Saturday, June 13, 2015
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki: Book Group Discussion
Missed the meeting. Thanks BB for the great post.
Tsukuru
Tazaki has never formed a lasting relationship since the breakup 16
years previously of his teenage group of five friends: three guys and
two girls. The others all had last name that were colors but not he,
thus "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki." He feels colorless in
other ways as well, an "empty vessel." A new girlfriend,
Sara, insists that for their relationship to go forward he must
confront his former friends and get to the bottom of why they cruelly
cut him off. And so begins his pilgrimage.
Most
of us liked the book and found the story pulled us right along in
spite of it's being more episodic than plotted. There are dreams and
stories within the story, not all of which we grasped the importance
of. Characters, too, as in a real pilgrimage, were sometimes picked
up and dropped without our being sure of their significance. Sara
seems more of a guide or even a therapist than a fleshed-out
character. The simplicity of the language adds to the mythic feeling
of the story.
One
member commented that the book is spiritual. The rational is
challenged by the intuitive, the dreamlike, the fanciful. The line
is blurred between what really happens and what is imagined.
Another member's assertion that the novel has Catholic themes was
met with general merriment. (Stoutly, she cited passages about the
redemptive value of suffering, the social necessity for a victim,
death of an old way of life leading to eventual resurrection, the
existence of evil, and the life-sustaining value of hope.)
Tsukuru,
whose name means "to build" or "to create," is
an engineer who designs railroad stations. One member suggested that
Tsukuru is a stand-in for the writer, his pilgrimage a depiction of
the writing process. Several members felt a lack of resolution at
story's end. What is the significance of vestigial fingers? Do
Tsukuru's dreams include events that really happened? Has he
committed an act of violence? What will become of Tsukuru and Sara?
At
meeting's end, BB held up a copy of the novel which she has just
published through CreateSpace. "Lulu Goes to College" by Barbara McGillicuddy Bolton is available through Amazon.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Discussion: Family Life by Akhil Sharma
I have a colleague, S., who recently worked with me on a school event. Unlike many other helpers, well-meaning as they may be, S., didn't have to ask much of anything. She put clues together and made decisions about where things belonged, how to set materials up, quickly and accurately. Later after the event was over, I told her what a gift she had. And she said something like this: "When your parents are immigrants, and don't understand the culture or the language, you have to figure out things for yourself at a very young age. You have no one to ask questions of."
What has this to do with Family Life? The main character, Ajay, really the author, came from India to the United States as a boy of 8; and like S. worked to figure things out on his own. (And not only because his parents had trouble navigating a new culture, but also because they were absorbed by a horrific tragedy.)
In particular, after reading a Hemingway bio, Ajay works on his own to figure out how to be a writer. He goes on to read one Hemingway critique after another to learn how he approached writing. (Later on when he finally reads Hemingway, he discovers that he likes reading the critiques more than the work itself.) Similarly as described in his New Yorker essay, Sharma, the author, describes how he meticulously analyzed famous writers' work to find out how to approach writing Family Life. We read the essay aloud and spent a lot of time talking about the arduous 12 1/2 year process during which he wrote 7000 pages in order to eventually arrive at the 224 page novel.
Sharma wonders in that essay, if it was the best way to have spent his time. Most members felt glad that he had and that he had succeeded in creating a novel that as one member put it, paraphrased: "I wanted to eat." (I like that image better than the more overused word-devour.) Well all, except one. (The dissenter just did not relate to the humor in this book; and she did not feel that Sharma was successful in overcoming the tediousness of the family's tragedy.) This novel, which to some should have been a memoir, was centered on horrific loss. But yet, the book's humanity, truthfulness, exposition of interesting cultural differences, poignancy keeps you reading and as Sharma hopes, it moves "like a rocket."
It is the ending that moves too fast for most of us. And the last line that led to speculation.
Why now that he saw and felt that he would find happiness did he write: "The happiness was almost heavy. That was when I knew I had a problem."
Some thoughts:
When you are open to happiness., you are open to other feelings including despair.
When you find love with someone you are vulnerable to their loss.
And from R. the sponsor who couldn't attend the meeting:
What has this to do with Family Life? The main character, Ajay, really the author, came from India to the United States as a boy of 8; and like S. worked to figure things out on his own. (And not only because his parents had trouble navigating a new culture, but also because they were absorbed by a horrific tragedy.)
