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Book: Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy
Discussion:
This month the Page Turners discovered that our second book of the year, Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy, had a great deal of heart but seemed a little lacking in the soul department. The book received a decidedly tepid reception with thirteen group members voting thumbs sideways and only two giving it a thumbs up.
A few of our members had read Binchy before, and they all agreed that Heart and Soul was not her best effort. The novel, though not bad, and therefore not worthy of any thumbs down votes, displayed many characteristics of a cozy soap opera.
The foremost of these characteristics was the regurgitation of characters. It seemed as if Ms. Binchy was trying to be a bit Dickensian in her proliferation of characters. However, due to the lack of depth and development of these characters, she fell a bit short of a Dickens’ ideal. Many of the characters briefly mentioned in the novel are featured in some of Binchy’s other books. While this may have pleased fans of her complete array of work, for those of us reading her for the first time a few sentences detailing a non-essential character’s actions seemed a bit irrelevant.
The second characteristic which led us to describe Heart and Soul as a cozy soap opera was the overabundance of happiness expressed in the novel. Each character was so positive, nice, or forgiving as to render them unrealistic and the book underwhelming. For example, the twins, who at first were presented as typical irresponsible adolescents, went on a vocation-vacation to Greece and transformed into a focused, ambitious team of caterers. Declan, the new doctor at the clinic was in a near-fatal accident, but was cheerfully up and about, albeit with a cane, less than fifty pages later. Even the dramatically intended end of the book, when Fiona almost relinquishes her engagement to Declan due to issues concerning a prior relationship, fails to inspire any anxiety in the reader. By this juncture we had discovered the book’s inherent white picket fence nature, thus we knew everything would end happily ever after.
There were a few other improbable plot lines, which required some suspension of disbelief. The first of these involved Eileen Edwards, the woman stalking Father Brian Flynn. Eileen came off as being mentally ill, which we believe Binchy planned. Yet one Page Turner rationalized that she could not have been too ill, otherwise she would not have agreed to stop stalking Flynn when confronted by all his friends. Her agreement implied that she knew she was doing something wrong, which led some of our group members to question the notion of her being mentally ill.
The second improbable plot line was the underdeveloped love-hate relationship between Clara and Frank. For the majority of the book we heard about how detestable Clara found Frank, then, near the end, she begins complimenting him and socializing in such a way with him that a date appeared to be in their future.
Some of the Page Turners commented on the relationship between Anya and Mereck, her former employer. They thought this section of the book was the best because it had the most conflict. However, the details were a bit vague, so we wondered just how far Mereck’s maltreatment of Anya went.
As the meeting concluded we talked a bit more about romance in the British Isles, which lead us to a discussion of the upcoming royal wedding and remembrances of the wedding of Charles and Diana. As usual copies of next month’s selection were available for checkout after the meeting. We will convene again at the North Garland Branch Library on March 24, at which time we will discuss Elizabeth Kostova’s novel The Swan Thieves.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
January 27, 2011: Page Turners 7 p.m.
Book: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Discussion:
Discussion:
We celebrated a new year of Page Turners with a change in location this month. Due to renovations at the Central Library, the group met at the North Garland Branch Library, where we will continue to meet through part of the spring.
This month we read Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, which received a bit of a cool reception. Several group members enjoyed the book, seven gave it a thumbs up vote, but these reactions were tempered by an equal number of readers who either voted thumbs down, three, or sideways, four. We also had a few members abstain from voting pending completion.
The group was split over two different ways of defining the novel. One faction saw it as a love story consisting of two tales of survival. The other section described the novel as primarily a story of war. Personally, I found Cold Mountain to be a bit of both. The novel took place during the Civil War and many of its characters are soldiers, some with haunting memories of the fighting. However, apart from some of Inman’s recollections, readers did not encounter many scenes of battle. The bulk of the story detailed his sweetheart, Ada’s attempts to survive on her family’s farm and his own efforts to walk back to her, wounded in more ways than one.
As with the split over the type of story, the group was also divided on the subject of the characters. Some Page Turners really liked the characters, particularly Ada and Ruby. They liked the presence of strong women in the novel and enjoyed reading from their perspective. Many of us were impressed by Ada’s transformation and her growing friendship with Ruby. We were pleased that she was able to put her city pretensions behind her and make survival her priority. She also formed an excellent partnership with Ruby, treating her as an equal from day one. One reader compared their relationship to a kind of marriage, each sharing their strengths with the other.
