The Yiddish Policeman's Union – Michael Chabon

Meeting venue: The Ring-O' Bells, Widcombe, 7th October 2021

This is a book which is set in an alternate universe – one where the State of Israel lost the May 1948 War of Independence, and hence where Israel was overrun, causing a humanitarian crisis which of course relatively immediately followed the crisis caused by the Holocaust, and leading to the USA offering a portion of Alaska as a temporary homeland, leased to the Jews in a similar way to Hong Kong being leased to Britain, with the contract specifying a date on which it would be returned. That date is a few months away – the ‘Reversion’. In this Universe, this ‘Jewish State’ is policed by a Jewish police service, and the ‘hero’ of the novel is a detective in that service. The book tells the story of his investigation of a murder.

Richard chose it because a (non-Jewish) friend of his highly recommended it.

Although as is usually the case many could see both positives and negatives within this book, the BBBC split into three over it.

On the one side were three of us (ChrisW, Richard, ChrisB) who felt that despite some drawbacks, it was essentially a very good, or even an excellent book (scoring two ‘8’s and a ‘7’); on the other, there were three (MarkT, Steve, Willm) who actively disliked it (scoring a ‘3’ and two ‘3.5’). And finally there were three (John, MarkW, Andrew) who liked elements of it but were neither as positive nor as negative (scoring 5.75, 6 and 6.5).

In sum, the negatives revolved around: hard to follow, slow to get into it, too difficult to get into this alien world (You can't participate in the game if you don't know the rules), not really gripped by the characters, not than interested in a Chandler pastiche, the language and syntax and Yiddish slang words.

The positives revolved around: the language, the style, the fact that it was a Chandleresque detective story, the themes, the fact that it was an alien world (customs, traditions, language) into which one could get transported, the characters and the relationships – its enjoyability and entertainingness.

The Negatives
Two BBBC members who actively disliked the book did not complete it. The third found many positives, but still ended up actively disliking it.

Willm: I have a contrast in view to those who liked it. I didn’t get on with it at all. Clever turns of phrase, but why? Why write a book: a pastiche of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. The movies are great but why write a book? The Jewish material just passed me by. I gave up after 45 per cent.

MarkT: I agree with all of the negatives. I liked the bit from Tess of the D’Urbervilles but it was such a relief to stop after 100 pages.

Steve: The author creates immediate impact through a Raymond Chandler-like downbeat voice and applies similar laser-sharp wit; sometimes the humour is almost Wodehousian. In fact, there was masses of powerful, in your face imagery, although sometimes I felt that he was maybe just trying too hard. Chabon’s ‘reality’ is presented so matter-of-factly, unarguable, it’s as if he believes he doesn’t really have to explain himself. Instead, the back story is drip fed, so while you get (some background) early on in the book, you don’t get other key background context until later. So you gradually get to fill in some of the yawning gaps in one’s understanding, but that’s still being fed in right up to the end. In a way one experiences a more acute form of the frustration that you sometimes experience when a writer is withholding information from you simply to spin the story out - which obviously happens with any fiction, but some pass it off better than others. I really wanted to know where I stood with the background story so I could get properly stuck into the actual plot. There were too many distractions fighting for attention. For example, for all my life the word ‘Yid’ has been considered an unpleasant insult, but there must be degrees of subtlety here that I’m missing. However, I was sometimes transported wholesale into this surreal world Chabon creates. Sitka is a real place, in Alaska, near to where Jonathan Raban sailed and wrote Passage to Juneau which we read a few years back. Also Snow Falling on Cedars. Interesting that that book centred around the true story of Japanese immigrants and refugees. So I could visualise the landscapes, even if much of the detail was outlandish. The (to me) alien world of Orthodox Jewish life stands as a barrier to more complete understanding - the passage involving the visit to the ‘boundary maven’ for example was so loaded with ‘specialist’ information that I was learning for the first time, much of it involving string, that it was very difficult to decide what to hold in one’s head as important detail for the sake of the story and what to treat simply as simpler background context. The significance of the painted red heifer completely passed me by, for example. I fought a sense of inadequacy, that I should know and understand more. And I experienced, as already mentioned, a frustration that there were too many questions raised at every corner - that this unnecessary complexity got in the way of a good story. And of course this was compounded by the embedding of the story in the world of chess, a game I have never mastered – though as it turned out, knowledge of the game wasn’t as critical to an understanding of the outcome as the understanding that for some people it’s a matter of life or death. 

I don’t often check on the web to see what other people thought of it. On this occasion I did, and found a review by Adam Mars Jones in The Guardian, from 2007, who sums up one of my main issues with the book well: ‘The real problem with the book is the piecemeal way Chabon introduces his alternate reality. It's an unwritten rule of the genre that you should be able to define the difference between the parallel world and ours in a single sentence... …No such establishment of a baseline is possible with The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Two million European Jews were slaughtered in the 1940s, rather than six, and there's no reference to Hitler or any other political figure (the current American President is referred to only in those vague terms). No doubt Chabon has compiled a little dossier or chart of his world, but there are readers who would like a peek, too. You can't participate in the game if you don't know the rules.’ 