In particular, after reading a Hemingway bio, Ajay works on his own to figure out how to be a writer. He goes on to read one Hemingway critique after another to learn how he approached writing. (Later on when he finally reads Hemingway, he discovers that he likes reading the critiques more than the work itself.) Similarly as described in his New Yorker essay, Sharma, the author, describes how he meticulously analyzed famous writers' work to find out how to approach writing Family Life. We read the essay aloud and spent a lot of time talking about the arduous 12 1/2 year process during which he wrote 7000 pages in order to eventually arrive at the 224 page novel.
Sharma wonders in that essay, if it was the best way to have spent his time. Most members felt glad that he had and that he had succeeded in creating a novel that as one member put it, paraphrased: "I wanted to eat." (I like that image better than the more overused word-devour.) Well all, except one. (The dissenter just did not relate to the humor in this book; and she did not feel that Sharma was successful in overcoming the tediousness of the family's tragedy.) This novel, which to some should have been a memoir, was centered on horrific loss. But yet, the book's humanity, truthfulness, exposition of interesting cultural differences, poignancy keeps you reading and as Sharma hopes, it moves "like a rocket."
It is the ending that moves too fast for most of us. And the last line that led to speculation.
Why now that he saw and felt that he would find happiness did he write: "The happiness was almost heavy. That was when I knew I had a problem."
Some thoughts:
When you are open to happiness., you are open to other feelings including despair.
When you find love with someone you are vulnerable to their loss.
And from R. the sponsor who couldn't attend the meeting:
As for the last line in the novel...I think it refers to the feelings that he described in the interview. He feels SHAME that his own life is going well—when his brother's life is doomed. The happier he is—the greater the shame. I would be interested to hear what others think.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Turns Out That No One Needs To Be Afraid of James Joyce's Dubliners
It's Ulysses that is scary. This collection of portraits was not difficult to read. Quite the contrary. But the panorama of Dublin that they created brought out a great discussion. One member of Irish descent, felt disgust? shame? *at the bleak cast of manipulative, cheating, drinking, base characters. Save the husband in "The Dead"; none of the characters grow in wisdom or spirituality. Others felt that this collection, sequenced to mirror stages of a man's life, reflected universal themes. And the bleakness reflects the human condition...not that of one place or time. (Yet other books...Portnoy's Complaint and its portrait of Jews, for example, can be called universal but still sting a Jew.)
One member pointed out that they read much the way that a modern New Yorker short story reads. Joyce is the first modern writer. And a great writer.
We wondered how a young man of 25 could have had the wisdom to write these stories...and wondered if perhaps it took someone that young to see the world in such bleak, conflicted way. We questioned the symbol of snow because a writer (whose name I didn't write down)** suggested that a new writer analyze that in order to understand writing. (A purifying, unifying, substance that falls on living and dead alike?)
And we wondered why did so many writers have to leave Ireland in order to write about it. We pooh-poohed literary critics who saw incest, venereal disease, in every page of the stories. (Okay that is an exaggeration.) They interfered with instead of enlightening our reading.
From BB:
One member pointed out that they read much the way that a modern New Yorker short story reads. Joyce is the first modern writer. And a great writer.
We wondered how a young man of 25 could have had the wisdom to write these stories...and wondered if perhaps it took someone that young to see the world in such bleak, conflicted way. We questioned the symbol of snow because a writer (whose name I didn't write down)** suggested that a new writer analyze that in order to understand writing. (A purifying, unifying, substance that falls on living and dead alike?)
And we wondered why did so many writers have to leave Ireland in order to write about it. We pooh-poohed literary critics who saw incest, venereal disease, in every page of the stories. (Okay that is an exaggeration.) They interfered with instead of enlightening our reading.
From BB:
It wasn't just "disgust" and "shame" that this member of Irish descent felt but also anger and disappointment at the, for the most part, one-dimensional characters. The discussion calmed my defensive ire, however,and I have to agree that the stories are wonderfully crafted, especially "The Dead." It was Flannery O'Connor who advised a fledgling writer: "See how he makes the snow work in that story."
Speaking of the New Yorker and Irish writers, I'd recommend Colm Toibin's story "Sleep" in the March 23 issue. In it the imagination--secular rather than religious--yields such a bad trip that either the protagonist can no longer love or he needs to protect the one he loves from himself.
Another recent New Yorker story to interest our members is Stephen King's excellent "A Death" in the March 9 issue.
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