like fuzzy radio.

And although we couldn’t have Winton as the narrator his style was still evident and there were bits of more lyrical prose and not just when Fintan was speaking:

The heat and salt and flies. A place so empty a fella’s thoughts come back from it as echoes.

I was so tired the swag felt like a sponge that soaked me up. I went to sleep like someone disappearing from the earth, like rain sopped into dust

I enjoyed the dialogue with its contrast of Jaxie’s teenage street slang with his aggressive jerky delivery, and the much older priest with his more formal language with its Irish and priestly tones:

I am in earnest, boy. Get fucked, I said still laughing.

I thought the two main characters and their relationship were fascinating.  Jaxie always on the alert, full of bravado, wanting to show how tough he is to scare people off, and tough, resourceful, and resilient with great intuition. And also impetuous - really still a child just wanting to be understood – and to be safe. I think Winton develops him really well as he learns to replace the suspicion and hostility which have protected him with trust, and to recognise and accept kindness. And he tells us about Lee, perhaps his only point of reference and a Quixotic quest, given that they are cousins and the size of the body count. And Fintan with his constant chatter, and his need to confess constantly thwarted in his dreams just as he is able to start.

Overall, the characters and place stayed with me, but not on a level with Cloudstreet or Dirt Music, as like CB, I didn’t find it an important book.

Many of us thought the creation of the priest and his hut worked well and the group was split on whether or not it would have been better to learn exactly how he had transgressed. And most were surprised by the intrusion of the outside world with the discovery of the mull factory and concerned by Jaxie’s delay in intervening to save Fintan. Like MT, RV and CB thought the discussions about religion worked well:

But I suspect that God is what you do, not what or who you believe in. Well. Whatever.

Scores: RV 7.25, WM 8.3, CW 7.5, SC 5.5, CB 6.5, MW 7.3, JH 7.3, MT 6, AA 7.5

English Journey, by J. B. Priestley

The Pulteney Arms, August 8th 2019. Apologies from MW, JH, CW.

I (Steve) chose this book because I'm confused and puzzled by this country’s decision-making in the last few years. I wanted to read and discuss a book that provided a context against which to make more sense of where this country seems to be headed in 2019.

This report is longer than I usually like to post, but people had a lot to say! We'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the history and the future of England.

Priestley was not well-known to many members, though some knew his plays. The book is an account of a journey Priestley takes around England in 1933 – to a fairly random selection of locations which seem partly to be chosen on the basis that he’s put a play on there, some family connection, or friends have recommend contacts.

To me, the book was full of observations that reverberated, either in the way they underlined a massive contrast with our lives today, or echoed things that are still prevalent. In the first few pages he meets a travelling salesman who talks of:

“I was in the wireless trade one time, about six years ago, in Birmingham. But mind you, wireless then and wireless now–oh!” and he gave a short laugh– “different thing altogether. Look at the developments. Look at the way prices have come down and quality’s gone up.” Precisely how we talk of consumer technology today.

Priestley writes in quite a modern idiom – personally, conversationally and often  humorously (such as his beautifully-written description of his hero fantasy, which we all succumb to from time to time but few would care to admit to, least of all in print), which makes him very readable. He carries you with him even when you are perhaps a bit stunned by what seems to us to be shocking political incorrectness. His splendidly grumpy comments about hotels are mixed in with what now appear to be unguarded and downright offensive observations and generalisations about regional types and in particular the Liverpool Irish. And how dismissive his comments seem today, about women and their (in his eyes) predilection for boring unchallenging work, not to mention their physical appearance. One hopes this says more about the times than the man.

His humanity, his recollections from the not very distant past of his wartime service and experiences, made one realise that this man had seen some things. His socialist colours take a while to fully unfurl and only do so as he travels North to the areas most fully hit by the post-war depression. His passions seem to rise as he sees more, but he manages to remain for the most part informative, entertaining and engaging. Shotton Colliery does for him though.

These industries are now more or less gone, yet the tribulations affecting the populations of these often quite short-lived communities mirror the problems facing many today – no work, little support, and not enough entertainment. How astonished he would be by the internet though, and perhaps amazed that the creative arts have survived as well as they have, given the changes in society, industry and commerce.

