Stoner

John Williams-Doesn't he look like William Stoner?

Terry suggested the novel, Stoner by John Williams in November.  His wife Debbie had read the novel and said she loved it so much that she could not put it down.  The novel was written in 1965, yet was not appreciated fully until the decade of 2000 when the novel was reprinted and pclaimed the "perfect novel."   The majority of the book club loved Stoner for its simple story of an ordinary life.  The book was described as elegant, painful and beautifully written.  Lexi, Tim, Chrysanne, Katie and Ed said they could not put the book down.   Chrysanne went on to say that what she loves about our book club is the discovery of this sort of novel- A novel you would not otherwise know about, except that someone knew someone who also loved to read and did not want this book to end!  While Terry, Mindy and I all appreciated the novel, we found the painful unfolding of William Stoner's life difficult to take and therefore could not feel the same fondness for the novel as others had-only depression!

Next month, we are reading The Round House by Louise Erdich and we are meeting on December 16th at Katie's House.  Here is the NY Times Book Review.

And because Chrysanne is going out of town and we will miss Ed this month, we have scheduled a book and a date for January-unusual, I know.  We are planning to read The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt and we are meeting at Mindy's on January 6th.

The Flame Throwers

This month we read the The Flame Throwers at Kate's suggestion.  Chrysanne reported that Kate, who is a writer, found Rachel Kushner's work to be brilliant.  We were hoping to get a review by Kate for the blog, but a week or so has passed and I felt the need to take a clumsy stab at it.  But the minute we receive something from Kate, I will add in her words.

The Flame Throwers received a big mixed review with Tim and Chrysanne on one hand loving the novel.  They noted the brilliant metaphors and descriptions:
“It was not the case that one thing morphed into another, child into woman. You remained the person you were before things happened to you. The person you were when you thought a small cut string could determine the course of a year. You also became the person to whom certain things happened. Who passed into the realm where you no longer questioned the notion of being trapped in one form. You took on that form, that identity, hoped for its recognition from others, hoped someone would love it and you.” 
 They admired the amount of research Ms. Kushner must have done in order to capture the art, motorcycles and New York culture.

Mindy, Lexi, and Terry were on the other end of the spectrum, not understanding the role of the main character was who was never even referred to by her real name, but by her home city, Reno.  They were unable to warm up to the characters and found the writing artistic-but to pondered, to what end-sure the writing was great, but what was the purpose of the work?

Ed and I were in the middle, admiring the writing, yet not loving the novel itself.  There was some thought that it felt like a series of essays or short stories threaded together with the same characters and setting.  Both Ed and I, who lived a much straighter and  more traditional life during the 70's, were a bit fascinated by the edgyArt-as-Life-New York world that we were aware of, but had missed. 

So I close with Rachel Kushner's lines:

“The answer is not coming. I have to find an arbitrary point inside the spell of waiting, the open absence, and tear myself away. Leave, with no answer. Move on to the next question.” 

Next month we are reading Stoner by John Williams and we are meeting at Terry's on Wednesday, November 13th.  See you there!