In the Garden of the Beasts: Meeting Notes

Not one, not two, but three cakes were brought to celebrate a member's birthday.  Unbeknownst to each other, three book clubbers decided to remember a birthday--including the birthday celebrant herself.  The white cardboard boxes were lined up on the counter waiting for  the meeting to be over to reveal their deliciousness.   Short story fodder?  Think O'Henry?  Reader you will have to wait until the meeting notes to find out more about the cakes.

The meeting was all positiveness about the book--one of the most positive group reactions in recent memory (which granted is not very long nowadays).   The presenter encouraged the group to not only talk about the content--Hitler's early Nazification of Germany but also the technique that the author used to make this nonfiction so appealing.

Several members initially had low expectations for their enjoyment of a book on a very familiar topic;  yet once they started In the Garden of The Beasts they were enthralled by it and its revelations. So much so that some members felt that what they were reading was fictionalized despite all of the footnotes.  Don't skip them, by the way!

The main characters  William E. Dodd, ambassador from America to Germany--and his daughter Martha (his wife and son are minor players) are naive Americans who share the negative view held by the majority of  their fellow Americans towards Jews and towards getting involved in foreign wars.  (No chance they would enter a foreign war to stop persecution of Jews.)  In short, the Dodds are imperfect, flawed characters.  Dodd will not do anything extraordinary or history making.  Just like many others Dodd meets with Hitler and comes away believing in the villain's desire for peace; although by the end of his tenure Dodd understands the beast for what he is.  Martha is remarkably free and independent; she falls for the beauty of the Nazi youth as she falls for a long line of men.  (Slut one member called her; which led to a side chat about the sexism of the term.  Can a man be a slut? Yes? No? Can you be a slut if Carl Sandburg is your lover and sends you poetry?)

As to technique; one member used this metaphor:  Erik Larson structured his book much like a Downtown Abbey episode--focusing on one angle, person or story; leaving them to go on to another and another before returning. Pulling the reader in and moving them along, keeping them hooked.  Even the use of chapter titles smacked of fiction writing.

Now for dessert:  Two cakes from Little Red Hen--one chocolate; one apple pie.  One chocolate cake from Sweet Melissas.  (I should have heated it; tasted better that way!  Yes I had another slice.)  So much left that we briefly considered freezing them and bringing them back to every book group meeting until they were eaten. Briefly.

Oh:  Don't forget Gilgamesh next month.  Not just any edition--see earlier entry.  And if Gilgamesh is   the search term that is getting hits from porno sites--it is getting deleted.