Christmas 2011 - Saturday 10th December

Sadly, no cameras to record the food and the fun but we had a great turnout, despite some sorely missed compadres as Jane, Mark, Jennie, Doris and Gill were unable to join us.

Eamonn "3-dos in one night" managed to stay with us longer than expected for champagne and the annual Secret Santa book exchange but Shubha (with guest chauffeur and chef-extrordinaire Sanj, the pork-king), Alex (chef du salad accompanied by pastry chef Davis), Carl (the evening's veritable Mr Kipling), Nathalie (contributor of the cheese (edibles, not conversational)), Jen (hors d'hoevre queen and sous chef) and guest Brian (honourable chess-loser) were in it for the long haul through: tasty pastries; smoked chicken, pomegranate and pecan salad; roast pork, sausages, glazed ham, dauphinoise potatoes, buttered shredded sprouts, roasted butternut squash with pecans and blue cheese; Brazilian Pudim and Bakewell Tart; and, finally, cheese (or depending on the guest preference, cheese and, finally, Brazilian Pudim and Bakewell Tart) all of which was washed down with Champagne, Reisling, Pinot Noir, Port, Whisky and sparkling lime and mint refresher (the latter Nathalie's by choice and Shubha's less happily!).

As is traditional, only after all of the food and most of the alcohol had been consumed did we turn our attention to the book of the year awards so, with no further delay, the BoOkSCARS (and, boy, were we scarred by some of this years books!) go to:

Book of the Year:
City and the City, a narrow winner up against: Travels with My Aunt, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Messiah, although we failed to record the official runner up.

Blooper of the Year:
The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Blue Bear, a popular, by which we mean unpopular, winner in the most fiercely fought category this year with strong showings from: Empire of the Ants and Kiss of the Spider Woman and an honourable mention for Boxer Beetle, although the latter was never really a contender (boxing joke alert!).

Best (Good) Character:
(Female) The Aunt, Travels With My Aunt (the only unanimous decision of the night)
(Male) Lt. Mamiya, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Best (Bad) Character:
Mr Stoll, Don't Look Now and Other Stories

Best Venue of the Year:
Brindisa, Kiss of the Spider Woman

Most Apt Venue:
The Criterion, The City and The City (not to be taken as a recommendation but awarded for the staff who unsaw us and the unseen 8 people for whom we were charged)

Most Shocking Moment:
The skinning alive, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Most Gripping / Haunting Moment:
The death of John at the hands of the dwarf, Don't Look Now

Most Disappointing Book of Promise:
Kiss of the Spider Woman

2011 could be a contender for worst book-year to date.  Let's raise a glass to 2012, we do, after all have Great Expectations for it.

#60 - Don't Look Now and Other Stories - Daphne Du Maurier (Choice: Nic's)(Venue: 2Veneti, Wigmore Street)

Present: Nic and Gill

Well, what a turnout!  But what we lacked in numbers we made up for in enthusiasm for the Venetian theme, starting our evening with an Aperol spritz and following up with beef carpaccio; salami with cheese mousse; ravioli with pumpkin and Amaretto; and fritto misto, with a salad and mashed potatoes; all washed down with a light and subtle but flavoursome Venetian Valpolicella and followed by tiramisu.

Did we talk about the book?  Well, yes, briefly, and we loved it.

Venice by moonlight, Feb 2011 (c) Nic

The eponymous story of this collection was a tightly woven, atmospheric piece with not a wasted word but an abundance of Venetian detail and intrigue and a truly chilling ending that was slow to leave me as I tried to get to sleep.  I can still conjure up an echo of the physical palpitation I felt at the denoument just by bringing back to mind the clear mental picture Du Maurier crafted of the two characters facing each other at the climax.

Not After Midnight was chosen as the lead story of and name for this collection when it was originally published in the UK and that too was a haunting tale.  Despite the fact that it was narrated by the teacher, I still felt unsure of his survival at the end.  

My least favourite was The Way of the Cross, notwithstanding it was a clever exercise in sociology and group dynamic which finds humanity wanting. However, I did like the young boy's questioning of his party's failure to stop and help a stranded motorist on the road where the Good Samaritan did his thing and it is true that most characters grew through their group experience.

The Breakthrough also had a chilling religious overtone but we could not help a greater fondness for the simple but enjoyable Border Line Case, a suspenseful tale of a young lady who unwittingly has sex with her father.

After that, the conversation meandered through Devon and Cornwall to family and Christmas.  It was a delightful evening but our absentees were, of course, missed.

