Two Months of Second Tuesdays

For whatever reason (let's go with exams and assignments taking all my time) I haven't posted about last month's book club yet, so here is a double helping of book club posts. You better sit down for this one. WOOT!

May's book of choice was made by Mister John Brown - A Rage To Live - a biography of Richard Burton by Mary Lovell. I cheated this month and read some stuff online to get the gist of who the guy was, but Noelene and John actually read the book. Noelene says that Burton fit an awful lot into his life, but she found the author hard to read. Lovell used heaps of commas innappropriately and it was a bit clunky, suggesting knowledge of what Burton felt at the time when she's really just making huge assumptions.

John also read another Burton bio, A Highly Civilized Man by Dane Kennedy (which is now on my bookshelf waiting to be read by me). He says that this book doesn't discuss his wife at all, while Lovell's book focusses on her quite a bit. Burton's wife controversially burned a lot of his work after his death because it contained content which would probably be seen as 'sexually deviant' and have soiled his name.

Burton seemed to swap religions, depending on which culture he was studying or trying to immerse himself in. He seems to be positive about Islam in Africa, but condescending and negative towards Christianity in central Africa. John says that Burton was negative towards religion's effect, not religion itself. He used religion for his own purpose.

He was extremely self interested, but not manipulative. Mary Lovell is totally in love with him and defends him against biographical damnation. It's interesting to see the effects of cultural impersonation have on him later in life. He was a probably a bitter old guy who was passed over and posted in Damascus, which went badly, but he didn't blame himself. Burton did a lot of things that no one had done and they were harder to do back then. Lots of travel and mapping areas and rivers, sending back lots of soil samples and that sort of thing.

Anyway, interesting guy.

Adrian read The Case For A Creator by Lee Strobel. Strobel was an athiest journalist who asks questions of scientists who believe in a creator God. Strobel says that his wife became a christian and she seemed to become a 'more authentic person' so he looked into it. Adrian says that he believed in evolution but after reading this there are gaps in his belief. He sees evolution as probably arising as a result of materialist philosophy rather than science. It assumes that metaphysical answers are not valid. Guy says that no other idea or theory explains it. Darwin was not out to murder God, but rather explain the universe. John says that evolution came at a time when people were open to new theories. Darwin doesn't have a universal view; mountains don't evolve. Evolution doesn't apply to anything that's not biological. Adrian says there are answers that should be explored. Noelene says that any book that makes you question and think about your beliefs is a good thing. This conversation all started to sound way too familiar to many we've had in the book club before, so we moved on.

Adrian also read The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. Waitzkin is a chess and martial arts master who like Spider-man :D. He was a natural at chess at 6 years of age. He applied his approach to chess to other fields with success. He can detect opponents moves, subtlely influencing them. Adrian found his writing accessable.

Guy started reading the only authorised biography of Tom Waits, The Many Lives of Tom Waits by Patrick Humphries. Tom Waits has lots of great one liners and stories in interviews, but Guy sees them as one liners that deflect away from his private life.

Noelene read Kate Grenville's dreamhouse and didn't like it. It's about a London couple who move to Tuscany. Noelene has been to both Tuscany and London and didn't feel like Grenville knew the places by the way she wrote of them. There's an analogy of a broken house being like their marriage, and there are ideas of affairs that didn't happen. Noelene couldn't see what Grenville was trying to link everything to and she didn't care about the characters.

John read Scott Pilgrim Vol. 5 and said it wasn't as good or as fresh as previous volumes. It's still hilarious and clever in places, but he thinks it will probably end on an annoyingly ambiguous note.

He also re-read The Inmitable Jeeves by Wodehouse and it's as funny as he remembers. The chapters are nice, brief, 6 pages long. There are small plot arcs and an overarching arc. He uses characetures but they are in depth enough to be interesting. It reads like a really, really great sitcom. He also read more of Glynn Christian's How To Cook Without Recipes. Christian's is very anti some cooks who use a pinch of certain things to make it look cool, but that would not change the taste of the meal in any way whatsoever. He thinks that you should take the flavour from a meal, like something sharp and creamy, and then create a new meal with that mix of tastes.

He also read How To Learn Any Language by Barry Farber. Farber says we should all stop learning French because it sounds cool and is almost English anyway, and learn languages that would be useful, like Mandarin, Spanish, and Arabic. I still want to learn French, but I totally see his point.

I read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Achebe writes an African story from an African point of view but in English and in the bourgeois format of the novel. It's about a tribe pre-colonization and it's kind of told in a fairy tale-ish style, but with a strange African sensibility that kind of clashes. The hero of the novel, Okonkwo, beats his wife and this kind of thing. Achebe doesn't really praise or criticise this; it's just in there. When white colonizers come we get to read the experience from the point of view of the African people. It's a well told story that seems simple, but when read there is so much to take from it and think about.

I also read another post-colonian novel, A House For Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul. This was a brick of a book, but very easy to read. It's kind of a dark comedy. Funny things happen throughout, but they're all kind of tragic also. While reading I was kind of aware that I wasn't quite grasping everything, but it's a great novel all the same that I should probably read again at some point in the future.

That's it for May. June's book was chosen by Noelene; Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

This month's book club was the smallest yet, but it's all good. We will continue regardless. I started this thing so I could talk about books at least once a month, and that will still happen even if it's just Noelene and I.

Anyway, we both saw the film version of this and loved it, so reading the book seemed like a good idea. I'm glad we did. Both Noelene and I loved this. Noelene says that she was immediately hooked into the story. She couldn't read it in bed before sleep because she didn't want to drift off and miss things. She wanted to savour the whole book and read attentively. I also dug it. I think that Yates is one of those 'less is more' writers. Unless Yate's is inhuman or something I think he must have spent a whole lot of time editing this book, because it reads so sharp. Not a word is wasted. All the characters are essential too. There are maybe 8 or 9 characters throughout, and they all serve an important purpose in the novel. Yates also writes those great simple lines that mean more than they seem. The writing seems so real too. The novel is about the breakdown of a marriage, and it feels so honest and real, but I think it's also about what society had become in 1961. I think it's kind of sad that it's still so relevant. Not that much has changed since then. People still end up in relationships like this; both friends and romantic relationships. It's like a smack in the face to read. Early on I almost felt like it was a bit much, the way Frank Wheeler felt he was above everything, but as the novel played out it all made sense and wasn't being too preachy or anything. It's just really sad. The tragic end, which you can see coming a mile away, was sad, but it was everything preceding it that I found most upsetting.

Both Noelene and I agree that everyone should read this novel. We were kind of bummed that no one came this month because this is something that more people should read.

I also read a whole smack of poetry as study for my exam, so no other novels were read by me.

Next month's book? Luna Park, by Bret Easton Ellis.

jej