So in the end, the only thing I felt really drove me to finish the book was a desire to find out if Naomi really was dead, or if she’d manage a miraculous resurrection (stranger things happened in the book). So I had to mark it down because of the disappointment. In a sentence: mercurial flashes of brilliance but too self-indulgent and free with the in-jokes to carry a gentile like me wholeheartedly along with it.

The Positives
ChrisB: A rollicking detective story, very Chandleresque, very enjoyable, a neat style. I liked the story, the pursuance of the “who murdered …” theme, and the back-story – his relationship with his father, his candidature to be his generation’s messiah. Not sure I understood why Mendel Shpilman got killed. There were some amazing turns of phrase: “he fears he suffers from tinnitus of the soul”.
Overall, rather a fun book despite its heaviness. A book I will remember.

Richard: I liked lots about the book: it became more about chess and about history, and I love both of those; it started to appear to me as an interesting and a complex book, with complex characters, many of who I could like, and even understand; I found a lot of aspects of the book interesting: the politics, the idea of what might have happened if Israel had lost the War of Independence, the relationships with the USA, the desperate yearning by the Jewish people for a permanent home, and then on top of all of that, a murder story and a detective story, and then chess, and add in complex Jewish sects, and then the style. I thought the main characters were quite strongly drawn – Meyer Landsman, Berko Shemets, Bina Gelbfish, - even Frank (“Mendel Shpilman”) starts to come across as a strong character. And there were a host of more minor characters that also stood out strongly – Willy Dick, Rebe Shpilman, many others. The politics are really interesting: the issue of a Jewish Homeland was such an important one for so many generations, and it is interesting to see how relatively less important it is now that Israel is a (relatively) unassailable fact. So this story postulates a situation where the Jews are still searching for a homeland, and the issue of what will happen after ‘the Reversion’ is a burning one. The way that modern Hebrew was thought about in the book. And I thought that the style was rather marvellous. His use of words and metaphor and simile was simply superb – almost every page had on it something that was striking and unusual, and sometimes beautiful. I found them really clever, unusual and apposite. 

ChrisW: agree with Richard and ChrisB. A weird book: I had two reinvent invent my understanding. I loved this introduction into a different world, very Germanically Yiddish. I’d bought into the film noir, the seediness, damp, cold rainy environment, the intensity of religion and the deals. I found the relationship with his wife very touching and well explained, the implications of the reversion, the USA involvement. His command of words, very funny, all these customs, the enlightenment into Yiddish-ness, and into a different locality and culture. I liked it, very entertaining, I wanted to go to bed to read it.

The in-betweeners
Andrew: There were many positives. Chabon captured well the New York cop writing style and world-weary, harsh dialogue; The book read Like Philip K Dick transplanting the “frozen Chosen” into a Raymond Chandler detective story; Chabon is great at painting quick pictures; and great descriptions – particularly his use of metaphor - and the terrific description of Rabbi Shpilman – like clay lumped together by blind orphans etc. However, it’s quite a complicated writing style which often gets in the way of flow; there is a huge cast of characters (with the main ones well-drawn and interesting but not particularly compelling or making me care, except perhaps for Berko); and I spent too much time looking up words and translating from Yiddish which spoiled the flow. I thought that it had a great start with the very first sentence: “Nine months Landsman’s been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered”, there was the clever twist of Landsman finally telling his dad he hated chess in a letter and his dad killing himself 2 days later: Landsman then has 20y of guilt before he finds the letter again – unopened! But it was overcomplicated and knotty at times and I got bogged down a few times in the first quarter until it took off once we’d met Mendel and then his parents.
I thought the book was far too long until I got to halfway and realised that a big worthwhile story might be unfolding and how pleased I was that there was still half the book to go rather than just a couple of chapters of wrapping up and denouement - finally felt part of the world of the story …. at the same time as feeling pissed off that it had taken half the (very long) book … but in fact although the scope of the story soared to include global events, it never sang and whizzed along, always dragging a bit and for me slowed down by looking up too many words I didn’t know.
Overall, enjoyed the plot and Landsman and some of the other characters; I enjoyed the writing and the way Chabon saw people and things and his descriptions of them; but it was too long and too slow; there were no characters to care about; and it never zipped along like Shuggie or A Gentleman in Moscow - a bit like cycling on cobbles … But with some sharp writing.