#59 - Messiah - Gore Vidal (Choice: Shubha's)(Venue: Dishoom, Covent Garden)

Present: Eamonn, Jenny, Jen, Mark, Shubha, Nic

For me this, THIS, is what book group is all about.  I can honestly say I probably would never have picked this book up off a shelf and, if I had, and I had read the Foreword, I'd almost certainly have put it back.  If, perchance, I'd held on to it, the opening chapter would have been sufficient to ensure I got no further: it was verbose, rambling, the sentence structure complex to the point of confusing and it had no obvious direction.  However, because this was book group, I forced myself to read on (which is not to say I always finish everything - ceasing to read can be a valid commentary!).  What I discovered in reading on was a gem, a book of sheer brilliance: well written, articulate, thought-provoking and, unlike the aforementioned Foreword and first chapter, easy to read but compelling.

Dishoom was a bustling, buzzing venue, serving tasty, fresh and spicy Indian dishes in a manner meant for sharing.  We ploughed in to the food with gusto and into the book discussion with similar vigour.  Although it could be difficult to catch what was being said on the edges of the table, I think it fair to say everyone enjoyed this book although nearly everyone had a similar reaction to the opening chapter.  I thought it was meant to set the tale in a post-war, McCarthyism / Roswell era demonstrating people's confusion and simplicity and indicating their need for a strong simple message which they could consume and follow easily.  Perhaps, thinking about it now, something to unite them instead of divide them - hence the fast adoption.

We discussed the writing style and the paucity of actual detail of Cavesword - was this an indication of the lack of content in John Cave's speeches or just the author's easy-way out?  It took us a while, however, to begin to discuss the (very obvious) parallels between Cavesword and our real world religions, in part, perhaps, out of that sense of reserve that says religion is not a topic for polite company and a fear that criticism of a, or any, religion may be taken as criticism of a person who believes in that religion.  Yet, we are brave-hearted individuals, confident in our varied beliefs, so we didn't shirk the discussion.  Are John Caves' initials are entirely coincidental?  Is Iris, as mother, meant to parallel Mary? With that in mind, this book can be viewed as a criticism of religion generally, and Christianity specifically.  John Cave was a simple man with a simple desire to travel the world and a simple belief that death was not to be feared and could, in some cases, be welcome - not in itself a bad message (although where the line is drawn was a key issue in this book and has been and continues to be a subject of religious and political debate and much science fiction).  He was otherwise unremarkable had little else to say though his delivery, apparently, was mesmerising.  Most of Cavesword, however, was not written by John Cave or even pronounced by him - some of it was composed by Eugene Luther and other writers during Cave's life and yet more by other writers after Cave died.  Comparing this to the religion with which we were most familiar, we discussed whether this differed to or continued to parallel Christianity: Jesus did not write down his own words; the new testament is not a contemporaneous record of his life; and the gospel writers each addressed their words to specific sectors of the societies for which they wrote so query whether they may have deliberately chosen to push agendas of their own or, even unintentionally, have added their own interpretations, even if they meant to create accurate histories of the life of Jesus.  This discussion could run and run!  We drew it to a close for the night but the thoughts roll on.  One thing we all agreed upon is that great evils have been done by man to man in the name of religion: it doesn't mean the original message of the religion itself is wrong but that its original meaning can be easily corrupted or entirely lost over time. 

This is a simply-written book of great depth and very thought-provoking.  I love it, Shubha, I love it. 

Shubha stunned that we both liked the same book

#58 - The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (Choice: Jen's)(Venue: Watatsumi, Trafalgar Square)

Present: Mark, Gill, Jen, Eamonn, Doris, Nic,

The lines between fantasy and reality blurred for the hero, Toru, just as they blurred for us.  I'm not sure he had any better idea than us what was happening and whether it was real or imagined.  The novel is an examination of a marriage in trouble and a detective story where our hero seeks out first his missing cat and then his estranged wife, trying to establish why she left and where she went.  On the course of our travels, extraordinary characters come and go.  Mr Honda was my favourite: bequeathing to our hero an empty package in his will.  But the empty package was a gift, bringing us the delightful Lieutentant Mamiya whose war stories were profoundly disturbing (Jane who'd read this book previously couldn't bring herself to reread them) but bright, detailed and immensely moving. Malta, Creta, Cinnamon and Nutmeg were all fascinating and enigmatic; May was downright scary; Kumiko was disliked by Jen for her treatment of our hero; everyone was a full and rounded character.

