For January: "White Noise," by Don DeLillo

Hi, everyone. First, thanks for letting me jump back into book club. I've missed it. And here's my January selection for anyone who wants to read along:



"White Noise" is a National Book Award winner from 1985. Here are excerpts from an editorial review from Amazon by Jan Bultmann:

"Something is amiss in a small college town in Middle America. Something subliminal, something omnipresent, something hard to put your finger on. For example, teachers and students at the grade school are falling mysteriously ill:
Investigators said it could be the ventilating system, the paint or varnish, the foam insulation .... or perhaps something deeper, finer-grained, more closely woven into the fabric of things.
"J.A.K. Gladney, world-renowned as the living center, the absolute font, of Hitler Studies in North America in the mid-1980s, describes the malaise affecting his town in a superbly ironic and detached manner. But even he fails to mask his disquiet. There is menace in the air, and ultimately it is made manifest: a poisonous cloud--an 'airborne toxic event' --unleashed by an industrial accident floats over the town, requiring evacuation. In the aftermath, as the residents adjust to new and blazingly brilliant sunsets, Gladney and his family must confront their own poses, night terrors, self-deceptions, and secrets."

How does Jan. 1 sound for a start date?

Soroche

What did you think of the parallels between Zaga's rags-to-riches-to-rags story and Jemmy Button's? Obvious or compelling? What do you think the author was saying about money and privilege? Do you think Zaga was foolish?

And any theories on why the story was titled "Soroche," which means altitude sickness?

Rare Bird

I loved this story, for its two heroines and also for its mysterious and romantic ending. Sarah Anne's destiny seemed so determined and heavy and irreversible — almost like she was trapped underwater like the sparrows. But unlike the tiny birds, she managed to break free and embark on a magical migration, her true path.

Sparrows are common birds, so what do you think the "rare bird" of the title is?

How do you think this story works as a companion piece to the other Linnaeus story, "The English Pupil"?

The Littoral Zone

I didn't know what to think about this story. What is it about, exactly? The mystery of passion? The death of love? Regret?

I found the title, "The Littoral Zone," a tiny bit obvious. The littoral zone is described as "that space between high and low watermarks where organisms struggled to adapt to the daily rhythm of immersion and exposure." Then on the very next page she describes Jonathan and Ruby like this: "they swam in that odd, indefinite zone where they were more than friends, not yet lovers." I think Barrett is a fantastic writer, and maybe it's just because I wasn't terribly fond of this particular story, but did the littoral metaphor strike you as a mite belabored?

Great description, and why "The English Pupil"?

OK, here's something from "The English Pupil," the second story, now that I have my book, that I thought was fabulous. It's about Linnaeus.

His once-famous memory was nearly gone, eroded by a series of strokes — he forgot where he was and what he was doing; he forgot the names of plants and animals; he forgot faces, places, dates. Sometimes he forgot his own name. His mind, which had once seemed to hold the whole world, had been occupied by a great dark lake that spread farther every day and around which he tiptoed gingerly. When he reached for facts they darted like minnows across the water and could only be captured by cunning and indirection.

Any theories on why this story was called "The English Pupil"?

Rewind to first story

In a story dealing with heredity, what do you think was the point of Richard's being born with six fingers?

Poetic science

Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist."

I love that! (found it on Wikipedia).

I think our author is a naturalist who happened to become a poet.

I really liked the language in the Linnaeus story, the second one in the collection. I'll cite some examples when I have my book with me. And I love the anticipation of wondering whom the next story is going to be about.

What do you think of this intermingling of historical figures with fictional ones?

The two letters

Which letter do you think was most important to the narrator, the one by Mendel or the one by Sebastian, the visiting scientist?

Why do you think she was so disgusted by her husband's prizing of the Mendel letter and the "bad" story he would always tell about it?