Mark W: Another book that I found really hard getting into. This time I really struggled with the first fifty pages or so but, for some reason, the chapter where Bina returned as Landsman’s boss was a bit of a turning point, perhaps because it gave an additional element to the narrative (the relationship between these two) that sustained my interest to the end of the book. In fact this element, rather than the whodunnit and whydunnit elements was for me the most interesting part of the book, probably because the rest of the characters were pretty uninteresting, apart from the partner Berko. Having said that, I still found the narrative pretty hard to follow but I’m not really sure why that was, possibly because I struggled with some of the language and syntax, and not just because of the plethora of Jewish slang words thrown in. The story seemed a bit confusing to me, and the revelation at the end when the murderer was revealed was a bit of an anticlimax. The idea of this Jewish community in deepest Alaska was an interesting one though and there were some interesting ideas, notably the rabbis acting as all powerful mafia style bosses. Whether there is any element of reality in this would be interesting to know. All in all, not bad after a slow start but difficult to follow and a fairly far-fetched whodunnit. Preferred Tulayev and Sympathiser.

John: I really liked the premise that the book is based on – an alternate history in which the Jews were expelled from the new state of Israel in 1948 and forced to make settlements in other parts of the world. Many of the Jews of Europe finding a refuge of sorts in a cold corner of Alaska - Sitka. This apparently was a makeshift solution as it was expected that Europe would in due course take them back, but now this District itself is about to revert to America. A source of much consternation and which seems to be backdrop to this story. I think I followed the story, but it was hard - what with the complex mix of characters and the variety of cultural, religious and linguistic hoops to hop through and around. All sorts of digressions and detours that added to the confusion – the murder of Landsman’s sister, a fake drug treatments centre in the middle of no-where with a suspicious red heifer which will help Jews to reclaim Israel, and the arrival of US Federal Agents who block the investigation in order to help bring about the “return” of the Christian messiah. Wow…… all very complicated and often hard work. It was not an easy read partly because of its complexity and partly the rather world-weary tone it was written in – a homage to Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett I assume. But there were moments when the story took off at a pace and gripped you. It would then seem to get bogged down again in some arcane detour. As one reviewer noted this book was at various times everything from an elaborate joke to an unwieldy bore. But there some wonderful lines that stood out from the melange.

Almost everyone (even those who did not like the book as much) had interesting quotes which they brought, to demonstrate this author’s way with words; and there were so many to select from that in all of the quotes people brought, there was only one overlap!

Some choice quotes were:
• like goldfish in a bag, about to be dumped back into the big black lake of the Diaspora
• In drafty, tin-roofed huts and barracks, they underwent six months of intensive acclimatization by a crack team of fifteen billion mosquitoes working under contract with the U.S. Interior Department.
• A trace of a double chin that Landsman puts down to a vanished life as a fat boy.
• They leave Brennan standing outside the Front Page, with his necktie smacking him on the forehead like a remorseful palm
• the beaded curtain clatters behind her with the sound of loose teeth in a bucket.
• He has the memory of a convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a housebreaker
• The round tables that crowd the stage wear overturned chairs like sets of antlers
• Rain tossed in vandalistic handfuls at the windshield.
• Bina accepts a compliment as if it’s a can of soda that she suspects him of having shaken.
• Mrs. Kalushiner comes back, dragging the great leg iron of her life.
• In a narrow window opposite the cot, metal-slat blinds leak the disappointed gray of a November afternoon in southeastern Alaska. It’s not light oozing through so much as a residue of light, a day haunted by the memory of the sun.
• Landsman is at the wheel of a 1971 Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport, which he bought ten years ago in an access of nostalgic optimism and has driven until all its secret flaws seem indistinguishable from his own
• Ahead of him rise the tower blocks of the Shvartsn-Yam … huddled in the darkness like prisoners rounded up with a powerful hose
• and a bunch of bohemian semiprofessionals who like the atmosphere of ruined festivity that lingers in the neighborhood like a strand of tinsel on the branch of a bare tree
• “You,” she says, making a face like she just tasted earwax on her fingertip”
• Several inches remain in the bottle when he is through, but Landsman himself is filled top to bottom with nothing but the burn of remorse
• Girls hobbled by long skirts go along braided arm in arm, raucous chains of Verbover girls, as vehement and clannish as schools of philosophy
• His full ashy beard flutters in the wind like bird fluff caught on a barbed-wire fence
• He’s too superstitious not to see this as a bad omen, but when you’re a pessimist, all omens are bad
• Every generation loses the messiah it has failed to deserve
• It never takes longer than a few minutes, whenever they get together, for everyone to revert to the state of nature, like a party marooned by a shipwreck. That’s what a family is
• As it happens, I told Chief Inspector Vayngartner how you had just been shot.” “And he said?” “He said that in light of this fresh evidence, he might have to reconsider long-held atheistic beliefs.”

