After a long hiatus...

It has been far too long since our last meeting, and a very long time indeed since this blog was updated.

We are presently trying an experimental resurrection of the book group on Facebook - a way to incorporate those members who have moved away, and a way to share thoughts without having to come up with an appropriate time and place to meet. We'll see if and how well it works. Perhaps the blog can be incorporated in some way... who knows. Let's see how it evolves.

Alice Munro

Is it a new style of book clubbing?

Are we being avant-garde - or just indecisive?

I think we all need a bit fin de siecle in our lives.

June* is the month for dictating the author that we shall all read - rather than the book. I wonder if this has something to do with the way our book club discussions devolve to talking about what other books of the author we've read; what else the author has made us feel; what movie we watch; what amusements we have been undertaking. Okay, so it doesn't take much for book-club discussions to tangentialise - but it's all part of the joy.

June is also the month of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

I don't know how that's relevant but there's something about June ...

It's a bit ... you know ... loopy.

This is what everyone is reading:-

Cee:- Runaway Stories - described by an Amazonian reviewer as: "a book about life and life experiences and because of this it is slightly depressing." Described by Amazon as having:- "a sense of hidden menace or even violence."

Oanh:- Beggar Maid - finished! and also the Moons of Jupiter, or Tales of Girls and Women (if I get around to it, riding my wave of enthusiasm all the way)

Lana:- Runaway Stories (2004)
Meg:- Dance of the Happy Shades (1974)

Meg & Lana thought it would be a great idea

to track the development of

this very prolific author over 30 years ...

Doctor (who's not yet given me permission to use her real name):- Beggar Maid

There are a few other book clubbers who have not yet told me what they are reading ...

TELL ME!

so I can edit this post.

~ Oanh

Dirt Music

This month's book, to be discussed over lunch at the lovely Meg's house, is Dirt Music by Tim Winton. I really enjoyed it. I have this strange thing about Tim Winton - even though I've enjoyed everything I've read of his (which is not a lot - a collection of short stories, and Dirt Music), I classify him in my head as a difficult writer. Which is pretty silly of me, given that I love the way he writes. Dirt Music was wonderfully lyrical.

Speaking of which, Tim Winton released a companion CD to the novel. From the description on the cover, "A loose term, ‘dirt music’ is described by Tim Winton through the character of Luther Fox who says in the novel, 'Anythin you could play on a verandah. You know, without electricity. Dirt music.'" It's actually a very cool collection of what I'd call country/folk/bluegrass, and I've been listening to it at work all week. I'm not sure what my colleagues think about the faint strains of steel guitars drifting out of my office door, but no-one's complained. So far.

Of course, in my wonderfully organised fashion, I have left the CD itself at work. Thankfully, I had already ripped it to the computer, so now I am forced to burn a copy to take to the Book Group tomorrow. I don't think it's illegal if you're forced to do it, is it? Surely not.

I look forward to discussing Winton's atmospheric prose over lunch with the rest of the Book Group-ees, while the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons play their super-fast version of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (with banjos!) in the background. Atmospheric indeed.

Celia

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

Book Club rises from the slumber of pre and post christmas lethargy - we return with a rather popular book by Kate Atkinson.

Knowing nothing about the author, I will only rant about the difficulty locating this book in the library.

Celia promised that there were many copies in the library. Being the lawyer she is, there was a catch.

Yes, the BCC libraries had 57 copies. The central city library has 6 of these 57 books. Heck, one of them is even large type. But oh - 5 of the 6 were out until way past the next book club date, and 1 was missing.

But that's still 51 copies, right? Well, 47 copies are out. Borrowed. By *someone else*.

Okay - okay. That leaves four. But where are these four? Bracken Ridge, Holland Park, Woop Woop, Some-other-outer-Brisbane-inaccessible-suburb.

Dreamily I hope that at least some of the 52 copies are borrowed by other book-clubbers. But I suspect that, given that Celia and I are the enthusiastic ones, there are at least 52 people in Brisbane reading Kate Atkinson and who didn't even have it chosen for them. go Kate.

If you're in Brisbane and are reading this book, would you like to come to our next book club meeting? You might know more about the book than I will ...

- Oanh

Holiday Reading

While travelling I read the following:

- The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

- The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Penelopiad was a Christmas gift, which I received pre-Christmas. A nifty 'summer reading' catalogue from Brisbane's Better Bookstores either came in the post or fell out of a newspaper - I can't recall which. My partner sat down and happily circled books he would like to receive for Christmas from his mother. Unbeknownst to me, he circled a few things that she could purchase for me as well. Receiving Christmas presents is a new thing for me - having never received them as a child, I now get a reasonable amount of loot as an adult because I am vicariously part of a family that celebrates these things. What a scam!

