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