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez

[Forester & Flower, 6th Feb 2020. Scores: AA 7; CB 6; CW 6; JH 7; MT 5; MW 8.5; RV 6; SC 5.5; WM 7.5. Mean score 6.5]

A short novel by Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian novelist who is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century and one of the best in the Spanish language. The novel was published in 1981, and a year later Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The narrator returns to a small town in Colombia where a baffling murder took place twenty-seven years earlier. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonouring their sister. Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to try and stop it? The central question at the core of the novella is how the death of Santiago was foreseen, yet no one tried to stop it. Unlike the traditional detective novel this book does not investigate the murder. Instead the narrator explores the circumstances surrounding his death by asking the villagers who were present during his murder and exploring the seeming contradiction of a murder that was predicted in advance. The more that is learned, the less is understood.

John H who introduced the book appreciated the way the author explored the mistakes, misunderstandings and assumptions that lead to the murder and the way warnings were misinterpreted, ignored or as in the victim’s case just not believed. For example, Colonel Aponte assumed that by taking knives off the Vicario Brothers and sending them to sleep it off would be the end of the matter, or the way that Father Amador tried to ignore the warnings because he didn’t know how to handle the situation. The situation wasn’t helped in that most of those involved were recovering from the wedding revelries, exhausted from lack of sleep or had dreadful hangovers – as the narrator noted even “my sister the nun had an 80% proof hangover”. John H liked the way the penultimate chapter explored what happened to Angela Vicario and the way that her “husband”, the fat, sweaty Bayardo San Roman finally returned to her life carrying a suitcase full of the two thousand letters she had written to him over the years since she had gone into “exile” after he had rejected her.

John H saw the book rather like a miniature painting with its meticulous detail. Beautiful, even forensic, descriptions of the town, the context, the people and the events. Wonderfully economical prose much of which became more apparent on a second reading once you got behind the description of the context and events. Sentences and phrases that said so much. He raised the question of whether such a short novel allows for enough character development or whether it is merely what it is – a look back at shocking events that happened over twenty-five years earlier. He also recognised that many questions also remained unanswered - this may have been the authors intent or just a product of brevity. The range of views shared below reflects how some reader’s enjoyment of the book was undermined by its brevity, its structure and lack of character development, while others valued its economical prose and the detail inherent in such a short narrative.

William M: Really appreciated the novel and enjoyed reading it, in fact felt it was well worth reading twice. It was very originally written with a great turn of phrase – for example, the way the bishop was described as “without malice or inspiration”. The different stories of those involved highlights how everyone has a different perspective on the same events, even different views on what the weather was like at the time. While there was limited character development the central characters were strong. Although we never really heard the story from the perspective of Angela around who the story revolves, particularly as to what happened to her – both before and on her wedding night. She found “the name of her deflowerer among the shadows – one among many to be found there”. But it was the detail that gave the book its added flavour, for example the great descriptions and detail of the wedding and the partying afterwards. Although it did seem to end rather abruptly in such a way that just left the reader hanging.

Chris B enjoyed the book more when read the second time with all the detail and the way the story is structured - particularly the way the tension builds to the murder and its consequences as well as the way the shocking detail of the murder came in the last chapter. He also liked the description of time and place, the array of characters and the way that relationships in the community were described – the jealousies and the descriptions of being an outsider (like the Arabs) in such a small isolated community. BUT this novel, for all its strengths, didn’t really resonate with him. It was all very coolly observed. It didn’t get to him and he wanted more emotional engagement, and as a result he questioned why it is seen as such a great book.

Mark T did not really enjoy it –didn’t get into it. He was disappointed by it and found reading it a bit too much like homework. He did not like the way he did not get to know any of the characters well. He also thought there were too many unresolved issues and unanswered questions. For example, there was no evidence that Angela had lost her virginity prior to the wedding night.

Steve C felt it well captured the town and the individuals. Good descriptions of a small town isolated on a riverbank somewhere in South America. But found it too short and was unable to “wallow” in the descriptions of the characters or communities involved. But recognised the quality of the writing – often quite terse and spare. Marquez uses language well and there is a great turn of phrase – particularly in the description of the wedding and the party afterwards. BUT he found the book too short, and as a result had not engaged with it in the same way as he might with a longer book

Andrew A did not see the length of this short novel as a problem. He saw it as perfectly formed and as satisfying as a much longer book. He loved the intricate structure – rather like a jigsaw, and the use of different people’s perspectives – rather like putting the shards of broken mirror together. The characters all remembered the day very clearly but what happened very differently. We learn so much about what happened but really don’t know what did happen – many questions were left unanswered particularly around Angela’s virginity or what happened on her wedding night. He also liked the themes that ran through the story – themes of honour and justice, religion and values. He thought it had a great opening chapter and a great ending – the way it started with disembowelling (rabbits) and ended with disembowelling (Santiago Nasar). He was not gripped by the plot, which was tightly woven, but found it a pleasure to read. He appreciated the sparse prose which he thought was beautifully crafted but recognised that there were possibly too many characters which became quite confusing after a while. The characters were well-drawn, but he didn’t really care for them or what happened to them.