The Penelopiad is part of a new series that I am very excited about: a re-writing of myths by celebrated authors. Canongate is the publisher. The first two releases in the series are this and The Weight by Jeanette Winterson (which I also read, post travel). Given that Canongate chose two of my favourite contemporary women writers to re-tell a myth of their choosing, and both chose myths from the Greek classical canon, I was won over without much hard work.

But on Canongate's list were a number of authors I had not heard of - including Donna Tartt. I scratched around in my little grey matter for anything - anything at all - to do with Ms Tartt and could find only: "sounds like chick-lit to me." Now, pretty much everyone knows I'm a judgemental elitist book (among other things) snob so we'll just move on from there. I have to admit though that I'm reasonably privy to chick-lit having enjoyed Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones and Rebecca Sparrow's the Girl Most Likely - mostly because my closest friend in the whole wide world is unremittingly and unapologetically a chick-lit / chick-film fan. I adore her for it.

In any event, there I was in one of Brisbane's Better Bookstores (if you ask me - Brisbane's Best Bookstore - Folio Books happily killing time when I hovered indecisively over the New Myth offerings. Turned subtly away by my partner, I discovered The Secret History by Donna Tartt which was reduced to barely a third of its retail price and about a group of classics students. So I bought it.

All this serendipitous intermingling of coincidences, connections and themes is confusing me and making this post awfully long.

Margaret's contribution was delightful. She vividly reimagined the world of Penelope and the world of Greek cosmology, drawing on feminist historiography (whether consciously or no - but probably consciously) to recreate Penelope's story and to tell the story of the 13 hanged maids. I was impressed and amused and engaged be the number of different styles Margaret used to tell the story - Homeric epic and first person narrative for Penelope, and Greek dramatic chorus and burlesque for the maids. Oh, it was wonderful - read it! It took me less than 9 hours (the flight from Brisbane to Bangkok including food eating, toilet trips and silly self-portrait photo shoots). In response to some of the reviews I've read which appear to complain about Margaret's feminist take on the story: (a) It's Margaret Atwood; and (b) If you want the male hegemonic version, read Homer's Odyssey. So there.

I also enjoyed Donna Tartt's The Secret History. A much more narrative driven, pseudo thriller, it was a great book to have while travelling - except that I became so involved in reading it that I wanted to finish the book, more than visit people and places. It also displaced me; Donna described places in such an evocative fashion that I was discombobulated by finding myself physically in humid Viet Nam while mentally I was in the solitary surrounds of a US college in winter.

The story is about a small group of college students - told from the perspective of one, more different than the rest. The students are the tiny class of an exclusive professor of classics. You know, at the beginning, that one of them is murdered by the others. You know, towards the middle, why and how. The gripping aspect is the unravelling of the characters and their motivations, and the sense of desperate belonging that the narrator experiences within the group. It also had me because I have an attachment to solitary cerebral life, and the sense of being more grounded in the world and literature of centuries past than the thrashing of the present day. Thucydides said it well in his Peloponnesian Wars, but I've forgotten the quote now. I'll dig it up. Donna's writing is clear and well-structured; her emotions well expressed. I look forward to the myth that Donna Tartt will choose to re-tell.

- Oanh

The Glory Days of Book Fest

We've been silent awhile, and I've got myself into this whole blogging business - so here's another one from the ranter.

The topic of today's rant is my fond memories of Book Festing - just the thing to lead me into the joy of it starting this Saturday 21 January for a crazy six days, culminating, as always, on Australia/Invasion Day.

I think Book Fests are for the true book lovers and hoarders, and all you sci-fi/fantasy nerds out there. I always see my favourite second hand book dealer there - he's usually finishing up as I start. I often see former boyfriends as well. If you're a nerd, you just date other nerds, okay? The only non-book reader I ever dated looked terribly disappointed and hurt when I ignored him because a book was more gripping at that point in time. The real problem was that he stayed hurt, as if it was some terrible blow that I should prefer to read. Weirdo.

I once share-housed with two sci-fi geeks. We all traipsed down together to Book Fest. I watched them rush in as the doors swung open, while I sat outside waiting for the crowd to die down. I want no part of that stampede! We who do not read so much sci-fi / fantasy have all the time in the world to browse and find excellent books. After Book Fest, they go home and pile up their finds, and like boys, compare who has the most D*cks (that's Philip K.). It's then my turn to bargain away from them any double ups they've collected, or beg and plead for any Stanislaw Lems they got.

My favourite pile is the "Penguin" file where I will, every year, pick up a copy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago". When I am in the queue, with my fellow book-loving partner, he will say: "Um. Why do you have Solzhenitsyn again? You're never going to read it." And I say: "oh yeah." And cull it. This year, I promise not to pick up a single Solzhenitsyn tome. Cross my heart.

