Passages

I wasn't universally enamored of Jones' writing style, especially the kind of magical realism passages, but often he could really turn a phrase and capture a mood precisely, especially when he was trying to relate the grace, and poetic, if sad, resignation that had become a part of slave mentality. I liked these a lot:

...Mary, hearing Ophelia sing, had decided right then that she didn't want heaven if it came without Ophelia. Mary asked Ophelia about coming with her and eating peaches and cream in the sunlight until Judgment Day and Ophelia shrugged her shoulders and said, "That sounds fine. I ain't got nothin better to do right at the moment. Ain't got nothin' to do till evenin time anyway."

"So when I say he (Augustus) was a handsome man, he was indeed. Henry was, too, but he never got old enough to lose that boyish facade colored men have before they settle into being handsome and unafraid, before they learn that death is as near as a shadow and go about living their lives accordingly. When they learn that they become even more beautiful than even God could imagine."

And Alice's song that always ended "He told me this, he told me that." And there was another song: "I'm over here, I'm over there, I ain't nowhere." Both of these seemed to perfectly express the randomness of a slave's life and the lack of personal identity and permanence in a place and a social network. You just always had to be prepared for whatever, and whatever was usually pain.

The unknown world

Any thoughts on the "magical" parts of the narratives — for example, where the narrator would tell what happened to people in the afterlife (like Mildred walking around the house and settling in bed with Augustus)? Do you think this added anything important to the story or the narrative voice, or did it detract from it?

In "Middlesex," we had a first-person narrator who told us a bunch of stuff he couldn't have possibly known, and he was usually frank that he was just poetically connecting the dots for the sake of literary truth vs. actual truth. What was your sense of Jones' narrator? Did you whole-heartedly accept the narrator's complete omniscience?

Celeste and Moses

How would you explain Celeste being so kind to Moses after he treated her so badly and caused her to miscarry?

Did Moses become increasingly unsympathetic to you? He did to me. Was it just understandable bottled-up rage seeping out in dark ways?

One of the things I kept thinking when I'd conclude that someone was really being a bastard was how nearly impossible it would have been to NOT be a bastard in those circumstances. I think we have a tendency to expect a kind of saintliness from downtrodden people — we expect them to be better than their oppressors because we expect them to have a kind of empathy and awareness, and we less often think about how it's perfectly understandable in many instances that they would become as ugly as the system that shaped them.

The women

Who was your favorite female character?

Problematic?

Were there any relationships in the book that you found too improbable?

(I have at least one in mind, but I don't want to rant about it until you weigh in.)

Skiffington

SKiffington is a character for whom I first had a lot of sympathy, but I felt colder and colder about him as the story progressed. I suppose he's an example, as you alluded, Erin, of a decent man whose decency is unable to thrive in the corrupt world of slavery. His soul became very slippery. And what did you make of his sexual attraction to Minerva? I really wondered why the author made that a part of his personality. I just didn't see its place in the story or in his character development. But what am I missing?

The two most overtly "Godly" people in the book, the minister and Bible-reading Skiffington, both had an issue with "impure" thoughts/actions. Any significance there?

Robbins

William Robbins was an intriguing character. I had the sense that the author really grappled with his personality and its presentation. He's the character who first sprung to mind when I read Erin's "We're all worthy" post, in terms of people being complex and neither wholly good nor evil. What did you think of him? Why do you think the author chose to have him not just have a sexual relationship with Philomena but to be deeply in love with her?

Favorite scene

What was your favorite scene from the book?

I really adored the scene where Elias, after realizing he was in love with the crippled Celeste, presented a hand-made comb to her. It's not a very good comb, but she acts like it's a rare treasure because he gave it to her. Aside from the food in her stomach and the clothes on her back and a little of nothing in a corner of her cabin, the comb was all she had. A child of three could have toted around all she owned all day long and not gotten tired. Then the comb instantly breaks the first time she uses it and Elias says, "Pay it no mind .. I'll make you a comb for every hair on your head." And Celeste, crying, says, ""Thas easy to say today cause the sun be shinin. Tomorrow, maybe next week, there won't be no sun, and you won't be studyin no comb."

The scene is comical but sad and moving because it underscores how fragile love is in general, but especially in their world, where despite their commitment to each other they can be torn apart. Elias is restless and adrift and can only think of escape until he gets close to Celeste and realizes that loving her can anchor him to life and give it purpose and beauty and passion. His love strengthens him (and her) and at the same time makes them poignantly vulnerable because it exposes a layer of tenderness that the world may or may not treat with care.

"We are all worthy of one another"

This quote, from Caldonia to Louis, was mentioned a few times in the book, and it really stood out to me, even as a possible theme of the novel. We are neither all good nor all evil. Regardless of experience or station in life, we are all human. We are all worthy of one another.

This makes me think, too, of how Jones seemed to indict not whites or slaveholders but slavery in general. It tainted everyone it touched. It corrupted slaveholders, even those who intended to be fair masters. It caused slaves to lie, cheat and bully each other, to betray each other for their own gain. Even people like Sheriff Skiffington, who made a decision not to participate in slavery, found himself hunting down runaway slaves and returning the "property" to its owner. There are good intentions but very little that is pure and good.

"Henry had always said that he wanted to be a better master than any white man he had ever known. He did not understand that the kind of world he wanted to create was doomed before he had even spoken the first syllable of the word master."

"Middlesex" and "The Known World"

One reason I wanted to read "The Known World" was a review that compared it to "Middlesex," as another epic family story, a "great American novel." The two novels won the Pulitzer Prize in succession.

