Regeneration by Pat Barker

We met to discuss Pat Barker’s 1991 Booker Prize winning novel Regeneration, chosen for its topicality as we met a day after the centenary of the outbreak of WW1.  Regeneration is the  first book in a Great War trilogy, the subsequent novels being The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road. It explores the experience of British Army officers being treated for shellshock at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh.  Barker drew on her grandfather’s experiences and her characters are based on people who were there at the time, including the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and Dr Rivers the pioneering psychologist, one of the first people to realise that shellshock was not a manifestation of cowardice.

Some of the Group had read this book first time around, and were looking forward to rereading it.  However, we found it rather a let down, and the other readers were also somewhat underwhelmed.  While clearly well researched and well told, ultimately we found the characters slightly two dimensional and no-one really mind if they finished the book or not.  

We wondered if, compared to the 1990s everyone today has far better awareness of the mental damage caused to war survivors, or whether the intensity of media interest in WW1 has somehow diluted the novel’s impact.  Wikipedia has a long and interesting entry about the book which may be of interest. 

The list of books recently read and or recommended by the Group gives a good overview of the eclectic range of our reading (apologies for using Amazon links - you can always ignore them if you hate Amazon)

Diaries

Home Fires Burning: The Great War Diaries of Georgina Lee, 1914-1919  edited by Gavin Roynon
A Strange Time: The Diary and Scrapbooks of Cordelia Leigh 1914-1919  edited by Sheila Lesley Woolf and Christopher John Holland (diaries of the chatelaine of Stoneleigh Abbey)

Fiction from Real Events

Elephant Moon by John Sweeney 

Nature Writing

Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain and 
Wildwood: AJourney Through Trees both by Roger Deakin

Fictionalised Fact

The Italian Chapel  by Philip Paris

Science/biography/Psychology

Sybil by Flora Schreiber

SciFi/ Cyber Punk

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

Other recommendations included The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The Switch  and  Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

Our next meeting is on Wednesday 14 January at 12.30 at WBS Scarman Road Lounge. We shall be reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. Please do come, and bring a book loving friend!

A Time of Gifts

We had various reactions to Patrick Leigh Fermor's famous travel diary.  Overall we felt that it was heavily over written and rather indigestible, although the descriptions were lushly vivid and the date of his walk (1933) fascinating, given that he was walking across Europe.  there was some mystification expressed that this purported to be a diary, although it was written up from his notes some 30 years after the event.  He was apparently resist any descriptive or narrative detour that may have proposed itself to him; digressions often last for many pages, delving into ever more esoteric historical and social details that some of us felt were superfluous to his tale.

Some members of the group had read this before, and found the return was a disappointment.  Readers who were new to PLF felt that it was a curate's egg - good in parts.

Not a strong recommendation, sadly.

Other recommended reads we had included:

• Longbourne - Pride and Prejudice from behind the green baize door
• The Snow Child
• Anne Cleve's Shetland detective stories (author of Vera, the TV adapted crime novels)
• Ken Mclure's Dust to Dust
• Susan Hills'detective novels
• Peter May's Hebrides-set 3 novels, including  The Black House  and the Lewis Men 

There was clearly a theme of crime and detectives coming throug this  month!

However, we didn't pick up on this trend for our next choice, opting instead for Pat Barker's 1980s Booker Prize winning novel Regeneration*, the first in her trilogy set during and after WW1.

We shall be meeting on Wed 12 November at WBS at 1230.

*  Sept 2014 there is a superb stage adaptation of the novel touring the UK at the moment.  Highly recommended by a Reading Group member who has seen it.

New Members Needed

Please try to recruit more readers for the Reading Group - we are losing another member who is leaving WBS - we need fresh blood!!

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, was introduced to us by a member of another reading group. None of us had ever heard of this American writer and it was a really lovely introduction to this Pulitzer Prize winner’s work.

This was BBC correspondent Justin Webb’s pick on BBC radio’s book programme A Good Read recently, and he gives a thoughtful and appetite-whetting introduction to the novel which is still available on the iPlayer here.  It is the story of two long marriages and the sustained friendship which develops between the two couples, one wealthy, one poor, between the Depression and the 1960s. His characters are brilliantly brought to life, sometimes irritating, sometimes eliciting sympathy.   His writing is beautiful  - lyrical and almost elegiac; we felt that it is probably a book for older readers, who will enjoy the wit and insights and recognise some of the tacit compromises that long partnerships such as these entail.

