Chris’s Comments (group member since Jan 07, 2016)

Chris’s comments from the MidCoast Libraries Better Reading Bookclub group.

Thank you so much for choosing this novel John. I thought it was a wonderful piece of writing. It would be easy to describe it as bleak but that does it no justice at all. Looking through a dark lens on the world, maybe. There is a raw honesty to it, and yet it also has the sense of a fable.

I know that typecasting has genuine negatives, but even so, I thought the humour and style of the work were very British. Restrained, even to the very final line.

It reminded me of the cynical realism of French authors I have read - in particular, the Bachelors by Henry de Montherlant.

I won't go any further into an analysis of the novel as I think the introduction by David Nicholls captures so much of the work far better than I could.

Thanks once again.

Sarah Thornhill is a novel worth reading and I’m glad it was recommended. I suspect it is always difficult to write a novel that follows on from another, written much earlier. I don’t think it’s right to call it a sequel, because sequel implies you need to read both titles to capture the whole story. It felt more to me as a second story that had grown out of the first. You could certainly read Secret River and only that novel and still have had an entire experience (though I suspect Sarah Thornhill would be diminished if you hadn’t read Secret River).

When I read novels I generally avoid reading the author’s views, rationale, opinion, because then I will read the novel in that context and that changes the reading experience. Of course, this may mean I have totally misunderstood the novel but at least it is my own misunderstanding, wholly, and one that I can own.

Sarah Thornhill is a tragedy, born out of tragedy. It carries deep injustice at its heart, and exposes the human selfishness than can creep into the bones, not just of people but history itself.

Threaded through all of this are broken people, living broken or empty lives; empty except for the guilt they bear for actions they can never undo.

And yet....and yet there is a wonder and a gentle beauty to the novel. And alongside the guilt and tragedy there is a deep appreciation of life and rare silvery flashes of forgivenesses. Nor all the characters bad, far from it. Many are flawed but, through small acts and large ones, they remind the reader that kindness is also part of the human condition.

I agree with John in that I think the novel does have some shortcomings, but it is crafted well and though the ending is rather sudden and does have a flavour of seeking to bring on some sort of resolution in a hurry the resolution still leaves enough behind for the reader to ponder.

One of the signs of the worth of a novel is how much time you spend reflecting on it, and I have done that, both whilst reading and after I closed. It got John Kennedy thinking and it did the same for me. I have reflected on who should be forgiven, who got forgiven and who had the right to forgive. And whether forgiveness can heal some things or even should have the power to do so. Perhaps the only way the story can be told is to look for something other than forgiveness. Something like truth and remembrance. For as Kate Grenville writes ‘But of all the crimes done, the worst would be to let the story slip away.’

The very last word I will leave to Kate Grenville, though the words themselves come from the confessional. I believe this sentence sums up the entire context of what unfolds in the novel:

‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done and we have done those things which we ought not have done.’

Snow Kimono was a powerful novel and well worth the time invested in it. Not that it was a slow or hard read. I found myself gripped by it and by around two-thirds of the way through the book I really struggled to put it down.
The writing is lyrical and poetic and Henshaw has a way of crafting powerful imagery. ‘The unremembered was so much more vast than the remembered ever was.’ Or along a similar vein ‘Memory is a savage editor. It cut’s time’s throat. It concertinas life’s slow unfolding into time-less event, sifting the significant from the insignificant in a heartless, hurried way. It unlinks the chain. But how did you know what counted unless you let time pass?’
It is a wonderful, dark, powerful, disconcerting piece of work. It is a rich exploration of character as well as carrying an enthralling plot line. The interplay between the two main characters Jovert and Omaru and their unfolding stories will stay with me for some considerable time, hopefully with being savagely edited. It reminded me, in some ways, of the Coen brothers movies and plotlines
Whilst it is a gripping read it is a complex storyline to follow, with interweaving of characters. At times I found myself flicking backwards and forwards just to try and remember how things linked together. It’s hard to say this is a significant distraction though, and you can understand the style better when you’ve absorbed the whole novel.
I would also be interested to hear from others regarding how they felt about the morality or all the characters. I think the novel challenges on that front.
Would I recommend it to others. Mostly a resounding yes, though possibly not everyone. Having said that I’m going to strongly encourage my other bookclub to read it.

