A Time Of Gifts

A Time of Gifts: "one of the great masters of English prose at the height of his powers", (Literary Review); "the grandeurs, the courtesies, all are recalled with a sweep and verve that are almost majestic", The Spectator; "A masterpiece", Jan Morris...

Never judge a book by it's cover. This book group failed to be impressed by PLF's poetic prose, love of big words and obscure architectural terms. Tellingly, I thought, only one member had actually finished it. This represents something of a record. It limited the discussion of the book and pretty swiftly we were on to the Jimmy Saville scandal, Donald Trump's bullying ways in the North East and that fantasy programme with lots of boobs in it that Thomas(Game of Thrones) likes to watch.

The book's proponant Martin had really enjoyed the first 40pages he'd read although there was a hint of suspicion that they had caused him a migraine too.

Thomas evinced a genuine admiration for the man though once more seemed to have been reading a different book having got stuck into Artemis Cooper's new HB biography of the man & regaled us with tales of PLF's daring exploits as a guerilla fighter in Corfu during WW2. TQ was also impressed by the effect this book would have had on its publication with its praise for German people at a time when Basil Fawlty's "don't mention the war" attitude still prevailed on these shores. With his tabloid hack background Thomas distilled PLF's travel masterpiece into 'a "shag-athon" across Europe' and sniffed out possible cover-ups in the narrative where the young protaganist had clearly bedded several of the young female supporting characters met along the way.(Surprisingly no reference to homosexuality, necrophilia or boy scouts were made. Give it time).

Lisa voiced the communal feeling of the group that many passages of the book were difficult to understand and quipped that the explanatory footnotes needed footnotes themself!

No one had the courage to come out and say it was awful- Arabella was in self-imposed quarantine- but George's discreet silence & self-confessed 'difficulty with travel books' and Mark's polite praise were damning enough.

It is no secret that I like this book immensely and rate it amongst my all time favourites.
This is a rich book full of detail- perhaps too much. Architecture, art, history, language, geography, ethnology all come into the mix. It is a glimpse of a Europe poised between two great conflicts. It is a marvellously recalled account of a young man's coming of age: "articulate enthusiasm". It is an insight into the relationship between a 60yr old narrator and his teenage self which reminds one of Beckett's monologue "Krapp's Last Tape". It is an exercise in detecting how much of the story is accurate, how much is made up & how much of it has been polished and perfected over countless dinner parties over the intervening 30years.

Above all it is an unashamed romp through the marvellous lexicon of the English language.The author doesn't always strike the balance right but when he does the prose scintillates, his choice of words is perfect and ideas and thoughts are expressed and interlock with breath-taking poetry and clarity.

(Ok now shoot me.)

 

***I did think of posting this in a Cyrillic Font in honour of PLF but the blog doesn't have this option***

Ashplant

Nemesis | The Great Book Give Away | Wine tasting night

Nemesis proved to be one of those books we were all able to agree on. Well, almost. Before George jumps in and accuses me of re writing history again not everyone was UTTERLY BOWLED OVER BY HOW WONDERFUL IT IS. George has doubts about the mid section. Doubting George. Always picking holes. Just because NOT EVERYONE IS BARBARA KINGSOLVER.

The evening was noteworthy in a number of ways. The location was shifted to MY HOUSE, where the red wine flowed like a fast flowing river flowing in a fast flowing way. I drank a bucket load and spent the next day groaning. I stopped groaning about four o'clock in the afternoon. By this time I couldn't remember the evening before. Not clearly enough to write a summary that is.

So, I had to go back to the CCTV footage. Carmen and I installed the CCTV system years and years ago when we were refurbishing the house. It has proven extremely useful as a means of tracing bunches of keys, shoes, children and various rubber instruments.

Arabella "I brought a bag"

This image reminded me that the purpose of the Fergus Drive location was to get rid of some books. But hey, Arabella, if you also need a mini fridge, go for it.

