Book Discussion

Thank you for joining this month's Reader's Den. I hope everyone enjoyed The Gathering, or at least got something out of the discussion. Please stay tuned for next month's book, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga.
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More discussion questions about Anne Enright's The Gathering.

Liam’s suicide seems to be a sort of catalyst for Veronica to explore her childhood memories of him and search for the point in their family life that set him off course. Was the guilt she has about Liam’s abuse present throughout her life, or do you believe the memories have only resurfaced after his death?

Liam's child Rowan was previously unknown to the Hegartys but he is met with love and happiness. What is his role within the family?

What does the future hold for Veronica in regard to her husband and family? Has her character grown throughout the novel, and, if so, how? Did you find her empathetic?

Welcome to the Reader's Den! This month we will be reading and discussing The Gathering by Anne Enright. You can reserve your copy through the catalog link above, or visit your local branch to see if they have one available.

Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or reviews for others to read and respond to. Check back often!

About the Author

Anne Enright at Literaturhaus Köln/Cologne (Germany) 18th November 2008, via Wikimedia Commons

Anne Enright was born in Dublin in 1962. She has written eight books and is a frequent contributer to The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta and The Guardian among other publications. The Gathering won the Man Booker prize in 2007. To read more about her and the Booker prize award, check out this interview of her in The Guardian.

A Thousand Splendid Suns starts with a term of abuse thrown at one of the protagonists — Mariam — by her mother: "harami." The word means illegitimate and would be deeply hurtful to someone from a culture that prizes patriarchy. To be without her father's name and patronage is Mariam's curse. It shapes her character and her destiny. What is interesting is that despite Jalil Khan's rejection and Nana's warnings, Mariam worships her father. Her feelings for Nana are more ambivalent. Nana's depression and epilepsy make her a difficult parent but she tries to forearm Mariam by telling her, " ... a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always." Mariam will remember this all her life.

1. What does the location (on the outskirts of Gul Daman) of the hut that Nana and Mariam live in tell us about their position in Jalil's life and in the community?
2. What kind of a mother is Nana? Do you believe Nana's account of Mariam's birth?
3. Can we understand Jalil's refusal to see his daughter when she comes to Herat? Could he have been thinking of her welfare by arranging her marriage to Rasheed?
4. What is your take on Mullah Faizullah explanation of Nana's behavior? Is Nana a sympathetic character?

Harper Lee, also known as Nelle Harper Lee, was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She is the youngest of three children of Amasa Coleman Lee, a lawyer. Her mother was Frances Finch Lee. Her only book, To Kill a Mockingbird, has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. It was made into a film in 1962, in which star Gregory Peck won an Oscar, and has been translated into ten languages. The story was based on Lee’s childhood experiences. Harper Lee began a second novel in 1961, but it was never finished. She lives with her older sister in Monroeville, Alabama and maintains an apartment in New York City.

Discussion Questions:  read more »

Tottenville Branch had a book discussion last night on The Namesake. It went very well, but wasn’t quite as lively as last month’s discussion of Running With Scissors! The group liked The Namesake, and were sympathetic to the characters, by and large, and their difficulties in adapting to American culture, and being caught between India and the U.S., especially for the second generation character, Gogol, who is the main character of the book. Some of the participants thought he was a bit too laid back, even being described as disengaged. There was kind of a long discussion of arranged marriages, with some thinking they were and are horrific, but some did talk about what they felt were possible positives, and contrasted it to the problems in American marriages and the high divorce rate. I did have to bring it back to the book, but it was an interesting side discussion.

Most agreed it was a pretty fast reading book, although there were mild complaints that not much happened, especially in the first half of the book. But all agreed the book is an interesting look into the Indian-American community, and the issues and problems they have to deal with. Also, I think, a look into contemporary mores of the 20 and 30 something generation.

A good book for a book discussion.