Andrew enjoyed the way Priestley ate, drank and smoked his way round the country – just as austerity was approaching: a Socialist commentator being chauffeured around in a big Daimler. There was passionate detail in there: the Liverpool prostitutes and their mixed -race children; the boy tobogganing down the slag heap. Something of a ‘no filter’ splurge of opinion, and the old-fashioned views which were often based on ‘traditional’ assumptions rather than hard evidence (eg ‘travelling salesmen are generally good fellows’) meant he could sound patronising and condescending.

Priestley was very interesting on Bournville village, initially very in favour, but he wasn’t afraid to show his own opinions changing when describing how Australia had responded when the model was attempted over there: rather than spend all that money on facilities that keep us ‘on the premises’, why not give us the money and let us decide how to spend it?

Andrew noted that Priestley spoke to very few women, and that the end of the book, as his homeward journey is thwarted by a pea-souper, perhaps presages environmental chaos to come.

Willm was struck by the feeling that Priestley was describing this in order to get something done about it – but what could he do? Does the responsibility lie with the rest of us, and if so, how do we make something happen? Somewhat stereotypical views for the 1930s – it’s grim up north. In places rather boring, and though leavened by a cunning use of phrase, each town seemed to get worse than the last. Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier was mentioned in comparison – perhaps a more focused job as a socialist manifesto.

Chris B enjoyed the book but found it a bit wordy, with a slightly hectoring tone. His views on women, the blues and the Irish were negative and the worse for it. But the descriptions of the effect of industrialisation, and the way the working class continued to be the fodder to provide wealth for others were powerful.

Chris particularly enjoyed the description of working in the theatre – what motivated people then seems very close to what encourages them nowadays: it can’t be the money… The club was new to the concept of civic theatres. The football descriptions could have been written today: it’s like a weekly drug. No mention other than references to ‘Mr Hitler’ of the coming war (still 5 or 6 years away of course).

A strong sense of conflict between the improvements in working conditions and the invention of ‘diggers that can do the work of 800 men’ – absorbed and concerned by the prospect of change.

Despite the fact that Mark T generally doesn’t like non-fiction he got stuck in and found himself enjoying the book. He felt compassionate about some of the passages described, although it often made him feel like a soft Southerner. He commented on the fact that for Priestley Bristol was a prosperous and successful city – whereas in the 1970s it was a huge wasteland. The passages on the Cotswolds are easily forgotten as the author gets into his stride northwards, but they were full of relevance and interest. The description of Coventry before WW2 were affecting. And there was a lot in the book about ‘mating’ – how it was gone about through the rituals of the time, and there were resonant words about the desolation of Sundays. Possibly rather rushed final chapter – as though he just wanted to get through the fog and put his feet up by the fire.

Richard found a lot to like in the book: the style, the detailed observation of individuals, a woman who looked as though she was ‘busy hating somebody’, the way he used small but meaningful details to differentiate characters. In writing about the Cotswolds he made on ask ‘why have they remained so unchanged’? Because of the influx on moneyed outsiders, who Priestley already identified as being the reason for their preservation.

Priestley wrote of a society in which class was slowly being eradicated: the advent of the classless society. The book was illuminated by passionate descriptions of simple features of life: local papers; the way a waiter talks to ‘sir’ about his steak in a completely different way to the way they would talk about any other foodstuff.

Priestley shows the effects of war still resonating, as he sees the army still deployed around the countryside. His reunion evening was very descriptive and underlined how relatively little time had passed since the Armistice. ‘All the good people had been killed’ and thus he had taken up his career in their absence. The way he wrote about the Quaker movement, valuing their contribution and yet questioning was it too interventionist? Richard also raised the point that Priestley makes about world religions: why our god? Why do middle eastern religions work and inspire people to follow without question?

Mark W went through ‘a bit of a journey’ with the book and particularly with JB himself.

To start with he found him rather tiresome, patronising and a bit of a prig. It took him a while to get used to this view of the comfortably off successful author and playwright doing a tour of the great unwashed.

