Half of us had also (re)read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf which helped elucidate some of the Cunningham book but led to great confusion and frustration for the other half as we slipped thoughtlessly between books and characters. With some effort (and continual reminders), we managed to turn the discussion to the book at hand, or at least remember to explain the references to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, although it was hard to resist the urge to talk about both books.

Generally, we liked the book. Most of us were surprised by the way the relationship among the characters revealed itself at the end but didn't have any problems with the movement between the different characters.

We wondered why Cunningham chose to write a derivative work and asked ourselves if it would be an easy or difficult task. Our conclusion was that it would be a challenge but that Cunningham had done it well. Collectively we knew a fair amount about Virginia Woolf's life and wished we had the same knowledge about Cunningham. For instance, suicide is a central theme in both books. Knowing how Virginia Woolf's life ended, one wonders if suicide is a personal issue for Cunningham. Does he feel that there was some unfinished business in Mrs. Dalloway that needed to be explored further?

Anne-Marie wondered why Richard would chose suicide, a hostile act toward those who are left behind, particularly since he did it with Clarissa watching. A spirited discussion followed about the ravages of AIDS, his concern about receiving an award he didn't feel he really deserved, and suicide in general.

Both authors deal with characters who are struggling with mundane, daily routines and contemplate how easy it would be to end it. The suicides of Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway and Richard in The Hours were identical in method, and similar in that both were in response to an extreme external factor. Laura Brown's thoughts of suicide and Virginia Woolf’s (and the "is this all there is" and "am I satisfied" musings of the Clarissas in both books) are much less easy to explain. Was Woolf foreshadowing her own death? Is Cunningham asking us to realize that the important things in life are the mundane matters that happen every day? Maybe John Lennon got it right -- "life is what happens while you're busy making plans." [When I got home and shared some of our dicussion with Marlene, she reminded me that Virginia Woolf was reading Proust and Ulysses at the time she was working on Mrs. Dalloway. Draw your own conclusions.]

We did feel that the years of Laura Brown's life between the birthday party and Richard's death were glossed over rather quickly. Apparently she had followed through unsuccessfully with her thoughts of suicide. We would have liked to know more and felt that this was the weakest part of the book, but not enough to keep us from recommending it to others.
 
 

September The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver Discussion recapped by Helen

Ann, Susan K, Anne-Marie, Susan T, Laura, Melissa K and Helen met at Ann's house to discuss The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. For once, all of us enjoyed the month's selection, some more enthusiastically than others.

Susan K. came equipped with two reviews; Ann had copies of a current New Yorker article (September 25) on the current state of affairs in the Republic of Congo; and Helen had the HarperCollins book group questions. In our usual scholarly fashion, we ignored all of the above, planning to read the New Yorker article later, and had a rambling discussion inspired by the book.

Generally, we admired Kingsolver's skill at speaking in the voice of each of the five women and thought that those characters were for the most part well-developed although perhaps somewhat skewed (and a bit unbelievable) to make sure we noticed the differences. On the other hand, the men, especially Nathan and the tribal chief, were one dimensional caricatures. Wasn't that Kingsolver's point?

We found the early part of the book compelling and informative in its portrayal of the clash between Nathan's view of his mission and the culture of the villagers but felt that it was overly didactic in making sure we got the message about cultural, political, economic and religious imperialism and male stubbornness and insensitivity. No one, however, challenged any of these themes, which echoed many of the misunderstandings that we had read about this summer in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Several members thought that it was less interesting toward the end, as if the author felt compelled to tie up all the loose ends and bring each of the characters to the present but wasn't as into the story and her message at that point.

From her experience in Tanzania, Susan K pointed out that, traditionally, missionaries were well trained and prepared for the conditions, unlike the Prices. We decided that Nathan's stubbornness in taking his family without official support and Orleanna's willingness to go along was at least plausible, especially given the roles of men and women at that time. Some of us wondered whether Adah's "cure" was realistic although it was consistent with Helen's knowledge of work in Philadelphia with treating brain damaged individuals. We wondered about the biblical titles but realized that the obvious ones were obvious and that we were all too far removed from Bible 101 to appreciate the others.
 