Do you see similarities between the two?

Alice

What did you make of Alice? Was she crazy? Or was she just pretending to be crazy to gain a little extra freedom? Why did she hide her artist talent until she was free?

Writing style

The novel is written in an unusual style: changing point-of-view right and left, jumping back and forth in chronology, including elaborate back stories for the characters, as well as their future fates. Did you enjoy this style? Or find it hard to follow? Could you keep the characters straight? And what did you think of all the fake "historical" data that Jones included about Manchester County? Did that help the story?

The premise

The hook of "The Known World," what makes it an unusual slavery novel, is that the slave owners are free blacks. I was intrigued by the idea, especially knowing that the slave master's parents -- who had worked hard to buy their son's freedom -- were horrified and angry that he would now be owning his own slaves.

As I was reading, I kept forgetting that Henry and Caldonia were black. I was picturing white people in some scenes, which I suppose is just because that's the traditional image of slave owners on the plantation.

Did you have that problem? Had you known before that some free blacks owned slaves before the Civil War? What do you think Jones' message is about slavery?

Kim's pick

I thought this would be a good summer read: "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith — a coming-of age novel written in late 1940s Britain. Maybe we can start discussing on June 9?

Erin's pick

The suck

I was struck over and over again by Didion's description of "the vortex" as if these memories of home and family life were a black hole, dangerous and difficult to escape. Yet, for me, those stories were some of the best reading of the whole book. They provided the back story we needed to understand the family relationships. Do you think the vortex provided any positive purpose for Didion? Or did she simply recount those episodes as a good writer for our benefit?

heart trouble

Didion and her husband seemed to react very differently to his heart condition ("they call it the widow-maker"). Was she unwilling to face the severity of his condition? If so how did that influence her grieving process after his death?

Magical thinking

Do you think the term "magical thinking" is a good description of Didion's mind beset by grief? What was magical about it? Have you ever experienced anything like this, as a consistent thought pattern or as a momentary occurrence?

Words of comfort

kc asked in a previous comment about the messages families find most comforting in the midst of funeral services.

What messages about life/death/John do you think Didion most needed to hear from her friends and family? What messages did she most consistently tell herself?

What have you most needed to hear when grieving a loved one?

Graphic Storytelling

We encountered "graphic" in a different way this month. Didion was intent on sharing with us precise details about the occurrence of John's death and Quintana's illness(es), letting the reader expereince the scene first hand.

She also seemed moved by grief to gather information, via Internet, reference materials, Doctor friends and by hounding hospital staff. Did you appreciate the vividness of the scenes she described and her explanations of all the medicine involved?

In the midst of life we are in death

We begin with Joan Didion, "The Year of Magical Thinking"

What are your first impressions of the book as a whole? Why do you think Didion wrote it? What were her motivations? What did it accomplish for her to put an intensely private and personal story out for all the world to see? Could you imagine doing the same thing?

"The Power of Forgetting"

I’m reading this collection of essays about Shakespeare’s plays, called “Shakespeare After All,” and in the “Hamlet” essay, the author, Marjorie Garber, says something that made me think of “Maus” and how its various survivors, including Art, were able to function after such tragedy. Any thoughts on this?

Friedrich Nietzsche saw memory as that which distinguishes human beings from animals. Cattle forget, and so they are happy. Humans remember, and so they suffer. “In the smallest and greatest happiness,” he wrote in his essay on history, “there is always one thing that makes it happiness: the power of forgetting.” Human beings, both individually and as a people, “must know the right time to forget as well as the right time to remember.” And in the same essay Nietzsche also wrote, with a glance, unmistakably at “Hamlet,” that the past has to be forgotten “if it is not to become the gravedigger of the present.”

(The Nietzsche essay she refers to is “The Use and Abuse of History”)

Amy's Pick

I should have picked this two weeks ago. Sorry. The short time frame means you have been saved from several obscure picks I was considering. Instead Didion, a memoir of the year after her husband's death. Enjoy.

"Getting in touch with my inner racist"

Rather strange Speigelman essay in Mother Jones: "Getting in touch with my inner racist"

The ending

I found the ending pretty sad. First we see Vladek and Anja's reunion after the war, and Vladek says, "We were both very happy, and lived happy, happy ever after." But we know that's not true. Anja eventually committed suicide, and Vladek became a miserable old man. And in the last line, Vladek confuses Art with his dead son, Richieu. It's as though the tragedy of the past will never really be over for this family.

"Prisoner on the Hell Planet"

What were your thoughts on the comic within the comic, Art's reaction to his mother's suicide? The comic depicts his mother's suicide and his father's reaction. Art is wearing a concentration camp uniform throughout. In the last panels, Art is shown in prison, and he says, "Well, Mom, if you're listening ... Congratulations! You've committed the perfect crime ... You put me here ... shorted all my circuits ... cut my nerve endings ... and crossed my wires! You murdered me, Mommy, and you left me here to take the rap!!!"

I found this rather disturbing. What was your reaction?

All there is to know

Have you seen this Leonard Cohen poem about Adolf Eichmann, who was considered the mastermind of the Nazis' "final solution"? I think of it every time I read something about the Holocaust.

All there is to know about Adolf Eichmann

EYES - Medium
HAIR - Medium
WEIGHT - Medium
HEIGHT - Medium
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES - None
NUMBER OF FINGERS - Ten
NUMBER OF TOES - Ten
INTELLIGENCE - Medium

What did you expect?
Talons?
Oversize incisors?
Green saliva?
Madness?

