Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh – RV

BBBC Meeting:  

Present: Richard, ChrisW, Andrew, Willm, MarkW, Steve, and John.
Apols received alongside notes: ChrisB, MarkT,
Date of Meeting - Thursday, 7^th June 2018, at the Flower and Forrester, Combe Down

This was generally a book which people enjoyed, as shown by the range of scores, 5.5-8.0, with a mean of 6.79.  As ChrisW said – “a fascinating book, lots of fun in it – it certainly got my attention”, and MarkW: “I enjoyed the book, and enjoyed the long voyage!”, and MarkT: “I enjoyed reading it”, and Andrew: “A terrific story, with great characters and atmosphere …. I didn't want to leave it, and now want to read the rest of the trilogy”, and ChrisB: “I enjoyed this lively and rumbustious tale set in a time and place of such contrasts so much that I nearly started the next book of the trilogy! And whilst some of the views held and experiences undergone are very different from our times, there is a resonance to the social relationships that echoes into our own times. Are we really more civilised than that time?”, and Richard “I very much enjoyed this book – this was a book that I looked forward to returning to read”, and Willm: “it was easy to read”. On the other hand, MarkT said “I mostly enjoyed the book”, and John said “I was glad to finish this book!”

But there were a wide range of views and opinions put forward, with many people taking rather different views – all which is good for a robust discussion.

So it was also a book which grew on some people (“I was underwhelmed at the start, but it got better: it was slow until Zachary was introduced” (Andrew); or “took a little while to get into, but very enjoyable read” (ChrisB); or “the last third of the book was much better for me, as I read this over a few train rides and flights, whereas certain parts of the early book I had forgotten, as I read that a while ago, and that made some characters harder to understand, such as Zachary’s past. I enjoyed the Indian-ness of the book” (MarkT), although others found that the lack of character development meant that the book got less good as it went on.

One of the areas which most people liked was the plot: there were a lot of interesting elements: the opium trade, how central it was to the British East India Company - as John said: “the context was fascinating – the slave/indentured labour, the Opium Wars, the East India Company …”, “the arrogance of British colonialism was well brought out” (MarkW), “the destruction of the old ways of life – drowning old ways of life in a sea of poppies” (Willm); “Set in (another) shameful period of UK history when Free Trade was the will of God and the principal trade was selling opium to Chinese people. The Opium Wars are in the foreseeable future as China starts to restrict the trade that is turning its people into addicts” (ChrisB). And the way the book moved location between the land, the river and the sea came in for praise: “you became part of the ship”.  

Another positive was the way that the different elements of the plot hung together well, all coming together around the old slaving ship, the Ibis – indeed, the issue of whether the Ibis was still a slaving ship was raised – it is not clear that the position of many of the inhabitants of the Ibis was so different from slavery.

But others felt that although “the descriptive passages were very good, the rest felt like a Saturday afternoon matinee, with lots of ‘derring-do’ and with the author telegraphing his story” (Willm); or as John said: “the plot was OK”. And for others, “the disjointedness of the story, the way it jumped from character and event, even in the same page, made the story hard to follow, especially at first” (MarkT).