No-one understood this book and no-one minded that they didn't.  We loved it.  The characters were fascinating, running the gamut from quirky through odd to downright peculiar with a bit of dangerous and insane thrown in for good measure.  The narrative drove the reader on and on: although you were never sure where you were going, you knew you wanted to get there.  When I got to the end, I still didn't really know where I was but I'd really enjoyed the journey.

#57 - Life Before Man - Margaret Atwood (Choice: Jane's)(Venue: StockPot, Old Compton Street)

Present: Alex, Doris, Jane, Mark, Jen, Shubha, Nic

I was so excited when Jane announced this one - a real adults book, a REAL author of literary merit.  May be I over-hyped it to myself.  I found the characters boring, their lives boring and plodding, suffocated by indecision and delay.  Perhaps that was the point, perhaps that is our lot in this world, to be forever waiting for something more or better.  But the worse thing was, I couldn't care about them and I couldn't get excited about this novel, even though it was easy to read and clearly written by an accomplished author.

However, this book inspired great passion in some people: Mark and Jane LOVED this book, whilst  Doris and Jen vehemently disliked some of the characters and their life decisions.  I hope that they may share their feelings here.

The food was authentically 1970s.  My salmon and avocado salad was a delight though and much more appetising than Jen's pate (well, that's what they said it was, we were unable to confirm).

#56 - The Thirteen ½ Lives of Captain Blue Bear – Walter Moers (Choice: Eamonn’s)(Venue: Rosa’s, Soho)

Present: Gill, Nathalie, Alex, Eamonn, Jen, Nic, Jane

This book was not generally well liked but it did stimulate an interesting debate about whether this is (i) a children’s book (ii) a book for adults based on a children’s character or (iii) a table. 

I put this firmly into the children’s book category being very basic in structure and generally simplistic with discrete chapters that might be read by a generous parent with a high boredom threshold as a bedtime story.  It has no content worthy of adult cognitive ability and no value as a work of literature or, indeed, entertainment.  However, the long, made-up words pointed others to classify it as a book for adults.  And, as Jen pointed out, not even a child would find it exciting enough to want to hear more (and this from the book’s strongest supporter!).

We recognised that our appreciation may have been hindered by a lack of cultural background as this book was written for the German market where Captain Blue Bear is a children’s television phenomenon, however, most of us declined to cut it any slack on that basis as someone had approved it for UK publication, where it stands or falls on its merits.  The early chapters were initially engaging but there was no character development or plot direction and no driving purpose to engage the reader and make them read on.  Notwithstanding that, Jen and Eamonn finished the book, a feat which evaded the rest of us.

I convinced Gill (who’d been stuck in trial and not purchased the book) to take my copy home – I’m not sure whether she read it or decided it was best used as a table.

Let’s talk about the food.  Yum, yum, tom yum, yum.  Alex and Nathalie ordered sensible meals.  The rest of us ordered “one of everything” from the starters which we ate communally as tapas and then ordered some more until we ended filled to the brim and saying “never again”.  But you know we will.

#55 - Boxer Beetle - Ned Beauman (Choice: Alex's)(Venue: Tiger Green Brasserie at London Hilton Green Park)