And next month, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

It is hard to believe that we are almost half way through the 2008-09 book discussion at the Tottenville Branch. Tonight we will be discussing All My Sons by Arthur Miller. It is the first time in a long time that we have read a play, so it will be interesting to see how the group reacts. In some ways the play seems to me to be dated, although it is about an issue, manufacturing shoddy military machinery and war profiteering in the U.S. during World War II, a subject that doesn’t seem to be talked or written about much. (Was it a big problem?) I don’t know how the group will react.

They have been pretty pleased with the selections so far: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

The most popular title was The Secret Life of Bees with The Memory Keeper’s Daughter a close second. Our next book is Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. This was requested by a number of members of the group.

We’ve been averaging 13.5 people per session, which is a really high number for Tottenville. They are really into it!

The Tottenville Branch will be having a book discussion of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert this coming Monday, November 17 at 7:00PM. Come join us! We ask only that you have read the book to take part in the discussion.

The Tottenville Branch is located at 7430 Amboy Road, Staten Island, NY 10307, and the phone number is 718-984-0945.

We will be discussing The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd on December 15.

Visit the Book Discussion Groups page for a full list of book titles, dates and locations.

The next Mulberry Street Branch Library Book Discussion Group will meet on Monday, June 30th, at 6:30 PM. This month's title is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. For more information on future meeting dates and book titles, click here. The Mulberry Street Branch is located at 10 Jersey Street, between Mulberry and Lafayette.

The Tottenville Book Discussion group met this past Monday night to discuss The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. We had a pretty good discussion, but I think I liked the book a whole lot more than most of the group. They liked it, but they didn’t think it was fabulous like I did. It was one of the best books I have read in a long time, and I loved how he interwove the story of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and of the serial killer, H.H. Holmes. (This is a nonfiction book that read like a really good novel.)

One participant said she just wanted to read about the serial killer and didn’t much care for the World’s Fair part. Another said she couldn’t really feel sympathy for any of the characters. Someone else said they thought people in the story were naive, to which I asked, “Were they naive, or was it just that it was a different time and place from our own?” I had a hard time drawing from them why the author chose to put these two stories side by side. The group is usually pretty good, but they gave some really strange answers to this question. (”Maybe he wanted a gimmick to help sell his book.” “If he just wrote about the World’s Fair no one would want to read it.”) To me, it was symbolic of a passing simpler time to the more complicated, and violent, 20th century. Trying to be a good book discussion leader, I never said that to the group but tried to draw it out of them. Some of them sort of got it.

I didn’t realize until I looked up on the Internet that the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago stands on the site of the Palace of Fine Arts from the Fair. While it was totally rebuilt to be a permanent structure, it has the exact same design. When I was in the Navy and stationed near Chicago, I visited the Museum, so I had some sense of where the World’s Fair was located.

A great book, and easy to read! It’s a coming of age story for our country. It is both entertaining and thought-provoking. I highly recommend it!!!

For more info on the book go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202848122&sr=8-1

Had another lively book discussion at the Tottenville branch. I wasn’t sure how the group would receive this one. (Plot summary below.)  While all, including me, pretty much reviled all the characters in this book, the story, and what the characters did and how they acted, made for a good discussion. Even though the description below makes it sound like a standard detective-thriller, it is suffused with moral, philosophical, religious, and spiritual questions.

There was one participant who thought the book was anti-Catholic, but everyone else disagreed. It was about characters who, according to one participant, had a twisted view of their Catholic faith. (And Catholicism is a prominent theme in this book, as I believe it is in many of Greene’s books.) Most were somewhat sympathetic to Rose who is Pinkie’s (the main character) girlfriend, although there was a debate about how much she was being used as opposed to her quietly getting what she wanted and needed, even if it hurt other people.

Most had a much more positive view than I did of the character Ida Arnold, who acts as a sort of detective and protector of Rose, trying to save her from Pinkie. They saw her as earthy and fun-loving; I saw her as kind of a sad, lonely middle-aged woman who was very disappointed with her life. However, I agree that she is a seeker of justice, and yes, someone concerned with Rose.

