#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).

#49 - The Tango Singer - Tomas Eloy Martinez (Choice: Gill's)(Venue: Casa Malevo)

Present: Mark, Gill, Jen, Nic and Alex

Fabulous food and wine, which conjured up Buenos Aires, for me, much better than this book was able to do.

For me this was the most disappointing book of the year - it held great promise, with wonderful reviews on the cover (which I later noticed were for one of the author's other books!). I was expecting the poetical literacy of The Shadow of the Wind instead, when I began, I thought I was reading the foreword and only, with growing disappointment, realised this was the book after several dull and un-engaging pages.

Gill, although disappointed, was able to reap some enjoyment from the descriptions of tango. I don't think I read far enough to encounter one.

Gill:

I am the first to admit that I chose this book because (a) it had something to do with tango; (b) it sounded good on the cover; and (c) it had a nice photo on the front. So, yes never judge a book by the cover! I would, however, disagree that it was such a bad book. It perhaps lost something in the translation but I am glad that I finished it. It reminded me of a literary version of an art gallery - each of the venues the tango singer sang at had a story and was a different picture of buenos aires. I agree that the narrator character was highly annoying! All in all, the idea behind the book was interesting but it just didn't live up to its promise. Will go back to dancing tango and not reading books on it!

#48 - Vinnie Got Blown Away - Jeremy Cameron (Choice: Shubha's)(Venue: Alfie's, Bermondsey Square Hotel)

Present: Carl, Jane, Nic, Shubha, Jen, Doris

Awful, awful, awful (except Jen thought it was ok).

I can almost guarantee you would rather saw off your own plates of meat than read this book.

#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.

#46 - For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemmingway (Choice: Jane's)(Venue: Cigala, Lamb's Conduit Street)

Present: Jen, Jane, Nic, Alex, Gill, Mark, Carl

This is a slowly unfolding tale; an almost real-time recounting of events in the couple of days leading up to the blowing of a bridge during the Spanish civil war. I'd like to say more but ... unprintable ... yawn ...

Mark and Jane loved this. I can't remember what everyone else thought but the cava, the food and the red wine were marvellous.

#45 - The Road - Cormac McCarthy (Choice: Eamonn's)(Venue: Automat, Mayfair),

Present: Nic, Eamonn, Jane, Alex, Nathalie and Gill (if memory serves)

A controversial choice and a divided table: Eamonn loved this book; Nathalie appreciated it; Gill and Nic loathed it passionately; as I recall Jane disliked it.

Possibly the stark, deconstructed writing - "sentences" weren't sentences but phrases or words separated by inappropriate full stops; lacking cohesion and structure and having, usually, either subject or predicate but rarely both - reflected the apocalyptic breakdown of society but mostly it smacked of illiteracy.

There were occasional, breath-taking portraits of degradation and desperation - the farm of humans in the cellar, kept alive to provide meat being an obvious example - but mostly the characters were unappealing and so slightly sketched that it was hard to know them and, therefore, to empathise.

We knew the mother had committed suicide and the father hadn't and had undertaken the care and upbringing of his child alone but throughout the whole novel we learned nothing more of him than that he loved his child and had taken that decision. (Except that he had an uncanny ability to find barely hidden cellars full of food that had gone undiscovered by the other desperate survivors who had passed by previously. Perhaps he had a great sense of smell?)

We have no reason to think the mother didn't love her child but she reached a different decision. Presumably this made the father morally more commendable but, really, to what purpose and why? What was the value in the life he and the boy led while we followed and, if the devastation was so wide spread as it appeared and danger so omnipresent, what value would there ever be?

I'm not sure the mother was wrong.


Carl's Comments:

#44 - The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (Choice: Jen's)(Venue: Jen's Country Pile)

• Alex:
• Present: Jen, Alex, Mark, Eamonn (and Jen's more-than-welcome family)
  A thin on the ground, but beautifully catered book group...
  
  I tried to read as little about The Little Stranger as possible before starting it. I had heard it was a ghost story, which already freaked me out - being equally compelled and appalled by these things. I don't think we ever grow out of our childhood fears, and the possibilty of ghouls and spectres, and unexplained happenings, chills me as much now as it did then. And infact the book succeeded in keeping me awake a good couple of nights - watching the bedroom door, listening for unexplained creaks and knocks, as I flew through Waters's rollicking story of the doomed Ayres family desperately trying to maintain their disintigrating family home, their reputation and sanity.
  
  I do not believe in spirits, though, much like the 1st person narrator - the village doctor, Faraday (who we follow from boy to man, and who becomes indelibly intertwined in the family's misfortunes), erring more to the subconscional explanations of his colleague, Professor Selby, that we make our own ghosts, and indeed, to my mind, the mishaps that befall the various members of the Ayres family do seem to be manifestations of their own fears.
  
  The book conveys a changing post-war Britian effortlessly, making the history as much a character as any of the named protagonists. The book details the anxiety for change felt by the populace and the social-leveling that the war brought about. It weaves in the expectations of a new labour government, of social housing and the onset of the National Helath service. These things are vital to the story-telling, and makes the Ayres's plight as they cling on to their crumbling home and decaying class poignant and quite moving.
  
  The book never forgets about the reader, and up to the the final paragraph remains thought provoking and chilling.
Nic:

I found this beautifully and well written. The changes in British society and politics that Alex refers to above are subtly drawn and deftly woven into, indeed are a vital part of, the plot: they propel the action and decline of the house and family. In this respect, Waters has a delicacy of touch that is in stark contrast to Byatt's clumsy history lecturing. I'd definitely try more of Waters work. I was disappointed not to be able to attend this book group but we've discussed this book a sessions subsequently and everyone seems to have been in agreement with Alex about the haunting tone of the work - especially with regard to the intriguing, undefined role played by the doctor in the fall of the family through his deep, personal connection with the house.