This attitude continued through Birmingham and the Black Country but by the Leicester chapter Mark was starting to warm to him. It was a particular description of the hunting, shooting and fishing class: ‘Men and women whose whole lives are organised in order that they may ride in pursuit of stray foxes two or three days a week, who risk their necks for a vermin’s brush, who will deny themselves this and that to spend money on packs of hounds, who spare no pains to turn themselves into twelfth century oafs, are past my comprehension’. He forgave JB his patronising comments as the main theme of the book settled into his outrage and anger at the treatment of the (Northern) working classes during the depression years, following the failure of the Victorian expansion.

For John, Priestley’s English Journey is very much a book of its time – as a commentator on England and the English he holds that space between Dickens and Bryson. Initially put off by his rather wordy and somewhat pompous style, he warmed to him and the rhythm of his style.

Among the pleasures of the book were his narrative observations such as the description of the Black Country as a “smouldering carpet” and “immense hollow of smoke”… his descriptions of a world much changed by wars including Bristol and Coventry… his pithier comments – for example that Bradford “was a city entirely without charm”… his bouts of anger at the injustice and inequality of the society of the 30’s.  He particularly liked JB’s comments about kids throwing stones on the roof of a warehouse in the Black Country and that “who could blame them” and enjoyed his little rant about the wretchedness of Sunday evenings in the big industrial cities

At the same time JB was full of self-awareness, including the impact of his own status and personality. His reminder of how awful English hotels and food were made one give quiet thanks for Premier Inns

And for Chris W, he read part of it while travelling around Yorkshire. It really makes you glad to be alive now and not then, and also to be a southerner and not northerner (though his parents were born in Liverpool and Leeds). This book has so many good features: Priestley‘s prose is very easy to read and the subjects that he’s chosen on his journey are fascinating. His description of the poverty of the many northern cities is heart rending , particularly  the scenes he describes when leaving the Adelphi hotel in Liverpool and being conducted around an old seamans’ hostel and the decaying Regency terraces filled with prostitutes.

Like a number of members Chris said that he’d made a great number of notes while reading this book – more than usual. It seems to have proved to be very effective as a touchstone to the past. Perhaps these were innocent days in comparison with 2019, but clearly they were not necessarily better. And yet – arguably the issues are just the same: the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor – it’s just a global phenomenon rather than a national one nowadays. The far right rear their heads at regular intervals (much like Hitler in 1933) and while some member of the club are confident that we have learned enough to be able to manage our destinies in a more peaceful and less confrontational way in the future, others feel strongly that the evidence so far simply doesn’t support this.

Educated by Tara Westover: notes by Richard, thanks to others for sharing theirs.

BBBC Meeting:  Thursday, 4^th July 2019, Flower and Forrester, Combe Down

Present: Richard (his book choice), Andrew, ChrisB, ChrisW, John, MarkT, MarkW, Steve, Willm.

Apols, score and notes received: MarkT,

Overall, this was a book almost universally appreciated - I hesitate to use the word ‘enjoyed’ as there is much that is not actually enjoyable in this memoir - but all were clear that this was a good book, and most thought it to be either very good or exceptional (in terms of scores, we had three in the 9s, 3 in the 8s, a 7.5, a 7.25 and a 6.6).  Almost everyone had a great deal to say about the book, and it generated quite a lot of discussion.  Most agreed that it was ‘a remarkable book’, and terms such as ‘I loved the book’, ‘it was an amazing book’, etc. abounded.

Many people stated that although they tended to prefer fiction, this book was an exception to that, being both extremely thought-provoking, and almost novel-like in its themes structure and exposition (in fact some queried whether or not it WAS factual, or was in fact a novel ….).

One of us summarised that this was a book about religion and faith, memory and truth, reality and sanity and perception, tyranny and power, abuse, guilt and shame, attachment and detachment, loyalty and love, and what makes up a person. – Quite a lot, really!

More Detail: all were agreed that this book was not about religion per se, but rather about

·         the power and devastating effect of early and regular abuse on later self-esteem and ability to move forwards in the world, even if one is actually resilient.

·         the power of various protective factors (such as her belief in the protectiveness of her mother, her relationship with Tyler, Tyler introducing her to music, the closeness and love from at least some of her grandparents, and her native intelligence) to assist resilience.

·         the power of education – not just academic education, although that in itself is very powerful, but what education IS: “Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create” – or to be educated.’

