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The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie

(Book 158) Susan hosted a large group of us tonight and because it was raining, she didn’t get to use the lovely back deck area. We were still missing Geri, Karen and Rosalie, but we had a guest, my new neighbor Lennis. Shortly after the Little Free Library went up in front of my home, a couple talked to me about their plans to rehab and move into the building next door to us. The young woman told me her mother would be moving into the second floor when it was ready and that happened at the end of May. I spoke about my book club and though we are at 11 members when everyone attends, I joked that 12 would mean that no one would have to host twice in a year! When I told the girls, some were worried that they wouldn’t be able to accommodate a new member, but who knows, maybe she won’t want to join us as we are all raging liberals and swear like sailors. So, I brought Lennis and when she saw the dining table, she said it was the fanciest book club she’d ever attended, that she is used to wine and appetizers. And I heard her say “Where will I fit everybody?” Her new apartment is about one-seventh the size of her previous home (if I remember the numbers correctly.)

I’ve read three books by Sherman Alexie previously and I was a little shocked that this one had so many stories about sexual encounters. After I gave Lennis the book, I read the first two stories and sent her a text saying “Please don’t think that we are a group of lascivious old ladies!” After Chris told me she only took issue with the old part, and I should speak for myself, she enlightened the group about Alexie’s reputation with sexual harassment. I’d already ordered ten copies of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian because I wanted to regain credibility for having selected one of his books, and now, no one will want to read anything by him. Except Mary, she said she would still take a copy. We talked about the age-old Do you have to like the person to appreciate his art? — but sexual assault is not a minor transgression. Sigh.

We tried to talk about his writing apart from his reputation and discussed our favorite stories. Chris’ favorite was the title story The Toughest Indian in the World. She also appreciated South by Southwest and likened his absurd adventures and abrupt endings to Flannery O’Connor, though no one loses a limb. Mary and Lennis liked Saint Junior. Though his wife completely supported his career, as soon as she said, let’s go home, they did. And she was able through all of it to hang on to her own career. Linda, Susan and Sharon chose Dear John Wayne as their favorite. We all enjoyed that the kids were named John and Marion! Melissa wasn’t able to pick a favorite, and I guess I didn’t hear Marcia’s either. No one appreciated The Sin Eaters — the sex made no sense. I do have to say, however, that The Sin Eaters made me take notice of the fact that 30 of our 45 presidents have had blue eyes. (I looked it up after: “a man with blue eyes dropped two symmetrical slices of the sun on Japan.” I assumed Alexie meant the president responsible and not the pilots or bombardiers aboard the aircraft.) After that, I just kept reading ‘blue eyes’ sprinkled here and there throughout his stories and finally thought about blue eyes as a sign of the enemy instead of the dreamy hunk they implied as I was growing up. I also loved the following from The Sin Eaters: “Jonah, she said using my name as she might have used aspirin or penicillin, it was a dream.”

I enjoyed most of the stories because Alexie can create these wonderful tender moment while also having a sense of humor:
“Regarding love and marriage, and sex, both Shakespeare and Sitting Bull knew the only truth: treaties get broken.” Assimilation
“Mary Lynn had never before felt such lust — in Montana, of all places, …” Assimilation
“Why not practice a carnal form of affirmative action?” Assimilation
“Seymour looked around the Tucson McDonald’s. There were white people and Navajos; there were people who preferred their Quarter Pounder with cheese and those who didn’t care for cheese at all; and there were those who desperately wished that McDonald’s would introduce onion rings to its menu. Oh, Seymour thought, there are so many possibilities.” South by Southwest
“He was a white man, and therefore he could dream.” South by Southwest

Other books: Chris told us to watch for David James Duncan’s novel Sun House coming out in August and Susan highly recommended The Hail Mary Project by Andy Weir. I offered my copy of Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water but at 715 pages, no one took me up on it,

Now, the FOOD!

Susan managed to sprain her ankle and had it elevated and covered by a bag of frozen peas when Chris, the psychic, texted to offer her help. Susan made so many dishes, it’s hard to know where to begin. The appetizers included 1) a salmon mousse because there was salmon throughout the book and likewise throughout the meal; 2) toasted bread slices topped with ricotta and a butternut squash spread; 3) toasted bread slices topped with mozzarella and tomato salsa; cheese, lots of cracker choices, grapes and probably some other delicious things.