There was a lot of British slang in the book that made it difficult at times, and the book is actually a sequel to “A Gun for Sale” and a lot of relevant action is not explained in “Brighton Rock” which made things a bit difficult for all of us. But we cleared it up at the discussion.

I have to say, that as I was reading the book, I felt it was just OK, maybe somewhat interesting. And if the book would have ended on page 266 instead of 269, I would have said it is just a so-so book. BUT THE LAST CHAPTER BLEW ME AWAY!!! It had one of the most devastating endings I think I have ever read in a book in my entire life! (Or at least in the last few years.) And the final line of the final chapter had the effect of the rug being pulled out from under you!

However,  the group didn’t quite get the last chapter, at least in the way that I did, and I had to ask a lot of follow-up questions to get them to see what was going on. I didn’t want to give them “the answer.” It was an interesting process trying to elicit from them something I saw that they didn’t see. I think I was successful at getting most of them to see the point Greene was making without giving them my interpretation outright.

I’ve only read one other Graham Greene book,  “The Heart of the Matter,” also for a book discussion. I have to read more of Greene’s books!!!

Highly recommended for a book discussion!!!  

ABOUT THE BOOK

Pinkie Brown is the newly appointed leader of the rival to the Colleoni race gang in Brighton. The gang’s previous leader, Battling Kite, for whom Pinkie was right-hand man, was murdered by the Colleoni gang, because of information supplied by Fred Hale, a reporter turned informer. In revenge Pinkie murders Hale. The murder is rash and Pinkie spends the remainder of the novel trying to cover up the small mistakes that tie him to the murder. Every cover-up effort Pinkie makes fails to solve the problem entirely, leading him to make further murders which result in further cover ups.

Ida Arnold, an easy-going demimondaine who Hale befriends on the last day of his life in an attempt to stave off his potential killers, turns detective when she discovers discrepancies in the events surrounding his death and doggedly pursues Pinkie in her search for justice.

Rose is a young waitress who stumbles upon a major flaw in Pinkie’s alibi. In order to ensure her silence Pinkie marries her and then coerces her into a suicide pact. When Ida realises that she will not gain her evidence against Pinkie she sets her heart to saving Rose instead.

(Plot Summary from www.randomhouse.co.uk)

I led a good book discussion of Doctorow’s “The March” this past Monday night at the Tottenville Branch. It was recommended last year by two of the participants in the group, and I am glad I chose it.  The group liked it a lot, too, which I was glad about, at least in part because there were about 8 new people, and I wasn’t sure how they would receive an historical novel about war. But it worked.

The group liked a lot the character Pearl, who maybe is the main character and who is a half white-half black former slave, who showed a lot of resourcefulness throughout the book. Some of them liked Wrede Sartorius, the innovative surgeon,  for his hard work and how he saved lives, despite his coldness and seeming lack of people skills. Two members of the group are nurses, and they said Doctorow got it right, that all surgeons are like that!  And some spoke well of General Sherman, as many sides of his personality were shown. The group seemed accepting of Sherman’s brutality of the South, not because the South may have deserved it, but because “that’s just the way war is,” more than one said in so many words.

The group seemed accepting (and some members of this group have been very harsh on some characters in other books) of some of the more nefarious characters in the book, saying they were just trying to survive in a time of war, and they said that is understandable.

I really like this group a lot; they are very enthusiastic and fun, and most of them read the whole book most of the time!  Sometimes they all talk at once, and I have to restore some order, but it is nice to see “regular” people get so excited about a book! This title is a good choice for a book discussion, I think.

We had 14 attending, which is the most we have ever gotten at Tottenville for a book discussion.

Next month, “Brighton Rock” by Graham Greene. If it is received half as well as “The March” I will be happy!

Link to NY Times review of the book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/books/review/25kirn.html

Tottenville’s first book discussion of the season will be this coming Monday at 7PM. There are still a few copies of the book available if anyone else wants to sign up. The book is The Rules of Engagement by Anita Brookner. It is a fast reading book, so if someone signs up now I’m sure they can finish it by next Monday.

I am looking forward to the discussion. It is a very interesting, although not very happy, story.