The Rector of Justin

Recipe for a great bookclub discussion:

1.  A meal which includes more food than you ever dreamed you could eat with 2 desserts
2.  A favorite book which becomes a second read for the person who recommended and their changing feelings upon the second read
3.  A book about high school and high school antics.
4.  Themes of sexuality
5.  Themes of religion
6.  Lots of personal connections
7.  A book that triggers memories
8.  A book which contains different perspectives







Next Meeting:
January 4

Whose House?
Alan Vick's

What time?
7 PM

What are we reading?
The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner

The Natural

Bernard Malamud said, 
"I write a book or a short story three times. Once to understand her, the second time to improve her prose, and a third to compel her to say what it still must say."  

This October, we read The Natural (1952) by Bernard Malamud.  This novel is his best remembered, most likely because it was made into a film in early 2000 starring Robert Redford and Glenn Close.  Although this is a shorter novel than the group is accustomed to reading, it turned out that just about everyone had difficulty finishing the novel.  And then everyone did finish the book in time for Book Club.  Although everyone appreciated the mythological connections to the search for the Holy Grail and the connection with the story of the Fisher King,  the members just couldn't connect with or really care about any of the characters.  Thus we were less motivated by art and more by affiliation.  
We missed Terry who thought bookclub was the following month and we hope he will make a connection or two with his baseball career when next we meet.  

We are meeting November 30th at Ed's.   We are reading a book Mindy has hoped we would all read together because she loved it: The Rector of Justin by Louis Auchincloss.  It is a Monday and so we are meeting at 7.  See you then!

Washington Post Review 2008

City of Thieves

September's book selection was David Benioff's City of Thieves.  I am going to try to capture the discussion which was a bit all over the place.  The reviews were mixed.  Some loved the story, others were so so and Lexi did not like it.  Most of the discussion centered around the horrors and absurdities inherent in war, the worst of which were all captured within this novel.  The group agreed that the shortness of the novel helped the reader navigate the number of horrific scenes including cannibalism, murder, torture and not great sex.  The coming of age aspects, the chess game and the love story were all parts we enjoyed.  We had a good review on WWII history from the Russian perspective and bit by bit some of us will finally be able to put together a WWII history for ourselves!  In summary, the finalist for the Green Mountain Book Award, the cross over novel, City of Thieves gets a mixed review by the Greater Westford Literary Society.

A highlight of the evening was Tim's Eggplant Parmesan which featured home grown eggplants from Theresa's garden.  Very memorable!
Next month is a pick by our new member, Alan: The Natural by Bernard Malamud.  We are meeting at Mindy's with dinner by Lexi and I am not sure we ascertained a time, but since Mindy usually has to work, Let's say 7 on October 26th.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

In August, following our discussion of The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach,  we landed on A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving for August's read.  I am not sure how we made the connection except that there were references to A Prayer for Owen Meany in The Art of Fielding and there was a key character named Owen. And then there was that fact that Lexi grew up near John Irving... Who knows how we make these decisions about what we will read next.  In any case, I am late writing this review of our discussion and so I can only remember the bits and pieces that struck me.  At one point someone asked how I would be capturing the discussion and I knew then that it was complicated and probably not easy to capture, so I apologize in advance if I haven't done the discussion justice!

I think overall everyone enjoyed the novel.  There were so many different themes and characters to talk about and connections we could make which made this book great for discussion.  A predominant theme was that of religion.  We had a good discussion about our various religious backgrounds as they connected with the themes of Christianity and the different churches and ministers and priests featured in this novel.  For some, the religious metaphors provided a good backdrop, while for others, the references became tedious.  Some loved the Christmas Nativity Play, while others felt it was a bit overdrawn.  We also discussed the main character and what seemed to be a passive and secondary role to the more dominant personality of Owen Meany throughout the novel and how his character became so much more established and opinionated as an adult figure later in the book.

The fun part was listening to Lexi's story about building turtle traps and using caviar meant for a dinner party as bait for the traps, as well as consequences suffered as a result!  This is the part I love about book club.  I love the personal connections we make with what we read and then the sharing and learning about one another over our years of meeting.

Next month is a choice of novel that was settled almost immediately: The City of Thieves by David Benioff.  We are meeting at Tim's at 6:30 on August 28th.

The Art of Fielding

The Greater Westford Literary Society welcomed a new member last night to our lively and quirky group of readers.  We only hope he agrees to return for the next meeting.  Welcome Allen!  I hosted and hemmed and hawed over whether to serve protein drink or ball park food.  My healthier side won out and, although we had chips and ice cream, we also munched on some fresh vegetables, hummus and turkey burgers.  We had a lively discussion about the various characters and their relationships in The Art of Fielding.  Everyone liked the book.  We all loved the baseball scenes, which prompted us to urge college baseball stories from Terry.  We agreed that character development was well done on a very large number of characters in a way that we all cared about each character.  Criticisms had to do with some far fetched action such as Pella sleeping with Henry, the group excavating the grave and not being noticed and Owen being allowed to read novels on the bench.  But as Chrysanne remind us...it is fiction! We agreed that this was a great summer read!  Thanks, Mindy for the suggestion!