Comparisons

Do you see any parallels in the struggles for survival in "Maus," "The Road," "A Thousand Splendid Suns"?

I saw something of Desdemona and Lefty from "Middlesex" in Vladek and Anja — the same sense of bewildered sadness of people ripped by war from their native land and cast upon the shores of America, a busy, naive country that was largely ignorant of and indifferent to their personal pasts and struggles. I keep trying to imagine what it would be like to be uprooted as an adult and replanted in a foreign country. It's really something. And on top of that, to have a personal history of unspeakable suffering.

Lost history

What was your reaction to Vladek's destruction of his wife's journals?

Empathy II

I'm always shocked when I see people who have been victimized by prejudice victimizing others. I always — naively — expect them to have been ennobled by their suffering, to be empathetic, to know what matters. And yet the author shows his father, a Holocaust survivor, being racist toward a black man. Why do you think the author included that episode?

Vladek

What connections did you make between the father's Holocaust experiences and his life in New York?

Honesty

I was really moved by the sheer honesty of these books — not just the author's honesty that his dad often drove him crazy, but the honesty of the concentration camp story, how it wasn't just a simple tale of good and evil, how it managed to convey the complexity of human behavior under extreme stress. Any thoughts on this?

Empathy

I think the thing that struck me most deeply about "Maus" was the depiction of the father-son relationship — how the fact that his parents' Holocaust experience was the huge, inescapable fact of their existence and yet how they had all this "normal" strife and personality conflicts like family members do. When I was reading it, I thought anyone who lived through the Holocaust should get a free pass to be a jerk or a tightwad or whatever else their psyche needed and the rest of us can only look on with infinite understanding. But I know it's one thing to hold that theory and another thing to actually practice it when faced with the everyday reality of a difficult person. Did you feel this struggle in the narrator?

Graphic storytelling

First, the obvious question: What did you think of the "comic-book" treatment of this serious subject matter?

Tessie

What was your impression of Tessie? Did she seem kind of vaguely developed to you? And, if so, did that seem intentional, like she was just supposed to be one of those moms who blend into the background? I remember one passage in the book where Cal likens himself to his mom and says they both liked to just watch people and hang back rather than being the center of attention. That made a certain amount of sense. But I also kind of expected something bolder from her character, given who her parents were.

Cars, cars, cars

One could write an essay on the use of the automobile in "Middlesex." It's one of the uber-American things about the novel. Not only is the book set in Motor Town, but a lot of important scenes take place in cars, like Zizmo's fake death and Milton's real death, Lefty's "photograph" business that paired sexy women and cars, the bootlegging business, Sourmelina's use of Zizmo's car as a show of independence, Desdemona's distrust of cars, Lefty's job at the Ford plant, Cal's odyssey across the country in strangers' cars, Cal's first and last kiss with the Object in the farmer's car after the accident, and Milton's obsession with Cadillacs. This last really resonated with me because my grandparents always had two Cadillacs, one for him and one for her, those super gigantic ones that were the ubiquitous and unimaginative status symbol of the business class.

Cal gives the best description of a Cadillac I've ever encountered: It was like climbing into someone's wallet.

Weird

Did you have a sense that the narrator was saying something particular about human sexuality? It's weird, but Cal seemed the most "normal" to me, or maybe "conventional" is the better word. I mean, we have the grandparents who were actually siblings (we can say circumstances forced them together, but really they liked each other before that), and Sourmelina who was gay, and the Object who was probably gay, and the parents who, weirdest of all, got off on that clarinet fetish. Cal was really just a guy who liked girls.

Kim's pick

"Maus: A Survivor's Tale" is a Holocaust memoir by Art Spiegelman. It won a special Pulitzer in 1992. I've read some graphic narratives by Alison Bechdel and Marjane Satrapi that I dearly loved, even though I'm not generally drawn to the graphic genre, and they both acknowledged a huge debt to Spiegelman as a mentor who tackled serious subject matter in comic book form. There's actually Maus I and Maus II, and I'm guessing that we'll want to read both.

Greeks modern and ancient

The narrator refers to his story as "my midwestern Epidaurus" and says Jimmy Zizmo is "the one wearing the biggest mask." What did you think he meant by this?

Beauty

Julie says, "Beauty is always freakish." (p. 217)

For me, this foreshadowed her acceptance of Cal's uniqueness. Do you think this is a view of beauty the narrator shares?

Place and person

The narrator refers to the street of his childhood home as Middlesex Boulevard and to the house as Middlesex. And, of course, there's the natural allusion to his body as being a kind of middle sex. What connections do you think the author intended us to make here?

(There's an awesome description of the house on p. 258).

Father Mike

There were clues aplenty that Father Mike wasn't the holy man he was cracked up to be, but did you ever suspect that he was such a scoundrel at heart?

End of the land sadness

What do you think the San Francisco chapters contributed to the narrative?

History and truthiness

It's easy to imagine Cal's story being more isolated and condensed. The novel could have just focused on his development and personal issues with a mere summary of the grandparents sufficient to explain the genetic mutation that shaped Cal's life. Instead, Eugenides chose to write a sweeping, panoramic portrait of a fictional family and a real city.

A couple of passages stood out to me in regard to this.

One is where Callie is talking about how she routinely lied to Dr. Luce, who, significantly, she says was the first person to encourage her writing. He didn't know, of course, that I was making up most of what I wrote, pretending to be the all-American daughter my parents wanted me to be. I fictionalized early "sex play" and later crushes on boys; I transferred my feelings for the Object onto Jerome and it was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies.(p. 418)

This last sentence gave me pause, because it made me briefly question the veracity of the narrator, and I wondered whether the interweaving of real history into the story was meant to be the tiny bit of truth that would (cleverly!) make credible the "lies" of the book. Did you have any reaction to that passage?