We cull other things we've collected as well. Culling is the fun bit. We make my must-have pile, his must-have pile, the oops-why-did-we-pick-these-up pile, the we-need-to-discuss-it-more pile, the maybes and the double-ups.

Conversations go (we're on a first name basis with most of our authors):

Me: Have we got this Graham (Greene)?

Him: Yep.

Me: How about this one?

Him: Yep.

Me: Do you remember if I already have this Thea (Astley)?

Him: Yep

Me: This Thea is newer looking that than one we have at home, isn't it?

He looks at me sadly. And then --

Him: Hey - you found Tom (Robbins).

Me: Yeah. Have we go it?

Him: No (in amazement).

Together: woo hoo!

And so ends another fabulous day at Book Fest.

We always try to resist going to the last day - it's half price off everything in the High Quality section (they mean how the book looks, not what it actually is - you find a lot more crap in the High Quality section then anywhere else); and a bag of books from the "unpriced" section for small change. We always fail and somehow end up there.

All together now - Yippee! Another Book Fest!

- Oanh

Novel without a Name - Oanh's Thoughts

This is one of the most famous novels by Duong Thu Huong. It is the third of hers I have read and, though more impressed with the previous two, I find the imagery and the writing evocative, powerful and intense.

Novel without a Name is a story of a young man who is a member of the communist Vietnamese army (perhaps better known as the Viet Cong). It is written from his perspective and opens at an unknown date during 'the War'. The war is never identified -- and this is an important aspect of the novel -- although we understand it to be the war the Vietnamese term 'the American War' and the one Australians and Americans term 'the Viet Nam war'. The story of the novel is that the young man is to locate a friend from his home village, whom he understands to have 'gone mad', and rescue him. But the story is rather unimportant - it is the backdrop to a movingly written account of the futility of war and the hypocrisy of government.

Duong Thu Huong was herself a member of the Vietnamese army, until her disillusionment some time after the end of the 'reunification of Viet Nam'. Her intelligence and outspokenness led to a period in a re-education camp. Nevertheless her commitment and patriotism to Viet Nam shines through in her work. Clear principles of democracy and human rights imbue her work, and her willingness to question government has meant that her books are frequently censored, and sometimes burned. Duong Thu Huong was denied a passport for many years and only some of her novels are published in Viet Nam. Free Asia Radion has interviewed Duong Thu Huong here.

The aspects of the book that stay with me the most are the young man's descriptions of his love of his mother and his nostalgic yearning for village life. Duong Thu Huong develops a keen sense of the dream like nature of the young man's memories; I keep picturing a young Vietnamese woman wearing a red shirt and trousers her long hair falling away behind her, steadily climbing a hill as fields of rice fall away to either side. I don't recall whether this was an image Duong Thu Huong uses (there is an image of his mother struggling towards a temple on a hill), but each time the young man recollects his home, this is the image that comes to mind.

The overall theme of the book - the futility and hopelessness of war, the destruction it wreaks on ordinary lives - is so calmly encapsulated within the powerful writing and the evocative description that recognition of it is not fully realised until some time after the book is finished. In many ways, Novel without a Name left me feeling the same way I felt when I finished her other two novels (Beyond Illusions in May 2004 and Paradise of the Blind in December 2002), lost but hopeful, quiet and stirred.

There are so many reasons why she should be read, that you should just read one of her works to comprehend what I am grasping towards in this too brief outline.

Only two Book Groupies had finished Novel without a Name when we met for Viet goi cuon (rice wraps) at my house - Nikki & me.

Nikki commented on her disappointment that the protagonist was male, given that Duong Thu Huong had also been a member of the Viet army. Both Paradise of the Blind and Beyond Illusions had a female protoganist and I was also a bit taken aback (because my presumptions were jolted but for no more cogent reason).

Meg and Celia appeared to be enjoying the reading and I was interested to note Meg's response to the descriptions of food. Food is a theme of our reading.

The ritual, symbolism and function of food is also important in Norwegian Wood.

- Oanh

Some thoughts about the book club

Every now and then I have these delusions that I will do more than I am currently doing. Like blogging. I am a blog reader, rather than a blog writer - just like I am a novel reader and will probably never be a novel writer.

I have a personal blog - but don't ever hold your breath waiting for a post. I am inspired every few months to write something. It is not enough to get my blog listed on Rice Bowl Journals. (Dear Celia, how do you create a link? alternatively, Dear Reader - Google it.) (I edited it for you. And what there is of Oanh's personal blog is excellent, so go read it - Celia)

Here's hoping I will do a better job posting to a blog that has numerous authors (peer pressure). At least there will be posts more than once every purple moon.

