Lolita

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Blog written by Melissa

Of course Lolita caused a bit of discomfort for all, as I believe it was intended to do by the author, Nabokov. With the current Royal Commission into child abuse, the subject matter of the book was particularly topical. There was a variety of responses from club members…  Clever, unsettling, brilliantly written, tedious, disturbing, difficult to finish, delight in the literary style and the exuberant dance of words, over-written, frighteningly seductive, challenging/intriguing vocabulary, darkly witty, confronting, offensive, clever, sad… One member felt the need to disguise the book title when reading in public!

Recommend reading Nabokov’s Afterword which is helpful.

The book raised many questions which served as interesting discussion points for the group, including:

• How can we effectively separate the literary style from the subject matter?
• How would this book have been received if it were published today? Would it have been banned in this era?
• Does it reflect a perspective held by a previous generation of male authors and publishers?
• How did both films compare with the book?
• If the author could write this so well, was he also afflicted with some element of the protagonist’s illness or did he simply have a brilliant imagination & literary skill?
• How believable was the story?
• Did the ending become melodramatic?
• What are the reasons this book is listed as one of the top 100 works of modern literature?
• Is the story a reflection on the society/country it is set in?

• Did the protagonist, ‘Humbert’, in his own warped way, actually love Lolita?
• What would the impact truly have been on the character ‘Lolita’?
• How might Lolita have voiced her experience if the book had been written from her perspective instead of it being fully interpreted by ‘Humbert’?
• Did Lolita play any culpable part in the tragedy or as a minor is she fully innocent – even if she ‘initiated’ the early engagements.
• What do girls do with their blossoming sexual curiosity when the boys their own age can be much less mature and interesting to them?
• How might the book be experienced if the protagonist was a female ‘cougar’?

• What should society do with/about/for paedophiles? How should they be treated? Can they be ‘cured’? Is their behaviour primarily to be dealt with as an illness or a crime?

• What causes this kind of distorted lust? Is society in some ways responsible for creating a conducive environment for paedophilia? (E.g. Advertising using sexually explicit nymphettes. The culture of ‘youth’. Emasculation of men…. Etc.)

Here's a bit of extra information to follow up on the book and topic:

I don't usually advocate Wikipedia as a credible source but it does provide some interesting basic data on Lolita here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita

Here's that link to the Louis Theroux's program on ABC about a place in America where pedophiles are 'kept'.  Raises the question of 'what to do with them?' It's pretty creepy for various reasons but if interested, you can watch it here.  https://archive.org/details/LouisTheroux-APlaceForPaedophiles

For those of us who cared to rate this novel, it averaged a 6.6 out of 10.

Descriptions apart from those already mentioned by Melissa : a book ahead of its time, eloquently written and brilliantly structured.

Our next book is Trafficked by Sophie Hayes and the meeting will take place on Thursday Nov 20th at Robyn's. 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Blog written by Lee


A novel about love or a novel about war?  Flanagan combines both themes into a compelling poetic work.   

His characters, whether Australian or Japanese, men or women, all suffer from an self awareness of their own personal flaws.   

Poetry helps some to cope with the trials they face, Dorrigo Evans remembers Tennyson and the Roman poets and Nakamura and Kota come face to face with the beauty of nature and their personal frailties in the haiku of Issa and Basho.  

The title of the novel is taken from a book of haiku by Matsuo Basho a 17th century Japanese teacher and wandering poet.

 

Dorrigo’s love affair with Amy, the wife of his uncle, begins his journey into the war, his ‘narrow road’ takes him to the war in Cyprus and then to South East Asia where his platoon is surrendered to the Japanese in the fiasco that is the capture of British Singapore.   

The novel follows the fortunes of Dorrigo and his men during the horrors of the building the Burma Railroad and the hell of the jungle POW camps.  

Some die horrific deaths, others survive to return to alienated lives in Australia.  None will ever be the same.  

Flanagan’s writing is astonishing in it’s poetic beauty, whether he is describing a meeting in a book shop, a beach scene,  the tropical rain in the Thai jungles, or the hell of an Australian bushfire.  Each character’s story is given it’s full due and no story remains untold.  

There is no great fanfare in the telling of each of the character’s stories and their conclusions can be unexpectedly shocking but always poignant.  

Everyone in our group praised the novel and ratings ranged from an 8 to several giving a 10.

Our rating averaged 9.2 out of 10 and described as " compelling".

Our next book is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and will take place on Oct 9th Thursday at Melissa's.

The Chemistry of Tears

The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey

Blog to be posted by Sally





















We rated the book 7 out of 10.  Descriptions : curious; curiouser and curiouser; confusing; intriguing layers; frustrating.

Our next book will be The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan and the meeting will be at Lee's on Thursday August 28th.

Beautiful Ruins

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Comments below by Melissa :

I really enjoyed the theme of the book and its amusing and ironic commentary on the crass commercialisation of creative work (particularly literary, dramatic and cinematic writing) and the extent to which even people's lives can be 'optioned' and 'tweaked' to make a buck.

