June 20, 2013
Present: Nic, Jen, Gill, Shubha
First, a word about the venue: on discovering that the John Lewis Brasserie closed at 18.30, further inspiration failed me. We ended up at Cookhouse Joe's rotisserie chicken joint on Berwick Street for chicken and Pimms. "Connection?" you may well ask. What can I say? Much of the book's action took place in London and we ate in London and the chips did not appear to be hand cut. Alas, most apt venue of the year award is not mine. Shubha made a good call with post-dinner cocktails at Yauatcha though - hadn't expected to end up back there again so soon!
The book was somewhat more successful than the venue, however, and, in any other year, I think could be a serious contender. This year though, it faces Bring Up The Bodies, which was mentioned with fervent love again last night. Time will tell. And anything could happen because, as Tony Webster has taught us, what we end up remembering may not be what we witnessed.
This book is primarily engaged with memory and history and consequences. It is well written, simple and easy to read but intelligent and thought-provoking. "Small but perfectly formed", said Mark.
History is the lies of the victor, one of the characters said. Adrian, of course, had thought it through a little more: History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation. A lifetime later, Tony has reassessed: History isn’t the lies of the victors … it’s more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor defeated.
Our memories are deliquescent (Jen's favourite word of the book): they have a tendency to dissolve and melt away. What Tony remembered, it transpired, was not what had happened. Even the innocuous letter he thought he had written was other than he'd remembered: bitter and with far reaching and unintended consequences.
Jen hated Veronica; we all found Tony sympathetic; we were all intrigued by his relationship with his ex-wife. We were hugely disappointed that we never got to read the diary. "... if Tony ..." had so many possible conclusions: if Tony stayed with Veronica, hadn't written the letter, had understood Veronica's mother ... But the diary was only someone else's flawed history so it could not have been conclusive.
Shubha (who didn't hate my pick!) hopes that, at Tony's age when we looked back at our lives, we'll feel more fulfilled, less passive. We can all agree with that.
Forgot to add comments from Doris:
ReplyDelete"I thought the subject of the book was a bit…. Could not understand why it all had to be such a big secret. I felt like shouting "so what – stop fretting about the past !". But very well written."