Despite this admiration for the two women, some of the group members found the characters hard to relate to. We received some insight into Inman’s state of mind regarding the war and Ada as he walks, and a few of Ada’s memories of him and her father were supplied. However, I wondered about their relationship for a large portion of the book. Until the scene where Ada read one of Inman’s letters I doubted whether she even liked him and thought perhaps the affection was all on his side. Another Page Turner questioned whether or not “she even knew this guy”. With these doubts in mind we found it a little difficult to become invested in the main characters, although amusingly, everyone in the group agreed that they could have taken or left Stobrod, Ruby’s father.
Despite a few readers still plowing through the books, we went ahead and discussed the ending, thereby spoiling it for them. Due to the vague description in the final chapters, not everyone was clear on how Inman died. Having dispatched Ada and Ruby ahead to the farm, Inman and Stobrod encountered Teague and some other members of the Home Guard on their way back to Black Cove. They were able to subdue all but one of the Guard, an young adolescent. Inman tried to talk the boy into handing over his gun so that he did not have to shoot him, but the boy refused and ended up shooting Inman. Ada heard the shot and ran back in time to hold Inman before he died.
Although many of us were not that invested in the characters, Inman’s death still shook us all. We understood that a novel could lose some of its potency if everything was resolved happily, but it still seemed unfair that Stobrod survived his wound while Inman himself survived previous gunshots to the head and neck only to die from a chest wound shortly after his reunion with Ada.
As the meeting wound down we moved on to topics more loosely connected with the book. One of these was the Confederate legacy which remained after the war. One Page Turner grew up in North Carolina and said she definitely felt some of the tensions amongst the people, even half a century later.
This Page Turner and another recently travelled to Gainesville with the Senior Center. While there they visited the courthouse, where they learned about the Gainesville Lynchings. Apparently, in 1862, forty men who supposedly held Union sympathies were hung in Gainesville, after being condemned by a questionable group of citizens.
Our final topic of discussion was the film version of Cold Mountain. I could not remember if it ended the same way as the book, but another reader recalled that it had. She also pointed out that the Swanger sons played a larger role in the film, returning to the family farm at the film’s conclusion. We also joked about the nationalities of the three lead actors. Nicole Kidman, was an Australian, Jude Law was from Britain, only one, Renee Zellweger, was an American southerner!
As usual copies of next month’s selection were available for checkout after the meeting. We will meet again at the North Garland Branch Library on February 24, at which time we will discuss Maeve Binchy’s novel Heart and Soul.
December 9, 2010: Page Turners 7 p.m.
Book: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
Discussion:
Despite several difficulties in parking due to another event, we had a very good turnout at this month’s meeting. We held the meeting a few weeks early to accommodate the holidays this month and chose Mary Ann Shaffer’s slim novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for our discussion. The book received a warm reception, as the voting illustrated. Fourteen group members voted thumbs up, one went sideways, and two abstained pending completion.
One Page Turner had been given a booklet containing photographs and brief first person accounts of people living in the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey during the Second World War. We began the discussion by having her read a few of these accounts, several of which were similar to events in our book. One told of a family who kept a contraband radio inside a church organ, while another detailed a second family’s attempts to keep an illegal pig. The whole group agreed that the war definitely brought out the islanders’ resourcefulness in the book and in real life.
Many of us did not know much about the Channel Islands before reading this book, or that they were occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. We did, however associate them with cows, Guernsey and Jersey cows in particular. One of our members informed us that the population of Guernsey was forty thousand, and another told us about a British television series, Islands at War, which relates the story of the Islands’ occupation.
The next major topic of discussion concerned the book’s epistolary style. One Page Turner said that normally she is not a fan of books composed of letters, but she enjoyed this one very much. Another reader said that some reviews of the book suggested that the book’s style could be limiting, though none of us felt that was the case. We mentioned some other epistolary novels, Pamela, an eighteenth century novel by Samuel Richardson, 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff and the film of the same name, and the Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock. One group member brought three of the Griffin and Sabine novels to the meeting and passed them around for us.