·         the unreliability of memory, and of how we all construct and reconstruct our memories, all of the time – as the author writes later in the book: “The future could be different from the past. Even the past could be different from the past, because my memories could change: I no longer remembered Mother listening in the kitchen while Shawn pinned me to the floor, pressing my windpipe. I no longer remembered her looking away.”

It was agreed that this was quite an amazing account of an almost unbelievable journey, from a family that, as a child, she believed was right and which rejected everything society has developed for people’s benefit, however flawed and distorted at times; through the ‘slow-burn’ realisation that what she had experienced was oppression and abuse.  One clever writing device she uses is that the way she describes this journey means that the reader has to realise this in the same way that she starts to realise and accept it.

All were also agreed that both the writing, and the story she told, was compelling: accidents to the various children and adults and the graphic descriptions of the aftermaths - her burned brother, her burned father, the car-crash-injured family members; the physical and psychological abuse of and cruelty to Tara by Shawn; and much more.

All again were agreed that this was an honest and very readable account; that she writes exceptionally well, and has some lovely ways of describing and phrasing things: ‘easy to read, with fluent prose and some great turns of phrase’. This is true both for her descriptions of the physical environment, especially her ‘home mountain’, but also of the places such as Cambridge and Harvard where she studied, and in her turns of phrase, such as “Not knowing for certain, but refusing to give way to those who claim certainty”: a lovely phrase, and an important idea, for her in her journey and more generally.  It was felt that her writing held an air of innocence, possibly partly attributable to her having read so little of others’ and hence not being over-exposed to other influences – instead she wrote very conversationally, in a way very reflective of how people actually speak and think. ‘Effortless and unencumbered’.

It was felt that Tara told her life story so skilfully, she somehow allows us to both experience what she went through and yet disassociate from the worst parts, simultaneously, in the same way she did. She did this so seamlessly that it was only on stepping back one could realise what a brilliant writing technique it is: offering, in the same sentence, a narrative of what her future self came to understand was happening to her, and at the same time to relay perfectly how the young girl she was then, lived it.

There is a lot in this book (and this was an area which developed and got progressively larger) about the awful way that this (and many other religions and cultures – it was remarked that this was ‘The Handmaiden’s Tale writ large, in real life’) not only treat women, but also make them think and feel about themselves.  The whole set of descriptions about the use of the word ‘whore’ and the terrible double standards applied to men and women, about sex and sexuality and dress of course, but even more to how they are brainwashed into thinking about themselves.  As she writes: “I evolved a new understanding of the word “whore,” one that was less about actions and more about essence. It was not that I had done something wrong so much as that I existed in the wrong way. There was something impure in the fact of my being. “It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you”, I had written in my journal. But Shawn had more power over me than I could possibly have imagined. He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that.”  There was an interesting discussion about the idea that it is in these ways that these religions and cultures create such terrible distorted self-images in their members, especially their female ones. Her description later of how she could not accept praise, or help was again very powerful: “I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it. I wanted the professor to shout at me, wanted it so deeply I felt dizzy from the deprivation. The ugliness of me had to be given expression. If it was not expressed in his voice, I would need to express it in mine.”

The Stockholm Syndrome was mentioned [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22447726] as having great similarities to the impact that such long-term brainwashing has on people. Even later in Tara’s journey, when she tries to change things, she takes all the blame and responsibility for the fact that her family is being divided – it is her fault for raising the issue, not their fault for having done the things in the first place.  Indeed, the whole area of how she ‘rocked the boat’ and the ways that people responded to that, and then changed their responses, was extremely interesting and generated much comment, with many talking about the mother’s behaviour as being ‘a damning indictment’.  But on the other hand, Tara talks about why her mother failed to live up to what she had said she would do to support her: “But hers or not, those words, which had so comforted and healed me, were hollow. I don’t believe they were faithless, but sincerity failed to give them substance, and they were swept away by other, stronger currents.”  So she was sincere, but that sincerity did not have any substance to it.

This upbringing created Tara, a person burdened by shame and guilt; not being able to make sense of things, how to reconcile her new and old lives - having to disconnect her university life from her life at home. And all of these conflicts were extremely stressful, and all underpinned by her feelings of having been let down by the very people she (and we) believe should be there to protect her, her parents: “We had been bruised and gashed and concussed, had our legs set on fire and our heads cut open. We had lived in a state of alert, a kind of constant terror, our brains flooding with cortisol because we knew that any of those things might happen at any moment. Because Dad always put faith before safety.”  Yet although her parents and brother not only do not protect Tara from danger and harm, they lead her into both; she persists in trying to stay part of the family and trying to fix things - years after she left home, she is still trying to win the love of her parents which they had still never given, and only grudgingly offer to her at the end of the book, and only with huge and unacceptable conditions attached.

