May 22, 2008: Page Turners 7 pm

Book: The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton

Attendance: 11

Discussion:

Almost the whole group disliked the book this month. When we voted only two members voted thumbs up, five were thumbs down, and four were sideways. The foremost topic of discussion was the murder at the end. I had read some reviews on Amazon in which readers wrote that they anticipated that happening, but the group members and I were completely shocked. Some kept hoping that things would improve for Ruth and that the book would end on an optimistic note, while others thought the story was optimistic and hopeful in spite of the tragedy at the end because Ruth did not seem to let her difficulties get her down. Needless to say those who believed the latter were the two readers who voted up.

One member brought up the fact that after regaining consciousness in the hospital Ruth did not ask about her son Justin, and that readers did not know his fate for a few chapters. She thought this showed a lack of characterization as one of Ruth’s roles was as a mother. Another Page Turner suggested that Ruth had sustained brain damage as a result of her husband’s beating and may have forgotten that she even had a child. We debated these two points of view, eventually deciding that while Ruth probably did have some trauma done to her brain, Hamilton could have addresses the fate of her son sooner than she did.

We also debated the mental stability of Ruth’s husband Ruby. We discussed the possibility that he may have always been deranged, he did after all jump off a bridge into a frozen river in December and later stood in front of a passing car waiting for it to hit him. Ruby had been in trouble with the law previously, accounting for the character of Sherry, his counselor, and was what one member blatantly termed “a loser”, but we all agreed he was pushed to his mental breaking point by May’s harassment.

Surprisingly, we did not discuss the character of May too much, even thought she was one of the main characters. We talked about her son, Ruth’s brother, Matt more. Some members wondered why he did not return home once he went away to college, or even call or write. Others asked why Ruth’s discovery that he too had been writing to their Aunt Sid felt like such a betrayal to her. From his letters we learn that he felt abused not only by his mother’s overwhelming and suffocating affection, his experience was quite different from his sister’s in that regard, but that he saw Ruth’s physical bullying of him when they were children as abuse too. This casts both his character and Ruth’s into different lights. Personally, I felt this revelation concerning Ruth was inconsistent with the way her character had been portrayed in the rest of the book. She seemed like a nice, meek person, and his claims of prolonged abuse, just do not jive with that characterization.

An observation that this month’s selection was yet another Oprah book, and that she seems to like books about dysfunction and familial abuse since she keeps choosing such books for her club, rounded out the evening. Flyers for upcoming programs and books for next month were also distributed.