Books to be voted on during our second discussion

Next week is our second discussion! After our second discussion, we will be voting on books for our third one. Here are the nominees:

Block A

1. ‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen

The winner of the National Book Award, the New York Times No.1 Bestseller and the worldwide literary sensation, 'The Corrections' has established itself as a truly great American novel. The Lamberts -- Enid and Alfred and their three grown-up children -- are a troubled family living in a troubled age. Alfred is ill and as his condition worsens the whole family must face the failures, secrets and long-buried hurts that haunt them if they are to make the corrections that each desperately needs. Stretching from the Midwest in the mid-century to Wall Street and Eastern Europe in the age of globalised greed, The Corrections brings an old-time America of freight trains and civic duty into wild collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and New Economy millionaires. It confirms Jonathan Franzen's position as one of the most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul currently at work.

2. ‘The Turn of the Screw’ by Henry James

When an inexperienced s governess goes to work at a country house to look after a young brother and sister, all manner of strange events begin to occur. The governess spots a ghostly man and woman around the grounds and it soon becomes clear that children are inexplicably connected to these ghosts in some way. The young governess struggles to protect the children, although from what exactly what, she is not sure. Revered as one of the greatest ghost stories ever told, ‘the Turn of the Screw’ is an eerie and unsettling Victorian masterpiece that explores the psychological and sexual fears of an era.

3. ‘Disgrace’ J.M. Coetzee

A divorced, middle-aged English professor finds himself increasingly unable to resist affairs with his female students. When discovered by the college authorities, he is expected to apologise and repent in an effort to save his job, but he refuses to become a scapegoat in what he see as as a show trial designed to reinforce a stringent political correctness. He pre-empts the authorities and leaves his job, and the city, to spend time with his grown-up lesbian daughter on her remote farm. Things between them are strained - there is much from the past they need to reconcile - and the situation becomes critical when they are the victims of a brutal and horrifying attack. In spectacularly powerful and lucid prose, Coetzee uses all his formidable skills to engage with a post-apartheid culture in unexpected and revealing ways. This examination into the sexual and political law lines of modern South Africa as it tries desperately to start a fresh page in its history is chilling, uncompromising and unforgettable.

4. ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest’ by Ken Kesey

Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.

5. ‘Alone in Berlin’ by Hans Fallada

Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet existence, they begin a silent campaign of defiance, and a deadly game of cat and mouse develops between the Quangels and the ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich. When petty criminals Kluge and Borkhausen also become involved, deception, betrayal and murder ensue, tightening the noose around the Quangels' necks ...

6. ‘Out stealing horses’ by Per Petterson

In 1948, when he is fifteen, Trond spends a summer in the country with his father. The events - the accidental death of a child, his best friend's feelings of guilt and eventual disappearance, his father's decision to leave the family for another woman - will change his life forever. An early morning adventure out stealing horses leaves Trond bruised and puzzled by his friend Jon's sudden breakdown. The tragedy which lies behind this scene becomes the catalyst for the two boys' families gradually to fall apart. As a 67-year-old man, and following the death of his wife, Trond has moved to an isolated part of Norway to live in solitude. But a chance encounter with a character from the fateful summer of 1948 brings the painful memories of that year flooding back, and will leave Trond even more convinced of his decision to end his days alone.

BLOCK B

 1. ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne Du Maurier

Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Her future looks very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers ...Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.

2. ‘Doctor Zhivago’ by Boris Pasternak

Banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, Doctor Zhivago is the epic story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Yuri Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds, and in love with the tender and beautiful nurse Lara. Winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, this novel was named by the Daily Express as ‘one of the greatest love stories ever told’.

3. ‘White Oleander’ by Janet Fitch

White Oleander is a painfully beautiful first novel about a young girl growing up the hard way. It is a powerful story of mothers and daughters, their ambiguous alliances, their selfish love and cruel behaviour, and the search for love and identity.Astrid has been raised by her mother, a beautiful, headstrong poet. Astrid forgives her everything as her world revolves around this beautiful creature until Ingrid murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life. Astrid's fierce determination to survive and be loved makes her an unforgettable figure.

4. ‘The Age of Innocence’ Edith Wharton

The return of the beautiful Countess Olenska into the rigidly conventional society of New York sends reverberations throughout the upper reaches of society. Newland Archer, an eligible young man of the establishment is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a pretty ingénue, when May's cousin, Countess Olenska, is introduced into their circle. The Countess brings with her an aura of European sophistication and a hint of scandal, having left her husband and claimed her independence. Her sorrowful eyes, her tragic worldliness and her air of unapproachability attract the sensitive Newland and, almost against their will, a passionate bond develops between them. But Archer's life has no place for passion and, with society on the side of May and all she stands for, he finds himself drawn into a bitter conflict between love and duty.