Another generally agreed aspect was that, although the book was full of alarming and awful events and people and behaviours, it was very moving at times, with the author generally avoiding being sentimental or melodramatic.

There were also flashes of humour – her incredulity over Rosa Parks taking a seat on the bus, which puzzled her as it seemed an odd thing to steal – which also helped to leaven out the awful things.

Other elements that people liked were:

·         her descriptions of family and friends and tutors: you feel you really know them, especially, her mother and father, and Shawn, Audrey and Tyler.

·         the references throughout to music (and to performance), and the power of music to transcend some of the more awful elements – it was interesting that her father, so opposed to her going out into the community, embraced this when she either sang, or obtained parts in theatrical performances;

·         the intellectual power that was occasionally revealed, in a number of ways, but including her PhD and her choices about it: her PhD “didn’t treat Mormonism as the objective of human history, but neither did it discount the contribution Mormonism had made in grappling with the questions of the age. Instead, it treated the Mormon ideology as a chapter in the larger human story. In my account, history did not set Mormons apart from the rest of the human family; it bound them to it.”  As one of us stated, this was her intellectual resolution: her mental resolution took longer.

·         the lack of trust in conventional medicine and the reliance on non-Western medicine, to an extreme degree – and how this then led to great wealth for the family;

·         the underpinning issues in all traditional or immigrant or minority religious communities: of conformity to tradition versus assimilation and ‘fitting in’ to the prevailing or surrounding culture, and of how difficult it is for parents to steer a course through these areas (or even if they should do so, versus instead embracing assimilation and the idea of the ‘melting pot’);

·         some of her throwaway observations, such as “I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money”;

·         excellent descriptions of her various mental states as she battles with her family loyalty and recognition that she cannot have both emancipation and family life;

·         how in the USA it is possible to live ‘off grid’;

·         the rather amazing fact that, of the 7 siblings, three managed to escape, and all of those obtained PhDs, all with no formal education until the age of about 17. There was a discussion over whether education allowed them to escape, or whether they escaped and then found education (or some mix of the two), but it was clear that education was a key to her continued escape, as it is to so many others: she and her siblings who managed to get educated could leave the thrall of the family mores, but those who could not had neither the life chances nor the money to avoid employment in the family and hence acceptance of all it believes. In many ways, this book describes the nature of all extremists, told through a family story: no other view is worthy of consideration, because the “truth” is God’s truth, as told by the patriarch.

There were also a few areas which people were critical about, or were less wholeheartedly positive.

·         A few people raised the issue of sexual abuse, and found it unlikely that with so much physical abuse, in a situation where women were so badly treated, that there would not also be sexual abuse – and that in fact sex was a theme largely absent in the book.

·         A number felt that she was in some way ‘holding back’ all the way through, although it was unclear why that was.  It may have been due to sexual abuse; it may be that much of the book is a result of ‘false memory’ – and it was suggested that, in the same way as many of the ‘negative’ characters had been given pseudonyms, there might be a number of issues which the publishers had decided could not be included. One of use suggested that the book would have been gone over extremely carefully by lawyers, to remove various elements.

·         Others felt that, by virtue of it being a memoir, the part of a novel which is based on imagination was missed (although others suggested that maybe a lot of the book was fictional anyway!)

·         One of us felt that although the first half was compelling, gradually, the 2^nd half became less so; and the ending appeared too trite.

Richard Velleman, July 2019

The Secret Scripture Sebastian Barry

The Secret Scripture Sebastian Barry

This book interweaves the sad history of Ireland, its civil war and independence with the prejudices of religion and the tragic consequences for Roseanne about whom the story is written.

It attracted a great many positive comments e.g. : fantastic; really enjoyed; very good; beautifully crafted descriptions; most beautiful prose, lyrical at times; perfectly crafted phrases; a work of great imagination; wonderful description of Roseanne’s childhood and home life; a beautifully written book. 