Another passage that struck me as telling in relation to the structure of the novel was this: ...living sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead. You get older, you puff on the stairs, you enter the body of your father. From there it's only a quick jump to your grandparents, and then before you know it you're time-traveling. In this life we grow backwards. It's always the gray-haired tourists on Italian buses who can tell you something about the Etruscans.(p. 425)

The future

The last line of the book is "I lost track after a while, happy to be home, weeping for my father, and thinking about what was next." What do you think is next for Cal? Do you think his relationship with Julie will be successful?

Home

The novel presents a vivid portrait of Detroit and its history, and I was reminded somewhat of our discussion of Afghanistan as presented in "A Thousand Splendid Suns." The author of "Middlesex" also displays a great love for his home, I think, as much for its faults as its charms. What were your impressions about the depiction of the city?

The Obscure Object

What are your thoughts on The Obscure Object? What role did she play in Cal's character development?

I was absolutely enthralled by the Obscure Object chapters. The tension and the eroticism of some scenes was stunning to me.

I turned the light off. I pressed against the Object. I took the backs of her thighs in my hands, adjusting her legs around my waist. I reached under her. I brought her up to me. And then my body, like a cathedral, broke out into ringing. The hunchback in the belfry had jumped and was swinging madly on the rope.

The scene on the porch was also quite memorable. I loved it. But frankly, it all just seemed a bit too sophisticated for 14-year-old girls. Did anyone else have that sense?

Chapter Eleven

Other than The Obscure Object, Chapter Eleven is the only character who is never named and his nickname never explained. Cal says he won't name The Obscure Object to protect her identity. He gives no such reasoning for Chapter Eleven.

In a Q&A on the Oprah Web site, Eugenides addresses the issue:

I am confused about why you refer to Cal's brother as Chapter Eleven, yet at other times you refer to him by his given name? — Stacy S.

Cal, the narrator of Middlesex, never refers to Chapter Eleven by his given name. Neither does anyone in the book. The nickname, "Chapter Eleven," is bestowed on Cal's brother by Cal himself, retroactively, in the act of writing the book. If you can find a place where Chapter Eleven is called something else, Stacy, let me know, but I'd be very surprised. His "given name" is something I didn't give the reader.

As for the meaning of the nickname, that's another story. The character of Chapter Eleven is introduced in the first pages of the novel but it's not until page 512 that Cal provides clues as to what this name means. There's a long passage where Cal sketches what will happen to his brother in the years to come, but, unlike just about every other Stephanides family story, Cal elects not to go into it. Still, the hints are there and include the maxing out of credit cards, etc., all of which point to a situation that might involve something known in U.S. tax law as Chapter 11.

By the way, Stacy, your question is the question I get asked most often by readers of the book. The name "Chapter Eleven" really confuses people in Europe and Asia, as you might imagine. (No one files for Chapter 11 in Japan.) In some cases, Germany, for instance, where I know the language, I've worked with my translators to come up with an alternative. In the German edition of Middlesex, Chapter Eleven is called Der Pleitegeier. This refers to the circling buzzard that presages doom, usually of the financial variety. — Jeffrey Eugenides

So that clears up what the nickname means. My question is, why? Why doesn't Cal reveal his brother's given name? Any ideas?

My Big Fat Greek Genetic Mutation

What do you think the Greek cultural background adds to the novel?

Destiny

There's much talk in the book about fate, chance, God, self-determination -- and the way circumstances and decisions line up to produce the facts of Cal's life. Do you think there's an overriding message? Does Cal believe his life is directed by fate, chance, free will, a combination?

Narrative voice

What did you think of the narrative style? For example, the way Cal tells the story of his family before he was born. He gives details, elaborates, and then occasionally interrupts the story to draw attention to himself and the artifice of his story, such as this section as Lefty and Desdemona are on their way to Detroit:

To be honest, the amusement grounds should be closed at this hour, but, for my own purposes, tonight Electric Park is open all night, and the fog suddenly lifts, all so that my grandfather can look out the window and see a roller coaster streaking down the track. A moment of cheap symbolism only, and then I have to bow to the strict rules of realism, which is to say: they can't see a thing.

Also, did you find yourself thinking of the narrator as a particular gender? For some reason, I thought of the narrator as female for most of the book, even though I knew that Calliope would wind up as Cal. Was that just me?

Favorites

What were your favorite scenes or sections of the book? I had SO many favorites, but for starters, I thought Milton's death scene was brilliant. It was so touching and beautiful. And it really made me feel for this character, maybe for the first time in the book.

He was crying not because he was about to die but because I, Calliope, was still gone, because he had failed to save me, because he had done everything he could to get me back and still I was missing.

As the car tipped its nose down, the river appeared again. Milton Stephanides, an old navy man, prepared to meet it. Right at the end he was no longer thinking about me. I have to be honest and record Milton's thoughts as they occurred to him. At the very end he wasn't thinking about me or Tessie or any of us. There was no time. As the car plunged, Milton only had time to be astonished by the way things had turned out. All his life he had lectured everybody about the right way to do things and now he had done this, the stupidest thing ever. He could hardly believe he had loused things up quite so badly. His last word, therefore, was spoken softly, without anger or fear, only with bewilderment and a measure of bravery. "Birdbrain," Milton said, to himself, in his last Cadillac. And then the water claimed him.

Update

When do we start discussing the next book?