Thanks Bev and Louise. I'll grab a copy too.
Cheers Chris

Hi all,

I really struggled with this novel, so clearly it wasn't my cup of tea. I really appreciated the fact that both Bev and Julie got value out of it since I had selected it based on assessing the Goodreads comments. I just found the characters a bit too one dimensional and, as Bev noted, there were elements of he plot that didn't ring true.

I would probably only give it 2 out of 5, but that is the nature of Bookclub's. it's rare to get universal agreement on a novel. One person's treasure ... when the remaining outstanding copies come in I'll grab something else.

Suggestion would be appreciated (we also have a lot more new titles in the book club collection so choice should be greater).
Cheers
Chris

What to say about Rebecca? It was a chameleon of a novel for me. The central characters, the setting and the contorted human relationships certainly did evoke memories of classic novels. There are obvious comparisons with Jane Eyre and also Wuthering Heights, but I’d be joining a very long line of people making that observation. I liked that it did though.

At times the unnamed heroine drove me crazy with her pliability and yet I found her fascinating and sympathetic (and pathetic).

Maxim is portrayed through so many eyes as being a good and generous man. Maybe he was, at that, and it was Rebecca’s fault that he changed … but he did commit a murder (or even a double one) and then lied about it.
Rebecca emerges as a truly amoral and selfish creature, and yet she is the most talented and, an in a curious way, the most easy to admire. You get the sense that Du Maurier had time for Rebecca.

There are descriptive passages that dwell on the trivialities of life and ‘good form’, that should seem dull, and yet they so beautifully capture that world that the dullness entrances.

Why does the heroine bear no name and her protagonist get the novel named after her?

At times the novel seemed to drift along and then at others it dragged me along at breakneck pace.

And then there is the confounding Mrs Danvers. Agent of destruction, brutal tormentor of the heroine and yet, in so many ways, pathetic, broken and lost. No exactly worthy of sympathy and yet …

I can’t fully agree with the observations by Sally Beauman in the afterword. I do agreed that the novel operated at a deeper level and that Maxim deserved closer scrutiny of his own morality. And components of the novel clearly did relate to gender roles and gender place. I also found it fascinating that Maxim de Winter could be seen as a name meaning rule of conduct and coldness. It is curious that Du Maurier chose such a name. But I could not go so far as Beauman did in believing that Du Maurier's sympathies lay with Rebecca.

That’s why it was a chameleon for me. For a novel with black and white characters there was a remarkable amount of grey.

And I really enjoyed it.

What a remarkable book The North Water was. Dark and bleak like the landscape it portrayed, the lives of the protagonists, and the characters themselves.

Another word that springs to mind is grim. And probably unrelenting too.

Ian McGuire’s descriptive narrative was remarkable. Did I like what he was often describing? Usually not at all, but he still conveyed the image and the setting as powerfully as any author I have read. He took the reader with him. It also captured a period and place I knew nothing about. There’s a part of me that half wishes I didn’t know so much now, but a larger part that appreciated a wider understanding of the harshness of life. Much the same way as the movie Revenant did. I suspect The North Water would make an equally impressive movie.

Whilst the setting may have been demanding on the reader, the novel was certainly gripping and I found the characters engrossing, even in their grossness. And I really wasn’t certain how the novel would end.

As Bev indicated in her very thoughtful and insightful post, the novel features some wonderful characters, as a counterpoint to Drax and his ilk. Sumner is tragically flawed, yet fundamentally good and I was drawn to the character of Otto and his ability to contextualise this grim, unforgiving, corrupt and barbarous world in a religious framework.

A tough gig of a novel. Glad I read it (apparent from the really nasty bits). Not sure if I’d recommend to most people but reckon that some will appreciate the challenge (as I did), and as Julie says, that’s what being part of a bookclub is all about. It’s certain to raise a debate in any bookclub meeting too, and that’s always a bonus.

