Ferry across to Bressay

A slight hitch in accessing our blog has meant that, in true librarian spirit, we have been silent for over a month, but all is well now! It has been left up to me to recall our annual night out on the 9th of July, when six of us braved the unseasonal cold and wet weather and headed to the Maryfield in Bressay to discuss Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
The book was my choice -mainly because I had recently read it and was onto the third book of the trilogy.
The location of our meeting may or may not have been influenced by the island theme of the book, but at least noone mysteriously disappeared! Over our starters of calamari and garlic stuffed mushrooms, we mused on how the lack of editing in the book meant that parts of it were overly long and in places there were sub-plots which were never fully developed.
As we moved onto our grilled steak and halibut courses, we debated some of the situations, primarily the disappearance of Harriet Vanger and the characters of Blomkvist and Berger.
Karen thought much of the violence was overdone, but was more upset about what happened to the cat! Everyone however,was intrigued by the character of Salander, finding her plausible and unique , and not be easily forgotten.
All in all,despite its length,we found this to be a good enjoyable read. After a couple of glasses of wine and an Ameretto and coffee, we headed off to catch the ferry home.

High stakes!

I read this riveting book when it first came out, so I was a little worried that some of the magic would have worn off in the following 20-odd years.

Back then I was living in North Wales, working and climbing in Snowdonia. I remember how the book was begged, borrowed and stolen by everyone in the climbing community and how the main issues were discussed long into the night.

So to the present and the climbing terminology didn't seem to dissuade the members of the book group. In fact the feeling was that the climbing was almost secondary to Simpson's epic struggle to get off the mountain.

There was a long discussion centered around the defining incident: would you cut the rope on your climbing partner as Simon Yates did? The feeling being a definite 'In the same situation...yes. He had tried to get Simpson down from the summit, knowing all the time that it was going to be a long shot'.

The author's description of his crawl back to base camp after the rope cutting incident and his escape from the crevasse is truly remarkable for an autobiography. June said it has the feel of a piece fiction where you don't know the outcome... you can't believe he is going to survive the ordeal. Could he surmount everything the mountain had thrown at him only to miss safety and reunion by minutes?

The group chewed over the nature of adventure, the need to find challenges and how people often invite danger by stacking the odds against themselves. Janet mentioned Simpson's own story of his horrifying bivouac in the Alps as a case in point. The group felt 'Touching The Void' had been a good 'Boys Own' choice for the group.

Another journey East - to Burma with a piano

May's choice of book was The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason, the story of the journey (both physical and spiritual?) that an unassuming piano tuner makes to the remote Shan hills of Burma in the late 19th century. His mission is to tune a piano for a charismatic British military doctor who has created his own little kingdom up the Salween river - some parallels with Heart of Darkness here perhaps. The tuner becomes bewitched with the orient - and with a local woman - becoming almost fatalistically entwined in the colonial conflict.

The book is beautifully written with good characterisation, it's enticing and intriguing and the group all enjoyed it. But that's not to say we felt we understood it! What was all that about the Man With One Story? What exactly was the enigmatic Carroll up to? The book was at it's weakest when it trotted out the detail of the politics, and at it's best when it explored the hidden depths of the characters. More questions than answers, but we enjoyed the journey.

Fascinating look at a lost Afghanistan

In April the group read my choice - Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy, the story of her cycle trip from Ireland to India in the 196os. I first read this book when I was a teenager and Dervla has been a favourite author ever since. She takes to the road with the minimum of baggage (well, she'll happily carry a load of books, and on this trip took a gun as well, but she takes so little clothes that she ends up with her backside literally hanging out of her threadbare breeks after awhile.