A main area which came in for both praise and criticism (but much more of the latter) was the characters and the characterisations.  The characters themselves were often interesting and widely-ranged, and there were a lot of them, and they in general were written well enough so that one could distinguish between them – as ChrisB said: “All the characters are defined as separate people with their own quirks and motivations”, and he also wrote that there was “a great cast of 60 plus characters … headed up by Deeti, the woman forced to abandon her child by an oppressive family whose premonitory vision of The Ibis kicks off the story. She heads the group of women who end up on the boat as coolies. Paulette is the other strong female character, showing the same independent and thoughtful spirit as her botanist father, but also constrained by her social position as an orphan and a woman”.  MarkT agreed and “found some of the characters very interesting, especially Paulette and Deeti”.  But to others, they were instead often caricatures: “they were not really characters at all – caricatures – not real at all” as Willm put it, or “all of the main characters were one-dimensional” as John said; and although “there was a huge cast, some had ‘back-stories’ whereas others did not”. Further, some of them seemed unrealistic: “Paulette, was far too modern and unrealistic” as ChrisW said; and many felt that we (the readers) were not made to care and feel for the characters “I cared much less for these characters than I did for those in another large book about India, A Fine Balance”, as Andrew said. Some felt that the characters did not seem to develop – as Richard said: “I didn’t feel that they developed very much.  They certainly had life-changing experiences. To take only one example, Deeti was married, drugged, raped and impregnated by her husband’s family, had her husband die, gave up her only daughter, was almost burnt alive on her husband’s funeral pyre, shacked up with the local giant, and ran away to sea – but I didn’t really feel that she changed at all from the start to the end of that series of life changing experiences. Similarly, Zachary Reid, starting off as a ‘black’ man, a carpenter, relatively suddenly being promoted all the way to Captain and then back down to 2^nd mate, being mistaken for a white nobleman, falling for a clever white girl, and none of that seemed to change him at all.” But ChrisB felt very differently: “The characters are well developed in their home settings before arriving at the ship so we see how far they have travelled, physically, psychologically and socially before they arrive. This paints a vivid picture of life in colonised NE India from the points of view of local people and immigrants, Indian princes, foreign business and scientist families. All are affected by the opium trade as poppy growers, opium manufactures, exporters, ship owners, investors and borrowers, and their staff and servants”.  In fact, for Chris, the ship itself was another well-developed character: “The main vehicle for the story is the ship, the Ibis, an old slaving ship which attracts a host of characters to make the journey to Mauritius, whether as convicts, coolies, guards, crew, officers and owner.  The ship has its own chequered history as a slaver in the triangular trade between Africa, the Caribbean and Europe and provides a consistent and finely described presence in all her states of sail and anchorage”, as was Zachary: “the mixed race American ships carpenter who becomes the captain for a while is a finely honed character who had a pivotal role throughout the story along with the ship itself”.

Another area which came in for both praise and criticism was the amount of research that the author had undertaken.  He had done it very diligently, and the more nautical amongst us said that the descriptions of the ship and the sailing were very good.  But he wore his learning heavily – there was too much ‘research’ and it felt as if he needed to show his readers how much research he had done. As MarkW said, “It was a tour de force in terms of the research – history, nautical, language – but I felt that he was demonstrating his cleverness too much”. The language element of this involved using probably correct but very archaic English, lots of ‘pidgin’ and Indian-English, and so on.  And the English was a problem for some (“the slightly negative things for me were some of the language which I found hard to grasp” – MarkT), although not for all: “I struggled with the ‘pidgin English’ at the start, but let it flow over”, as Willm put it; or as Richard said “a lot of the language was unclear, but I didn’t let that bother me much (very similar to the Scots book we read (Sunset Song) where one has to let the language ‘wash over’ and pick up the gist of what the words mean, and I didn’t find that it detracted from the overall experience for me) but I wasn’t clear that it was necessary.”  ChrisB agreed, and even argued that this was a strength of the book: “And so to the language. Some will be irritated by the vast array of lascar sailing terms and Indian expressions and words. A someone who has visited India several times, some of these eg Nob Kissin Baboo’s speech were very recognisable. This was a little like the Scottish book (Sunset Song). You just have to go with the flow and get a sense of the meaning of the words rather than worry if you have understood every one. This incredibly varied use of language added hugely to the richness of the work.”  The research also threw up some queries – for example, MarkT said: “there was lots of references to losing caste, and it would have been interesting to know more about that -I thought you were born with a caste?”.

On the other hand, Steve (who had not completed the book by this stage) said that both “the language and the historical research is fascinating” and that he very much liked “the depth of detail here about the clash of cultures and how incongruous the outcomes are; and how language changes and how locals change to accommodate these new cultures”.    