As usual, much of the rest of our discussion revolved around the characters. We talked a lot about Kit’s parenting situation. Her drifting from household to household would not fly today, with the required court orders and legal guardians. We were all glad that she seemed likely to stay with Juliet, who she seemed to bond with. Though we thought Juliet’s proposal to Dawsey was a bit forward for the time period, and a bit humorous too, we felt confident that they would take over the parenting of Kit full-time.
We also discussed Sidney and how he and his sister, Sophie, were the perfect friends for Juliet since they were a family; something she was lacking. They also provided her with a great deal of support, another thing Juliet lacked due to her orphaned status.
We talked about some of the villains in the novel too, namely Adelaide Addison and Billee Bee Jones. One reader compared Adelaide to Hilly Holbrook in The Help, saying that she, like Hilly, attempted to run society where she lived. Everyone thought Billee Bee Jones was awful as well, especially for trying to steal Isola’s Oscar Wilde letters. One Page Turner pointed out that Juliet once commented to Sidney that his secretary was too good to be true.
We mentioned the character of Eli a bit too. We discussed his evacuation to the English countryside and were thankful that his experience was a fairly good one. Some group members had heard that evacuees were sometimes treated as servants, and many felt this was more often the rule and Eli’s experience was the exception. One Page Turner related the personal story of a friend who had been evacuated as a child. She was lucky enough to have a good experience like Eli. Another group member compared the evacuation of British children to the American orphan train. Both were instances of children traveling far from home hoping for someone to take them in, often with unpleasant results.
Near then end of the meeting a group member asked if anyone had ever read any Charles Lamb. Unfortunately, none of us had. In fact, very few of us had read any of the books referenced in the novel. We were, however, glad to have read Mary Ann Shaffer’s book, though we were sad to hear of her death right before its completion. She was an author like Kathryn Stockett, one we wished we could talk to.
As usual flyers for upcoming programming and copies of next month’s selection, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier were distributed at the close of the meeting. We will resume our meetings on the fourth Thursdays of the month on January 27. Due to library renovations the Central Library meeting room will be unavailable so we will meet at the North Garland Branch Library.
Discussion:
Despite several difficulties in parking due to another event, we had a very good turnout at this month’s meeting. We held the meeting a few weeks early to accommodate the holidays this month and chose Mary Ann Shaffer’s slim novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for our discussion. The book received a warm reception, as the voting illustrated. Fourteen group members voted thumbs up, one went sideways, and two abstained pending completion.
One Page Turner had been given a booklet containing photographs and brief first person accounts of people living in the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey during the Second World War. We began the discussion by having her read a few of these accounts, several of which were similar to events in our book. One told of a family who kept a contraband radio inside a church organ, while another detailed a second family’s attempts to keep an illegal pig. The whole group agreed that the war definitely brought out the islanders’ resourcefulness in the book and in real life.
Many of us did not know much about the Channel Islands before reading this book, or that they were occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. We did, however associate them with cows, Guernsey and Jersey cows in particular. One of our members informed us that the population of Guernsey was forty thousand, and another told us about a British television series, Islands at War, which relates the story of the Islands’ occupation.
The next major topic of discussion concerned the book’s epistolary style. One Page Turner said that normally she is not a fan of books composed of letters, but she enjoyed this one very much. Another reader said that some reviews of the book suggested that the book’s style could be limiting, though none of us felt that was the case. We mentioned some other epistolary novels, Pamela, an eighteenth century novel by Samuel Richardson, 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff and the film of the same name, and the Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock. One group member brought three of the Griffin and Sabine novels to the meeting and passed them around for us.
As usual, much of the rest of our discussion revolved around the characters. We talked a lot about Kit’s parenting situation. Her drifting from household to household would not fly today, with the required court orders and legal guardians. We were all glad that she seemed likely to stay with Juliet, who she seemed to bond with. Though we thought Juliet’s proposal to Dawsey was a bit forward for the time period, and a bit humorous too, we felt confident that they would take over the parenting of Kit full-time.
We also discussed Sidney and how he and his sister, Sophie, were the perfect friends for Juliet since they were a family; something she was lacking. They also provided her with a great deal of support, another thing Juliet lacked due to her orphaned status.