The two incidents

How do you interpret the inclusion of these two scenes: the narrator as a little girl in the greenhouse with the old man who apparently has sexual designs on her, and the narrator as an older woman with the visiting foreign scientist who believes her kindness is a sexual design? She even used the same word, "Prase" or "pig," with the latter as her grandpa did with the former.

Led astray

Mendel wasted a lot of time experimenting with the hawkweeds, which he was turned onto by Nageli, but the hawkweeds "did not hybridize in rational ways." They behaved, it would later be discovered, according to parthenogenesis, or forming seeds without fertilization. This led Mendel to doubt his work with the peas, and it changed the course of his career.

The hawkweeds were a tragic distraction. Do you think the narrator's marriage was also a tragic distraction?

The Behavior of the Hawkweeds

What did you think of this story? I enjoyed reading it but am having some difficulty digesting its meaning. It seems composed of triangles: Tati, Leiniger, the narrator; Tati, Mendel, Nageli; the narrator, Richard, Sebastian.

Did you get the sense that the author was drawing parallels between the relationship of Nageli and Mendel and the narrator and her husband?

Kim's Pick

This is a collection of short stories by Andrea Barrett, a National Book Award-winning writer who studied biology and zoology. I thought it looked intriguing. Wiki says this about her: Barrett is particularly well known as a writer of historical fiction and her work reflects her lifelong interest in science as many of her characters are scientists, often nineteenth-century biologists.

Also, I fell in love with the book's cover.

Sorry for the delay in making a selection! To make up for my tardiness, maybe we could start discussing on Sept. 24, assuming everyone gets their book in the next week or so?

Jack's letter

Jack wrote Roseanne a remarkable letter in which he confessed that they had all been a little in love with her. What did you make of that statement as an "explanation" of the way they behaved toward her? And how did you process the knowledge that his mother had her own scandal? Did you read Jack's letter as a genuine gesture of caring about Roseanne and what she had endured or did you see it mainly as a way for an old man to clear his conscience before dying?

Mr. "Easy-going"

What did you think of Tom?

Escape

One notion that really intrigued me while reading this was that of escape. Both Roseanne and the doctor seemed imprisoned in a life that they were powerless to change. Roseanne was actually imprisoned in the institution, more or less, but before that, when she was in her cottage, I kept wondering why she couldn't flee. Why couldn't she just pack a suitcase and hit the road and begin anew somewhere else? And why couldn't the doctor take his life in his hands and tell Bet he couldn't live like that, that it was no life, that he needed love and forgiveness and joy? What did you make of their terrible submission to sorrow? And was it submission? Were they powerless?

There was a beautiful scene — I can't find it now! — where Roseanne had a bird in her cottage, and she scooped it up and set it free. Then the priest came for her, to tell her her awful fate, and she felt like a trapped bird, but she knew no one was going to gently scoop her up and let her fly off into the sunlight.

Infidelity

Erin pointed this out as one of her favorite passages.

I regret Bet's exodus to the maid's room above all other regrets. My dalliance -- oh, a quaint word chosen by my stupid inner self to hide my sin -- with another, whose life I also altered for the worse, being the cause. I think it was the cause. More likely, the sudden view she got of me in the light of it. A smaller, nastier person than she had thought.

It stood out to me, too, because their relationship was so damn sad. It had the potential to be so amazingly happy and it was so amazingly sad.

What did you think of Bet? Did you sympathize with her or did you find her emotionally rigid?

Both Roseanne and the doctor had their lives ruined by "adultery" in some way: Roseanne because of a false accusation and the doctor because of an incident that bore more resemblance to an adolescent makeout session than to a full-blown affair or even to a one-night stand (They didn't even undress). It was really horrific how these things that were nothing or next to nothing in the scheme of things exploded these people's lives — all because of the screwed-up notions people have about sex and intimacy and the peculiar inability to forgive in this realm. Both of their spouses were effectively poisoned against them. Do you have any thoughts on how their experiences compared?