***

Thought number 1:
This book club has minimal rules. (not like this club - don't get me wrong I like this blog. It has colour coordinated authors, quizzes and interesting writing and thinking).

The rules go something along the lines of: someone pick a person, person pick a book, whoever has the time and inclination read that book, someone (not necessarily the person who chooses book, but preferably) choose date and time for meeting, at meeting talk about book for long enough to justify it as 'book club meeting' and otherwise discuss anything and everything else. Tangents are important. Tangents are among my favourite things.

A de-facto rule has been: theme the meeting to the book. It's getting extravagant but heaps of fun.

Thought number 2:
Book club is all women. Wonderful women. Why is it all women? I ask my partner what he thinks - he is probably one of the most avid readers I know, one of the reasons I think he's a keeper - he says it's an excuse for us to get together and talk and exclude our partners. He scoffs at book clubs (but not this one because he would not dare).

I suggest that he is being too specific and not considering that most book clubs comprise women. And anyway, I often exclude him from things I attend without any qualms. I don't need an excuse to exclude him - it's very easy (I'm going here(insert place, function, friend) now (or sometime in the not too distant future). I don't want you to come. Entertain yourself for a while)

He suggests the evil 'O' word. I can't bear to repeat it here, but some of you may know who/what I mean. I shout him down. It has nothing to do with the evil 'O' word. Nothing. and our book club is nothing like that book club (because we don't have a TV show and we're not saps).

We talk about Ian McEwan. (you all know the story, right?) (Dear Celia, how do you so cleverly embed your links? I'm not sure if you can do it from email - so I've done it for you :-) ) Ian says that if women stopped reading, the novel would be dead.

Thought number 3:
I like book club because ... everyone lets me rant. Some of them even seem to enjoy my rants.

Book Club is an opportunity to do what I have done for years: say to people: ooh! have you read this? you must read this ... Conversations in the vein of the above are among my favourite conversations. I love it when people say the same sort of thing to me. Unless they are going to tell me to read Da Vinci Code, in which case I shall put my fingers in my ears and start chanting "Umberto Eco, Umberto Eco".

Thought number 4:
Blogging is evil. This blog has taken precious billable units away from my time sheet. I am in big trouble, now.

***
Until next time (I promise to post re Novel without a Name).
- Oanh (the ranter)

The Powerbook - Celia's Thoughts

One of the things I really love about this book group (apart from the food and the gossip) is the way I get a completely different perspective on the books we read. Often I arrive feeling a little ambivalent about a book, and change my mind completely after hearing someone describe why they enjoyed it. Perhaps this is because I have no opinions of my own, but I like to think it's because of the fabulously eloquent members of the book group.

I didn't quite know how I felt about The Powerbook after finishing it. It was a dream-like, stream of consciousness series of stories (one of which included sex with a tulip, which I must admit remained in my mind most vividly) about self discovery. It took me a while to read it - I kept putting it down in favour of more plot-driven books.

After hearing Oanh and Nikki talk about it, and Jeannette Winterson's work in general, I appreciated The Powerbook much more. It has wonderfully visceral, tactile imagery that remains most vividly in the mind, and it is an interesting exploration of love. I wasn't won over by Winterson's dialogue, but I enjoyed the work as a whole.

I'm not sure if I'd particularly seek out another Winterson, although I'd probably pick one up if I found it on a library shelf. I think I have to be in a more reflective mood for Winterson than I usually am.

Celia

P.S. See Bibliofemme's review of The Powerbook here.

Welcome

Last night was our fifth meeting of our book group/eating club/intense talking session, and Oanh raised the idea of a blog we could all post to with our comments about the books we're reading (and presumably other things as well, if we feel the urge.) Celia thought this was a wonderful idea, because she's a complete dork and making new blogs gives her a bit of a thrill. The others seemed mildly interested, and so the Book Group Blog was hatched.

Celia wanted to give everyone nicknames and encapsulate them in neat little sentences, but after nicknaming Lana ("The Guru") and then being unable to encapsulate her, she gave up on the idea. What a quitter.

Despite our history of five meetings, we've actually read and discussed six books, as follows. Last night we discussed The Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson (chosen by Nikki) and Novel Without A Name by Duong Thu Huong (chosen by Oanh). Previous books have been Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (chosen by Radha), Far and Beyon' by Unity Dow (chosen by Celia), The End of Nature by Bill McKibben (chosen by Lana), and Gabriella's Book of Fire by Venero Armanno (chosen by Kristy).

Next month's book (for an early December meeting) is Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (chosen by Yi). Hopefully, we'll have some interesting discussion online as well as in person.

(By the way, Threadless is where Nikki bought the very cool t-shirt she was wearing. Celia has been spending the last half hour wondering whether she should order a medium men's t-shirt, or an extra-large women's t-shirt. Such are the existential agonies of her life.)