Mark W saw this a brilliant little book, original, suspenseful, (even though you knew right from the first sentence what was going to happen) with a narrator who is like a ghost, having no real role or impact on the story other than collecting the memories of others. The build up to the final scene was masterful as he wasn’t expecting the two twists at the end, firstly that no one really believed it had been Santiago Nasar, and then the way that Angela got together with Bayardo in the end. The final scene was horrific in its build up and its detail. His only irritation (not the fault of this the book itself) was the abrupt ending when he was pacing himself for another 30 pages. He felt this book deserves all the accolades it has received.

Richard V started off liking the book. He thought that the first two sentences were wonderful! “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on. He’d dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling , and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit.” There were several elements that he continued to like – it was short and extremely readable, and the author has a lovely smooth style and an excellent vocabulary. He also has great descriptive power – one can visualise much of what he writes, and many of the things he writes about resonated – “The fact is that Santiago Nasar went in through the main door, in full view of everyone, and without doing anything not to be seen” and yet no-one recalled seeing him. His description of the files in the Palace of Justice is an exact description of how files are ‘stored’ in India – in the law courts, in the police station, in fact, in everywhere that I have been to! “There was no classification of files whatever and more than a century of cases were piled up on the floor of the decrepit colonial building that had been Sir Francis Drake’s headquarters for two days.”

BUT – and it is a big but – he felt that something tremendously important was missing – there was no emotional contact with any of this host of characters. The book, the events, the culture, the descriptions, were all very interesting, and described in quite forensic detail, but the writer seemed to be (and as the reader Richard certainly was) completely removed from caring about any of these people. He concluded that that overall, this was a disappointing book despite all the positives. It reminded me a bit of the Truman Capote book ‘In Cold Blood’ which some of us read many years ago (May 2006), where again the idea and the execution of the idea were excellent, but where he managed to invest quite a lot more emotional depth into what was happening. Chris W felt he should have noted down characters as he went along because for a large part of the book he didn’t keep up with the names and roles of the numerous locals who turned up in the story and their different perspectives. He also felt it’s a story that he should have read in one sitting rather than over many evenings because the different nuances of the storyline told from different characters can only be appreciated when you were following the story through in detail. As a result that having read three-quarters of the book, rather than being attracted to get to the end and read the last pages, he begun to get bored of the same story being told over and over again (even though I knew that the whole point of the book was to have the story recounted from the perspective of different observers with all their minor differences. He recognised that the book conveyed a lot about religion, racism, collective responsibility, collective ignorance and the many other traits of the characters in the small Colombian town, and that it was beautifully written and very clear and readable prose. However, he began to become bored and had the feeling rather that it was a story that had been written for an A-level exam to be pulled apart page by page rather than to entertain the reader. So, in conclusion he thought perhaps he should read it again BUT unfortunately for him it was not an enjoyable read and more of a chore despite interesting themes it covered.

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.

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,   

Transcription, by Kate Atkinson

March 7th 2019. The Packhorse, Southstoke, Bath. 

Set during three time periods in the 1940s working for MI5 as a secretary, the 1950s working in the BBC and the 1980s looking back on life this story builds into a spy thriller set during a  time when allies, enemies and allegiances changed and it was difficult to know who to trust…
General consensus of an easy read by all with some finding  rather irritating and shallow and others enjoying the details of postwar England and the activities of M16.

Richard
Easy to read but irritating-too many problems. No character development in the main character with the denouement extremely irritating -absolutely no hint at all that Juliet had any political convictions at all never mind that she might be working for the communist party.
Juliet was a non person-the world passed her by -she was SO dumb.
There were good bits the author’s ability to deal with prejudice rang very true “it must be awfully handy to have a scapegoat for the worlds ills. (Women and the Jews tend to be first in line, unfortunately)“ some of the quotes ring very true for the current debate about Europe and foreigners.
A Very forgettable book.

Chris B
Easy to read but extremely light. The characters were mildly interesting but no real detailed explanations or sophistication in Juliet’s character. The book rather trivialised the war and the Cold War - a bit of a caricature. The British Secret Service for example- that there would be the inevitable closet gay.

Willm
Enjoyed good quality writing, light but unbelievable. Implausible that Juliet could be the sleuth whilst being a typist. Many too many chance coincidences. Meeting in the fog, being found on Paddington Station, everybody knew where she was all the time-totally unbelievable. The twist at the end was “cute“ but there was no substantiation for why this should happen at all leading up to her having Communist leanings.

Andrew 
A dull start with the description of her childhood but the writing crisp and entertaining with an easy “floaty“ style. The mundanities of life are well described in the book. The book lost it pace in the middle section with way too many coincidences. Farcical meetings. And then suddenly at the end Juliet becomes a Communist! Andrew enjoyed the story and the writing. But didn’t fully engage him. It was nice to read but “thin”.