Father Gaunt

Was he simply an evil misogynist, drunk on his own power? Did he have some other motivations? Is his character a commentary on Catholicism in Ireland?

The twist

What did you think of the twist ending? Is it a cliche? Does it work?

Also, did you see it coming?

The truth

Who do you believe? Is Roseanne a reliable storyteller at age 100? Is Father Gaunt, with his personal vindictiveness, reliable?

Two narratives

What did you think of the book's structure, alternating between Roseanne's story and Dr. Grene's? Did you find one more compelling than the other? Does that structure work?

"The Secret Scripture"

First impressions? Did you like it? Favorite parts?

daddy's girl

Dahila claims (p 69-70) that there are three kinds of people, those who flee from trauma, those who approach but fail to offer comfort and those (the rare kind) who can stare into the lonely, mysterious everlasting right alongside you, who can hold your hand, and who do not flinch from any part of whatever horrendous ordeal is at hand.

She then explains she has all three in her own family. 1.Danny, 2. Margalit who might hang around emoting and whatnot so long as it was mildly entertaining. and 3. One of the rare few; Bruce. God bless him and keep him far away from illness.

Do you think she assessed her father accurately? Why did none of the anger she held at Danny and Margalit spill over onto Bruce? Did he not fail/betray her too in some way?

Did his devotion through her illness somehow make up for his emotional unavailability during the rest of her life?

brotherly love?

Daniel. Shittiest big brother since Cain, you'd better believe it.

Did Daniel love Dahlia?

The book seemed to suggest that there was something different/wrong about him from birth. Was that what led to his abuse of his sister or was she simply the scapegoat for his own torment about his parents failed relationship?

Do you think he will be haunted by Dahlia's death as she hoped?

You can do it!

"Upon discharge form the hospital on the eighth day they went directly to the bookstore. This is what Jews do when the shit hits the fan: Go find some books. Bruce and Margalit were revived in the search, some spring in their steps now, can-do crowding out despair. They'd whip cancer's ass, to be sure, with the help of Barnes & Noble."

In the store Dahlia finds "The Book" It's Up to You: The Cancer To-Do List which becomes the foil for her attitude through the rest of the story. Why do you think she was drawn to Gene and his advice? In the contrast b/w Gene and Dahlia did you find one approach to terminal cancer more compelling?

When The Book is joined with Margalit's obsession about healthy eating and the cancer groups dogged optimism, what do you think the author was saying about typical, "fight the good fight" approaches to illness?

Erin's pick

"The Secret Scripture" by Sebastian Barry

narrative voice

How did you expereince the narrator of the story? Did it ever confuse you, as to who it was?
Shades of journal or memoir, yet obviously not Dahlia. What was gained by this style of telling?

feminine and lovely and floral

Dahlia: Discuss.


What were your first impressions of Dahlia?
Did they change through the book?
What was engaging about her?
What was repulsive about her?
Did she indeed "need help?"

The Two-Guinea Book

Since I started this, I may as well not neglect the last notebook. These were gems to me (what I have time for before going to work!):

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.

(of Topaz) ...her voice quite barotone with tragedy.

Deserts do not seem to be deserted in America.

Perhaps it gives you a glorious, valuable feeling to wear little black suits of fabulous price.

I will pause and search my innermost soul ...
I have searched it for a solid five minutes.

I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, and obviously one has to try them sooner or later.

There used to be two of us always on the look-out for life ... now there is only one, and nothing will ever be quite such fun again.

I remember my astonishment at being called a Christian.

I always enjoy the different feeling there is in a house when one is alone in it.

What a difference there is between wearing even the skimpiest bathing suit and wearing nothing! After a few minutes I seemed to live in every inch of my body as fully as I usually do in my head and my hands and my heart. I had the fascinating feeling that I could think as easily with my limbs as with my brain — and suddenly the whole of me thought that Topaz's nonsense about communing with nature isn't nonsense at all. the warmth of the sun felt like enormous hands pressing gently on me, the flutter of the air was like delicate fingers ... I expect it was what Topaz means by "pagan." Anyway, it was thrilling.

Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.

The one piece of Bach I learnt made me feel I was being repeatedly hit on the head with a teaspoon.

(dancing with Simon) I seemed to move with a pleasure that was mindless.

It was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me.

If only I could have been more fascinating!

I think Americans kiss rather easily and frequently.

I expect Americans are affectionate, as a nation.

How words weave spells!

I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

Then I began to think: "Who am I? Who am I? Whenever I do that, I feel one good push would shove me over the edge of lunacy.

I don't believe the villagers really like good works being done to them.

I said aloud: "I don't want to miss anything."

I had never realized before that it (luxury) is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different.

.. but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow.

I felt a sadness quite separate from my personal ton of misery.

How mixed people are — how mixed and nice!

Really, the puzzlingness of people!

It gave me a stab in which happiness and misery were somehow a part of each other.

Watching sleeping people makes one feel more separate than ever from them.

She was so scared that she forgot to be a contralto.

Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.

Apparently I was all wrong about father. Apparently it is very clever to start a book by writing THE CAT SAT ON THE MAT nineteen times.

Happy MidSummer

It is Midsummer Day--and as beautiful as its name.

What did you think of the traditions Rose and Cassandra had on Midsummer's eve? Were they just schoolgirl games or something more important?

We were always fascinated that such a tiny flame could make the twilight seem deeper and so much more blue--we thought of that as the beginning of the magic.

By the time Simon and Cassandra leave the mound to go to Scoteney for supper she says,
I stood at the top of the steps for a moment, trying to capture the feelings I usually have on Midsummer Eve--for I had been too occupied in entertaining Simon to think about them before. And suddenly I knew that I had been right in fearing this might be my last year for the rites--that if I ever held them again I should be "playing with the children."

Did that surprise you? What do you think made her want to abandon them? Did she have a premonition about what the rest of the night would hold?

Kisses

We've talked a little about Cassandra's kiss with Simon and its role in the story and in her coming of age, but the kiss with Stephen in the woods, which was physically, if not emotionally, way more intense, seemed somehow just as important in Cassandra's developing awareness of "the facts of life" and love. Any thoughts on this? And what about Stephen's objection — men are so damn weird sometimes! — to the fact that she was "letting" him? Was that just a bit of midcentury male sexism that there was something wrong with a woman who would actually "let" you? Like sex is way more exciting for a man if the woman appears to not want it or demands the steep price of a wedding ring in exchange? (I mean, I know it would have been wrong for the story for them to do it, but didn't Stephen's reaction to that whole situation seem kind of strange? Or maybe, given the time period, it was supposed to make him look rather noble, like he, despite his intense desire, was protecting their "honor" when she was so recklessly neglecting her womanly role to do so? Or maybe he sensed that she didn't return his feelings and considered her loveless participation in the act repugnant? (hence the "XXXXXX but only when you want them" of his letter?)

The Shilling Book

Thinking of death — strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off made me feel happier than ever.

All day I have been two people — the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in — the me in what is going to happen next.

(of Mrs. Cotton) She is just wonderfully good-looking, wonderfully right looking.

Topaz tall and pale, like a slightly dead goddess.

(of Stephen’s gaze) It was more like being touched than being looked at.

But then it struck me how little I know of him, or of Topaz or Rose or anyone in the world, really, except myself.

“I’ve no use for antiquity in bathrooms.” (Mrs. Cotton)

(of Leda Fox-Cotton) She barely bothers to open her mouth — the words just slide through her teeth.

Dear me, dancing is peculiar when you really think about it. If a man held your hand and put his arm around your waist without its being dancing, it would be most important.

(Cassandra to Rose) “It’s enough just to mention things, you know. Long prayers are like nagging.”