A couple of examples of the author Barry’s, turn of phrase are: … my mother’s wits were now in an attic of her head which had neither door nor stair, or at least none that I could find;

… in a country of cupboards every one with a skeleton in it, especially after the civil war, no one was exempt;

These positives were tempered by other comments, often from same readers, e.g.: I have forgotten a lot of the plot; the story didn’t really stick; absolutely a case where the sum is less than the parts; ephemeral; felt distanced from the characters; wanted to be incensed by the horrible events, but wasn’t; it did not appear realistic that as a modern trained psychiatrist Dr Grene did not come down more in favour of the “truth“ that Roseanne recounted rather than accepting that the “truth” as seen from Father Gaunt’s account. 

Roseanne suffered tragically from the misogynistic and prejudiced Father Gaunt, and It seemed surprising that she had accepted her lot so easily and had not done more to fight her committal. She was simply forgiving of all that had gone on in the past which gave an added sadness to her story with the loneliness that she had experienced in her long incarceration. However other comments recognised Roseanne’s remarkable resilience and that, despite the cruelties and tragic loss, the human spirit’s ability to accept and survive shone through.

The dual diarists format generally was seen as working quite well. The voices of Roseanne and of Dr Grene were both powerful. Although Roseanne appeared accepting of her life, she may have been deliberately or unconsciously mis-remembering some crucial parts of it.  Roseanne seem to gain clarity and fulfilment from setting down her memories on paper whereas Dr Grene found more and more confusion examining his  past relationship with his wife and guilt for his alleged single sexual misdemeanour. Although Dr Grene seemed more feeble and incompetent (especially as a trained psychiatrist), he too was trying to understand his own character. 

All readers were impressed by the many strata disclosed within the basic story e.g. the complexity of family and societal relationships; the dead hand of religion at that time; the complicated politics; the ubiquity of betrayal; how perceived infidelity destroyed relationships and lives; passionate hatreds; extreme, cruel and violent behaviours generated by social and political beliefs; the degree to which an individual or society considers its extreme beliefs or behaviours to be simply normal; the unreliability of memory; how we mis-remember as a self-protective mechanism; the covering-up of mistakes or misdeeds, and the difficulty of resisting the urge to do so.  The story illustrates how there is no definite truth - only the experiences of different people about the same event - “nobody has a monopoly on truth”

As so many layers were exposed, also, so many were easily overlooked.  Several readers found it difficult to grasp who was who in the civil war, and why they were fighting and killing each other.  Also the closeness of Irish familial ties and the destructive consequences of these ties being shattered. 

The group having just finished ‘Milkman’ about the complexities of near contemporary Catholic/Protestant  relationships in Belfast it was very interesting to read about the history of this earlier time in the same century. Another comment was made as to the degree Ireland had changed within a few years e.g in the treatment of unmarried pregnant women and orphans; the lessening power of the church; the move towards a middle ground in politics, although of course there remain many unresolved political differences within the Republic of Ireland as well as between the Republic and Northern Ireland.

In some parts, the plot seemed highly unlikely or verging on magic realism by the serendipitous occurrence of events. Readers were not expecting the ending. Some thought however, whether this denouement was really necessary, and did it add anything to the story? Nevertheless, if one applied the ‘So, what?’ question to the whole novel, it would have to be agreed that the exposition of personal and social history, tragedy, survival, as well as the psychological insights, and some wonderful prose, would serve as examples of the learning as well as enjoyment that this book provides. 

It was noted that this is a book that would sustain a second reading, and several members of the group had done so, at least in part.

The Constant Gardener, by John le Carré

29th April, Forester & Flower, Combe Down, Bath.

The Constant Gardener is a 2001 novel which is provocative and challenging. It is Le Carre’s take on the different dynamics and influence of governments, aid agencies, politicians and multinationals in the developing world. In a review in the Observer, Nigel Williams described the book as “a work of fierce political intelligence, tackling the key question of the failure of the West to deal with all those things that the collapse of communism should have made easier to confront - Third World poverty, corporate greed and political cynicism”.