Mark T
Mark read the book in India and enjoyed it as a light-hearted read but the fact that he can’t remember it now is a reflection of his thoughts of the book. He felt that there were many parts that were tedious. The description of Juliets mother dying was well described and he enjoyed the tension when Juliet is hiding in Mrs Skaifes’s house hanging off the creeper outside the window!

John
This was a book following in the great tradition of “derring do“spy stories about M15 typical of the spy thrillers written by CJ Samson. It was not pretending to be more. Captured the era well particularly the description of life at the BBC.
Prejudices at the time against women, Jews and race were done well by the author and the issue of trust-who do we trust was well questioned. It was an easy read a “warm bath“ and touched on some very relevant issues for example appeasement- the fact  that prior to the Second World War Lord Halifax and others nearly did a deal with the Nazis.………

Mark W
An easy read but not very much happened during the first hundred pages and the last 50 went mad! The central character isn’t the “shaper” of the story. This is a novel written by a female author about a female without that individual being the lead role. He found the plot “clunky“ and that it was full of irritating asides expressed by Juliet in parentheses.
At the end the author decided she needed to cram in some exciting stuff so the last 50 pages are inexplicably full of plot.

Steve
There are numerous irritating errors the first being the reference to North Utsire which only came into the shipping forecast in the 1980s! However, he felt that he was drawn into the story and enjoyed it.He felt that it was cunningly written and he liked the character of Juliet- an abandoned orphan.
He particularly liked Juliet’s asides and felt that this was a persuasive account of how things would have been in post war MI5. With the basic logistics of one room next to the next filled with a typist and technician.
He found the story where later Juliet went on to become a double agent as being plausible and thought-provoking.
Well researched and believable book.
Terrific.

Chris W
Enjoyed the atmospheric writing bringing to life 40s and 50s England and details about MI5 work with Nazi sympathisers during the war. The book was good in that it raised questions about truth, patriotism, identity and self. There were numerous good quotes.
However on the downside there were very predictable stereotypical characters-public schoolboy spies with the standard closet homosexual. The book had large sections that were slow moving with little action. Difficult to connect with Juliet‘s character particularly with her irritating asides in parentheses. Very little justification at the end to explain Juliet becoming a double agent.


Scores

Richard 3.5
Steve 8.5
Andrew 6.5
Mark T 6 .8
Mark W 6 .5
Willm 6.0
John 7.0
Chris B 5 .5
Chris W 6 .6

Conundrum by Jan Morris (1974)

Conundrum is one of the earliest books to discuss trans-sexuality with honesty and without prurience. It tells the story of Jan Morris’s hidden life and how he decided to bring it into the open, as he resolved first on a hormone treatment and, second, on risky experimental surgery that would turn him into the woman that he is, or believed, he truly was. The book is a narrative journey about dramatic human change – both complex and fundamental.

As one of Britain's best and most loved travel writers, Jan Morris has led an extraordinary life. Perhaps her most remarkable work is this grippingly honest account of her ten-year transition from man to woman - its pains and joys, its frustrations and discoveries. On first publication in 1974, the book generated enormous interest and curiosity around the world, and was subsequently chosen by The Times as one of the '100 Key Books of Our Time'. Including a new introduction, this re-issue marks a return to that particular journey. 'Certainly the best first-hand account ever written by a traveller across the boundaries of sex As one of Britain's best and most loved travel writers, Jan Morris has led an extraordinary life. Perhaps her most remarkable work is this grippingly honest account of her ten-year transition from man to woman - its pains and joys, its frustrations and discoveries. On first publication in 1974, the book generated enormous interest and curiosity around the world, and was subsequently chosen by The Times as one of the '100 Key Books of Our Time'. Including a new introduction, this re-issue marks a return to that particular journey. 'Certainly the best first-hand account ever written by a traveller across the boundaries of sex As one of Britain's best and most loved travel writers, Jan Morris has led an extraordinary life. Perhaps her most remarkable work is this grippingly honest account of her ten-year transition from man to woman - its pains and joys, its frustrations and discoveries. On first publication in 1974, the book generated enormous interest and curiosity around the world, and was subsequently chosen by The Times as one of the '100 Key Books of Our Time'. Including a new introduction, this re-issue marks a return to that particular journey. 'Certainly the best first-hand account ever written by a traveller across the boundaries of sexIt is a classic commentary on changing identity. He writes of the bewilderment that never left him and the core of his life’s dilemma – what he calls a haze inside him.  Outside his “landscapes were Millais and Holman Hunt, my introspections were pure Turner”.

It is pertinent in the current interest in changing your own identity and various forms of sexual transitioning.  But as JM says in his 2001 introduction to this book it is already a period piece. It was written in the 1970s and is decidedly of the 1970s with all the nuances of the time – the fag end of empire, the power of the establishment (and their schools and clubs etc.), and associated attitudes to sex, identity and gender reassignment.