The main course was oven baked salmon with blueberry salsa, wild rice with pecans and golden raisins, two green salads, one with arugula, avocado, grape tomatoes and corn and the other with cucumber, tomato and feta cheese and finally, asparagus. It was all amazingly tasty. The dessert was and Ina Garten recipe — Blueberry Crisp with ice cream. I tried so hard to be good but ended up saying A1c be damned! Not only was it all delicious, she did it all while hobbling but not complaining!

Our next meeting will take place Thursday, July 27 at Melissa’s to discuss World’s Fair by E. L. Doctorow.

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Half a World Away by Mike Gayle

(Book 157) Marcia hosted five of us this evening; Chris was still out, spending some much coveted time with her daughter, Sharon was out of town, and our three truants are still –truant. Rosalie is in Quebec this month (!); Geri’s doctor told her to wait another three months before any large group activities; and Karen has found a placement for her husband which is only available for 90 days. Susan added her husband, Jeff, to our list of members or spouses needing intercession. (I think Mary is the keeper of the prayer list, as most of the rest of us are only good for positive thoughts.) Jeff’s cancer has come back and he will be starting a new treatment at Northwestern which will be happening this month and next. I tell the girls to wrap themselves in bubble wrap (but not around the mouth and nose; plastic bags are not toys) and stay safe from this nonsense that is targeting our book club — and then what do I do? I have them read a book about (SPOILER ALERT) a lovely woman dying.

On the brighter side, we started the evening at Marcia’s being filmed by two young women studying in Chicago, who came to know Marcia while she made her home into an AirBNB. The two women are making a documentary about Andrew, his stroke, his rehab, the women who daily challenge him at Scrabble, and primarily, his art. Marcia was able to choose 20 of his more recent pieces, get them framed and displayed in the hallway of their home. The two filmmakers captured footage of the book club ladies appreciating Andrew’s art. Susan was eyeing the piece that I want; I told Marcia to put a SOLD sign on it!

After the art gallery opening, with wine in hand, we sat in the living room and enjoyed crisps which were often mentioned in the book. Linda was transported to her early college years! In addition to crisps, there was crudité with dip and a tray of crackers and cheese. There was also mention of delivery pizza in the book and that served as our main course, along with a lovely salad that Marcia had prepared. We had our choice of BBQ Chicken and Margherita pizza. Some of us didn’t bother to choose between and I can attest that they were both delicious. We were going to have Lemon Bars for dessert, but Neo, the Cute yet Naughty Dog ate most of those when Marcia was distracted. Marcia’s daughter Katie picked up delicious cookies, I mean biscuits, for dessert instead. The table was lovely with two sparkly centerpieces paying homage to the sparkle that Kerry wished for her funeral and this brings us finally to the book discussion.

The primary observation made by several of us was that this is not a typical book for us. It seems that I usually hook the girls up, not unlike horses to a plow, with books that you have to work to read! Read ALL FOUR versions of the events in An Instance at the Fingerpost! You can read Dostoevsky — it’s only a short story!! Go, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead —  Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature for crying out loud!!! So I heard comments tonight such as “easy read” and “it’s faster when you’re not reading for the beauty of the words” and (yikes) “a Hallmark movie.”

Susan first mentioned that the weakness of the book was in the portrayal of Noah’s wife, that she seemed off. Linda commented that several of the supporting characters were one-dimensional. I opined that the author was trying to create a problem that would keep Kerry and Noah from getting together and the problem never seemed real.

Which is not to say that the book doesn’t have many lovely life-affirming moments and the beauty of family taking care of each other. It doesn’t mean that some of us didn’t cry at the end. At least one of our husbands had to check in to make sure the sobbing was just the book and not something more seriously wrong. As Marcia said, she appreciated the ready catharsis it provided. I told the girls, the book was elevated for me because I heard Olivia Coleman delivering Kerry’s lines and Olivia, with only minimal direction from me, made her lovely and whole, with an occasional sparkle in her eye.

It was a lovely night. We missed those who weren’t able to attend, but we look forward to Susan hosting us next month, Tuesday, June 13, to discuss Sherman Alexie’s book of short stories, The Toughest Indian in the World.

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The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander

(Book 156) Sharon hosted six of us this evening; Chris was still out, this time with COVID, and our three truants have yet to return. We aren’t worried about our snowbird, Rosalie; Geri is predicting she may rejoin us in May and Karen is busy trying to find another placement for her husband to continue his rehab. We are all thinking positive thoughts for Karen because that process has to be so difficult.