The novel tells the story of Justin Quayle, a British diplomat whose activist wife is murdered. Believing there is something behind the murder, he seeks to uncover the truth and finds an international conspiracy of corrupt bureaucracy and pharmaceutical money. A large pharmaceutical company working under the cover of AIDS tests and treatments, is testing a tuberculosis drug that has severe side effects. Rather than help the trial subjects and begin again with a new drug, the company covered up the side effects and continued to develop the drug. The plot was vaguely based on a real-life case in Kano, Nigeria. Le Carré writes in the book's afterword: "by comparison with the reality, my story [is] as tame as a holiday postcard". The book was later adapted into a feature film in 2005.

JH: saw the novel as a fable – a story of good and evil, the weak versus the powerful (in the tradition of David & Goliath, Robin Hood, or the Lord of the Rings). As in the tradition of all good fables it is rather improbable, for example, the way that Justin travels on a false passport to Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and back to Kenya. But is a great story of individual commitment & personal passion in contrast to the cynicism & pragmatic amorality.  It can also be read as a historical novel reflecting the values and experience of the late 20th Century. - a world on the cusp of arrival of the internet and computer security, higher levels of corporate scrutiny, governance & accountability.  Could it happen today?  Are multinationals, particularly big-pharma, as unethical, manipulative & venal as described in the book? The context of Kenya rings true – the government at the time was notoriously corrupt, and certain individuals and companies had significant influence.

Chris B:  enjoyed the book, liked the way the tension and the drama kept up through the book. Felt Le Carre good at creating scenes and characters – particularly the way that characters emerged, for example, how Justin’s character evolved and was developed through the book. He noted that you get to know Tess much more after her death.  Some of characters may appear stereotypical and rather old fashioned, but drawing on his experience working in government and internationally such people do exist. He recognised that diplomats have a difficult role balancing their own personal values with government’s different agendas – a state of constant tension which often means they appear indecisive. He also noted that it would be interesting to see how other authors, like Graham Greene, would have handled this issue and explored the resulting personal conflicts and tensions.

Chris W: a good and exciting read.  He enjoyed some of the characters involved and good descriptions of the Kenyan setting and events like the funeral. Concerned it may have been a rather superficial commentary on some highly complex issues – for example the characterisation of diplomats and their role., or the negative portrayal of pharmaceutical companies and the way they work in Africa. Felt the level of malfeasance portrayed was not plausible – as no company would risk the legal repercussions and potential consequences. This led to a discussion, based on past and recent experience, of the way big pharmaceuticals currently behave and what they have been accused of. 

WM:  enjoyed individual bits of the novel and some of the characterisation, such as Gloria, but generally found story improbable and felt the style was exaggerated and overly stereotypical. In general the book did not work for him and lost interest in it.

RV:  found story not terrible satisfactory – not sure Le Carre writes very well about some of the internal conflicts and potential contradictions.  Felt characters in this book rather two-dimensional characters (good or bad) and feels that in some of his earlier novels he was more successful at portraying characters struggling with moral and personal conflicts - complex characters who were internally conflicted. He was not sure these internal conflicts brought out or explored sufficiently in this novel. For example, how UK diplomats are expected to represent, and so appear to condone, UK government policies etc. – policies that might be at odds with their own values and moral compass. RV also raised a concern that the author appears to takes sides on some issues – this raised a debate as to whether authors should take sides in writing novels that touch on sensitive political issues or personal behaviour.

SC:  not normally comfortable with spy fiction and in the past had found many of Le Carre’s novels hard work and so was surprised how much he enjoyed this novel. He found the subject matter interesting, and liked the characterisation of some those involved.  But was concerned that at times it read like a rather tedious exposition of some of the issues involved, and at times the discussion around some of the issues was rather clunky.  He wondered if spelling out the issues involved in this way was a device to move the story along. Different characters were introduced to develop such expositions, for example, the way the pilot McKenzie was used to explain the particular context of what was happening in the North of Kenya and Southern Sudan. 

MW:  the Constant Gardner feels like a book written by an author who knows his skills and his limitations; I have read the Smiley novels and this one has similar characteristics, for example the plot is well thought through, and it’s a good read.  It’s a political thriller with a sympathetic but rather boring hero, (definitely not James Bond), a number of Bond villains, both foreign and closer to home and, best of all, sexy Bond women all over the place. The only other thing I would like to say is about the ending, which, for such a long book, I found rather abrupt and disappointing, and depressing, with the baddies seemingly getting away with it but Justin being blown away. Yes I know that is how it would have gone in real life, actually he probably would have been blown away sooner in real life, but it would have been nice if Justin could have lived happily ever after with Ghita or Lara or Brigit from Hippo, and the baddies could have gone to jail. 