5. ‘When God was a Rabbit’ by Sarah Winman

1968. The year Paris takes to the streets. The year Martin Luther King loses his life for a dream. The year Eleanor Maud Portman is born. Young Elly's world is shaped by those who inhabit it: her loving but maddeningly distractible parents; a best friend who smells of chips and knows exotic words like 'slag'; an ageing fop who tapdances his way into her home, a Shirley Bassey impersonator who trails close behind; lastly, of course, a rabbit called God. In a childhood peppered with moments both ordinary and extraordinary, Elly's one constant is her brother Joe.
Twenty years on, Elly and Joe are fully grown and as close as they ever were. Until, that is, one bright morning when a single, earth-shattering event threatens to destroy their bond forever.
Spanning four decades and moving between suburban Essex, the wild coast of Cornwall and the streets of New York, this is a story about childhood, eccentricity, the darker side of love and sex, the pull and power of family ties, loss and life. More than anything, it's a story about love in all its forms.

6. ‘The Outcast’ by Sadie Jones

1957, and Lewis Aldridge is travelling back to his home in the South of England. He is straight out of jail and nineteen years old. His return will trigger the implosion not just of his family, but of a whole community. A decade earlier, his father's homecoming casts a different shape. The war is over and Gilbert has recently been demobbed. He reverts easily to suburban life - cocktails at six thirty, church on Sundays - but his wife and young son resist the stuffy routine. Lewis and his mother escape to the woods for picnics, just as they did in wartime days. Nobody is surprised that Gilbert's wife counters convention, but they are all shocked when, after one of their jaunts, Lewis comes back without her. Not far away, Kit Carmichael keeps watch. She has always understood more than most, not least from what she has been dealt by her own father's hand. Lewis's grief and burgeoning rage are all too plain, and Kit makes a private vow to help. But in her attempts to set them both free, she fails to predict the painful and horrifying secrets that must first be forced into the open. As menacing as it is beautiful, The Outcast is a devastating portrait of small-town hypocrisy from an astonishing new voice.

Do you have your favourite? xxx

 

Movie Night

Hello everyone!
Book Club is organising a movie night. We will be screening 'American Psycho' and 'The Five People you meet in Heaven'.

We will start watching ''The Five People you meet in Heaven' first at around 17:15. Based on the bestselling novel by Mitch Albom, the movie tells a story of Eddie, a war veteran and meintenance worker at Ruby Pier amusement park who dies while trying to save a girl sitting under a falling ri ...de. When he awakens in the afterlife, he is greeted by five people who will explain to him the meaning of his life. Just like the book, the movie offers a novel perspective on life, death and meaning of our existence - it is an ultimately uplifting and heart-warming tale about love, sacrifice and forgiveness.

'American Psycho' is on the other hand quite a heart-, and bone-chilling story about 26 year old Patrick Bateman - handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent psychopath who likes to kill people. Based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, this bleak, bitter and black comedy takes us to a head-on collision with America's greatest dream - and its worst nightmare.

Everyone is welcome to attend, the event is FREE and some crisps and popcorn will be served.

You are also more than welcome to attend one of our discussions. We will be discussing both novels at the dates and times given below. Just read the novel you prefer and attend either of the sessions below:

Tuesday, 15th of November, 17.30 - 19.30 at Alfies cafe (Butchart)
Thursday, 17th of November, 17.30 - 19.30 at Alfies cafe (Butchart).


Here you can learn more about each movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400435/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/

Discussion questions for 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis

1. Is the violence in the novel misogynistic? Although Bateman is a ‘democratic’ killer and murders as many women as he does women (as well as a few women) the sheer excess of his descriptions of the sexual torture, rape, dismemberment, desecration, and abjection of women tilts the balance of the reading experience towards a disproportionate engagement with misogynistic violence. The question is: is this misogyny Ellis’s or is it Bateman’s? How is it possible to insert a barrier, a judgement and condemnation, between author and protagonist here? Is it enough for Ellis to say that this is obvious that he doesn’t himself feel this way towards women? Would the book have been improved by the excision of many of these scenes? Is it more important that we confront such abominations (since most of the details are taken from real cases) than that we turn away from them and pretend they do not happen? What is the function of literature:  truth or the sanitation of reality?