We talked about some of the villains in the novel too, namely Adelaide Addison and Billee Bee Jones. One reader compared Adelaide to Hilly Holbrook in The Help, saying that she, like Hilly, attempted to run society where she lived. Everyone thought Billee Bee Jones was awful as well, especially for trying to steal Isola’s Oscar Wilde letters. One Page Turner pointed out that Juliet once commented to Sidney that his secretary was too good to be true.
We mentioned the character of Eli a bit too. We discussed his evacuation to the English countryside and were thankful that his experience was a fairly good one. Some group members had heard that evacuees were sometimes treated as servants, and many felt this was more often the rule and Eli’s experience was the exception. One Page Turner related the personal story of a friend who had been evacuated as a child. She was lucky enough to have a good experience like Eli. Another group member compared the evacuation of British children to the American orphan train. Both were instances of children traveling far from home hoping for someone to take them in, often with unpleasant results.
Near then end of the meeting a group member asked if anyone had ever read any Charles Lamb. Unfortunately, none of us had. In fact, very few of us had read any of the books referenced in the novel. We were, however, glad to have read Mary Ann Shaffer’s book, though we were sad to hear of her death right before its completion. She was an author like Kathryn Stockett, one we wished we could talk to.
As usual flyers for upcoming programming and copies of next month’s selection, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier were distributed at the close of the meeting. We will resume our meetings on the fourth Thursdays of the month on January 27. Due to library renovations the Central Library meeting room will be unavailable so we will meet at the North Garland Branch Library.
November 18, 2010: Page Turners 7 p.m.
Book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Discussion:
We had a good group at this month’s meeting of Page Turners to discuss Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. The group’s reaction to the book was positive as well; all sixteen attendees gave it a thumbs up vote.
We began the discussion by talking about the dialects Stockett employed; those of Aibileen and Minnie were particularly pronounced. I asked if any group members found the dialects offensive, as that had been mentioned in more than one bibliographic publication. No one seemed to think the accents were distasteful; in fact, many enjoyed the unique voices identifying each character.
Incidentally, the novel’s characters played a large role in our discussion, as is usually the case. We mentioned both Aibileen and Minnie a bit. The readers lauded Aibileen for her attempts to give Mae Mobley the praise and affection she did not receive from her mother. A few also secretly wished Aibileen had not helped Skeeter with her book, fearing it would put her in danger. The comments about Minnie centered on the infamous pie she tricked Hilly Holbrook into eating. Some group members wondered if the pie was really made of what we suspected, or if it was just a trick to make Hilly think she was eating something bad. Most of us seemed to think it was the real deal.
The only drawback to the book, mentioned during the evening, was that many of the group members did not feel like all of the characters were fully developed or their storylines were not resolved. Stuart Whitworth illustrated one example of this. Some of the Page Turners wanted to know what happened to him after his break-up with Skeeter. It was also suggested that Stockett did not fully develop the character of Celia Foote. We knew she grew up in the country, that she was familiar with the kind of domestic abuse Minnie was suffering, and that her husband loved her very much. However, many of the readers wished the author had provided additional details about Celia’s background and more about her relationship with Johnny.
Basically, the group members wished Stockett had written a book on each of her characters, except for Elizabeth Leefolt, who they did not like very much due to her treatment of Mae Mobley. We thought this proved Stockett’s abilities as a writer, her ability to make readers want more.
Aside from the discussion on the characters, much of the meeting’s content focused on the themes invoked in the book; racism, segregation, and the Southern experience. One Page Turner spoke about living in Detroit during the race riot of 1967. She was escorted to work during the five days of unrest, her job being deemed essential, while many others stayed home.
Another group member brought up the bathroom segregation issue. In the novel, Hilly Holbrook convinced the Leefolts to build a separate bathroom for Aibileen in their garage. A Page Turner who lived in Oklahoma during the time period commented that the idea of separate bathrooms was not practiced there. However, another reader mentioned that it was common in North Carolina, where one of our other members resided at the time.
Many readers in our group are from the North originally. In fact, we have a whole Michigan contingent, and more than one member from Wisconsin. Several of these ladies commented that their experiences in the North differed quite a bit from those here in the South. There was less variety in the demographics in these areas and less segregation too. One of our Northerners remembered going on vacation to Florida and feeling very confused by segregation.