Yet another area was India, and how India treated its people (at that time, and still now).  As Richard said, “I generally like books set in India, as there is so much that I can relate to, and this (although I have never been to Calcutta, and the India that it represents is a far cry from the one I know) is no exception – there is much about the varied people, the social relationships, the Indian-English, that is still remarkably similar”, and ChrisB: “liked the rich descriptions of India, the river and the sea and the journey of both people and ship through them. This provides an intensely visual, aural and olfactory environment for the story”; or Andrew – “the book showed the extreme cruelty, counterbalanced by huge resilience.  The dreadful poverty, relentless brutality, the callousness, the thoughtlessness”. MarkT also found much of interest in the India as described in the book: “It was interesting the description of how opium destroyed people and whole communities. The poor people having to grow opium and nothing else was very sad. Burnham was a character I got annoyed with and despised. His justification of his opium trade operation, with his religious justification was something else.  His justification of his ‘relationship’ with Paulette with biblical texts was something else as well, and I felt for her. The corruption in the court, Neel being tried by Burnham’s friend, to take all his land away. I almost felt sorry for him”.

People thought that his writing style was generally good: the descriptive passages were good (“the man can write! … his use of language was almost a form of poetry”, as Willm said), and MarkT also liked the descriptive elements: “I liked Deeti and her relationship with the women migrants - this was well described. The prison with the shit for Neel was well described, and the bit where the other prisoners realised he could read and write and how that managed to get him things from the other prisoners was very interesting, and it reminded me of my brother’s experience when he was in a Indian prison covered with shit - he taught the other prisoners how to play chess and read a bit, and they respected him, gave him things, and did not beat him up … I enjoyed the wedding bit on the ship, and I remembered bits of that from my brother’s recent wedding, such as the turmeric paste”.

On the other hand, as MarkW noted, “a huge percentage of the book was exposition – the amount of the book devoted to exposition was enormous”; and as Mark suggested, that is OK in a trilogy, but not if one reads a 500 page book as a stand-alone one – “lots happened in the last 100 pages!”.  Willm also noted that the author telling us from the outset that some characters had a future undermined (or in some way mitigated against) the awfulness of their experiences.   

So, all in all, an interesting set of views!

Richard Velleman

June 2018

English Passengers, by Matthew Kneale

The group (most of) gathered in the Pulteney Arms, a week after being snowed off. The book was Steve’s selection, a rare re-visit of a book he first read soon after publication in 2003, and had vivid memories of... or so he thought. It was in fact a late replacement for his original choice of Peter Ackroyd’s ‘Hawksmoor’, which proved impossible to obtain either in print or e-book formats. Still not sure why that should be, as it’s supposed to be an excellent book.

Steve’s take was that this is a remarkable story that would have been hard to believe if it was a complete fiction. The strong connections with fact give it real resonance. The structure is on the face of it complex, using several different characters to tell the tale, chapter by chapter. In practice it’s very effective.

Nonetheless the narrators are necessarily so different that sometimes it ground its gears going from one to the next. He also found the rather knockabout antics of the Manx sailors and their ship not really all that helpful or relevant - other than to underline the unregulated way life was led in those days away from the UK...
Every character has some pleasing trait, well written, even if it makes him or her an unpleasant person. Kewley is nicely tart in observation. On the Bishop of Mann: “There were some persons said he’d got himself all in sulks because he’d not been given a fine airy cathedral in Winchester or Canterbury to lord it over, but had been shut away on a small country full of Methodists mumbling some language he couldn’t understand.”
 
For Steve there was one niggling flaw: while utterly believable in historical context and general presentation, he was never really clear about the intended narrative form. It’s not a diary, even though it is presented as such in a way, because it’s written with no prior knowledge of forthcoming events. Such as when Wilson describes his absolute certainty of the appearance of Eden ‘just around the next corner’ as it were, and is then clearly undermined by events on the same day. The rather strange outcome is that instead of imagining him writing up his diary by the camp fire in the evening, there’s a sense of him stopping every five minutes to add the next paragraph.