Discussion at Wheelwrights, Monkton Combe:  August 2 2018

Style/Narrative:

The general feeling was that this was a well-written and enjoyable read.  CW enjoyed this as a biography and his descriptions of his varied life and experiences. WM felt it provided interesting insight into the transitioning process, though the style a tad florid at times. JH saw it as a lyrical, rather romanticised (Welsh) view of his transitioning journey. CB enjoyed the writing, good descriptions of life as man, and then what it feels like to be a woman in a man’s world. Both AA & RV consider his style rather masculine – RV noted it was “massively male written” and that he had adopted a style as an “avuncular woman”. AA felt JM had a rather old fashioned style - though good on describing dynamics of relationships.  He also considered style, though romantic at time, was curiously detached and so reader more an observer rather than being rather in.  In same vein MW noted that, considering the intimacy if the subject matter, that the writing appeared somewhat detached and so he felt rather distanced from the character of JM.  He felt this also raised questions as to what were JM’s motives for writing it. JH thought he was trying to tell his story on his own terms and just trying getting his narrative in first – was it therefore a just a good example of well-written spin?

 Context/Privilege:

General concern that the book reflected limited insight into wider social issues or debates at the time (class, gender, etc.). JM seemed not question his privileged position, his status and his position as a member of the establishment, or the implications of his view of the world which seemed routed in his own social/class bubble.  JH suggested it read more by something by Evelyn Waugh than any contemporary writer.  MW felt this one-sided, privileged view of the world became irritating over time.  For the same reasons RV got to dislike JM – particularly because of his lack of self-awareness and his class-based way of thinking about people. AA felt JM put too much emphasis on his own view of identity rather one in a wider context. Though WM noted as born in 1926 in a certain social position this was understandable. CW considered that his privileged position gave an interesting take and contrast to his description of his life and experiences.  There was a general concern that there was surprisingly little insightful commentary on the impact of his decision to change sex on his wife, family or friends – this seemed to have been glossed over and what commentary there was rather anodyne. 

Gender & Identity:

CB notes that JM wrote well on the notion that love transcends gender, and this was a discussion that was followed up later. AA liked the distinction between sex and gender and what that implies and entails. The book was also seen to highlight the complexity of issues around gender and identity.  JM sees identity as: the corpus of personality, how others see him, what he considered himself to be, his status in the world, his profession, and his purposes.  “The fact of what one is” - not just ones sex or gender. He emphasises that it is much to do with the eye of the beholder – wart-hogs are beautiful to each other and so we should not laugh at them.

This in turn lead to a discussion about how we, and others in different societies, perceive changing sex and the influence of differing cultural and time perspectives – from the impossible and monstrous to a process of omniscience and a mark of specialness (for example the Fa’afafine in Samoa).  It was also noted that feminists hold differing perspectives with some (for example trans-exclusionary radical feminists – TERFs) suggesting that transgender and transsexual people are merely reinforcing and upholding established sexist gender roles and the gender binary.  While others (trans-positive feminists) believe that transgender and transsexual people help challenge repressive gender norms and are fully compatible with feminist theory.

Towards the end of the session there was a wider discussion about the influence of nature or nurture in determining your preference for a sexual identity and to what extent that as such transitioning is normalised and increasingly accepted by society will there be an increase in the numbers wanting to change their sexual identity. To support this point JH noted that in US clinics that treat gender dysphoria (distress caused by a mismatch between felt and perceived gender identity) report a soaring caseload. The Williams Institute, a think-tank in Los Angeles, recently came up with an estimate of 1.4m Americans who are considering such treatment —0.6% of those aged 16-65. 

Written comments on the book by SC & MT who were unable to join the discussion:

SC:

First of all, I was really pleased to read this, as I hadn’t got round to it before. Jan/James Morris’s story is one that I’ve been aware of since my teenage years, when, as James, he was quite a prominent national press journalist, and later when the sex change itself was the story. It reminded me that my mother had been quite a fan of James’s writing... I think she fancied him and was somewhat wrong-footed by subsequent events.

To someone not familiar with Morris’s background or writing I can imagine that this story could become rather tedious in its monothematic nature. Indeed for me at times I found myself asking whether some of the more mundane detail was really necessary. I also was aware of some repetition at times. But its quality lies in the sheer beauty of the prose. No wonder his journalistic speciality was writing about unique places.  But she’s also prone to a well-used cliché - I was quite surprised to hear her praise a phrase familiar to all who remember student posters from the 70’s and 80’s - ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’.  I enjoyed lots of it hugely, but not without feeling substantially conflicted while reading it.

