September 26, 2013
Present: Jane, Jen, Gill, Shubha, Mark, Nic
A great turn out - was it for the book discussion or the fondue?! As we walked into St Moritz, the smell of toasting cheese for raclette was divine. Between us we had 2x cheese fondue and 1x "Chinois", which was a broth, into which, at the end, when you could eat no more, eggs were beaten. Jane and Mark did the honours for us, the rest of us having no appetite for it.
The cheese fondue was good but I don't think any of us need another for some time. By the end, we were scraping and rolling slightly crispy melted cheese from the bottoms of the pans with the forks, unable to eat any more bread or potatoes but unable to actually stop eating. On the way out, we had all eaten so much cheese that the once so delicious waft of raclette that had made us salivate on the way in made us catch a breath and dash for the door on the way out.
So, the venue was a huge success; the book, less so. I alone defended it's delights, the air of sumptuous glamour; the fading, now lost era; the ingenious timeline that made me read on to find out what had happened in the beginning; the poignance of a life wasted, a man purchased, who allowed himself to be bought not out of greed but from decency and honour; his tragic demise, fading away, his pride eroded, his shell cast aside by the woman who had depleted him, who had made him what he was and then no longer wanted him because of what he'd become.
Others found the characters unlikable, the story dull, the narrative style unappealing. History appears to be on their side but I loved it.