A really enlightening read

Hosseini is excellent at portraying the life of a foreign land, what it's like to live there, how things look, what people eat, what the customs are, but I think there are some built-in limits because it's fiction. He just can't satisy our every curiosity because he's too busy telling a story. I found "The Places in Between" to be a very enlightening nonfiction portrayal of Afghanistan, but there are almost no women in it. After reading the NPR story about the "controversy" over "The Bookseller of Kabul" by the female journalist Asne Seierstad, I ordered it and am almost finished. It's truly phenomenal. Seierstad lived with a family in Kabul and wrote an exceptionally detailed account of what their everyday life is like: what they eat, how they eat (with their right hands, segregated by sex), what people think about, what they wear, what it's like, layer by layer, to wear a burka, to walk in one, how burkas are hot and stinky and trap Kabul's famous dust, how you read body language in one, how men buy brides, how family hiearchies work, how they groom themselves, how sexual relations work in and outside of marriage, how they pray and travel, everything. It's just absolutely fascinating, in addition to being well written, and I found it addressed a lot of questions I had while reading Hosseini and Stewart.

East and West

I think all of us — most recently Amy in the first comment on the last post — referred to an idea or notion or mindset being Western. What do you think Hosseini's view is on Western/non-Western? Does he have a coherent idea of humanism that transcends specific cultures? I had the impression that he looked at his homeland with a kind of hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner attitude.

Wives

The two noblest men in the book — Laila's dad and Tariq's dad — each had only one wife. Do you think this was a mere matter of money (they couldn't afford more), or was Hosseini saying something about polygamy? (It's also impossible to believe that Tariq would ever take another wife, isn't it?).

a woman's voice

Throughout the book I struggled with Hosseini's development of his characters. At times they all ran together and spoke with one "voice" instead of having unique speech, thought or emotional patterns.

Did you feel he did a good job of accurately portraying the emotional lives of teenage girls? Mariam was married at 15, Laila at 14, yet to me they sounded the same throughout the book, even when they were much older women. What did he do to make them seem like the immature teenagers they were?

Legitimacy

At her excecution, Mariam thinks to herself
"It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings." (p329)

What made her legitimate in the end? (Hosseini suggests loving and being loved) and did her marytrdom confirm that or erode it?

In what way were her struggles in life different from Laila's because she was harami? Did they play a role in the vast differences between their two endings?

Losing ground

In a way the stories of Mariam and Laila were driven more by what they lost (or never had) rather than what they gained. Considering the many scenes of death and grief (Nana's suicide, Ahmend and Noor's martyrdom, Tariq's "death", Lilia's parents, etc.) where did you feel the loss most powerfully on behalf of the characters? What made this so?

Impressions

I hope you enjoyed "A Thousand Splendid Suns." Shall we begin our discussion?
I have to admit it was fun reading and thinking of questions for the two of you, I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

First off, in picking the book we all seemed excited to "travel" to Afghanistan. Did you feel Hosseini managed to transport us there? What helped you feel you were in another culture? What of that was exciting? What was difficult?

War and Peace; what is it good for?

Amy Preacher (I hope I can still call you that even though the Big Ride is over and there's no other Amy here), I've decided to dedicate a part of this winter to finally reading "War and Peace." I think I've started other winters with this grand intention, but the thing that decided me was all this hullaballo about the new translation (I'll read the long version) and the fact that you've read it (so I have someone to discuss it with) and the fact that I'm reading this riveting novel ("The Emperor's Children," a New York comedy of manners) that makes all sorts of fascinating and intriguing allusions to W&P, making much especially of this Pierre/Natasha dichotomy. I have to know what this is all about! Wish me luck.

Thanksgiving

I LOVE the scene in the fallout shelter where he makes a feast for the boy. The boy is taking it all in. Is this coffee? he asks. Like it's this legendary drink he has only heard tell of but never hoped to experience! Can you imagine smelling coffee for the first time? When I was a little kid, my mom would always store coffee in a yellow Tupperware container, which she still uses. (Can you imagine owning a piece of Tupperware for 30-some years?) So, after the trip to the grocery store, I would always stand by as she opened the metal coffee can for the transfer to the Tupperware. And that first whiff of coffee as the can-opener popped the tin was so glorious. It was like some magical genie escaped his Maxwell House and filled the air with sweetness and promise. Even my sister, who never developed a taste for coffee, would stand by and marvel at the smell. Is this coffee? Yes.

And then he shows the kid butter! Here. You put the butter on your biscuits. Like this.

Wow.

And the kid is digging it but something's wrong.

Do you think we should thank the people? he asks.

Like, all on his own, the kid invents the idea of saying grace! It's magical.

The dad says What people?

And the kid says The people who gave us all this.

So then the kid says:

Dear people, thank you for all this food and stuff. We know that you saved it for yourself and if you were here we wouldn't eat it no matter how hungry we were and we're sorry that you didn't get to eat it and we hope that you're safe in heaven with God.

A guest concern

A co-worker of mine is reading "The Road" right now. Last night she told me she was alarmed at the discovery of a first-person passage in the book but she didn't have time to explore it. Then today she sent me this urgent e-mail.

Hi Kim

i checked out that passage again (page 87 in the paperback) and now it is clear to me that it is Papa speaking (the night before i'd had a glass of wine before picking up the book, and anyone knows drinking and reading don't mix!).

but it is still a departure from the form, because while there is use of "I" in dialogue, this is a first person observation. perhaps it is establishing the father's point of view -- all i know about this from rob is that if we hear a person's thoughts, that person cannot die.