Sharon had asked us all to come with a favorite quote from the book to share and we did that sharing over delicious appetizers. There was a spread made of goat cheese, cream cheese and olive oil, topped with quartered grape tomatoes and served with three kinds of crackers — that was REALLY good. The spread was accompanied by prosciutto crudo and other Italian meats, olives, nuts and those yummy Terra vegetable chips.

I told the girls that after finishing the book, I was reminded of Carrie Fisher’s quote: “If you can get Paul Simon to write a song about you, do it. Because he is so brilliant at it.” By that same token, I doubted a man could do any better than to have Elizabeth Alexander eulogize him in book form. We were all a little jealous of the life that the two of them shared — except Mary who already had that with Ron. She just didn’t write about it.

Sharon shared that Chris had sent an email with a list of all her quotes. Sharon forwarded it to me and I’m going to put most of that email here:

“Death sits in the comfortable chair in the corner of my new bedroom, smoking a cigarette. It is a he, sinuous and sleek, wearing a felt brimmed hat. He is there when I wake in the middle of the night, sitting quietly, his smoke a visible curl in the New York lights that come in between the venetian blind slats.”

(Kind of a well-worn image, but I still liked the passage.)

“But the friendship part of marriage, that is the part that is enacted, that is the part for which you need the person present, and that is what I miss….friendship in marriage is its own thing: friendship in a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, or a cappuccino every Sunday morning. Friendship in buying undershirts and underpants. Friendship in picking up a prescription or rescuing the towed car. Friendship in waiting for the phone call after the mammogram. Friendship in toast buttered just so. Friendship in shoveling the snow. I am the one you want to tell. You are the one I want to tell.”

(How true with the death of anyone important to you. You miss telling them about your day or asking them about a memory.)

“I am grateful for the tug of the day that gets us out of bed and propels us into our lives and responsibilities; memory can be a weight on that. And yet, in it floods, brought willfully, or brought on by a glimpse, a glance, a scent, a sound. One note: the timbre of his voice.”

(I think the tug of the day is the only thing that keeps us going during grief.)

Can’t wait to hear what everyone thought of this book. Of course I got teary-eyed while reading it, but I also felt myself wanting to look away. It felt like too much sometimes. I looked up photos of Fike and could see what she meant about his eyes. I wondered if I started feeling kind of irritated every once in a while because their relationship seemed too perfect. Was I envious? I think the thing that I envied was her ability to form and keep the “chosen family” that she kept talking about and describing to us. Wow. To have truly close friends all over the world.

One other thing I kept thinking was how this book compared to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, which I loved. It’s much more, I don’t know, maybe cerebral. Although you can feel her pain, it’s not slopped all over every page, and she’s looking at herself from a distance later and showing us what that magical thinking is like. It’s really well written, like Alexander’s, and quite different. Might have been interesting to read them together—although there’s only so much death and grief a person can take!

Marcia said that because she listened to the book, it was harder for her to capture quotes. Linda tried to tell us that she couldn’t really tell what made a good writer and that she usually reads for the story, but that while reading this book, she was unusually aware of how lovely Alexander’s writing is. Unfortunately, she had already finished the book by the time Sharon had asked us to bring a quote and Linda hadn’t made notations. Susan appreciated the reiteration of “The days are long but the years are short.” and Melissa liked the way in which Alexander had to insert “I’m alive.” between her sentences: “I wake up grateful, for life is a gift.” I think it was also Melissa who mentioned how dear it was when Alexander’s son, Simon, took her to visit Ficre in heaven at bedtime.

This was the first of several quotes that I chose: “Because going out into the world can make you tired, I couldn’t always share every little thing and now I wish I’d poured a glass of wine and sat with him for hours on the red sofa and told stories like he did, all generosity, Frederick the mouse of Leo Lionni’s classic children’s book offering his mouse community the sunlight of stories to get them through the long dark winter.” I have to include a picture for reference for those who don’t read children’s books.

I also mentioned that I loved the quote from Ficre’s mother about him: “He had drunk his water.” Sharon wondered how exactly his mother was privy to that information in all that it might imply, but we all appreciated the sense of it. Sharon offered that she enjoyed Alexander’s use of the song lyric: “I been in sorrow’s kitchen and done licked out all the pots.”

Mary read us this: “We used to walk together in Grove Street Cemetery –where he is now buried where I will one day join him — and sometimes sit beneath trees and speak quietly and carefully about important things just between us. ‘Winter in his heart’ seems the truest and most literal description of how my chest feels from weeping for him.”

