Last night we had my book club's Christmas party here. A friend and I started the book club when we had both just had babies and felt as though our brains would never ever recover from the experience. It was for both of us as if at the moment when we'd delivered the baby we'd also let go of our higher-functioning brains, leaving us only with the animal capacity to feed and protect. So we decided that by getting together with friend to read and discuss one book a month we could give our minds a little exercise to keep them ticking over. So each of us invited two friends to join us and started up in June 1998. Our first book was Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. In the years since we've expanded and contracted in numbers and my friend has left Bristol to set up a (now incredibly chic and comfortable!) hotel in Dartmouth with her husband, but we are back to six. Every month we get together and one of us cooks a meal. We eat and drink and discuss the book and bitch about our families and laugh our heads off. It's a landmark in our month. Every year we invite our partners to join us at Christmas and make a party of it.
Once I'd got the food out onto the table , I sat and looked out over my fantastically festive table and reflected on how much I'm enjoying the process of getting older with these old friends. I know so much about them because I've read books and discussed with them - it's amazing how much you reveal about yourself by revealing your reactions to literature. I know that Catherine responds almost exactly as I do to most literature and have to examine myself and my reactions when we differ from each other. Jackie, who was born twelve hours and about twenty miles from me, is the least likely to share my opinions. I know that Penny needs to love the characters to enjoy a book and always wants to know our opinions before she gives her own and that quiet Gill is the most adventurous of us and the most likely to embrace an unlikely proposition. Helen has the most unexpected opinions which she voices unexpectedly quietly...
In our time together we've read about 125 books, ranging from classics (Bleak House, To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankenstein) to poetry (Ted Hughes, Wendy Cope) to thrillers (Robert Harris, and a book about a contract killer which gloried in the wonderful first clause "After the man was dead..." ). We've read quirky books like The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, which defies description, and whose target audience is definitely young men but which most of us enjoyed - I'd advise you to read it, and also The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin, possibly one of the most thought-provoking novels I've read. Then there's the plain mad, like The Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami. We also had a book written by a Somalian model about female circumcision which I couldn't take, not because of the subject matter but because it was so shockingly written. And Down Among the Donkeys about a donkey sactuary - why, Gill??? I picked a book once based on an interview I heard on Radio 4 which was a sort of Chandleresque mystery set in Aberystwyth, and yes, it was as dreadful as that sounds. Someone picked up a book which she thought her partner had recommended but got it wrong and handed out copies of a book he'd actually thought was utter tripe (and was!). There was a book by an American woman who thought going on a coach to Yurrup constitued the limit in daring travel... the intrepid traveller in our midst, Jackie, was outraged by it. Our favourite author is Ian McEwan; we've read three of his. And we've discovered and discussed Rose Tremaine, Iris Murdoch, Yann Martell, Bernhard Schlink, JOhn Simpson, Laurie Graham, Toni Morrison (my favourite!), Amitav Ghosh, Marina Lewycka, JM Coetzee, Monica Ali and many, many more.
I'd advise anyone to get together with a few friends and start reading. It's the most wonderful thing you can do with a group of friends. And pour the wine when you discuss - it makes the words flow.
After our January meeting I'll come back and tell you what we all made of Barack Obama's "Dreams of my Father", which I gave out to everyone last night. Topical, eh?
7 comments:
Bye, Bye, Barnardos.., Christmas is over. A return to me, my friends, my values. Much better, though, than those ghastly, moralistic Daily Mail rants.
Andrew, why do you read me? You disapprove of me in so many ways...
I've rewritten this several times, but I give up. I don't recognise myself in the mirror you hold up to me.
Have a pleasant new year.
If you're genuinely rather upset, then I apologise in part, yes, perhaps my comment was a bit over the top.
However, a fair bit of what you write is fairly strongly opinionated, and comments on the lives of people that you, imo, know rather little about.
In terms of mirrors, just what do you so find so objectionable about having your views turned around and pointed straight back at you?
I'd rather not have a pleasant new year, I wish for myself a really enjoyable new year, and the same to you.
Wasn't just you - it was just one of those days.
And you're right, I'm opinionated - I think I say so in the blurb, don't I? There are people who can be detached from the ills of their own society and think that because they have a nice steady life it doesn't matter, and I'm not one of them. There are people who think that these things happen and there's not a lot you can do to help so what's the point in trying, and I'm not one of them either. That's why I gave up a job in business to retrain as a teacher and earn a third of what I once earned, why I started my career in an inner city school, why I volunteer and why I want to get involved at the sticky end. It's also why I am a lifelong Labour supporter who has never bought the Daily Mail (even when they advertise some really tempting free films!). I wanted to be a Labour politician for a long time, but I am too flawed and too thin-skinned for today's political world. All I can do now is try and make sense of the world in my own head and that's what my blog is for. Writing my thoughts down is a way to make sense of the world f which I am a sometimes tearful, exasperated, helpless part.
I don't mind someone holding up a mirror to me as long as I recognise the image. What I find difficult about some of your comments is that I cannot understand, especially as you have read quite a bit of what I write, how you draw the conclusions that you do about me. And that makes me conclude that I'm a really bad writer, which is why I get upset, since that is what I really, really want to do (although I won't stop teaching...). I'm putting the final touches to my book at the moment and I found myself reading it yesterday wondering how you would tear it down, because yes, I'm afraid it has a big idea at its core. And I'm cross with myself because I don't even know you so why the hell should I give your opinion the regard which I do? And that in turn makes me think I shouldn't even bother because OBVIOUSLY there will be loads of people who really hate it...
Anyway... the point is, nothing is ever simple, is it? And nothing is EVER about what it looks as if it's about.
Don't even know why I'm bothering with justifying myself - it's a bit desperate.
I stand corrected by the way - have a SPLENDID New Year!
PS Off Labour at the moment because I'm a tax and spend type. But who else is there?
Heartily agree with you about Willy Vlautin in your Book Club piece - you should check out the album Post To Wire by his band Richmond Fontaine. They've played St. Bons a couple of times in recent years - you should have been there to have a beer with us! He also supported the mighty Chuck Prophet at Fiddlers last year. I'll keep you posted about any forthcoming visits.
I've heard of his band - didn't know they travelled! I need to get out more!
I'd be fascinated to see him - I got such a strong idea of him from his book.
You SO need to keep me informed about what's happening up there.
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