 

August The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures Anne Fadiman Discussion recapped by Fran

We met last Wednesday, August 2, at Susan T’s house and enjoyed a taste of summer from her back porch looking out onto her beautiful backyard (no one else's house in sight! contrary to my backyard in which you are never more than 10 feet from neighbors in 3 directions...) Present were Susan T, Fran, Laura, Helen, Ann, Melissa K, Melissa M, and Anne-Marie.

Everyone praised "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," Anne Fadiman's account of the problems experienced by an immigrant Hmong family attempting to treat their daughter's epilepsy with Western medical techniques while not violating their deeply held religious beliefs and ingrained cultural values. Each of us remarked on a different aspect of the book that struck a particular chord: from health care, to language differences, to the interplay between religion and science. Ann wore a beautiful tshirt, the embroidery on which showed an example of Hmong craftwork, and Laura told us about a former classmate who was Hmong. That appeared to comprise the sum total of our experiences with this culture before reading "Spirit," and we are probably not unusual in this regard. Finally, we speculated on what will happen to the Hmong in the United States as time passes - how much assimilation is inevitable, despite the strength of their cultural bonds, as children are born and schooled here, and the pros and cons of these changes, as well as how the Hmong might be different from other ethnic groups that have emigrated to the U.S.
 
 

July Regeneration Pat Barker Discussion recapped by Fran

Our last meeting was July 5 at Helen’s home. Helen, Fran, Ann, Melissa M, and Susan T were present to discuss Fran's choice of Regeneration, Pat Barker's first novel in her World War I trilogy. Melissa had gone on to read Ghost Road and Susan had started Eye In the Door (the second and third novels in the trilogy). (I may have that mixed up - Melissa may have read Eye and Susan Ghost, or Ghost may be the third and Eye the second, but in any event, one of them read one and the other read part of the other.) Commentary was uniformly positive; the book was found to be moving, powerful, and well deserving of its critical acclaim. A good part of the discussion focused on the plot and character development of the remaining novels: we were interested to know what happens to Rivers in the other books, and to learn that Prior becomes the major character. We talked about what might have inspired Barker to choose WW1 for the subject of such a significant literary effort – a political event or personal experience. And we were disappointed not to have the benefit of Anne-Marie's thoughts on Rivers as a therapist. Several of us admitted to finding it difficult to keep the characters straight as we were reading; this seemed to be the only flaw we detected in the novel, however. Further comments, especially from those not able to make it to the discussion, are welcome!
 
 

June The Girl in Hyacinth Blue Susan Vreeland Discussion recapped by Fran

Last month's meeting was held at Susan K’s house to discuss her choice, Girl In Hyacinth Blue, a novel by Susan Vreeland based on the fictional antecedents of a Vermeer painting. I didn't attend because I couldn't get a copy of the book in time, although I read it a few days later and found it very well written. Attending were Laura, Susan K, Susan T, Anne-Marie, and new attendee Heather. Susan T advises that Heather's sister works with Laura - o small world. Susan also reported that Susan K's living room was filled w/ info on Vermeer, especially about the painting "Girl With Pearl Earring" and its restoration(s), which she found fascinating. Susan noted that people found the last parts of the book more interesting than the first section, so much so that Laura and Susan K actually reread it back-to-front, w/satisfaction.

For those who haven't read it yet, the structure of the book is a series of short stories, each self-contained, but which together, form the history of the painting's creation and its owners. The book starts with the present owner, and works backward to the artist's story. For me, it was very, very beautiful, but also painfully sad - the beauty of the painting contrasts powerfully with tragedies ranging from dead infants to Holocaust victims to the proverbial starving artist.
 