Having said this, perhaps were due a title from a different flavour (at least with less child sodomy, psychopathic characters and descriptive whale slaughtering).

Well, I finished The Dry in just a couple of days, which means it was a good and enthralling read.

I don't tend to read many crime novels - just not my oeuvre - so that's another tick in it's favour.

I agree with David Baldacci that Harper's first novel was an excellent one.

It was a dark piece of work on a dark subject and evocative of many novels set in rural NSW. It shows the deeper more sinister side of small often closed communities. (like Jasper Jones did, for example).

Not that it totally wrote off the community, it just highlighted the problems associated with such confinement.

As far as the mystery went it was a well woven tale with plenty of elements and possibilities to keep the reader guessing. Nor were there last minutes villains that tied up the case nicely as some crime authors like to add in at the last moment.

Of course, when it comes to crime novels in particular there's plenty you can't say in case the mystery is spoiled, so I'm going to avoid comments that could ruin the read for others.

Well worth the time, which wasn't that great anyway and a mystery to keep you reading. Personally, I would have liked some deeper character development but I also quite liked the Spartan style of writing, so perhaps my tastes were contradictory.

If we were in the habit of rating books I'd give it around 3.75 out of 5 and be happy to recommend it to others, especially those who enjoy a good crime novel.

41 degrees - lordie lordie. Definitely need a good book in a cool spot.

You're right about the remarkable achievement of 2016. Bring on 2017.

I learned so much from Barkskins, which is such an ambitious novel. Possibly a tad too long but that's almost inevitable when You think of the scope.

Cheers
Chris

Whilst we're basking in the glory of 500 titles, please keep on adding new titles to the bookshelf. I think it's really cool to see what a diversity of books we read and, who knows, we might reach 1,000 by the end of 2017. After all, we're already 4 books ahead of the 500 mark and the month is not yet done.
Cheers
Chris

Absolutely. Well done, everyone. 500 unique titles is no mean feat. I think we owe a thanks to John Kennedy for the late surge to the line, but it was a whole of team effort.

Woo hoo.

Hi Folks,

Louise has suggested The Dry, which has had good reviews, it probably a good Christmas read and is a bit different from what we've had. We also have copies at Forster Library. I've put the box on my desk and people can come and collect a copy from there.

If you've got a copy of the power and the glory still out and you've finished with it, can you please return it.

Cheers
Chris

Thanks Louise and Ellen,
I've w got another to add, though my current book is Barkskins by Annie Proulx and at over 700 p (1,826 pages on my mobile

Totally agree about the re-read Julie. Some novels just keep on revealing deeper themes and connections.

I'm glad you joined us to read outside your normal genre. I think this is really important.

If you have any further suggestions for titles don't hesitate to key us know.

Cheers
Chris

PS my other Bookclub is reading Barkskins by Annie Proulx. It's a rich read but it's length is very challenging - sitting at over 700 p. It's our double-month Christmas read.

It’s now been over a week since I finished The Power and the Glory and if I don’t review it now it’s only going to get harder to recall how it made me feel.

With the Last Painting of Sara de Vos Louise found a link to a series of questions. In keeping with this tradition, here’s another list of questions:
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guid...
Last time I tried to tackle a number of these, but found it fairly daunting. This time I’m using them to frame my review.

First of all, I read it inside a week when I was incredibly time-poor. I couldn’t put the novel down. This is one of Greene’s great strengths. He manages to wrap great moral questions into a piece of work that is lean (200 p) but rich. And riveting. I even found the side characters (the dentist, Captain Fellowes, the child, the native that pursues him) Spartan in their presence and yet they so succinctly add to the tapestry Greene has created.

Amongst other things, it is a novel of pursuit and has elements of Les Miserables about it – and the same sense of fanaticism to the chase. I found this an interesting counterpoint. The Lieutenant is driven by his beliefs to track down the priest, because of the priest’s religious beliefs, but in so doing, we see the ethics of the pursuer and the pursued bought into question. The whiskey priest would be the first to admit he was morally challenged and his willingness to survive and do whatever that took didn’t add to his morality stockpile. Similarly, the Lieutenant (who I found one of the most fascinating characters in the novel) does what he believes he has to capture the priest, which involves killing peasants so they won’t harbour him.