2. Why is so much of the novel devoted to the list of commodities? Many complaints about the novel  concentrate on the sheer boredom of seemingly endless lists of products on the market place: stereo equipment, grooming products,  accessories, chic food, designer clothes, etc.  These passages are definitely not designed to please. So why are they there? Does Ellis produce a shock by confronting us, in a literary text, with what we confront daily anyway? Isn’t an enormous amount of our time consumed by milling through thousands of products, and making spurious, empty choices based on taste or whim? Doesn’t the monotony of the lists feed out the rest of the book stylistically , so that at some limit everything in the book is just another list, even the torture scenes, and especially the appearance of characters?

3. Isn’t there any free will in ‘American Psycho’? Of course, every character is programmed by his or her author , but few characters seems to have their actions so utterly prescribed as Patrick Bateman. Who is really dictating his actions? Is it the author, or is it not the market itself , prompting Patrick at every turn to buy this, rent that, order this, consume that? Isn’t the desire to purchase , whether a diamond ring or pizza, something emanating less from ourselves than from the ring or the pizza? If Bateman feels this way, isn’t his response symptomatic of an entire culture of consumerism? Aren’t we all compulsive shoppers? And why?

4. Is Patrick Bateman gay? Although a Gay Pride parade down Fifth nauseates Patrick, and he is often to be found homophobic  epithets, there is a consistent hinting that he may be gay himself. His relationship with Luis Carruthers in particular, one of the novel’s funnier storylines, is loaded with ambiguities. Luis reads Patrick’s attempted strangulation in the Yale Club toilets as  a pass, and given how effective Bateman ‘normally’ is as a killer, he may have a point. A homoerotic graffito over the urinal seems to contain ‘an answer , a truth’. Bateman is utterly paralyzed by Carruther’s turn , and cannot even say anything insulting. Later in ‘Confronted by Faggot’ Bateman is fully confronted with his possibility latent homosexuality; he has to say he does not find Carruthers ‘sexually attractive’ , but NOT that he is not gay. And it is among rows and rows of ties that Patrick has this confrontation with Louis – phallic symbols in serried ranks , which cannot ward off the incipient dissolution of Bateman’s assumed sexual persona. How gay is Patrick?

5. What is at stake in Bateman’s extreme racism? The ‘haiku’  that Bateman composes for Bethany – ‘Look at the poor nigger on the wall. Look at him. Look at the poor nigger. Look at the poor nigger …on…the…wall. Fuck him…Fuck the nigger on the wall. Black man …is…de…debil’ – is only the most lyrical of Bateman’s expressions of racism. African Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Iranians, Hispanics, Bateman hates them all.  Why is he so often overcome with racial hatred, when his powerful position in society is unassailable? Does the novel participate in that racism , or put it at an effective satirical and critical distance? What is the relation between this racism and the text’s humour?

6. How funny is ‘American Psycho’? Think of the best comic scenes and gags in the novel: the confrontation in the Chinese dry cleaners, the business card showdown, Bateman’s reversal of opinion on a pizza because Donald Trump lied it, the condom farce with Courtenay, the urinal cake gag, the pun on ‘murders and executions’ . Does ‘American Psycho’ qualify as a properly comic novel (like e.g. Catch 22)? Is its humour sufficiently broad to be considered acceptably funny? Or does its humour stray on the territory of the unacceptable, the taboo, the illicit? What is the relationship between the laughter and the taboo?

7. Why can nobody tell anybody apart from anybody else? More than a dozen of names are applied to Bateman ‘erroneously’  during the novel. As he says: ‘I think a lot of snowflakes are alike…and I think a lot of people are alike too.; …everyone is interchangeable anyway’. This is a consistent theme in Ellis’ fiction. What sorts of effects and meanings are derived in this novel from the persistent confusion all the characters experience among themselves? Who is Paul Owen, Tim Price, Marcus Halberstram? Who is Patrick Bateman?

8. Why doesn’t ‘American Psycho’ tell a story? Ellis demonstrates ‘narrative’ to a very lowly status in his pursuit of satiric ends. Does this make the book better or worse? Would a more convincing or enthralling story have boosted or defanged the satire?

9. There has been much debate regarding Ellis’ unreliable narration in ‘American Psycho’. Unreliable narration is defined as a narrative technique which occurs when a reader suspects, or has revealed to them – either overtly or through the detection of textual signs – that the first person character-narrator has misreported, misread, misevaluated, underreported, underread or underregarded events within the narration. Is Bateman an unreliable narrator?