I love this book!

susan

Thoughts on this? Hehe

The last god

A couple passages seemed to deify the boy in a way. Do you think it was just the normal love of a father for his child (not, granted, that these were normal circumstances), or did you feel there was something else going on?

The couple that I noticed:

The night after they shoot the guy, the father replenishes the fire as the boy sleeps: The boy didn't stir. He sat beside him and stroked his pale and tangled hair. Golden chalice, good to house a god.

Then when they meet the old man:
When I saw that boy I thought I had died.
You thought he was an angel?
I didnt know what he was. I never thought to see a child again. I didnt know that would happen.
What if I said he's a god?
The old man shook his head. I'm past all that now. Have been for years. Where man cant live gods fare no better. You'll see. It's better to be alone. So I hope that's not true what you said because to be on the road with the last god would be a terrible thing so I hope it's not true.

Then after they give the old man something to eat, at the boy's insistence:
The old man says: Why did he do it?
He looked over at the boy and he looked at the old man.
You wouldn't understand, he said. I'm not sure I do.
Maybe he believes in God.
I dont know what he believes in.
He'll get over it.
No he wont.

And THIS floored me. They come across the next guy in the road and the boy wants to help him, too.
Just help him, Papa. Just help him.
The man looked back up the road.
He was just hungry, Papa. He's going to die.
He's going to die anyway.
He's so scared, Papa.
The man squatted and looked at him. I'm scared, he said. Do you understand? I'm scared.
The boy didnt answer. He just sat there with his head bowed, sobbing.
You're not the one who has to worry about everything.
The boy said something but he couldn't understand him. What? he said.
He looked up, his wet and grimy face. Yes I am, he said. I am the one.

I nearly wept when I read that. I am the one. What did you take it to mean?

Writing style

This is one night when it's just muddy and cold and they haven't eaten, but they have a fire:

...they sat there in silence with their hands held out to the flames. He tried to think of something to say but he could not. He'd had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and the dull despair. The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever.

And this was the morning after the passage Erin cited in the comment on the last post. I think it's insightful about his feeling for the woman and their past and how the past should be "handled." Normally we think the past is preserved in remembering and in story telling, but this is another take:

Rich dreams now which he was loathe to wake from. Things no longer known in the world. The cold drove him forth to mend the fire. Memory of her crossing the lawn toward the house in the early morning in a thin rose gown that clung to her breasts. He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.

I love that. It also seems relavant to his writing style, which is sparing — simple sentences, or often just sentence fragments, a plain, unassuming, yet stunning, vocabulary. I had the feeling, after reading the passage above, that when he's writing he's calling on a rich, probably overwhelming, storehouse of experience and distilling it to an essence, not just to create a story, but so as to do the least amount of violence to the original thing. There's the thing. And then there's the story of the thing. And the poetic feeling of "truth" that we readers experience is the emotional loyalty between those two.

(Trust me. That makes a lot more sense if you mull it at 2 a.m. in a hot bath with a cup of tea)

But, my question: Did you enjoy McCarthy's writing style? Was it hard to get used to? Did the unconventional prose, with all the fragments and contractions without apostrophes and direct speech without quotation marks sit well with you? Why do you think he drops quotation marks? Is it to integrate the speech fully into the narrative? (There must be a lot written about this because he seems to do it in all his books).

McCarthy's words

I can't get enough of McCarthy's writing. I was looking back at some places I marked in the book. I'll share them:

In those first years the roads were peopled with refugess shrouded up in their clothing ... Their eyes bright in their skulls. Creedless shells of men tottering down the causeways like migrants in a feverland. The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.

And:

No list of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.

This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job.

And while he's preparing the boy's sleeping area that night (punching indentations in the sand for his little hips and shoulders!):

All of this like some ancient anointing. So be it. Evoke the forms. Where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.

Oh, there are a few more, but I have to go to work now! Did any passages in the book especially move you?

Into Afghanistan

Yikes....my first pick! I was enthralled with "Kite Runner" and have been waiting for another Hosseini novel. This has only been out since May but I can wait no longer! It is only available in Hardcover right now, sorry about that.

I think there are some similarities to Kite Runner, a country in turmoil (obviously) and an unlikely friendship that tests cultural norms, but this time between two women. I hope you enjoy.
Do we start discussion the first part of December?

Good People and Bad People

In an earlier comment, Erin said, "When we're stripped of our most basic needs, we see what really matters: food, water, shelter, safety, love, companionship. Or we become marauding cannibals." Did you have the sense that most people who were left were of the latter sort, the Bad People, or did you think most people might be Good but there were just enough Bad ones out there that, for survival reasons, you had to assume the Bad People were everywhere and that you were in "constant peril," as Erin said?

I couldn't get a good feel for what McCarthy thought about basic human nature, really. On the whole, it seemed sort of bleak, but then we have this shining example of selfless love between the dad and son. The father figure could seem rather cold and dismissive when it came to others, but I always had the sense that he was being that way to protect his son. He didn't want to share with others because it would mean less for his boy. The scarcity of food and warmth and comfort made it so difficult to be good and trusting. And I wondered where, exactly, the boy got his unerring sense of goodness. Was it from the example of his father's love? But his father wasn't always good to others (not in the boy's sense). Where would the boy have learned his goodness — it seemed almost Christlike sometimes, something even the father seemed in awe of — or is McCarthy saying goodness is not something you acquire, like reading and writing, but something you just have or you don't? Did you have any sense of this?