MT:  mostly enjoyed the book and it thought it was easy to read - I used to look forward to reading it. There were some confusing bits; however the book was easier to follow than the film. The telling the story from different people’s perspective and in different time zones was a bit confusing at times. But I did sort out the plot in the end. It was mostly told from Justin’s view point, so I felt I got to know him a bit, and liked him. It is a fascinating insight to this world. Is it really as corrupt as the story makes out? I have had some experience with the generosity of Pharma and medical device industry, but never as bad as the story - just flash flights and expensive dinners to try and buy your allegiance, not more than that - no killings at all?  Whilst reading the book, he had been watching the Widow on the TV; thought there was lots of overlap between the stories. I liked the way everyone fancied Tessa, especially the scoundrel Sandy. The interplay between Sandy and Tessa was well done. Certain parts I remember and liked -the lunch scene with Pellegrin, not listening at all was good. I suspected the Doctor was gay long before it came out, and knew he was not having an affair with Tessa. It was a strange coincidence that we have another book about TB. I would like to know what the connection is between TB and Aids, mentioned in the book, for example. There were lots of mention about clinical trials, and some things were not correct, so maybe the author had not researched that properly, or maybe things were very different in the past? The ending was a bit frustrating -at one point I thought he was going to commit suicide, but I wanted to know more how the end came. 

AA:  Le Carre is a great storyteller and he tells a great story here. He keeps the narrative moving along at a good speed without skimping on atmosphere or description.  And his concise way of writing is compact with elegant turns of phrase without being dense or knotty.  He has a fluent, easy-to-read, clear writing style. I really enjoyed the development of Woodrow, Justin, and particularly Tessa who is gradually being constructed from the eyes and words of other characters. 
Quotes that I particularly enjoyed were:
“The High Commission stood on a slope, and its continuing subsidence was enough to tilt pictures out of true after a weekend on their own.”
“Bluhm when the party’s nearly over, slumped in a chair and looking lost and empty, with everything worth knowing about him hidden five miles down.”
“He advanced on her, and said, ‘Good evening, Gloria, how very good of you to have me,’ in a voice so bravely mustered that she could have wept and later did.”

AA, as a doctor with experience of working with TB patients and in light of the book’s focus on TB (and the group’s interest in the disease), pointed out that:
* •    One-third of the people in the world are infected with TB, but most don't develop disease as their immune systems contain it. The waning of the immune system with old age may result in reactivation with the bacteria no longer being contained so they start to cause disease. There are two main groups in the UK who have TB - elderly indigenous people with reactivation and immigrants infected overseas who come with disease.
* •    TB used to be endemic in UK - Tom Jones and Ringo Starr had it and my dad’s chest X-ray showed he’d been infected with TB as a child in the 20s which had stayed contained. TB, what was called “consumption", lead to the death of millions including illustrious individuals such as Orwell, Burns, DH Lawrence, Florence Nightingale, Dylan Thomas, Alan Sillitoe, Somerset Maugham and various Brontë’s, plus Eleanor Roosevelt, Stravinsky, Camus, Chekhov and Kafka.
* •    Given that development of disease is a fine balance between immune containment and bacterial challenge, AIDS (which suppresses/destroys the immune system) unmasks latent TB. It also makes each disease harder to treat, and the patient ends up on two separate cocktails of nasty drugs which often interact and cause further trouble in an already weakened individual without a functioning immune system to assist in the battle against the bugs - that is if you are lucky enough to have access to medical care and the correct drugs. Not to mention the funds.
* •    When HIV took off in Africa transmission was mainly heterosexual, so it was young adults who were the main victims of the epidemic. As TB was (and still is) endemic and effective treatments were elusive, the results were devastating with huge numbers of children orphaned – many who had been infected with HIV through maternal-child transmission.


Constant Gardner BBBC Scores:  CW-7.1, CB-7,  AA–7,  MT-7,  JH-7,  MW-6.7,  SC-6,  RV-5.5, WM-3,