Mark goes in search of the loo

We waded through a lot of books. Most "were rubbish" and are therefore "still on my floor". The Winnie the Pooh erotica has disappeared. I think Martin had it in his pocket as he climbed, or was that more of a stagger, into his taxi at 3am.

Personally I think you missed some real gems. Embossed covers and everything. You will regret leaving those Reginald Hills behind, you know you will.

I hadn't finished Nemesis by the time of the meeting, so wasn't able to get stuck in to WHAT IT ALL MEANT and the IMPORTANCE OF GUILT as a theme, but I've added some thoughts in a blog below, should you want to wade through them. I did finish the book and LOVED IT. Roth is a genius. He is who I want to be when I grow old.

I should add, the quality of discussion amongst the group was particularly high. From Mark's extensive quoting of Latin to Martin's re-enactment of the first act of Hamlet, in which he played the Danish Queen Gertrude, were only two of the highlights. When Cathy offered to dissect our family dog I thought at first she was kidding.

Sadly neither John or Lisa were able to make Wednesday's lushfest. John was prowling the night cityscape taking photographs of the underside of motorways, while Lisa had a prebooking to play the ukelele. There are times when I wish I could make stuff like this up, but it is in fact true.

I should report that the Group had two special guests. Carmen Reid, celebrity author, occasional mother and the TALLEST PERSON PRESENT, sat in on most of the evening, helping with the wine lake.

And Jimmy, the Jack Russell, also made his presence felt before the heat of the fire, or possibly the intellectual rigour of the conversation, finally drove him to the back sitting room. Where he lay in front of the TV clearly wishing we'd turn it on so he could watch Top Gear, as he usually does on a Wednesday night.

Nemesis | Philip Roth | Thomas Quinn writes...

Roth is known for writing magically precise books. Prose that is as polished as the brass railings on an old style fire truck. Nemesis is a gem.

Short, about 230 pages, you'll breeze through this in a couple of sittings. Not just because of the word length but because the narrative is so seamless.

This is one of the most assured storytellers writing today. Roth begins with a factual account of how the Polio epidemic first hit the Newark area in the summer of 1944, before zooming in on the main subject of his novel, Bucky Cantor. Athletic, pure of heart, hard working. Cantor is a physical education teacher and a playground instructor. He loves teaching sports to young boys, seeing them evolve into men. An accomplished diver with a powerful physique, Bucky is however devastated when his poor eyesight prevents him from joining the Marines to serve in WW2. His two best friends head to Europe for the D Day landings. Bucky teaches baseball. Then the illness takes grip.

Roth is writing about his childhood here, about an epidemic many will have forgotten. Polio was defeated in the 1950s, but too late for the thousands who succumbed to it in the early part of the 20th century. It spreads around Newark like a plague. People are in a panic.

Bucky stands tall. He lends support. He encourages the kids to keep playing. Not to worry. But his girlfriend is desperately afraid for him and engineers a job offer -- a chance to get out of Newark, and away from the plague. He is determined to turn it down, but his desire to see her, to have a happy life, takes over. He takes the job. He heads to the mountains.

We discussed Nemesis in our book group and the section at the camp was the only one that drew any criticism. It seemed "too perfect". I can't really agree. This is a nostalgic passage. I sense that Roth is trying to capture something of his childhood here, and in doing so speaks volumes for America of the 1940s, for its ambitions. Its innocence. I found myself wishing I could spend my summers in camps like  the one here, at Indian Hills. I'd love to swim in that lake too. I'd even eat the macaroni cheese.

Spoiler alert

What happens to Bucky is devastating but, as with all great stories that are well told, utterly inevitable. The polio follows Bucky to the camp and strikes his closest friend there. He becomes convinced he is the carrier -- and medical tests prove he has the virus. He falls ill just days later.

Roth wraps the story up cleverly. He projects forward twenty years. Bucky is now an older man and we learn that the narrator of the book is one of the kids from the playground, who caught polio himself, became crippled, but survived.