This journey took her through a lot of countries, but Afghanistan is the star of the book - Dervla falls in love with this magical and timeless place. It has to be said that she tends to be treated as an honorary male on her travels (barring some unfortunate tussles with dodgy pervs in Azerbajan) so she notices but perhaps doesn't fully appreciate the awful situation of women in Afghanistan. The author's cheery no-nonsense determination to go wherever she pleases, putting up with the most uncomfortable and hair-raising situations, make this an entertaining read. She is also a writer of great intellect and, I'm glad to say, is still going strong today - still travelling parts of the world that are strictly off the tourist trail, and getting ever angrier about the way we're screwing places up.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden - my two cents (oops, I mean "pence")

The book The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is very engaging read and I'm sorry to be missing the discussion.
Some things about the book which caught my attention:

• I am fascinated by the way the author has created a sense that the book has been translated from German (as far as I know it was written in English and the author is English). The cadence of the language seems to me to be German rather than English.
• The relationships are very well drawn particularly the friendship between Pia and Stefan. Pia's sometimes irritation with, but dependence upon Stefan reminds me of friendships I had at her age.
• I will never forget the exploding Oma, a horrible image but somehow blackly humorous. I will use hair spray with caution from now on.
• Great interweaving of German folktales and daily life in the book. As I write this I wonder if there isn't a flavour of magic realism instilled in the novel by the stories Herr Schiller tells and the actual events as they unfold.

I haven't quite finished the book but am looking forward to getting home tonight to read the ending. What did happen to the girls and what did Stefan see the night he went to castle on his own?....

The Poisonwood Bible

A deep and dark novel set in a remote jungle village in Congo (at the time of the country's independence from Belgium in 1960). The story is told by the wife and four daughters of an evangelist minister sent out to convert the locals to Christianity.

The family arrives ignorant of local customs and finds a very, very different way of life to theirs back home in the states. The minister is rigid, ham-fisted, and over bearing (his keeness to baptise people in the crocodile infested river being a case in point). This sets the family apart and ostracises them - eventually leading them on a collision course with the local witch doctor...

The book was chosen by Janet, who commented on the natural division that occurs in the book when the minister is eventually left behind by the rest of the family. She felt that she would have liked this to be the end, feeling that the story stopped and the author took over. There was some sympathy for this point of view.

Everybody enjoyed the book. June liked the (extended) ending and felt she had learnt alot about the plight of Congo/Zaire since independence. Karen brought in an atlas and the group poured over the details: it is a third of the size of the USA, etc.

Marghie turned up and although she hadn't quite finished it was looking forward to doing so. She commented on the backward writing of Adah and wondered if the girls weren't a little bit stereotypical.

I put forward the point that all the family had lost their Christian faith, and that the bible had no relevance to the people of the Congo. In fact I surmised that it was losing relevance in this country. A heated debate followed... Although at home a quick search on Google (sorry to use a computer Janet) produced an article in The Independent 29.6.09 under the heading 'Britain knows little about Bible', stating "The National Biblical Literacy Survey has found that as few as 10 per cent of people understood the main characters in the Bible and their relevance".

Another thought provoking read, entertaining and enlightening in equal measures, although the meeting did remind me of that old saying "don't discuss politics and religion"...

North and South - Innocence Lost,Humanity Found

We discussed Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South in January. As the title indicates, a major theme of the novel is the contrast between the way of life of the industrial north and the agricultural south of England in the early to mid-nineteenth century.

There was a mixed response to the book. June, who selected the book for the group, has read the novel several times and originally choose to read it after viewing the excellent BBC TV series. She likes the way Gaskell weaves philosophy and political and social commentary into the narrative. Many in the group felt the characters were well drawn and the sense of place in the novel was very evocative.

Some of us did not find the novel completely satisfying. The ending seemed a bit weak. I also felt that there was tension between Gaskell's desire to write a novel of ideas and to spin a romantic yarn. The forays into philosophical and religious commentary did not enhance the flow of the story for me. One of the reading group said that the novels of Jane Austen "seem frivolous in comparison"; Yet to me, Austen's social satire seems more finely crafted and piercing because it is not freighted with philosophical discourse and politics. Having said that the strong characters in the book, particularly the women have left an impression on me, as has Gaskell's descriptions of the English countryside.

A member of the group summed the book up in the following phrase "Innocence lost, humanity found" which neatly summarizes the spirit of the book.