Stegner develops a brilliant sense of place especially with his evocation of what Justin Webb calls the ‘North American tree experience’ in his descriptions of Vermont, where much of the novel takes place and he gives a great sense of the 20th century passing, without labouring the point.  Throughout the book is about the adults' point of view and their children are almost invisible.  Nothing really happens, but it is all the more wonderful for that.

The majority of us loved this book, others found it slow to get into, but came to really appreciate it.

It is one of the most rewarding reads we have had since this Group started -  “The best thing I have read for ages” said one of our most voracious readers – a high compliment.

Very highly recommended indeed!

Other books we discussed this week were:

• The Armchair Economist by Steven Landsbury – quite a struggle, but interesting.  Definitely not  as easy a read as Freakonomics!
• Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson – beautiful language and writing - well worth reading
• My Animals and other Family by Clare Balding (a local reading group’s choice) - an easy read and one which makes you want to hear about the rest of her life after University.
• The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple –  the Indian Mutiny of 1857 seen from the ‘other side’,  through the prism of the last Muslim emperor’s life,  as British understanding and appreciation of Indian history and culture evaporated during the 19th century.  Fantastic history book.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 10 September 2014 at 12.30 at WBS Scarman Road, and we will be discussing Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts.


*The cover illustrated is of an Australian edition and is more suited to the novel that the predominantly bright yellow photo you will find in stores in the UK, which is rather mis matched we felt!

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant May 2014

We met to discuss Anne Tyler's novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.  This was recommended to us on the strength of Anne Tyler's preference for this as her favourite own novel.

The majority of us were distinctly ambivalent about this book - while we all agreed  it was well written and had a good enough story to make us want to read on to the end, none of us really enjoyed it to any degree. Clearly she writes beautifully and brings her vivid, rounded characters to life, but ultimately it wasn't a book to set any of us on fire with enthusiasm. Her characters are all so flawed that the book's feel becomes quite depressing.

It is interesting to compare our half hearted reaction with this book's high ratings on Goodreads and almost equally high ratings on Amazon.  Perhaps Tyler's characters are just slightly too real for reading pleasure: at least of of us was reminded too forcefully of our own family gatherings at which all too often someone collapses into tears, stormy exits and recrimination.

It is perhaps an indictment that none of us could remember the much vaunted last line of the novel ...

We also discussed some other recent reads:

Begums Thugs and White Mughals  is an edited version of  the diaries of Fanny Parkes, an Englishwoman living in East India Company northern India in 1825-1837. Fanny's lifestyle is extraordinarily ahead of her time:  she learns Urdu and travels all over the region, often only with her servants for company, she becomes friends with many Indian families, as well as the hybridised white mughal Anglo Indian families - it is a fascinating easy read and is a hugely enjoyable book. Historian and travel writer William Dalrymple (we read his Road to Xanadu a while back) edited the diaries and brought them back into publication; it comes highly recommended.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  This book is semi autobiographical novel is set in Ethiopia and New York. It is a long dramatic story set agains the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia - a fascinating, engrossing read and also highly recommended.

For our next two books :

JULY (date tbc)  Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, a Pulitzer prizewinner. Emily read this recently recommended by another bibliophile, and in turn highly recommends it.

'Not only a book of a lifetime, Crossing to Safety is a book that comes at the end of a long lifetime of writing. Wallace Stegner was 62 when, in 1971, he won the Pulitzer for Angle of Repose: he was 78 when Crossing to Safety, his last novel before his death, came out. It's a miraculous book, written with the wisdom of age but without seeming old. A novel based on character that has immense narrative power.' (The Independent, 2008)

and 

SEPTEMBER (date tbc)  A Time Of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor.  This is the lushly written diary of the first part of an 18 year old Englishman's walk across Europe in 1933-4.  The book has been hailed as a classic of travel writing. 

I am late updating this page. Apologies.

