The Elephant Keeper – Christopher Nicholson

Apparently we read two books in April 2010, not sure why now...

It was an interesting discussion - as it flagged up a range of issues to do with writing style, social history etc etc. Also, with it significantly being set in and around the west country a couple of people (Mark T I think for one) found that of added interest. The comments were, on the whole, quite positive other than from Steve and myself and so it was a bit of a surprise when it came to the scoring that they were on the whole quite low to average (apart from Richard and to a lesser extent Mark).

As I recall at this distant moment, the following were key points in the discussion:

The first part of the book was generally agreed to be the best. It told a good story and contained a lot of interesting social commentary e.g. the relationship between master and servant, the reactions to an elephant appearing int he country for (probably) the first time), the description of city and rural life etc

However, there was also a general view that it tailed off in the latter part - in particular when he went to London when several people began to feel that the novel just stopped working

A majority view (though not consensus) that the relationships between the keeper (see I can;t been remember his name - shows what an impact it had on me) and the elephant became unbelievable at the book went on

Differing views on t he writing style. Consensus that he managed to get the flavour of the period but whether it was well written varied from definitely (Richard) to weak (me).

6.01

Coming Up for Air – George Orwell

25th March 2010

One of our longest and most wide-ranging discussions ever arising from the book in question. Seven of us present and four definite votes of approval for 'Coming Up for Air'. I was a bit more ambivalent, Ras was unimpressed finding it somewhat tedious whilst Mark T has yet to finish it. The overwhelming prevailing view was that Orwell's ability to turn a phrase and, in particular make an observation about life and the world is almost unrivalled. It was difficult to stop people (particular Richard) from reading out their favourite quotes, which seems a good indicator of whether a book has made an impact on its readers or not. The root cause of the slight divergence of opinion was mainly around the slow pace of the novel and/or the debatable question of whether it was a novel or not i.e. given that so little actually happened, could it actually be described as a story as opposed to Orwell wanting to expound on his opinions about the world and using the setting of a person's journey into their past as a mechanism for doing so.

Putting these points to one side, there was little doubt that Orwell struck a chord with many of us in terms of the observations he made about the world and life experiences (too many for me to either recall in full or select the best ones) - hence the wide ranging discussions that took us into questions about whether the world is a better place to live nowadays than it was thirty/forty years ago, global warming and misogyny.

There were a few other minor debates about the book - such as whether George Bowling was a believable character or an old Etonians version of what a lower middle class insurance salesman would have lived like but beyond that the clear view was that Orwell's writing style had both created a pleasurable experience (for most) and generated much discussion and conversation (for all).

6.96

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

25th February 2010

Divided opinions about 'The Road'. Most people really liked it, whilst a couple had mixed feelings and Rob hated it. There was one point upon which there was complete agreement, that it was an extremely depressing book to read, though Mark T. emphasised that he found it enjoyable to be so depressed by it (we should all be worried for him).

I can't recall a great deal of the discussion to report on - it felt a strangely subdued meeting (caused by the book content or as one person noted 'most of us looked and sounded really tired'. We should stop working so hard) and people drifted off home much earlier than usual. The other possible explanation of course being that we were missing the garrulous Neil and Richard.

General appreciation of the writing style with most people thinking his use of descriptive language was highly enjoyable - the exception being me (and to an extent Richard in his email) who felt he was using adjectives and adverbs out of context and without any possible meaning

General feeling that he built the tension up really well and that it was a gripping, easily read novel - exception was me (spotting a theme yet?) who felt no tension at all

Ras (and possibly others) felt it pulled on feelings as a father. I thought he was such a pathetic figure I couldn't relate to him or his relationship with his son

General view that the book left too much unexplained (such as why the destruction had happened, how the pair of them had got to that stage without the son appearing to have any 'nous' etc) and that this detracted from the integrity of the book - Mark disagreed with that one (yay, not me) feeling that the emotions, relationships and moral tale were what mattered rather than the context

Some discussion about how mankind does have the potential to behave in that kind of a way (i.e. mostly evil and looking out for themselves) when it feels threatened

A general view that this was not as good as the previous McCarthy we read (All the Pretty Horses), perhaps because he had not focused in on a theme that he really knew and felt at home with.

6.19

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson

28th January 2010

Helped by Neil describing it as the best book he had read since the book club started and Ras giving it nearly twice his average mark, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has rocketed in with an astounding 8.14. (later revised down after all scores came in).

General approval then, in particular for the way in which Steig spun a tale. Clear agreement that he really hooked us in to the story and it was a book that we (almost all) looked forward to getting back to and resented having to put down. The possible exception was Steve, whose main gripes were that the quality of writing was not great - something that several others shared to varying degrees, and that the hype around the Larsson story had elevated a rather tedious whodunnit to far higher status than it really deserved. This led to a re-run of the discussion about how we rate books - yes it wasn't great literature in the sense of literary writing style, but how much does this matter if it was enjoyable in other ways... and then of course there is the issue of it being a not very good translation (Steve) - something that has been acknowledged by Larsson's wife...

Other issues that cropped up and/or were commented upon:

Linked to the quality of writing, some opinions (not agreed by all) that whilst telling a good story it didn't really paint a picture of the place and the action (lacking aesthetic value was my comment). Those who had been to Scandinavia disagreed.

On a similar theme, there were a number of incidents or important pieces of information that were unbelievable. Did this matter? Was this supposed to be a highly realistic book (in which case it probably did) or more a flight of fancy (in which case it probably didn't).

Differing views on the end - an almost equal divide between those who thought he tied up all ends nicely and didn;t rush the ending and those who thought he dragged it out unnecessarily

We generally liked the characters - in particular the two main ones (plus the old man) - which helped draw us into the story

Some frustration at important questions not being answered (e.g. what was the importance of Salander's mother in this), but we were told by Neil who has read the second in the series that this is because they form part of the subsequent novels

On the positive side of the writing style, he very cleverly interlinked the different story lines within chapters in a way that worked by keeping the momentum going without confusing the reader

Clever people noted that he gave away the answer to whether Harriet was dead or not right at the start.

Beyond the specifics of the book, we then moved into a discussion about whether this was a literary phenomenon or a publishing phenomenon - general view is that it was the latter - and of course the film is just waiting to be produced (twice). The story behind the book of the lawsuits and argument between Steig's common law wife and his blood family about the resultant money and the apparent failure of Swedish law to recognise the rights of non-married partners was of some surprise to us given the image of Sweden as a socially enlightened country.

7.63

Secret River – Kate Grenville

Late November 2009

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

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

7.18

Sacred Games – Vikram Chandra

29th October 2009

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

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

Really nice, easy to read writing style

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7.34

A Most Wanted Man – John Le Carre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5.26