The coast and imagination

I assumed they were heading south to be warm, but why specifically were they going to the coast? It seemed sort of like he wanted the boy to see the ocean, but the ocean wasn't going to be blue and alive. Still, he gave the child enough sense of the ocean's magic that the boy, when he beheld it, wanted to run on the beach and touch the sea, even though it was cold and gray. I found that very moving, but I wondered where the impetus to paint the world's former beauty for the boy's imagination came from. Did he just want him to have an internal sense of beauty and glory and magic, even if nothing in the outer world would ever compare? Just something for his soul?

Miss Frank, you were saying?

Do you discern any reply in this book to Anne Frank's conclusion that, in spite of everything, people are really good at heart?

I just read this Reuters story about McCarthy's appearance on Oprah, where he apparently said: The message readers might take away from "The Road" is that one should "simply care about things and people and be more appreciative. ... Life is pretty damn good, even when it looks bad. We should be grateful," McCarthy said.

Did you take that message from the book?

Slouching toward Nothingness?

Did you have the sense that this was it? That the remaining survivors would live out their days in this nightmare world and then that would be it? No more. Or did you have a glimmer of hope that somehow the world could someday begin anew? I chided myself for it, but I kept having this burbling optimism that a corner of this dead, gray, cold, unrelenting awfulness would turn out to have color, warmth, life, like they'd stumble on some part of the earth — some meadow teeming with plants and animals and beauty — that was mysteriously untouched by the devastation.

When they were cooking coffee and biscuits and ham in the oasis of the fallout shelter, I got this sensory overload, like I could taste and smell the food, feel it warm and fill my body. It was so vivid and engulfing, so about the promise of life.

Names and causes

Did you find it peculiar that there were no names? I think at least one person was mentioned by name, but that was not a "real" name. The boy and the man were just the boy and the man. And the boy did call the man "Papa." This made the story more minimalist in a way, more essential. Was it just part of this idea that you wouldn't have a name if no one addressed you? That your identity is just bare bones, like man, boy, Papa, Bad People, Good People.

And why is there no real explanation of how things got this way? Of what exactly happened to blot out the sun. Is the idea that causes, like names, are moot points in the overwhelming fact of how things are now?

Back story

Were you satisfied with the background provided about the boy's mother? Or did you feel it needed to be fleshed out a little more? Did you have a good sense of the man's feelings for that woman? I sometimes sensed a great longing in him but also a strange forgetting. Maybe that was part of this great truth that many things in the world simply did not exist anymore and their profound absence was almost like they had never really existed to begin with.

Fate and faith

Did you correctly guess the ending, that the man would die and the boy would fall in with the Good People? I think I had a weird kind of faith that that would happen. There wasn't much in the book to give rise to that faith, except maybe the sheer power of love between the two. Do you think the man himself had that faith about the boy's fate?

Reading "The Road"

I gather we all read this book quickly, in one or just a few sittings. If I had to put it down to go to work or do an errand, I couldn't wait to get back to it, and while I was in it I savored every word, often reading and rereading the spare conversations punctuated with poignantly resigned "okays" and "I knows." What about it, exactly, kept you riveted?

More Lahiri

I read about half of "Interpreter of Maladies" last night. It's very engrossing. So far the stories have been a mix of Indian and American settings with all sorts of issues involving cultural expectations, marriage, the class system, families, loss, etc. The title story is truly wonderful — with a rather brash Indian-American family coming into contact with a gentleman Indian tour guide. You can definitely see the same hand that penned "The Namesake."

Gogol the architect

Why does the narrator continue to refer to Gogol as Gogol, even after he changes his name to Nikhil? I thought maybe she was making a comment on the impossibility of changing your identity after a certain point in life, especially by just having a legal pronouncement made.

What do you think is the significance of Gogol being an architect? I always think of an architect as someone between an artist and an engineer. His dad was an engineer. And wasn't his grandpa an artist? There was a notion that Indian immigrants to American always went for the successful, scientific-type jobs — employment that provided for their families but didn't necessarily nurture the soul.

The real Gogol

I read Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat" because it played such a huge role in this novel. I'm a little stumped, though, about what the connections are between the two stories. There are common themes about names and compassion and self-identity. Did you read it? Any ideas?

One for The Road

This novel won the Pulitzer, but more importantly, Oprah has given it her seal of approval, so now we must read it. I read Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" not too long and loved, loved, loved it, but it's the only book of his I have read.

In this one, there's a father-son story, a long journey and a whole catalog of post-apocalyptic horrors, including cannibals. Enjoy.

Love interests

The women in Gogol's life seemed to serve as milestones as he matured. What were your thoughts on the three love interests that we meet?

Small moments

Something I really enjoyed about "The Namesake" were the many small, seemingly mundane moments and details that carried great significance for the characters. Beginning with Ashima stepping into Ashoke's shoes before she's even met him. And then Ashima's address books, carefully recording every move in each family member's life.

Writing style

What did you think of Lahiri's writing style? Did you find it too impersonal, too matter-of-fact? Did it hinder your ability to understand or sympathize with the characters?

The New York Times reviewer said:

It is not a good sign that when Gogol exits his life story for the entire duration of his wife's love affair we hardly miss him. The reader has begun to suspect that, graceful and spare as Lahiri's prose is, the simply put does not always equal the deeply felt. How much steely equipoise, after all, can one novel stand? Lahiri is a supremely gifted writer, but at moments in "The Namesake" it feels as though we've descended from the great Russians to Nick Adams to the PowerPoint voice-over. "She orders a salad and a bouillabaisse and a bottle of Sancerre," goes the description of one of Gogol's dates. "He orders the cassoulet. She doesn't speak French to the waiter, who is French himself, but the way she pronounces the items on the menu makes it clear that she is fluent. It impresses him."