Then it was time for the main course. Earlier, when I was walking off the elevator, down the hall, I was half-chanting “let it be Shrimp Barka, let it be Shrimp Barka” and didn’t I get my wish?! Sharon used the recipe included in the book for Ficre’s Shrimp Barka and served it with carrots and dressed butter lettuce. The shrimp dish was so AMAZING and now you can try it too (but it probably won’t be as good as Sharon’s):

Shrimp Barka

Time 30 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 Tablespoon of olive oil

3 medium red onions, thinly sliced

4-6 cloves garlic, minced

5 very ripe and juicy tomatoes, chopped coarsely

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

½ Cup finely chopped fresh basil (1 bunch)

15 pitted dates (1/2 Cup), cut crosswise in thirds

3 Tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut

½ Cup of half-and-half

1 pound medium shrimp (16-20), shelled and deveined

2/3 Cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 ½ Cup cooked basmati rice

Instructions:

1. In a large, heavy pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, and sauté until wilted, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, and continuing sautéing, stirring frequently to prevent sticking, for 2 minutes longer, Stir in the tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Cover, and cook for about 5 minutes.

2. Add basil, dates and coconut, and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 5 more minutes. Add the half-and-half, cover and cook for 3 minutes

3. Add shrimp to sauce. Cook, covered, until shrimp turns pink, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cheese, and then the rice, and serve immediately.

Recipes from THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD by Elizabeth Alexander. Copyright © 2015 by Elizabeth Alexander. Used with permission by Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.

Other quotes that came up while we were eating:

“When you become a family, you make common culture. Ficre and I shared cultures, folded into each other, and quickly made an indelible family culture. That we grew up around the world from each other seemed totally irrelevant. When he sleep-talked in Tigrinya, i remembered. I remembered sometimes that our entire relationship, and most of his days, took place in his fourth language.” (We talked about how woefully poor Americans are at languages.)

“My life will be a trail of breadcrumbs wherever it takes me until I die.” (I adored this sense of her leaving a path for him to find her in case he comes back.)

And the house’s history! The previous owner had hosted Archbishop Desmond Tutu and prior to that Thornton Wilder had conducted playwriting workshops there! Marcia wondered how she could leave such a wondrous history-filled home and garden, but we agreed that it would always feel as though something, rather someone, was missing.

Paying homage to Ficre’s Italian influences, Sharon served Berry Tiramisu for dessert. All the girls commented on the gigantic serving size (I was undaunted) and yet the plates were clean. Sharon was kind to pack up some left overs for all the Ficres waiting at home. My husband, Tom will testify to just how delicious it was, though he is only an expert witness in radiology.

Our next meeting will take place at Marcia’s home on Tuesday, May 16 to discuss Half a World Away by Mike Gayle. Marcia will get to drag bingo one of these Tuesdays, but not May 16th.

Please add your comments!

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Dancing at the Edge of the World by Ursula K Le Guin

(Book 155) Linda hosted four of us this evening; Chris and Susan were out with a stomach bug (probably two different stomach bugs); Mary had hoped to attend despite having a medical procedure scheduled earlier in the day, but didn’t make it; and then the three girls who have been playing hooky all year. Rosalie continues to enjoy the warmer weather of her winter digs; Geri appeared noticeably improved when Linda last visited, even if Geri feels the progress is slow; and Marcia told us that Karen’s husband made it out of ICU at Northwestern and into the Shirley Ryan Rehab Center. We are rooting for Geri and Scott and a teeny (?) bit envious of Rosalie.

We sat in one of two lounge areas in Linda’s lovely apartment. My chair swiveled and almost relaxed me to sleep! We munched on a green pea and mint spread, carrots, blue cheese, Brie, crackers, and smoked almonds while Linda finished preparations for the main course and kept our wine glasses filled! We talked about the fact that we often plan our meal around something in the book, but that Ursula didn’t offer much in that regard. It wasn’t until “Over the Hills and a Great Way Off, in which Le Guin writes about her family’s visit to a friend in England that any food is mentioned. Then it is fish and chips, Chinese food, apples, beer, whiskey, egg and cress sandwiches, crackers, tomatoes and cheese, Dorset Knobs and butter cookies. I have to say, I would have liked to have tasted the Dorset Knob.