Present: Alex, Jane, Jen, Carl, Nathalie and Nic

The Berry Bar served a lovely Earl Grey Martini in an iced tea pot with a glass cup and saucer. It did less well with the Ginger Fizz but you can't have everything: a truth confirmed when we reached the Brasserie, which was soulless and slow with only a very vague understanding of what constituted a rare rib eye, a pie, or customer service. That did not stand in the way, however, of an excellent evening. We've noted before that books that open with six pages of quotations from glowing reviews rarely are as entertaining as those reviewers suggest and this was no exception. Whilst the general consensus was that the book opened strongly - quite where the decline set in wasn't entirely clear - by half way through, most of us were, although reasonably entertained while reading, reluctant to pick up the book in the first place. Firstly, as Jen noted, the characters were unpleasant and unsympathetic so it was hard to be interested in what happened to them. The characters were caricatured Nazi sympathisers and, whilst the book referenced real-life events, such as the black shirts marching in the East End, and real-life people, such as Mosley, it did so without giving the reader any sense of learning (unlike, for example, Sarah Waters "Little Stranger" which was highly engaging and entertaining whilst still providing historical insight). Secondly, as Nathalie illustrated with tagged examples, the female characters were weakly sketched, negatively portrayed nonentities serving little useful purpose in the narrative. We agreed that Seth's sister existed only to humanise him, his love for her preventing him from being entirely a monster. However, the other female characters need not have been there at all: their "parts" could have been played by male characters just as easily. Jane felt the book was a disparate set of ideas and two distinct stories, dragged kicking and screaming together into one novel by a first time novelist who may not have a second book in him (though we said that about Jed Rubenstein after "Interpretation of Murder" and he's only gone and published another (darn it!) so what do we know?!). Arguably, the plot was contrived (but then isn't that the purpose of "plotting") and the characters manipulated to fit - once Jane proposed the sentiment, we quickly agreed that the main protagonist's rare condition was probably invented solely to allow him to survive the climactic beetle-feeding frenzy. There were flashes of laugh-out-loud humour: Hitler organising a 40th birthday party; the strange noises emanating from Erskine's wife in the company of one of his rivals; the foul-mouthed young child (another negatively portrayed female though!), to name a few, and one tut-inducing conceit - the author name-checking himself in his own work! Get over yourself. However,when we tried to recap the story for those who hadn't finished it, those who had read it each chimed in with different aspects of the plot that the then-current-speaker was missing out (the then-current-speaker going "Huh, oh, yes, I remember ..."), showing that this is a busy, multi-stranded narrative from which we each took away something different. We frequently criticise the editing of books we read - A S Byatt's "The Children's Book", for example, could be wonderful abridged by about 300 pages and, here again, a good editor could have been invaluable, dragging the multiple strands and isolated moments and vignettes into a more cohesive whole.
When all is said and done, however, it's my view that the ants will beat the beetles in a fight for the worse book of the year and there's still 6-months for something else to intervene!

Jen:
There's not really much to add to that is there?

Alex:
Excellently put!

#54 - Kiss of the Spiderwoman - Manual Puig (Choice: Mark's)(Venue: Brindisa, Soho)

Present: Alex, Mark, Jane, Nic, Jen, Gill, Shubha
Best food of the year to date, perhaps? Or that might just be me ...
Alex dismissed this book as a "safe choice" on announcement. If that meant "will be liked" it needs re-assessing!
I may pick this up again as the remainder of the story, as told by Mark and Alex on the night, did seem more interesting than the bit I read prior to the meeting but, thus far, I am not engaged.

Nathalie:
I found to book quite grey and lacklustre, and the characters not particularly interesting. My view is that if you're going to write a book with just 2 people in a cell, there needs to be an emphasis on who these people are and how they feel so that you can get involved and create pictures in your mind.

Why the endless footnotes?

Plus too much information about the food poisoning - that kind of thing upsets me.

I didn't actually finish it, though, and hear there was some kind of suspense at the end so maybe should have stuck with it.

#53 - Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer (Choice Nathalie's)(Venue: Canteen, Spitalfields)

Present: Gill, Nathalie, Mark, Nic, Carl
Mixed responses to this one. Jen subsequently reported really enjoying this because it was engaging and easy to read but, for those who were present on the night, it was generally considered schmaltzy and disappointing. Some of us were moved yet felt manipulated. 

There was general agreement amongst us that the various characters were poorly sketched and lacked substance - primary character excepted: she was reasonably well-developed and hugely likeable; strong, dry, funny; and reminded me of our very own Jane (an opinion which garnered some agreement when I mentioned it at our subsequent gathering for #54!). 

The letters failed to bring most of the characters to life and did not present any significant shifts in style or vocabulary in order to differentiate between the characters, their personalities, educations, life-positions etc. Mark felt that the letters were just real-life stories the author had read about topped and tailed with Dear X and Best regards Y. Certainly all the Guernsey men spoke with one voice and followed a strict "I didn't like reading but then I joined this club and all that changed and by the way here's an interesting experience I had during the occupation" approach to letter-writing that was a lifeless and unconvincing.

This was not an awful book but it wasn't a good one, even though it was diverting for a time.

Best bit? Finding out that Oscar Wilde was called Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. Worst bit? Imaging how smug the author was about weaving that bit of info into the book.

#52 - Travels With My Aunt - Graham Green (Choice: Doris)(Venue: combined with #53)

A shame we didn't get to meet on this one: the food options were immense, including "Chicken" and several European countries, not to mention some more unusual South American cuisines. 
We did, however, discuss this book at Canteen (see #53) and it was generally considered a hit. This book was appealing, funny, sad, warm and slightly uncomfortable due to archaic references to other races. It featured well-sketched characters and great scenes and it conjured a splendid sense of another time and place. This was an aunt with whom we'd all have liked to travel.