The Rosie Project

We had a cheerful discussion about The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, which was much enjoyed by everyone, which made a pleasant change from the worthier reads we have undertaken during the last few months

For maximum efficiency (!) I have copied part of an excellent review on Goodreads, which does the work for me:

'1. Don Tillman is an Associate Professor of genetics at the University of Melbourne. He has a black-belt in Akikido, and can cook a mean lobster salad. He also has Asperger's syndrome – but he doesn’t know that. Don just thinks that there’s something missing that leaves him baffled by human behaviour and unappealing to other people (especially the opposite sex). But after his dear old neighbour tells him that he would make someone a good husband, Don decides to get married – and to limit the fallout of incompatibility and highly ineffective dating detection, Don decides to make a questionnaire to find himself the perfect wife. Thus, ‘The Wife Project’. This is not insane. It has actually happened, to Amy Webb from Baltimore who found her husband by using math and analytics to narrow the dating field. 

2. Rosie Jarman is not a potential partner for Don’s Wife Project. She’s a barmaid who is perpetually late and vegetarian. But she is also beautiful and smart. And she’s on her own quest to find someone – her biological father. Rosie has bright red hair, dresses to impress no one but herself and calls em’ like she sees em’. But she is not a ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’. She does not want to ‘fix’ Don, she’s tough and imperfect and very aware of her failings. She is one of the best romantic-comedy heroines I've ever read. 

3. This scene of Don speed-dating (which I read while on the train, and attracted many curious looks as I snorted my way through it);

‘I've sequenced the questions for maximum speed of elimination,’ I explained. ‘I believe I can eliminate most women in less than forty seconds. Then you can choose the topic of discussion for the remaining time.’
‘But then it won’t matter,’ said Frances. ‘I’ll have been eliminated.’
‘Only as a potential partner. We may still be able to have an interesting discussion.’
‘But I’ll have been eliminated.’
I nodded. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘Occasionally,’ she said.
I put the questionnaire away.
‘Excellent.’ I was pleased that my question sequencing was working so well. We could have wasted time talking about ice-cream flavours and make-up only to find that she smoked. Needless to say, smoking was not negotiable. ‘No more questions. What would you like to discuss?’ '

Most of us found ourselves irritating neighbours by guffawing loudly while reading this novel.

“But I’m not good at understanding what other people want.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ said Rosie for no obvious reason.
I quickly searched my mind for an interesting fact. 
‘Ahhh…The testicles of drone bees and wasp spiders explode during sex.”

This is  a funny, charming and memorable book, and a really good read:  thanks so much for the recommendation Liv.

Our next meeting will be at WBS Scarman Road on  Wednesday 21 May at 12.30.  We will be discussing Anne Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - suggested after Anne Tyler described this as her favourite of her many books.

Lives Through letters: A Portrait of The Waller Family 1796-1856

 LivesThrough letters: A Portrait of The Waller Family 1796-1856  consists of part of a larger collection of letters bequeathed to Warwickshire County Records Office by the local Waller family. The book is offered as part of the Library reading group collections, hence this rather obscure choice of reading matter.

  

The letters are written by Anna Jarrett (née Waller) during the 1830s and 40s, describing her experiences as a wife and mother; letters (and sketches) by Lieutenant George Waller whilst he was serving in the Crimean War;  and letters to and from the  eminent oculist, Sir Jonathan Wathen Waller. He corresponded with the royal family and there is a letter in which Sir Jonathan gives an eyewitness account of the death of King George IV.

Anna had been married 14 years with no children, went to the famous Dr Jephson (of Jephson Gardens fame) and shortly thereafter produced 2 offspring – what exactly was the ‘treatment’ we we wondered ?!

This collection is well worth reading for a really vivid insight into the lives and concerns of a family through the century.  The overriding impression was how little changes over 170 years: our concerns are just the same.  God pervades all their letters, and they make you realise  how close death was in those days – a bout of childhood illness really did put a child or adult at death’s door. 

The letters are very well edited to smooth out any particularly tricky antiquated writing quirks, but are easy to read and the writers' personalities jump off the page.

Next meeting is on WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH (Note changed day!)  at 12.30 in the WBS Staff Lounge unless a pressing case is made for it to be moved elsewhere.  Email Emily at WBS if you would like a different venue, please.

Book to read:   The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion which has just come out in paperback and is available on Kindle and ebook.