I found a great review from the NY Times and here is a quote which sums  up part of our discussion:

Chad Harbach makes the case for baseball, thrillingly, in his slow, precious and altogether excellent first novel, “The Art of Fielding.” “You loved it,” he writes of the game, “because you considered it an art: an apparently pointless affair, undertaken by people with a special aptitude, which sidestepped attempts to paraphrase its value yet somehow seemed to communicate something true or even crucial about the Human Condition.  



Ironically, references are made to many novels and we chose one of them, A Prayer for Owen
Meaning by John Irving for our next novel.  We are meeting August 24th at Mindy's house at 7PM.

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts

Book Club gathered this month at Chrysanne's to discuss our reading of The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts.  This book was absolutely loved by some, but not all.  It was Louis De Bernier's first novel and the New York Times Review said:

APPEARANCES are often misleading in Louis de Bernieres's racy, mischievously brilliant first novel. For starters, the nether parts of the title neither declare war on others nor quarrel among themselves. Instead, they provide the name for a small, fantastic revolution in an imaginary South American country. And then there's the matter of the book's provenance. From its style, one would assume that "The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts" is Latin American magical realism, expertly rendered into English. Yet the author is British, and his book is a riposte that merits translation into a Romance language.


I wish I could write like that as I try to remember something brilliantly articulated at our meeting.  Chrysanne loved the whole book.  She found it hilarious and very representative of the struggles of many third world countries.  Tim enjoyed the satirical aspects of the novel.  I think the rest of us enjoyed parts, but not all.  There were so many characters and it was fun to talk about our favorites.  There was some disagreement over whether the cat action worked at the end of the novel.  All in all, we agreed that this novel was a brilliant first novel and the discussion brought us back to a connection with the Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander which we read in a previous book club meeting.

We are meeting next at Cindy's House on July 22nd.  We are reading The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach.  Mindy suggested this novel as a great way to start the summer-with a book about baseball. I must admit that I have finished it already and loved it!  Can't wait to discuss it and am considering protein drink for dinner!

My Brilliant Friend

This month we read My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.  This is the first book in a trilogy  that invites us into the lives of two young women, really children who grow into women.  My Brilliant Friend begins in childhood and ends with the marriage of one of the two friends at age 16.  Chrysanne suggested the book which had been gifted to her from her literary step daughter, Kate.  Most of us liked it and there was a good discussion about the relationship between the two girls and the influences of family, teachers, and friends, as well as, small town politics, business, class and money.  Terry fixed dinner all on his own and it was delicious.  

We had some difficulty picking a new book for June and from who knows where, we moved from Mindy's suggestion of Moll Flanders to The War of  Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernieres.  We loved Corelli's Mandolin by the same author and so perhaps there was some loose connection.  We are meeting next at Chrysanne's home with a meal prepared by Lexi on June 3 at 7 PM.

All the Light We Cannot See

Fred and Ann hosted a great discussion in March on All the Light We Cannot See.  I am going to write more on this when I find my notes.  To be brief, we all thought it was a great novel.  I am wanting to make sure that I document our next meeting for April 27th at Terry's house.  We are reading My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.

Death of the Black Haired Girl

Last month, we read Death of the Black Haired Girl and I apologetically have not been prompt in my summarization of our discussion.  Here is the problem in a nutshell:  The book club members, in general had liked the previous three novels: Gates of Damascus, Outerbridge Reach and A Flag for Sunrise.  Tim suggested, quite honorably, I might add, that we read Robert Stone's last novel before he passed this year.  The Death of the Black Haired Girl is based on the story of a Yale student who was murdered in 1998.  A lecturer was suspected, however, never convicted.  And the issue was that Stone's last novel was not our favorite.  Tim valiantly defended the novel in spite of our inability to agree with him.  We had an interesting discussion about forgiving our favorite authors when they pen a novel we don't like quite as much as our former favorites.  So there you have it.  We have liked previous novels and well, only Tim liked this month's choice.

And now we are on to next month, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  We are meeting at Fred's on March 23rd.

An Unnecessary Woman

 A small group of us gathered by the fire on a sub zero winter night in Vermont to talk about Rabih Alameddine's novel, An Unnecessary Woman.  Everyone liked the novel.  We thought the author was brilliant in his citations of the many novels the central character read or translated.  The writing was beautiful and had many of us consulting the dictionary to look up new word meanings.  We spent a bit of time discussing how well the author of the male persuasion was able to so well depict the feelings of a woman.

The novel felt very existential to most of us and inspired a philosophical question of the meaning of a life and what our own preconceptions are about what one must or should do to live a meaningful life.  Was Aalaya's life meaningful because she lived true to herself and at the end of the novel, when her work is shared amongst the other women who help her save her translations, was that a contribution to a better world?

Tim announced the passing of Robert Stone and suggested that we read one of his novels in tribute.  He relayed that we had read two novels in the past.  We thought he was incorrect in his recollection which sent us back to the list of books and stories of book clubs in the past and found that we had indeed,  read three of his novels!  Most recently, in 2000 we read Damascus Gates. In 1999, Outerbridge Reach and A Flag for Sunrise in 1985.  We decided to read his last novel, Death of the Black Haired Girl for February.  We will meet at Ed's on February 9th.  We had a discussion about whether we could try to meet at 6:30 which we will talk more about at the next meeting.  See you soon!

Robert Stone