But a good book, provoking and well written. The clash between religious conviction and the exciting and no less pompously self-confident surge of scientific discovery was effectively presented: how else would a not-very-intelligent but upper-class member of the clergy have felt it necessary to do battle with these disturbing new forces?
Was it worth re-reading? Steve thought so, though he found that he had remembered only the sections dealing with the violent colonisation of Tasmania, and had completely forgotten the angle that dealt with religion vs scientific discovery. Much ‘new’ to enjoy.

Chris B enjoyed the book, with its uncomfortable evocation of colonial history, the beginnings of eugenics, through Potter’s writings, and he found the seafaring elements convincing and enjoyable (though with some apparent sailing blunders, which passed the rest of us by!). The varied characterisations gave the novel breadth and were well developed, although some of the caricatures were perhaps a bit unfair. Kewley was a kind of likeable rogue, and Renshaw perhaps undeveloped. 

The plot, with its conceit of setting the hunt for the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, was credible and interesting, and provoked through on a range of issues. For Chris, however, the ending was a bit precipitous. As Potter’s skeleton went on show as an aborigine it was of course a perfect come-down for his high-flown ideals, but was it all a little bit too ‘neat’?

Neil was in the camp that found the ‘situation-based’ parts of the book (aka the ‘comedy bits’) more engaging than the more message-orientated content. For him there was a sense that the colonial sections could have been shortened. While the varied threads made the book engaging, the stuttering chronology hade the book more of a challenge. He was definitely with Potter when it came to Wilson.

For Neil it was unusual to find a book that tied up most of its ends effectively – come-uppance delivered etc. But rather long, could have been edited.

Chris W was also revisiting the book again and remarked on the fact that it covered a fascinating and unsavoury part of our history – making a comparison with the expulsion of the Rohingya people of Burma: do we have the right to lecture others, given our past? The range of characters was rich and he particularly enjoyed Peevay, the English-speaking aborigine. The language the author developed for him was a really original way to present the actions of the white settlers, speaking volumes about both sides, and the differences between them.

He allowed that it was a bit tedious getting the English Passengers there and back again but thoroughly necessary given the context. Certainly did not feel that time had been wasted by reading it a second time. And he also very much enjoyed the geographical elements of the narrative. Tasmania is a fascinatingly varied country – an appropriate location.
Mark T enjoyed the book, though found it took a little time to get up to speed, particularly with the dialects of Peevay. But once under way, he connected with the family and their descriptions of white people as ‘ghosts’, and his father as an archetypal convict turned trapper. The descriptions of the white settler Robson made him an intensely disliked character for Mark, while as with other readers, the religion vs science conflict personified through Wilson and Potter as fascinating.

Mark W began by drawing comparisons with the Arawak (sp?) people in Jamaica, who were ‘civilised’ (exterminated) by the Spanish colonising forces. He pointed out that the theme of extermination of races in the interests of nationalistic expansion and religious missionary zeal is a common one, particularly for the UK – he appreciated the way the book highlighted our hypocrisy in this respect.

He enjoyed the book though felt it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a novel-based yarn or a serious socio-historical commentary. The early stages, the setup, were more interesting as some of the characters developed into caricatures. But the thrilled element of the narrative worked as well, with the Potter ‘monster’ developing as Rev’d Wilson’s character became increasingly extreme (though Potter’s narrative style, though understandable, was difficult to follow and slightly aggravating). In some ways the story of a man’s inspired but ultimately doomed quest reminded him of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. 

Richard also enjoyed the book. Reporting from afar he commented that he found many things that were extremely good about it. The many well drawn characters; the well distinguished voices; the history was fascinating. The story sustained his interest over so many time periods and so many characters. The genocide of the Tasmanian Aborigines was and remains tragic, and there are very many resonances with current issues, although the Victorian imperialistic ideals which contributed to this particular one are less obvious nowadays. The issues of causality and history were extremely interestingly drawn out.