10. The ending to ‘American Psycho’ is ambiguous and open to interpretation? What is your interpretation of the ending?

Discussion questions for 'The Five people you meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom

1. At the start of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Albom says that "all endings are also beginnings." In general, what does this mean? How does it relate to this story in particular? Share something in your life that has begun as another thing ended, and the events that followed.

2. What initially grabs your attention in The Five People You Meet in Heaven? What holds it?

3. How does counting down the final minutes of Eddie's life affect you as a reader? Why does Albom do this? Other storytelling devices Albom uses include moving from past to present by weaving Eddie's birthdays throughout the story. How do these techniques help inform the story? What information do you learn by moving around in time? How effective is Albom's style for this story in particular?

4. What does Eddie look like and what kind of guy is he? Look at and discuss some of the details and descriptions that paint a picture of Eddie and his place of business. What is it about an amusement park that makes it a good backdrop for this story?

5. Consider the idea that "no story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river." How does this statement relate to The Five People You Meet in Heaven?

6. How does Albom build tension around the amusement park ride accident? What is the significance of Eddie finding himself in the amusement park again after he dies? What is your reaction when Eddie realizes he's spent his entire life trying to get away from Ruby Pier and he is back there immediately after death? Do you think this is important? Why?

7. Describe what Albom's heaven is like. If it differs from what you imagined, share those differences. Who are the five people Eddie meets? Why them? What are their relationships to Eddie? What are the characteristics and qualities that make them the five people for Eddie?
8. Share your reactions and thoughts about the Blue Man's story, his relationship with his father, and his taking silver nitrate. What, if anything, does this have to do with Eddie? Why does he say to Eddie, "This is not your heaven, it's mine"?

9. How does the Blue Man die? What affect does it have on you when you look at the same story from two different points of view -– his and Eddie's? Can you share any events that you have been involved in that can be viewed entirely differently, from another's point of view? How aware are we of other's experiences of events that happen simultaneously to us and to them? Why?

10. Discuss what it means that "That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind." Even though Eddie hasn't been reincarnated, consider karma in Eddie's life (where Eddie's actions would affect his reincarnation). If it isn't karma, what is Albom telling us about life, and death?

11. Think about Eddie's war experiences and discuss your reactions to Albom's evocation of war. What did Eddie learn by being in war? How did he "come home a different man"? Why did the captain shoot Eddie? Explore what it means when the captain tells Eddie, "I took your leg to save your life." Why does the captain tell Eddie that sacrifice is not really a loss, but a gain? Examine whether or not Eddie understands this, and the significance of this lesson.

12. Discuss what you might say to Eddie when he asks "why would heaven make you relive your own decay?".

13. Examine whether or not you agree with the old woman when she tells Eddie, "You have peace when you make it with yourself," and why. Consider what she means when she says, "things that happen before you are born still affect you. And people who come before your time affect you as well." How does this relate to Eddie's life? Who are some who have come before you that have affected your own life?

14. What is Eddie's father's response each time Eddie decides to make an independent move, away from working at the pier? Examine how Eddie's father's choices and decisions actually shape Eddie's life. Why does Eddie cover for his father at the pier when his father becomes ill? What happens then? Share your own experience of a decision your own parents made that affected your life, for better or for worse.
15. Who tells Eddie that "we think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do we do to ourselves"? What is the significance of this particular person in Eddie's life? Why is this important for Eddie to understand? Is it important for all of us to understand? Why? Discuss whether or not you agree that, "all parents damage their children. It cannot be helped." How was Eddie damaged?

16. Why does Marguerite want to be in a place where there are only weddings? How does this relate to her own life, and to her relationship and life with Eddie?

17. Discuss why Eddie is angry at his wife for dying so young. Examine what Marguerite means when she says, "Lost love is still love. It takes a different form. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around on the dance floor. But when these senses waken, another heightens. . . . Life has an end. Love doesn't." Why does she say this to Eddie? Do you think he gets it? Discuss whether or not you agree with her, and why.

18. Why does Eddie come upon the children in the river? What does Tala mean when she says "you make good for me"? Discuss whether or not Eddie's life is a penance, and why. What is the significance of Tala pulling Eddie to safety after he dies? Why is it Tala that pulls him to heaven and not one of the other four?

19. What would you say to Eddie when he laments that he accomplished nothing with his life? Discuss what has he accomplished.

20. Briefly recall the five lessons Eddie learns. How might these be important for all of us? Share which five people might meet you in heaven, and what additional or different lessons might be important to your life. Discuss how Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven has provided you with a different perspective of your life.