I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.

(of Topaz) It really is agony to talk to her about books. When I was longing for a calm discussion of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, she said, “Ah, it’s the overlapping dimensions that are so wonderful. I tried to paint it once, on a circular canvas” — and then she couldn’t remember who Natasha was.

… there were some reflections about life I wanted to record. (I never did record them — and have now forgotten what they were.)

(of Simon) It was the queerest feeling — changing the man I had imagined to the real man. I had made him so fascinating, and of course he isn’t really.

“I think I felt a beard kept me in touch with literature.” (Simon)

I am an honest liar when I take my time.

“Original? Rose?” (Cassandra)

Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes.

Oh, it is amicable being with someone who knows the poems you know!

“Did anything as beautiful as this ever happen before?” (Simon)

American men are used to being just friends with girls.

Oh, I long to blurt out the news in my first paragraph — but I won’t! This is a chance to teach myself the art of suspense.

When things mean a great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn’t safe.

I don’t believe that church prayers are particularly efficacious, but one can’t waste all that kneeling on hard hassocks.

Miss Marcy isn’t the woman of the world Topaz and I are.

I ought to have recorded that second visit to Scoatney immediately after it happened, but describing May Day had rather exhausted my lust for writing.

He told me lots of interesting things about life in America — they do seem to have a good time there, especially the girls.

Americans are wonderfully adaptable — Neil and Simon helped with the washing-up. (They call it “doing the dishes.”)

The vicar

What were your thoughts on the vicar? And, particularly, Cassandra's conversations with him about religion in the final part of the book? She had encounters with him and with Miss Marcy as she was trying to figure out what to do with her lovelorn self and trying to determine whether there were worthwhile ways of life wherein "suffering" could be avoided. I don't have the book in front of me, but she comes to the conclusion that if you build a life around not suffering that you miss too much.

Remember this early description of the vicar? He is the nicest man — about fifty, plump, with curly golden hair; rather like an elderly baby — and most unholy.

The Sixpenny Book

Cassandra used "speed writing" in her diaries so that no one else could read them. I liked that because it meant she didn't have an audience, not even an accidental or prying one. She was writing for herself only, without regard to what anyone else — family or posterity — would think. This produced a wonderful candor.

Early on, she writes: I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.

Here are some truths that flowed out in "The Sixpenny Book" that I found delightful: (Erin, we talked about the time span of this book. I just noticed that the notebooks she fills are labeled with months. The first one is March. And the last one is June to October. So it's less than a year, and there's no winter).

I have decided that my poetry is so bad that I musn't write any more of it.

As she only cries about once a year I really ought to have gone over and comforted her, but I wanted to set it all down here. I begin to see that writers are liable to become callous.

... but she soon made herself take an interest in country things, and now she tries to make the country people interested in them too.

I shall go down and be very kind to everyone. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.

Now I come to think of it, I am judging from books mostly ... But some characters in books are very real — Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of "Pride and Prejudice," simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.

I like seeing people when they can't see me.

Rose's exuberance has risen higher and higher. I regret to say that she is now whistling.

Amy's pick

"The Book of Dahlia" by Elisa Albert

For our next read, slight change in protagonist. From our witty, romantic, wry English teen to Dahlia Finger—a 29-year-old, pot-smoking, chronically underachieving Jewish-American princess with a brain tumor.

Not necessarily light summer reading.

It's only in hardcover but Amazon's got it for $15.

A light in the kitchen

I loved the narrator's sensuality about food. She wrote, before the kiss, "I know all about the facts of life. And I don't think much of them." Hehe. But, even after the kiss, she retained a passion for food.

I love that Stephen bought her, on credit, a "two-penny bar of nut milk chocolate," saying "I know how you like to eat in the bath, Miss Cassandra." (He won me right there)

And then the hot chocolate with the Americans: "Cocoa, cocoa! — it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is."