#51 - The Empire of the Ants - Bernard Werber (Choice: Carl's)(Venue: Cafe des Amis, Covent Garden)

Present: Carl, Nic, Jen, Jane
Fourmis ... Formidable ... formidably awful.
How can ants be the most advanced society when they walk around barefooted in goodness knows what and then lick each other and eat each other's regurgitated pre-digested food? I can't buy it (regrettably I did) and I really do not care about asexual ant 103,683 or any of her colleagues. Worst part? For me, the quip about having to be good at jigsaws because the ants were in so many pieces after one of the attacks. For Carl, the conversation between ants and glow worms marked a low point. The best bit? The fact that Jane actually thought it might be good after we ran the plot past her at this evening!
Can't recall anyone else having a kind word.

Nathalie:

Excellent wordsmithing Nic! And admirable persistence in getting to the end of the book. It was a rotter!

Mentioned to someone that I might need to get my eyes tested as hear that you can't concentrate on reading when your eyesight is going. They said that yes, that happens, then asked what the book was like I was reading. That explained everything.

Even the bits in between the pages about the 42nd soldier (which I ended up skipping anyway) were flimsy and weird. I think the only person who was impressed with that vast (and slightly unhealthy) knowledge on ants was the author himself.

Went in the bin unfinished.

#50 - The City and The City - China Mieville (Choice: Nic's)(Venue: The Criterion)

Present: Jane (drinks only); Carl, Nic, Alex, Nathalie, Jen, Mark, Doris, Shubha

A great turnout for an evening where the book could very easily have been overshadowed by the venue, which produced several courses of perfectly decent food served by utterly disinterested staff followed by a bill which made our eyes water. It took us a surprisingly long time, encompassing varied mathematical intricacies, before we realised they were seeking to charge us for fourteen two-course and two three-course meals - sixteen courses between eight people! 

Anyway, back to the book and what a remarkable book it is. This is the first book of 2011 but it is almost certain, unless 2011 is a truly remarkable year, to be on my shortlist for book of the year come the vote next Christmas. Whilst we mostly agreed on this book, I am not going to represent all opinions. This is mine:

On its face, this is a simple murder mystery, a police drama set in a familiar city scape but, from the beginning, there is something intriguing in the language; something that hints at a deeper and stranger reality than the one we know. Initially one wonders why one has never heard of the place in which the tale is set: the place feels real, the character and street names utterly convincing but, slowly, one realises that this is no ordinary city. Beszel shares the same geotopical space as its neighbouring city Ul Qoma. The buildings of these two cities are strikingly different but occupy the same land. The cities have different currencies and different laws (perhaps one flaw we never discussed is how this book isn't called The Country and the Country or The City State and the City State). The citizens of these two cities walk the same pavements and drive the same roads; they could see each other, if it weren't for a law forbidding the seeing and requiring that they unsee each other, a skill they have to acquire early in life as the penalties for seeing that which should be unseen are severe. And so they share a space and navigate their way around each other without ever really seeing each other. To travel from one city to the other, to unsee your city and see the other, requires that you transit through the border, only to reappear in the same space but seeing and unseeing the opposite things.

In creating this complex fiction, the author does not stumble: his invention is tight and complete, thoughtfully crafted and beguilingly realised. It may not be unfair to suggest that this conceit can be so compelling as to district from an otherwise mundane murder mystery but the distraction is more than sufficient and the extraordinary invention creates some wonderful vignettes.

It is easy to wonder what this book is "about" beyond the obvious tale of the investigation. Is it about the Middle East conflict, about the battle for Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine? Is it a commentary on the caste system in India or an examination of the effects of foreign investment into and withdrawal from smaller economies? For me, the cities Mieville created are every city. We live in a world of cities where people see and unsee their fellow inhabitants in an automatic and unconscious manner that is drilled into them from childhood: don't look at this; don't mention that; don't stare at the disabled person; ignore that drunk; he's not like us. It's about the fact that we ignore things that are complicated or painful or embarrassing; the way the inhabitants of Beszel and Ul Qoma navigate each other is the way we avoid a homeless person in the street, aware of them but unseeing or the way we try to speak to someone with a deformity whilst assiduously not seeing the deformity. It's the way the underclass don't raise their eyes to the rich, the way the rich look away from the poor, the way most people exist in the gulf between the two. It's about how we exist within our social strata and barely exist to those outside it.

This is a decent but unexceptional murder mystery contained within a great and exceptional novel.

Books we are not reading

A few photos carried over from Facebook to remind us why we're here.  Copyright Mark and Carl (unless Waterstones and Smiths have other ideas).