As the meeting concluded we discussed two final issues. First, one Page Turner mentioned that there was another kind of discrimination in the book, one based on class. Hilly and her Junior League friends looked down on Celia because they thought she was of a lower class than they were. Our fellow group member reminded us that there were also white domestic servants or help at this time. They, however, did not suffer from the same degree of maltreatment as the African Americans did.
Secondly, we discussed the women’s issues in the book. These were mostly embodied by Skeeter. She had goals and aspirations, beyond the Junior League, like becoming an author and living somewhere besides Mississippi. We did question what Skeeter would think of total desegregation, but I think she would have been very accepting of it.
As the meeting ended, flyers for upcoming programming and copies of next month’s selection, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, were distributed. We will hold the December meeting early next month, the evening of the ninth, to accommodate the holidays.
Discussion:
We had a good group at this month’s meeting of Page Turners to discuss Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. The group’s reaction to the book was positive as well; all sixteen attendees gave it a thumbs up vote.
We began the discussion by talking about the dialects Stockett employed; those of Aibileen and Minnie were particularly pronounced. I asked if any group members found the dialects offensive, as that had been mentioned in more than one bibliographic publication. No one seemed to think the accents were distasteful; in fact, many enjoyed the unique voices identifying each character.
Incidentally, the novel’s characters played a large role in our discussion, as is usually the case. We mentioned both Aibileen and Minnie a bit. The readers lauded Aibileen for her attempts to give Mae Mobley the praise and affection she did not receive from her mother. A few also secretly wished Aibileen had not helped Skeeter with her book, fearing it would put her in danger. The comments about Minnie centered on the infamous pie she tricked Hilly Holbrook into eating. Some group members wondered if the pie was really made of what we suspected, or if it was just a trick to make Hilly think she was eating something bad. Most of us seemed to think it was the real deal.
The only drawback to the book, mentioned during the evening, was that many of the group members did not feel like all of the characters were fully developed or their storylines were not resolved. Stuart Whitworth illustrated one example of this. Some of the Page Turners wanted to know what happened to him after his break-up with Skeeter. It was also suggested that Stockett did not fully develop the character of Celia Foote. We knew she grew up in the country, that she was familiar with the kind of domestic abuse Minnie was suffering, and that her husband loved her very much. However, many of the readers wished the author had provided additional details about Celia’s background and more about her relationship with Johnny.
Basically, the group members wished Stockett had written a book on each of her characters, except for Elizabeth Leefolt, who they did not like very much due to her treatment of Mae Mobley. We thought this proved Stockett’s abilities as a writer, her ability to make readers want more.
Aside from the discussion on the characters, much of the meeting’s content focused on the themes invoked in the book; racism, segregation, and the Southern experience. One Page Turner spoke about living in Detroit during the race riot of 1967. She was escorted to work during the five days of unrest, her job being deemed essential, while many others stayed home.
Another group member brought up the bathroom segregation issue. In the novel, Hilly Holbrook convinced the Leefolts to build a separate bathroom for Aibileen in their garage. A Page Turner who lived in Oklahoma during the time period commented that the idea of separate bathrooms was not practiced there. However, another reader mentioned that it was common in North Carolina, where one of our other members resided at the time.
Many readers in our group are from the North originally. In fact, we have a whole Michigan contingent, and more than one member from Wisconsin. Several of these ladies commented that their experiences in the North differed quite a bit from those here in the South. There was less variety in the demographics in these areas and less segregation too. One of our Northerners remembered going on vacation to Florida and feeling very confused by segregation.
As the meeting concluded we discussed two final issues. First, one Page Turner mentioned that there was another kind of discrimination in the book, one based on class. Hilly and her Junior League friends looked down on Celia because they thought she was of a lower class than they were. Our fellow group member reminded us that there were also white domestic servants or help at this time. They, however, did not suffer from the same degree of maltreatment as the African Americans did.
Secondly, we discussed the women’s issues in the book. These were mostly embodied by Skeeter. She had goals and aspirations, beyond the Junior League, like becoming an author and living somewhere besides Mississippi. We did question what Skeeter would think of total desegregation, but I think she would have been very accepting of it.
As the meeting ended, flyers for upcoming programming and copies of next month’s selection, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, were distributed. We will hold the December meeting early next month, the evening of the ninth, to accommodate the holidays.
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