And yet, twice the priest could have escaped and did not.

And yet the Lieutenant grudgingly respects the beliefs of the whiskey priest. He ‘couldn’t summon up hate of the small, hollow man’. He even says the priest isn’t a bad fellow. Curiously, it is the priest who disrepsects himself, not the Lieutenant, as can be seen in their dialogue:
‘I suppose you’re hoping for a miracle.’
‘No.’
‘You believe in them, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but not for me. I’m no more good to anyone, so why should God keep me alive.’

The dialogue between these two is one of the great moments of the novel, much as the dialogue between Robert de Niro and Al Pacino in Heat is one of the great moments in cinema.

I have so much more to say, and I realise that Greene’s ability to capture powerful themes and issues so succinctly, is at odds with my ability to review it. I fear the review could be longer than the novel.
I have collected a list of quotes, and the list of questions above reveals so many more elements to discuss. For example, is the whiskey priest a martyr? If so, what defines martyrdom? The person themselves certainly doesn’t get to.

I’ve made a decision. Rather than trying to unravel all the questions, and themes I’m going to provide you with the quotes that really grabbed me and made me think. This is possibly a cheating way to go, but at least it shows where I thought deeper issues lay:

It infuriated him to think that there were still people in the state who believed in a loving and merciful God. There are mystics who are said to have experienced God directly. He was a mystic, too, and what he had experienced was vacancy – a complete certainty in the existence of a dying, cooling world, of human beings who had evolved from animals for no purpose at all. [Lieutenant]

‘I would rather die.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘of course. That goes without saying. But we have to go on living.’ [husband to wife]

He was feeling happy. It is one of the strange discoveries a man can make that life, however you lead it, contains moments of exhilaration; there are always comparisons which can be made with worse times; even in danger and misery the pendulum swings’ [Priest]

Now that he no longer despaired it didn’t mean, of course, that he wasn’t damned – it was simply that after a time the mystery became too great … [Priest]

It was for this world that Christ had died; the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater the glory lay around the death. It was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization – it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt. [Priest]

… at the centre of his own faith there always stood the convincing mystery – that we were made in God’s image. God was the parent, but He was also the policeman, the criminal, the priest, the maniac, and the judge. [Priest]

When you visualised a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity – that was a quality God’s image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was a failure of imagination. [Priest]

Hope is an instinct only the reasoning human mind can kill. An animal never knows despair. [Priest]

He wanted to say to this man ‘Love is not wrong, but love should be happy and open – it is only wrong when it is secret, unhappy … It can be more unhappy than anything but the loss of God. It is the loss of God. You don’t need a penance, my child, you have suffered quite enough’ [Priest]

The Lieutenant said in a tone of fury, ‘Well, you’re going to be a martyr – you’ve got that satisfaction.’
‘Oh, no. Martyrs are not like me. They don’t think all the time….’ [Lieutenant and Priest]

‘We’ve always said the poor are blessed and the rich are going to find it hard to get into heaven. Why should we make it hard for the poor man too? Oh, I know we are told to give to the poor, to see they are not hungry – hunger can make a man do evil just as much as money can. But why should we give the poor power? It’s better to let him die in dirt and wake up in heaven – so long as we don’t push his face in the dirt.’ [Priest]

And you’ll all have your own great quotes too.

Brilliant novel.

This time when I went looking for a new title for our bookclub The Power and The Glory, by Graham Greene caught my eye.

I know it's an older title, but then that adds some diversity to our reading list and there's certainly no rule about only having to read contemporary titles.

Plus, I happen to have never read this Graham Greene title. I recently read Our Man in Havana and loved it - the Power and the Glory is recognised as his masterpiece, so it should be grand.

I've got a bookclub box on my desk at work, containing plenty of copies, if you'd like to drop in a claim one.