He had a few gripes too – like Steve he thought the Manx sailors and captain were somewhat farcical (maybe they were meant as the comedy routine?), but more importantly, although I found the characters well drawn and interesting, I didn’t actually feel very emotionally involved with any of them.

But overall one of the better books Richard felt we’d read.

Scores:
S: 8.5
CB: 8.2
N: 7.6
MT: 7.5
CW: 8.3
MW 6.7
RV: 9.0
Total: 55.8
Average: 7.97

The Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Sharak

We thought this was a good book, with an average score of just over 7/10 but will lots of reservations.

It’s an interesting story of the contrast between West and East, specifically UK and Turkey, London and Istanbul. And the contradictions in the Turkish middle class - wanting the life of a well off Westerner and yet mistrusting and ridiculing thy west too. Chris liked the discussion of politics and description of contrast between public utterance and private anger. It felt real. Others did not like this extended dinner party narrative. It was more Riviera than McMafia, said Neil. Richard loved Sherwin’s cliché about Turkey: “‘What I’m saying is they either have a sunny impression – sandy beaches and Eastern hospitality, that kind of shit. Or a gloomy one – Islamic fundamentalists, police brutality and Midnight Express. When they want to be nice to you, they throw in the first; when they want to challenge you, it’s the second. Even the most educated are not immune to clichés.’”

The book throws lots of issues into the air e.g. sexism, religion vs secular – but does not quite land them all. Chris liked the range of the issues that were explored, politics, religion, east west relationship, sexual politics, childhood, trans-cultural relationships, childhood, and marriage. The book raises and attempts to deal with a range of issues which have great resonance for today’s world.  She writes “Peri – and hundreds of youngsters like Peri – would become an educated, idealistic, forward-thinking graduate who would rescue this country from its backwardness” which of course gets juxtaposed with what is happening now in Turkey (with the raid on the house, the guns, the attempted rape in the streets all able to be seen as a riff on the state of the country today, where this ‘educated, idealistic, forward-thinking graduate’ group are now cowering indoors hoping not to get arrested, tortured or shot).

The most interesting passages for Richard were related to both religion and culture:  “Was religion an empowering force for women who otherwise had limited power in a society designed for and by men, or was it yet another tool for facilitating their submission?” I very much liked the fact that there were women in the book who represented all viewpoints, and that the book raised (but did not really force an answer to) so many of these key questions – ones that I have grappled with myself over the years.  I used to feel that religion was something that society had outgrown – it was needed in the past to hold society together and to ensure that basic rules of social groupings were followed; but that we had evolved as a group of societies to the extent that there was sufficient shared belief in the importance of these rules that we no longer needed the ‘do it because God commands it’ rationale – we could do it because we collectively agreed that these rules led to a better and more equal and fairer society.   Now, I am far less sure – I feel that the loss of ‘religiosity’ in a lot of the West has coincided with a negative shift within society towards inequality and unfairness, and a rise in substance misuse and anti-social behaviour, and that maybe turning away from religion has not been good after all.  I am not sure, and neither is the book, and I liked it the more for that.

Richard: There were also resonances for me about my own relationship with Judaism – as with Peri: “Culturally she was a Muslim, no doubt. Yet the number of prayers she had learned by heart would not exceed the fingers of her hand. She neither practised her religion nor acknowledged, as Shirin did, being a lapsed Muslim.” And yet, there are cultural bonds which mean that wherever I am in the world, I know that I could find a Jewish community who would immediately take me in: “Invisible strands of solidarity threaded among strangers who, upon finding out they shared the same religion or nationality, developed an instant affinity. A camaraderie that manifested itself in the smallest details – a smile, a nod, a sandwich.”

