#99 - Pure - Andrew Miller (Choice: Alex) (Venue: Boro Bistro, Borough High Street)

Date: October 29, 2015
Present: Alex, Shubha, Gill C, Nic

The food was great, the staff had top knots, the book was well received, generally, but there's always one, eh?!.

"Pleasing" - Nic
"Really enjoyed this one" - Sabine
"Good read" - Gill C
"No!! Wordy & ponderous" - Jen

#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!

#47 - The Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann (Choice: Alex's)(Venue: Maison Touaregue)

Present: Alex, Nathalie, Gill, Nic

All present thoroughly enjoyed this book. thinking it, perhaps a forerunner of modern chicklit but well-written with well crafted main characters and some interesting side-characters too. The men were, on the whole, weak or unpleasant or both and the women were weak and / or manipulative but, both were, in some ways, the product of their time and the roles and expectations of their sexes. Who's to say any of us would have been strong enough to fight the tide if we grew up in a different time?

Jennifer North was my favourite character ultimately, although she must have been more than a little dim not to realise her husband had the mental age of a pre-pubescent boy; and his sister was revealed to have more depth and compassion that at first sight. And so it was with many characters - you thought you knew them and then you learned something a little new or unexpected. Quite a page turner and a colourful portrait of another time, not so distant from our own but almost unrecognisable.

I happen to know Jen hated this.

#39 - She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb (Choice: Alex's)(Venue: Pizza Express, Thayer Street)

Present: Alex, Nic, Shubha, Jane, Gill

Alex can explain most eloquently why he enjoyed this book so much and why he chose it for book group and, of those present, most found it easy to read, a pacey, reasonably enjoyable page turner. Only Shubha hadn't finished it and was struggling a little but, as she was getting to the bit with the beach and the whales, it was about to pick up, so it will be interesting to see how she ended up feeling.

For my part, I thought Wally Lamb's obvious writing talent, good use of language and pace, were wasted on this misery tome. He captured the feminine voice of the narrator and main protagonist subtly and convincingly. However, I am at a loss to know what he, as writer, or I, as reader, got out of him writing this book (well, I take that back, he, presumably, got a heap of cash). He crammed in a lot of events but I felt they were dealt with shallowly: I did not receive any great insights into mental health issues; childhood development; the after effects of rape, abandonment, or bereavement; analysis, whales, or any other topic he into which ventured. There are plenty of real life tales of woe (see Mark's photos of bookshelves in Smiths and Waterstones!) so I need something more from a fictional account than a relating of facts (um ... ficts?). I need an analysis and an understanding of cause and effect, something that moves our knowledge forward ... just something ...

So, for my money, a harmless yarn but one feels Wally Lamb is capable of more. I'm just not sure I'd risk trying it.

Alex:
Ach. Lawyer, empath thyself...

Jen:
I on the other hand thought this was amazing and loved it. I thought he dealt beautifully with a damaged girl growing up with what happened to her and the consequent impact of the events on her psyche and personality. Of course it wasn't spelt out; she didn't understand it, it was just something she was liviing through.

I thought it was fab and Dolores and the othyer characters breathed on the page. Great choice!

#30 - The White Hotel - DM Thomas (Choice: Alex's)(Venue: Refuel, Soho)