 

May The Archivist Martha Cooley Discussion recapped by Fran

Our May meeting was held at Melissa M’s home on May 3. Present were Melissa, Susan T, Ann, Anne-Marie, Laura, and Fran.

Laura opened the discussion of our May selection, The Archivist by Martha Cooley, by apologizing for choosing it - she didn't feel it held up well on a second reading. The rest of us -- reading it for the first time -- liked it, however (which is not to say we found it flawless). We compared and contrasted the Archivist to last month's selection, After Long Silence, given that the two books shared common themes about family secrets (and even involved the same kinds of secrets). We all agreed that the Archivist suffered from an overly ambitious structure in which all of the characters' lives were intended to mirror or parallel certain aspects of one another, the artificiality of which ultimately detracted from plot and character development. Some of us found Matthias annoying, or stereotyped. Others were put off by the lengthy sections consisting of excerpts from Judith's diary during her commitment at the mental institution. We also discussed Cooley's use of Eliot quotes - which some of us felt enriched the book and others did not.

Laura told us that the story was based on fact; the letters from Eliot which are at the heart of the book actually exist. For her, the story was very much marred by a significant inaccuracy: Matthias' anguish over the supposed ethical breach he committed by reading the letters was baseless, because it is understood and expected that archivists working with non-public materials will inevitably read them. It is unclear whether Cooley didn't know this, or just disregarded it in her pursuit of artistic rather than journalistic truth.
 
 

April After Long Silence Helen Fremont Discussion recapped by Fran

We met on April 5 at Anne-Marie's home to discuss After Long Silence, Helen Fremont's "memoir" of her discovery as an adult that her parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors. Present were Anne-Marie, Christina (the facilitator), Susan T, Susan K, Laura, and me.

Helen's vivid writing style was very much admired. We generally felt that her use of fiction to fill in the unavoidable blank spaces in her research made the story seem more real, and truthful, than an account restricted solely to bare facts would have been. We did notice some odd, unexplained gaps, however, wondering whether they were inadvertent or deliberate – what was the family dysfunction she referred to? were her parents still living when she published the book?

We discussed extensively the question of "who owns a family secret – do children have a "right" to know their parents' secrets?" and talked about some of our own family secrets and the impact these have had on us. (Surprisingly, there were many such secrets in our immediate or extended families, and several fascinating stories were told.) We also talked about the role religion plays in shaping identity -- what, or who, is a Jew? a Catholic? a Protestant?-- and compared personal experiences in this regard as well.
 
 

March No meeting

 

February Native Son Richard Wright Discussion recapped by Fran

Attending the meeting (at Christina's home) were me (Fran), Helen, Susan T, Laura, Anne-Marie, Anne and Christina. A large part of the discussion focused on racism and our own experiences with it (did anyone know that Laura is a satan-worshipping white bitch?) Anne recalled her distress as a child when her black caregiver was forced to seat Anne at the front of the bus and go sit in the back. We also talked about whether or not it is OK when talking about a black person to other white people to say that he or she is black, and if so, when and why.

Some of us had the "restored" edition of Native Son which included the masturbation scene that the Book of the Month Club had persuaded Wright to excise. Some of us were surprised that this had been censored, others not. Others were surprised that the book which seemed to us very radical for its time was published so readily, others weren't.

We discussed the efficacy of Wright's delivery of his message through the mechanism of a courtroom scene. Most thought that this was unrealistic, and many found it overlong and tedious. There was one suggestion that the use of the courtroom was a metaphor itself, however. Some of us criticized Wright's writing style - too detailed, wooden, trivia-filled - others liked it (in particular, the Dreiser fan in the group).

We also discussed the value of Bigger experiencing his epiphany through a violent act - could this have been accomplished otherwise, such as by a random act of kindness? Would the power of the book have been increased or diminished if Bigger had been unjustly, rather than justly, accused of murder? Helen pointed out that he was unjustly accused of one crime, at least - rape.
 
 

January The Tin Drum Gunther Grass Sorry, no recap