#43 - The Children's Book - AS Byatt (Choice: Mark's)(Venue: Katzenjammers, London bridge)

Tuesday 25th May 2010
Present: Mark, Jen, Nic, Shubha, Gill, Alex

Literary Marmite. The only thing we all agreed on was the beer (even that's poetic licence, actually as Shubha had wine).

Mark and Jane loved, loved, loved this book. Jen, Shubha, and Alex hated it. Gill pulled extraordinary faces of disapproval during Mark's protestations of love (for the book, not Gill - it goes without saying that we all love Gill).

The male characters were odious and the female characters, on the most part, were lame. There were some notable exceptions (esp Karl/Charles, Phillip and Elsie), which probably sums up the era rather well. The book was dense with historical facts and, whether you loved this or hated it, this was just one of the factors dividing our opinions.

For my part, I wondered where the editor was. It seems Byatt did laudable amounts of research for this book but, instead of using that information to drop in subtle hints as to the nature of the time, she formed the facts into a sledge hammer which she used to ram home her superior knowledge driving, at the same time, a sledgehammer through my enjoyment of the compelling 300-page tale that, instead, covered 615 pages.

I did, however, find that the strength of the story telling and the power of the ultimate story, eventually, permeated the dense text. For me, the Bird-Song-style ending redeemed everything that went before and gave it new perspective: to see that so many of these children, of whose lives we knew such intimate detail, whose trials and tribulations had seemed so important, could be wiped out by WW1 and to know that that happened not just to these few but to so many, to a generation, was heart breaking. Despite my early difficulties with the novel, I ended in tears not of frustration but of wonder, some for the characters and some for the end of a marvellous book.

Carl's Review:

#42 - One Day - David Nicholls (Choice: Nathalie's)(Venue: LE Pain Quotidien, South Bank)

Present: Shubha, Nic, Mark, Gill, Jenny, Alex, Nathalie

Ok, so I should have typed this one up earlier as I am struggling to remember the discussion although, for some reason, I recall that Mark, Shubha and I ended up at the new hotel at the south end of Westminster Bridge! Connected? Surely not!

Jen, I know, hadn't finished the book but was enjoying it so she left the table while we discussed the dramatic turn of events just before the conclusion. Mark didn't like it. The rest of us, so far as my hazy memory permits generally enjoyed the read. It fulfilled Nathalie's reasons for choosing it, being a straightforward, easy to read tale with a little more humour than the previous novel - something a little lighter. The main characters, Em and Dex, felt real, which is to say they were defined, suitably flawed and not always likeable. Post university days, menial jobs, career angst and family frustrations were all well sketched and jogged memories amongst our table of readers. One does wonder why Em put up with Dexter for so long, although it is clear that he loved her and made efforts to change in order that the relationship would work. Many of us felt that [spoiler alert] their relationship would not have survived and Dexter would have returned to his previous ways, probably having an affair with Maddy, had Emma not died so abruptly. We all felt that the simple way her death was written was shocking and moving and Dexter's reaction painful. But, sadly, I recall we mostly felt that a leopard doesn't change its spots. The ending, returning to the beginning was controversial; not universally liked. And we even discussed the title - One Day. The events of years are told through snap shots of a single day from each - the 15th July but I read the title as a romantic hope, harboured long and secretly ... one day, may be One Day.

#41 - If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor (Choice: Nic's)(Venue: Waterloo Bar and Grill)

Jen:
Present Nic, Jen, Mark, Alex, Natalie. Please forgive me if you were there and I haven't mentioned you; I'm not as good as Nic at this!
An interesting choice, and one that most people liked. However, Jane did say that it was like watching paint dry and I wasn't so sure. My problem was that I read it sproradically, on the train home. If I had been able to read it all in one, or maybe two sittings, perhaps I would have enjoyed it more. But as it was, I loved it whilst I was reading it, but it was a struggle to pick up because I found it very difficult to know who was who and what was going on.

It was beautifully written and poetic and I did finish it following the comments from the group. So all in all, a well received choice.

Carl (from Afghanistan):

#40 - The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (Choice: Gill's)(Venue: Christopher's, Covent Garden)

Present: Gill, Carl "Gin Martini" Barnes, Shubha, Jennie, Nic and, a little later than billed, Eamonn.

With a wonderfully grand and aged staircase up to the main restaurant, this was a great venue to discuss a book which vibrantly brought to life the decadence and opulence of America in the 1920s. Carl brought a little more of that to life as he arrived for brunch hung-over and called immediately for a gin martini with Tanqueray and a twist. Style.

Superficially, this was the story of a man's obsession with a failed love affair and his prolonged and impassioned attempt to recapture a lost moment but, in an unusually high-brow discussion, we discussed this as a metaphor for the corruption of the American dream: the narrator and Gatsby illustrating the ability for anyone of any background to 'make it big' in postwar America whilst Daisy and Tom represent the established, monied but morally bankrupt classes judging the new comers and finding them wanting.

We felt that, in keeping with the superficiality of the lifestyles portrayed, we didn't really get to know the characters. However, from what we knew, we found Daisy spoiled and selfish, ready to betray the man she loved (or had, perhaps, loved) to save her own position in society, whilst Gatsby, the nouveau riche criminal, had real heart and paid the ultimate price for loving and protecting her.

The book was well-received by those present (though Shubha had some way to go still). I, having a very strong recollection of loving Tender is the Night and, without recalling that novel in real detail, felt this did not live up to the huge expectations I placed upon it. Meanwhile, conversely, Jennie, who loved this book, recalled hating Tender is the Night.

Further comments, particularly from those who were absent, welcomed.

Jen:
Not much to add to that I think!