As is often the case (it was towards the end of the last book, on slavery in the US) there is one passage that contains the heart of the book. Here, for me, it was this:  “‘You say our life is only one of many possible lives we could have led. And deep inside I think we all know this. Even in happy marriages and successful careers there’s an element of doubt. We can’t help wondering what our lives could have been like had we chosen another path … or paths, always plural! And you tell us that our idea of God is only one of many. So what is the point of being dogmatic about God – whether we are theists or atheists?’ ‘That’s right,’ Azur said, his gaze sweeping across her face, surprised and pleased to hear such an outburst from her. ‘But you have to know there are many in this world, like my mother,’ Peri continued, ‘whose sense of security comes from their faith. They’re convinced that there is only one interpretation of God: their own. These people already have enough to deal with, and you want to take away their only protection: their certainty. My mother … I mean sometimes I look at her and I see so much sorrow, I can sense she would’ve gone crazy without her faith to hold on to.’ Silence opened up between them as delicately as a silk fan. ‘I understand. But absolutism of all kinds is a weakness,’ Azur said. Absolute atheism or absolute theism. To my mind, Peri, they are equally problematic. My task is to inject the faithless with a dose of faith and the believers with a dose of scepticism.’”

Some felt it was almost chick lit with some Mills and Boon style writing. Whilst admiring the learning and intelligence of approach of the writer, it didn't quite work, was over structured, too long, formulaic and over elaborated.

Richard liked a lot of the language (an example is “Time, like a skilful tailor, had seamlessly stitched together the two fabrics that sheathed Peri’s life: what people thought of her and what she thought of herself” or “a mixture of scents – fried aubergine, ground coffee, freshly baked flatbread, simmering garlic – emanated from the open windows, so strong that it permeated everything, seeping into gutter drains and manhole covers; so sharp that the morning wind immediately changed its direction. But the locals did not complain.”) and a lot of the phrasings (“But solitude was a rare privilege in Istanbul. There was always some important event to attend or an urgent social responsibility to fulfil as if the culture, like a child scared of loneliness, made sure everyone was at all times in the company of others”) both of which captured a feel of the place and the people. There are many other examples of lovely phrasings: “Theirs was a two-storey house, the colour of sour cherries”; “They were as incompatible as tavern and mosque”; “She often wondered what it was that made her father so sad. She imagined sorrow sticking to him like a fine layer of black tar under the sole of his shoe”.  But then sometimes she gets it wrong – hence after the lovely bit quoted above about ‘scents’ she ends it with: “But the locals did not complain. They never noticed the smell.” – but these scents (fried aubergine, ground coffee, freshly baked flatbread, simmering garlic) are not ‘a smell’!

Another interesting stylistic point for Richard was that he felt that her writing set in Oxford was led confident, less assured, and felt as if she was less familiar with what she was writing about than the pieces set in Turkey. And Peri taking up running seemed rather easier than it would have been for someone who had rarely done any exercise before – she seemed suddenly to get some shoes (“The same day, she bought herself a pair of trainers”) and that was it! “After a few trial-and-errors she found her ideal route. … Getting into a rhythm was the hardest part, but once she did she could keep on going for almost an hour”. As someone who took up running only this summer, it takes a while to get up to running for an hour!  It doesn’t happen almost immediately after buying some shoes! Another amateur-ish phrase was “The next morning they all returned to Oxford. Whenever Mona and Peri talked about their trip to Wales, it would be with a buoyant smile – even though each had sensed, in her own way, that beneath the special moments lay something darker.” 

Similarly, her academic work was rather too easy too – “She had no trouble following the lectures.” Well, actually almost everyone studying PPE at Oxford has some trouble following the lectures! I know she is meant to be bright – but that is what happens to bright people when they go to somewhere like Oxford/Harvard/Cambridge/etc – they get confronted by being with everyone who is the brightest in their school/town/community, and that is always challenging to them.

There were also the usual irritating errors – bad copyediting!  So we hear that the seminars at on Thursday afternoons (“If you are still interested in my seminar, it begins next Thursday at 2 p.m. sharp!”) and then the next seminar starts with “‘How’s everyone this morning?’”!! And everyone at her Oxford seems to call their tutor ‘Sir’!!! Well, even in the 1970s that didn’t happen – and certainly not in the early 2000s.  People are usually called by their first names, or maybe a Dr X or Prof Y, but I have NEVER heard someone called ‘Sir’ at a UK University.