There is a stark contrast between them, however. The narrator has coped, built a life for himself, had children, a relationship and a satisfying career. Bucky shunned his fiancee, dwelled on his victim status, tore himself apart with guilt. Guilt that he was the "Typhoid Mary" who had infected all the children in his playground. That he was responsible for their deaths.

Guilt is a major theme amongst American Jewish authors. Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy is built on it. Solomon Kugel moves into a new house and discovers Anne Frank, now an old woman, living in his attic. He had always been made to feel guilty for having survived the Holocaust -- indeed, for having been born decades later, thousands of miles away -- and for not having suffered as Anne did. And now here she is in his attic, demanding Mitzoh crackers, and she won't go away.

But guilt isn't an exclusively Jewish thing. I found Nemesis extremely life affirming. Terrible things happen, but life either goes on or it doesn't. And if it does, then you should make the best of it. Not dwell on what went wrong. But build on what went right.

Poor Bucky Cantor. He might have had a real life. Instead, he became a shadow. Smothered by a sense of guilt, when in reality he was a victim.

Nemesis

Where did all the Gods go? | The book no one chose

First off, congratulations to John for putting so much time and effort into his costume. As you can see from the photo, his bull's head wasn't just fitting in terms of the theme of the book, but it was also deeply impressive as a work of art in itself. He had also shaved his back, so extra bonus points there.

[And this is a man who never drinks anything stronger than cola, people. We should all take note and raise our game accordingly.]

AMERICAN GODS, the subject of the gathering, kept the debate simmering for over two hours. It is perhaps one of the most contentious books WE HAVE EVER READ. I predicted it was 2012's THE POISONWOOD BIBLE, and I don't think I was entirely wrong.

Brilliant in patches, many of us agreed that Gaiman's tour de force was also a baggy, meandering, unfocused and at times surprisingly muddled expression of the novel form.

I have blogged about the book on my own site -- you can take a look here.

My suggestion that the Laketown sequence would have worked as a stand alone book found some support but was shot down by Arabella who seemed to be of the impression that I was jabbering like a stone age witch doctor.

Arabella often has that impression of me. She may well be right.

Three of the group had already read the book when it was chosen. John was one of these and his decision not to re read it was, I felt, regretted by him towards half way into the discussion when he seemed to be confusing it with an entirely different book. Possibly Swallows and Amazons. Perhaps Asterix and the Golden Sickle.

Notably, the meeting functioned on a "single woman quota", with Arabella leaving and Lisa arriving, fresh from her ukelele lesson. [Sadly without her ukelele].

One woman per meeting isn't the official policy of the Book Group. However, members are encouraged to express their opinion on whether the "single woman quota" might be considered for future gatherings.

Did the maleness of the gathering impact, for instance, on the collective understanding of the book? Was maleness significant in American Gods (not Goddesses...). By extension, perhaps we might look into a "single man quota" with male members (ahem) attending on a sort of relay system, contributing to the discussion briefly, one at a time, while the women members stay seated, quaffing large quantities of Babycham. I only mention this as a possibility... This might be particularly suitable, for instance, on nights the meeting clashes with a Champions League match.

Finally, it emerged that the book was chosen by default, under the belief that I had nominated it. I had actually nominated GODS WITHOUT MEN by Hari Kunzru. I can only conclude that Loki, that God of Mischief and Mayhem, had somehow arranged for the mix up, allowing his good friend the Sprite known as Neil Gaiman to accumulate nine more sales of a book that has been published these 11 years and isn't nearly as good as it could have been.

Comments, alternative posts, images and revelations about the true nature of time and space, not only welcome, but actively encouraged...

American Gods | Neil Gaiman | Spending time with the pagans | There's a storm coming

This is a book that keeps coming up. We've referred to it a number of times. It's a book I'd been meaning to read for a while. A book others in the group had read and loved. So choosing it as our August (summer mode) novel seemed perfect.

So we meet on Tuesday, now, August 21. I hope you can all make it. Bring a winnebago if you can. And wrap up warm.

There's a storm coming.