I especially loved the juxtapositions - eg. Plastic people (Deane) beside genuine people (Pasquale). The Hollywood Pitching room beside the early authentic war torn coast of then unpopulated Italy.  The brash efforts of some to sell anything at any cost (Reality Tv show with a house full of anorexics) beside the innocent efforts of others (Hotel Adequate View). The has-beens beside the Hopefuls, the past beside the present, the sincere beside the false, the 'Failures' beside the 'Successes' and who actually defines these…

I enjoyed the focus on the whole world of 'selling stories', given the whole world is telling stories (as history, as art, as memoir etc.) and how we all have our own and how some people view theirs with celebration and others with regret.  How people try to matter, in more or less meaningful ways. How beautiful things can be destroyed...ruined by greed, war, denial… and how some things ruined can still somehow be beautiful (people's mistakes, a love never consummated, an ageing face, death…)

I think people who have worked for some time in the literary/performing arts industries are most likely to connect with the book's themes. I'm not surprised it was a New York Times bestseller. I'm sure it also did well in LA.

Yes, I thought it was a clever, fun, lightly tragic, ironically tongue-in-cheek look at life as art and the art of life.

Our rating for Beautiful Ruins is 7 out of 10.

Our next book is The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey and the meeting will be at Sally's on July 24th.

The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

Blog to be posted by Sarah





















Our next book is Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter and the meeting will be at Megan's on June 24th.

Gone Girl

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Blog to be posted by Jane





















Our rating for Gone Girl is 7 out of 10.  It is "clever, entertaining, readable and speedy".

Our next book is The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling and the meeting will be at Sarah's on Thursday May 29th.

Under the Wide and Starry Sky

Under The Wide And Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
Blog written by Sharon

I selected this novel because we had so enjoyed Nancy Horan's first novel about Frank Lloyd Wright called "Loving Frank" ( refer to our blog in Sept 2010).  Unfortunately only about half of us had finished the book by the group's meeting.

This is a novel once again based on historical people and facts -- that of the lives of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne.  It is about their amazing love story from around the end of the 19th century.

Fanny is portrayed as a strong, brave and talented woman whose ambition to be a writer herself had to take a back seat to the renowned writer, RLS, in the family.  It is astonishing how a woman in the 1800s had the courage to flee an unhappy first marriage and take her children with her half way round the world to enrol in an art school!

Throughout the novel, we see how doggedly Fanny nurses Robert's weak health and sacrifices her own need to put down roots and ignores her terrible sea sickness just so that Robert L Stevenson can thrive in the sea air and strengthen his lungs.  I personally warmed to Fanny more than Robert as I found him cruel at times ( calling Fanny a "peasant") and he was often swayed by his friends who were actually feeling threatened by Fanny.  She never really got over the death of her son Hervey and both of them were really hurt by the plagiarism slur. Fanny's mental breakdown was nicely handled by the author and showed how it brought Robert's love for Fanny back.

Nancy Horan was interviewed by Today's Bookclub and here is the link Patricia shared with us :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyV9hs5Q15M

There was a lot of admiration from us for the writing of Robert Louis Stevenson.  Personally I loved the poem he penned for Fanny on page 338:

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The great artificer
Made my mate.

Honour, anger, valour, fire;
A love that life could never tire,
Death quench or evil stir,
The mighty master
Gave to her.

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life,
Heart-whole and soul-free
The august father
Gave to me.


There is a general consensus that perhaps the novel rambled on and didn't need to be this long.  The ending was so moving though if the reader can get through all the cruises around the South Pacific!
That may explain the rather low rating we have given this novel, averaging a 6 out of 10.
Few descriptive words : Could do better, Tedious, Too long, Loved it, in Awe of them.

Our next novel is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and will be on Tuesday April 8th at Jane's.

Please note that Robyn's book choice this year is "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson.

Burial Rites

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Blog written by Meredith 

The members were united in their praise and enjoyment of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites.

Amidst the harsh conditions of 1800 Iceland, Agnes’s story came to life, giving the reader an entirely plausible and fascinating account of the events leading up to the last execution in Iceland.

A brilliant first novel by this aspiring writer whose depth of research and subject matter marks this a most unusual and unique book.  One reader felt Agnes had brought togetherness to the host family, as they listened in on her conversations with the priest.  The priest was not a popular character, perhaps his youth and inexperience giving the impression of being weak.  Another reader didn’t like the way Agnes kept returning to Natan.  Was Agnes obsessed with him?  Was Agnes guilty of murder? Perhaps she had a psychotic episode?  Some readers felt that she could have had good reason to kill Natan.  When is a murder justified?  And is capital punishment justified?

Research shows that over 60 countries in today’s world still have capital punishment, China being the bigger offender, with public executions still happening in places like Saudi Arabia.

Overall, Burial Rites was found to be sad, haunting and grim yet, beautiful, fascinating and intriguing.

Recommended reading with an average rating of 8.

Our next book is Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
The meeting will be at Sharon's on Thursday March 13th, 2014.