And she introduces unnecessary secrets! “It would take Peri years to discover what he meant by that.” But why – it added nothing to the book – why do so many authors feel that they have to introduce secrets into families – families are complex enough without needing to make them even more complicated!

We liked Peri, the leading character, the unsure, doubtful character contrast with the believer and the atheist. She is a full and credible character with a wide range of emotions and interpersonal relationships. And she has a strong will of her own despite her caution. So whilst trying to straddle the divide between her parents, can also challenge both of them, especially as she grows up. The same happens with her friends. An issue- how did Peri know her English so well? Richard found Peri’s character somewhat irritating at times due to her intense passivity (and found the person that she was at the dinner party and in the street a very different one from the person described at Oxford – and would have liked to know more about how that transition happened). Richard also warmed to her and to the other characters, and found myself looking forward to picking up the book and continuing to read it.

We were less convinced by the characters of Peri’s parents and student friends. Neil felt Troy, for example, was a cartoon character. He also felt Sharak had set up our expectations of the Professor Azur as a brilliant man. But dialogue in the tutorial at Oxford did not work for Neil. The crush on Azur worked well and the conversations about God were well described but then not explored very deeply.

Richard adds: my main problem was with Azur – he is meant to be this amazingly charismatic figure, and yet for me, she has not written him nearly strongly enough.  She WRITES that he is interesting, but what he says and does are not that amazingly interesting. She writes at one stage: “But then, as infatuated as she was with him, she abhorred his air of superiority, his bloated pride, the hubris that infused his whole being. He dismissed the worries of others, indoctrinating students with his own perspective, exercising a form of power over them….” But I didn’t really get any of this.

The well signposted scandal was in the end unclear. Why exactly was Azur disciplined and why had Peri "betrayed" him? Richard again: And the BIG THING in the book – her rejection of him, is simply inexplicable to me: “She, Peri, Nazperi, Rosa, Mouse, would not testify. Neither now, nor later. She was not an actor but a mere spectator. This was their problem. Their stupid game. She turned back and walked away as though it were a stranger’s good name at stake and not the future of the man she had loved, dreamed of and desired with all her being. Years had to pass before she came to the realization that her passivity actively contributed to the ruination of the man she loved. When she betrayed Azur, she betrayed the truth.” Inexplicable, unforgivable, and I have no idea why she did that – as she felt a bit shy?! The book did not explain to me at all why she did that.

The settings of Oxford and Istanbul were well described but there was some clumsy plotting and the twin brother came out late in the book. Some bits worked very well e.g. the wedding and its immediate consequences.

Most liked the ambiguity of the emending but were less convinced by the event itself. Ending fine-but not the event itself. The book ends rather suddenly for Chris. what is the point of all her journeying if she now goes out and gets killed? The new beginning after the shift in her relationship with Azur could be very short-lived!

Most enjoyed reading the book. The oscillation between time periods worked well and was helpfully signposted. The story of Peri’s experiences in Oxford and Istanbul was well developed, though the contrast between young Peri and Peri in her 30s is almost too great. It was good to read a "proper novel" with satisfying use of language, range of character and plot. But somehow not all the strands come together to make a really powerful book.

Chris B

Mark W 7. 5
Steve 6. 5
Neil 6.7
Mark T 7.6.
Chris 7.5
Chris W 7.6
Richard 6. 5

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Neil opened by explaining that his choice had been driven by an interest in reading the Booker prize winner most years, by his daughter’s recommendation, it having been one of the few books she has read recently, and the intriguing write-up that clearly suggested this was something a little out of the ordinary.  Overall Neil found it challenging but interesting and felt that the author rather let himself down with a terrible Prologue that really wasn’t the best possible introduction to the book despite the superb opening lines and the occasionally clever idea such as the idea of setting up a Tattoo service specialising in Latin text.  Indeed this often seemed to be the case that there were brilliant comic ideas in the novel, but that sometimes they didn’t always hang together neatly in a typical novel narrative.  Nevertheless, once the main story started, Neil found this quite entertaining.