First there is the affection of the familiar: knowing the story from the time (early 70s) when (as James) he was writing instalments in the Sunday papers and being written about. There is the straightforward excellence of the writing. But there is also some misgiving. Granted the very nature of a memoir dictates the primary subject matter- but frankly it still felt at times a little too ‘me-me-me’ - a touch too much self-confident, donnish arrogance. That self-certainty that is peculiar to a certain class, usually privileged, often public school educated and likely to be embedded in or near the establishment. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that this story, which would chime with today’s LGBTW community, had such a posh backdrop, emphasising that we are all individuals under the skin. Public school, Oxford, the army (which he liked, for clubbish reasons), London gentlemen’s clubs, and one can’t imagine a more conventional early CV for early life into adulthood.

I guess the primary interest is that here is someone who has experienced a sex change, who possesses the ability to write engagingly about the whole issue and surrounding processes. Nonetheless I feel sorry for Elizabeth and I think Jan’s arrogance seeps through here. I’d have liked to have learned a great deal more about the process from his wife’s eye-view, and what she really felt about this possibly unique situation. I have a further issue - I cannot help but ascribe a male gender to the narrator, no matter how much she would wish it otherwise. Why? Partly through having known of James before Jan, but principally because I think her voice is, fundamentally, a male one. That’s not a criticism - more a further example of how amazing the story is, and how fascinating it would have been to have a second balancing narrative voice running alongside Jan’s own.

Just one quote to sum up the style and content:

“The connotation of love with physical sex seems to me a vulgar simplicism, while the overlapping of the two words I consider one of the weakest points of the English language”

MT

I stayed with one of their children several times in Totnes and heard the whole story and how hard it was for the kids. I met Jan and Elizabeth at their wedding.  So the book was an interesting background on a story I knew well.  Even though the writing was obviously excellent I did find it irritating – for example the questions that were constantly included "would you not agree etc”. I found the first part of the book when he was a man interesting- even though he said he did not like being a man, I felt he seemed to like lots of it. The middle part when he was trying to be more female was less good although some interesting comments “the more I was treated like a women, the more women I became”.   The last part of the book was more interesting - the medical part was fascinating and I was surprised at the suggestion of the non-sterile conditions of the clinic. When he became more of a women physically was interesting – particularly the unique comparison she had with men and women having been both. Although I still got the male sense from her writing as a women (I would have thought it was a man writing if I didn't know) - maybe reflecting some sense of loss? So in conclusion an OK average book for me, some enjoyment, some irritation and some insights  so I will give it 5.00.

Nora Webster, by Colm Toibin

7 of us met at The Pulteney Arms on Thursday July 2^nd to discuss this book about the life, thoughts and development of a recently widowed woman from County Wexford in southeast Ireland in the late 60’s / early 70s.

Everyone agreed it was a quiet book that didn’t immediately catch fire. However, for most of the group it drew us in and painted vivid and engrossing scenes that told a much more complex story than was initially apparent. A ‘sleeper’, one called it. Described by one of us as a ‘journey through bereavement’ there was appreciation for the clever way that Toibin managed to make this a very personal account of the awakening of the previously-suppressed independent personality of an intelligent Irish woman. There was no judgement in the narrative; that was left entirely for us to make. It dod seem though that in every situation she found herself in, Nora was the odd person out – which must have been exactly how she was feeling.

And make it we did, particularly with regard to her relationship with her boys. One of us in particular found her parenting skills shockingly bad and ended up disliking her for that and other reasons. Conversely more than one of us really bought into the development of Nora’s personality and story, and some felt that it was this gradual build-up of a character that was the book’s chief attraction. It didn’t shy away from describing strange episodes that might not have seemed entirely plausible – two young boys left with Josie… for two months! A visit where ‘something’ may have happened, but we never find out exactly what. For all of us to differing degrees, there was a subtle unstated suggestion of child abuse, and one of us said he appreciated that it didn’t come to anything concrete but stayed there in the background throughout – much more effective.

Nora’s discovery of music as a metaphor for her widening horizons was well drawn and provided the exclude to vivid and amusing scenes. Particularly with the ‘I don’t care what they think’ music teacher. The drunk drive home with the fierce woman who organised the pub quiz was also enjoyed, and both exemplified the way in which ‘small’ events were given due prominence in the narrative without feeling insignificant or overblown. The geographical settings were ‘brilliantly realised’ without resorting to florid descriptions – even for those who had not visited Ireland.

Juxtaposed with this homey parochial background was the emergence of the Troubles in the North, and the suggestion that Maurice would have been involved had he still been alive, as well as the temporary disappearance of the daughter as she herself got involved in Dublin, taking her own steps to independence along the way.

So we (most of us) enjoyed the journey, but views became a little more fragmented as the end of the book drew near, with its dream-like episode and strange half-lit revelations coming to Nora. It prompted the response ‘So what?’ from one of us – is it much more than simply an enjoyable read? What does it really tell us about life the universe and everything? Another found the sequence unbelievable (along with most of the rest of the book) and was unable to see what it added to the narrative.

Overall though a rewarding, slow burner of a book that proved that you don’t have to use dayglo colours to paint a vivid picture.

Average score out of 10 was 7.34.