Let's finish the year with a classic.
Cheers

Definitely welcome Ash. That's great news. You'll give our reading list a huge boost (and congrats on such an impressive total). The only thing you will find is that if someone has already added the title you won't be able too. It only takes new titles. Even so, there's a fair old chance that nearly all of your 90 books will be unique.
Once again welcome and thanks.

Yeah, I have to agree 500 was a tad optimistic :). Still, it's always good to have an ambition and as Ellen says 200 books is great, especially as these are unique titles (e.g. our group reads only get counted once).
300 is probably a bit our of reach based on what we've achieved so far,
250 might be more realistic and is has synergies with the 500 figure.

Did I enjoy The Last Painting of Sara De Vos? Definitely. I thought it wove the story lines together in a sensitive and enthralling way. I felt sympathy for the lives of all the main characters. I liked that Smith captured the way life just happens – that good and tragic outcomes often turn on a random incident – like Kathrijn bartering with the sick child. I have always appreciated the Coen Brothers movies for this reason.

I enjoyed People of the Book by Geraldine Brookes because it threaded together stories separated by the years – I think Smith has done an even better job. I found Brookes’s modern storyline lightweight (though I loved the storyline from the earlier times) – I didn’t think any of Smith’s characters and stories suffered from lightweight at all.

I like that it’s Australian too (though the narrators attempts at Australian accent nearly drove me mad).

My other book club likes to give ratings, I’m not so worried about that. I’d be happy with good +. Maybe 4 out of 5 if we head down that track.

I appreciate the discussion topics Louise. My first intention was to answer them all, but then I realised that this would make for the longest entry every on Good Reads. So I’ve just gone for the first three, and that makes it long enough. Perhaps others might like to do different questions – or whatever they like I guess.

Right, here goes.

1. What does At the Edge of a Wood mean to Sara, Marty, and Ellie? How did your reactions to the painting shift throughout the novel?
A tricky question. I think it encapsulates Sara’s journey through life. Her creativity, her passion, her tragedy and the trials she had to go through in being a painter, a mother bereft of her child and a wife who was abandoned. It is interesting that for so long it was her only painting.

To Marty it means many things. A connection to his ancestors, a connection to the woman he loves, a connection to the world of art. It also comes to represent his deepest shame and then his redemption, of sorts. Curiously, for Marty he wonders if it also represented bad luck to all its owners. Did it bring him bad luck in the end or something else?

For Ellie At the Edge of Wood began as a chance to explore her artist ability. And it did lead her into the art world, at least indirectly. Through the forgery it also became one of her greatest shames. It led to her relationship with Marty, and all the joy and sadness that created. And it took her deep into the world of Sara De Vos.

For Sara – it defined her life, for Marty and Ellie it changed theirs for ever.

2. How does the memory of Kathrijn influence Sara’s art? What are Sara’s perceptions of mortality and the natural world?
Damn, another tricky one. Sara herself wonders if At the Edge of the Woods is an allegory for Kathrijn’s transit from life to death, so the influence there must be strong. Sara doesn’t choose to paint still-lifes and all her works there appears to be something almost supernatural – whether it’s the ghostly girl, the strangely aerial view of the village or her own last painting her works seem to draw on something otherworldly. She even says every work is a depiction or a lie.

I don’t think that truly answers the question, though I do feel that for Sara the line between mortality, the supernatural and the world itself are blurred.

3. What does the novel reveal about the distinctions between artists and art historians, and between collectors and dealers? Is art forgery a form of art?
Artists are the players and art historians the observers, or possibly detectives. There’s also a sense of art historians having a vicarious relationship with the artist. Dealers don’t fare to well in the novel and collectors seem more of a curious creature. Part voyeurs, part supporters of the art. Possibly a necessary evil, though that sounds too harsh as I write it.

The curious thing is that they all linked, as though part of a greater organism. Could any survive without the other? In which case perhaps its wrong to judge them as a single entity.

I think forgery is a form of art, but not the same form as the original painting. One is about creativity (though perhaps less so with the still lifes), the other about masterful replication. Both requiring profound levels of skill. And maybe, just maybe, even more skill in the forger – though I’m happy to disagree with myself on that one.

Lol that should have read problem not probably. Damn autocorrect.