Male point of view

Although Ashima is the story's focus in the beginning, the main protagonist in "The Namesake" is Gogol. Here's what Lahiri said about writing from a male point of view:

In the beginning I think it was mainly curiosity. I have no brothers, and growing up, men generally seemed like mysterious creatures to me. Except for an early story I wrote in college, the first thing I wrote from the male point of view was the story "This Blessed House," in Interpreter of Maladies. It was an exhilarating and liberating thing to do, so much so that I wrote three stories in a row, all from the male perspective. It's a challenge, as well. I always have to ask myself, would a man think this? do this? I always knew that the protagonist of The Namesake would by a boy. The original spark of the book was the fact that a friend of my cousin in India had the pet name Gogol. I had wanted to write about the pet name–good name distinction for a long time, and I knew I needed the space of a novel to explore the idea. It's almost too perfect a metaphor for the experience of growing up as the child of immigrants, having a divided identity, divided loyalties, etc.

Do you think her male protagonist was convincing? Did you ever feel the author failed to capture that voice?

Apology

I’m sorry that my discussion of this book has been so slow and shallow. I hope our next book goes better.

“The Volunteer”

I think the focus on Ted in this story is strange. He doesn’t seem to me like a very interesting character -- and his sorrow at the end of the story is shallow, in my opinion. I think the story should focus more on Elizabeth, as all the strength in the story revolves around her. I especially think the last line shows this: “At last, she feels the warmth of her son’s tears in the palms of her hands.”

“My Father’s Business”

Why is Daniel going to the cemetary in his hometown?

What is his father’s business?

“Divination”

At the end of the story, do the parents understand that Samuel knew about Trevor?

What is the importance of Samuel thinking about what God wants at the end of the story? What is the meaning of the phrase “a broken spirit?” What does it mean to Samuel?

Adam Haslett’s experience

I think Haslett has an uncanny ability to reflect how people really feel in the situations he portrays. In every story I find myself wondering how much of this happened to him in real life. Do you think he is drawing on personal experience for a lot of these stories?

“Reunion”

Why does James write the letters to his father? Why does he seal the letters and put them on the living room shelf?

I love this sentence: “Gently, images flowed before his mind, and the inscrutable enormity of remembered life washed back over him, leaving him weightless and expectant.”

“War’s End”

Why does Paul go to Albert at the end?

Why does Paul decide this is the right time to kill himself? Will he do it?

“Devotion”

At the end of this story, we find out that Hillary knew about the letters already. Did she also know about Owen and Ben? She thinks that he has “led such a cramped life, losing his friends, scared of what people might know,” but what exactly does she know?

And with how much she cared about Ben, why was she so devoted to Owen? Why had she “held her tongue, remembering the chances Owen had to leave her and how he never had?” I know that quote attempts to answer my question, but I don’t think it is sufficient -- why did it matter to her that Owen stayed with her when she could have had Ben if it weren’t for Owen’s interference?

Erin’s pick

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

“The Beginnings of Grief”

What is going on in this story? What does Gramm get out of the relationship? What does the narrator get out of the relationship? Does the answer to that question have to do with his parents dying?

Does this sort of thing happen in real life?

And what does the title of the story mean?

Talk, talk, talk

Do you think she is rejecting his help in particular, or all help? Does he experience the rejection as personal, or does his ego allow him to attribute it to something in her personality? She asks him a lot of questions, mainly, it seems, to validate her own assumptions about who he is: relatively well-to-do easterner with a privileged background who probably has experienced very little pain in his life, let alone unspeakable tragedy. Is she doing this to gauge whether he has anything to offer her? What does he hope to "talk" her out of? Or into? Or over? For all his training and "empathy," is this woman's pain really "soothable" by him? By anyone? (Erin noted that the benefit of talking is largely his).

As I was reading this story, I kept thinking of an Ani DiFranco song. It's about racial injustice, particulary the way centuries of abuse have informed the modern ghetto:

Why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun?
'Cause we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done
to you

The song is strangely uplifting despite its tone of irredeemable loss. It doesn't foreclose the possibility of a better life; it just frankly acknowledges the scope of the tragedy.

How much life there is

What is the significance of the works of art described in this story?

Good?

Is Dr. Frank Briggs good?

The Good Doctor?

Is “The Good Doctor” about Dr. Frank Briggs or Mrs. Buckholdt?

Graham

The character of Graham shows us how bad bipolar disorder can be even when treated. He doesn’t sleep well, he fears that his partner will leave him, and a part of him doesn’t want to take his medication. But the overall picture is of someone who can lead a reasonably normal life when taking his medication. Is Graham’s condition sad, or are you optimistic for him (especially when compared to his father)?

Depression

Most of bipolar disorder is depression. The average person with untreated bipolar disorder spends 70% of their life clinically depressed. Even though this story is about a manic episode, did you see his lifelong struggle with depression through the cracks in the story?

I see several clues to his depression in the story. One is that his family hasn’t heard from him in years. Another is that his son hints that his mother found his father after a suicide attempt. Do you see any others?

Mania

In “Notes to My Biographer,” we see a tragic portrait of the manic side of untreated bipolar disorder. It is painted so vividly and accurately that it makes me wonder whether it is about the author’s own father and whether the Graham character is the author.

As a person who has bipolar disorder and has been arrested when manic, this story was both difficult to read and difficult to put down. Did any of you have trouble reading it? Did it add anything to your understanding of mania, or did you already understand it?