The London lunch with Rose: "But I did like the restaurant; most of the people eating there were unusually ugly, but the food was splendid. We had roast chicken (wing portion, two shillings), double portions of bread sauce (each), two vegetables, treacle pudding and wonderful milky coffee [emphasis added out of sheer euphoria - kc]. We were gloriously bloat."

At the Cotton's: "but I wish I could have had that food when I wasn't at a party, because you can't notice food fully when you are being polite."

"It suddenly seemed astonishing that people should meet especially to eat together."

"Ham with mustard is a meal of glory."

"Cherry brandy is wonderful. [emphasis in original]

The picnic by the sea: "It wasn't like an ordinary English picnic, because Neil cooked steak over the fire — this is called a 'barbecue.' I have been wondering what that was ever since I read about Br'er Rabbit. The steak was burnt outside and raw inside, but wonderfully romantic."

"The idea of herbs is so much more exciting than the look of them."

"...food helps quite a lot, unromantic as that sounds. I have grown more and more ravenous as I have grown more and more miserable ... Surely it isn't normal for anyone so miserably in love to eat and sleep so well? Am I a freak? [this, among many other lines, made me think of Erin's kid diary, hehe]. I only know that I am miserable, I am in love, but I raven food ..."

The visit to the vicar: "I never had madeira before and it was lovely — the idea almost more than the taste, because it made me feel I was paying a morning call in an old novel."

The chocolate ice-cream soda at the restaurant while she's miserably waiting for Stephen to come pay her bill. "Then I sat back and just wallowed in relief — it was so great that I forgot how unhappy I was."

And at the end, as she's filling the margins of her notebook with "I love you," it happens to be tea time — how lovely — and "there is a light down in the castle kitchen."

Poor Greek god

Did you at any point believe that Cassandra might end up with Stephen?

America

Dodie Smith lived in America while she wrote this book. When I learned that I thought it made sense because there's a certain tone of nostalgia that's easy to associate with homesickness. Plus, she also seemed to have a kind of sympathy for the Americans that you'd only get from living among them. Did you feel that? The book came out after World War II, too, a time when the Brits maybe held Americans in a little more esteem.

Repressed romance

Did you suspect the Rose/Neil connection? At some point it crossed my mind, so when it was revealed I wasn't terribly surprised. Do you think the author handled that well?

The 'gold digger'

Does breaking her engagement and running off with Neil ironically redeem Rose?

The family jewel

Topaz is really a secondary character, and yet she strikes me as central to the mood of the book. what's your take on her and her role in the story?

(One of my favorite scenes with her is when Rose says she's going to walk the streets to make money and Topaz, in lieu of the moral indignation most mother figures would offer, merely assures her that she's not cut out for streetwalking, which is really quite demanding work).

Like father unlike daughter

What is your feeling about the Mortmain plot? It figures pretty largely in the story, but did it hold your interest in and of itself? (I sometimes wondered whether Mortmain was actually a literary genius or whether Simon, his biggest fan, was just a literary naïf.)

I also saw something pretty wonderful in the fact that Mortmain was completely stymied in his attempts to express himself and his brilliance and his "deep truths" about life while Cassandra could easily fill notebook after notebook with her everyday observations and "small truths," which were really big truths in the end, because HERS is the book we have and love and actually read. Do you think the author is saying something about what makes for good literature? hehe. Or maybe just something about the nature of teenage self-expression?)

Girls to women

Do you think this is a good coming-of-age novel?

Cassandra

What did you think of the narrative voice? Did it consistently engage you?

First impressions

I ended up truly loving this book. I had a few reservations at the outset, before I started reading, that it might basically deal in British quaintness and eccentricity and not have much else going on. (I've come to be leery of "quirkiness" as a selling point in fiction/film). But this struck me as authentically odd and wonderful. (I don't know if I really have a question here other than did you like the book? Were you surprised by it in any way?)

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?