Some of Neil’s favourite bits of humour included the way Me got Hominy’s slave beatings contracted out to a BDSM prostitute, the bull castration at the school job demonstration day and the day in the park when all the gangs got on because they were so stoned on his special marijuana and enjoying his watermelon too much.   At the same time, behind the humour the author had, in Neil’s opinion, managed to communicate some very important themes and messages, including the complete failure of de-segregation for many schools in America and the fact that racial segregation as a whole seems to be something that has happened anyway in America and will continue to without positive action taken to generate true equality.  These factors compensated Neil for the sometimes difficult language, absurdist storytelling and the heavily US context that sometimes required further investigation in order to understand their validity, such as the existence of the real Our Gang/Little Rascal  films which had indeed been a source of racial controversy for many years.

Chris W had also found the first 30 or 40 pages rather nonsensical, but admitted that once the main story started, he really enjoyed it. Although he felt that perhaps it was less a story as a theme and series of ideas. Chris was surprised to find that he found the book more interesting in many ways than something like Sunset Song because it was so contemporary and relevant.  He was one of two or three of us who had just been watching Miriam Margolyes’ new series on TV following her travels through the US and encountering people and places who might have come straight out of the book.  It certainly stirred up lots of reflective thoughts for Chris about the US and its issues.

Mark W had just finished the book and started by making it clear that he is no fan of the US in general as a country, race or culture which was therefore perhaps not the best starting point from which to be approaching the book.  He also found that reading it over the Christmas break maybe contributed to him finding it a hard, if worthy, book.   Mark is not bothered about the Booker prize, didn’t enjoy the narrative and didn’t identify with the characters.  He was perhaps most irritated by the stereotypical portrayal of black culture and doesn’t like the way the English language is subverted with all the swearing in the dialogue.  He found one redeeming feature in a little bit of irony at the end of the book as he feels this is something Americans don’t generally do.

Chris B found this harder to read than the Scottish book, of which he has just finished the complete trilogy.  He too was irritated by it.  There were too many references for him to localised things that he knew nothing about and couldn’t relate to.  He hadn’t finished the book (due to the Scottish trilogy being so enthralling) and was only just beginning to appreciate some of The Sellout as he got further into it.  He agreed with the “worthy” tag and acknowledged that there were some good pieces of writing when taken in isolation.

Steve thought this was an American book meant for Americans and wondered if authors ever thought about who would end up reading their work and modifying it accordingly.  Anyway, Steve found this rather alienating and the book as a whole somewhat “relentless”. He pointed out that sometimes sentences were more than half a page long and contained so many things that you could easily skip parts and not miss anything.  He did quite like the central character and his self-deprecation, such as the admission that he was “a shockingly poor lover”.  He admitted that the book was at times clever and thought-provoking, but he found it hard to have any affinity with.

Mark T found this easier to read that Sunset Song with its archaic Scottish and he too liked the main character.  He also hadn’t finished the book yet but was finding it quite accessible whilst not necessarily enjoying it. He liked some of the comic ideas, such as Foy re-writing Mark Twain to be less racist.  However, overall he thought it intriguing but hard-going in what he had read so far.

Richard emailed in to say that he had found the book distinctly underwhelming and that while the author was clearly knowledgeable and erudite, to him it felt as if he were listening to a very long rap song…not itself necessarily an issue, but a book-long rap song is too long for anyone.  He found the book to add up to less than the sum of its parts, even though some of the writing was quite lyrical. It took Richard ages to get into the book, let alone understand what it was all about.  He definitely didn’t find it laugh out loud funny, nor hilarious or profound.  A clever author perhaps who has written a no-doubt clever book, but Richard can read clever for work, he’d rather not for pleasure.