Instead of ordering in Chinese, or serving egg and cress sandwiches, Linda chose her own menu and served delicious pork tenderloins with a balsamic reduction (I don’t know if it was a reduction, I was just carried away with culinary lingo) asparagus with butter and garlic, and a delicious wild rice with butternut squash salad. It was all delicious and topped only by the dessert tart which Linda tells us included both lemon and lime. Here is a picture of the girls with the menu in place. There was an extra place because we all hoped Mary might be able to make it.

A closer look at the food! Tart was absent when photo was taken.

After the tart, I no longer longed for the Dorset Knob.

On to the book. Linda started us off by saying that she wished that Chris had been able to make it this evening, because she had communicated that she loved the book, and Linda had hoped that Chris might be able to explain the book to the rest of us. We agreed that it was a much more difficult book to read than we had expected because many of the selections were speeches that Le Guin had given at conferences and university commencements. The writing was imbued with an uncommon level of specificity. The placement of the essay that considered the difference between moral and ethical implications, so early in the book, may have been a poor choice. A few readers may have given up there. After all it had started us off so nicely with The Space Crone. Marcia and I talked last week, and she was so taken with the first essay that she wanted to share it with her daughter. I read a part of it aloud, telling the girls that it had given me a new take on my old age:

“Old age is not virginity but a third and new condition; the virgin must be celibate, but the crone need not. There was a confusion there, which the separation of female sexuality from reproductive capacity via modern contraceptives, has cleared up. Loss of fertility does not mean loss of desire and fulfillment. But it does entail a change, a change involving matters even more important — if I may venture a heresy — than sex. The woman who is willing to make that change must become pregnant with herself, at last. She must bear herself, her third self, her old age, with travail and alone. . . It may well be easier to die if you have already given birth to others or yourself, at least once before. . . It seems a pity to have a built-in rite of passage and to dodge it, evade it and pretend nothing has changed. That is to dodge and evade one’s womanhood, to pretend one’s like a man. Men, once initiated, never get the second chance. They never change again. That’s their loss, not ours. Why borrow poverty?”

We discussed the ways in which Le Guin’s views mesh very clearly with those of the group of us. Her speech to publicize the Oxfam America Fast for the Hungry in 1981 at the Portland Food Bank included: “No home worth living in has for its cornerstone the hunger of those who built it. . . the city we’re trying to build, to found, is not [built] on hoarding and moneymaking and hunger, but on sharing and justice. A house that deserves its children.”

In her address to the Portland branch of the National Abortion Rights Action League in 1982, she shared her personal story within the framework of a princess who needed rescue when it was illegal. When the prince was asked for his help “he went home to his family palace and hid in the throne room.” Her conclusion was oddly prescient in light of recent events: “We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May you all shine very bright and steady, today and always.”

“Whose Lathe?” is a piece that Le Guin wrote for the Forum section of her regional newspaper in 1984, after a local librarian informed Le Guin that one of her books was to have a censorship hearing. “The man who was asking that it be withdrawn stated his objections to the following elements in the book: fuzzy thinking and poor sentence structure; a mention of homosexuality; a character who keeps a flask of brandy in her purse, and who remarks that her mother did not love her. (It seemed curious to me that he did not mention the fact that this same character is a Black woman whose lover/husband is a White Man. I had the feeling that this was really what he hated in the book and that he was afraid to say so; but that was only my feeling.)” I couldn’t help but think of Jodi Picoult, who I saw on TikTok recently fighting the same fight to TikTok’s young audience. (No explanation for why I’m there.)

I love Le Guin’s take on trains in “Room 9, Car 1430” that is: ” Why should we be forced to undergo the increasing discomfort, danger and indignity that the airlines inflict on their passengers? Trains are not deliberately overbooked. Train stations are downtown — not in some dreary boondock twenty-five dollars away from where you want to be.” (Those are 1985 dollars.) But my favorite piece was “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction“:

“So long as culture was explained as originating from and elaborating upon the use of long hard objects for sticking, bashing, and killing, I never thought that I had or wanted, any particular share in it. . . Wanting to be fully human too, I sought for evidence that I was; but if that’s what it took, to make a weapon and kill with it, then evidently I was either extremely defective as a human being, or not human at all. That’s right, they said. What you are is a woman. Possibly not human at all, certainly defective. Now be quiet while we go on telling the Story of the Ascent of Man the Hero. Go on, say I, wandering off towards the wild oats, with Oo Oo in the sling and little Oom carrying the basket. You just go on telling how the mammoth fell on Boob and how Cain fell on Abel and how the bomb fell on Nagasaki and how the burning jelly fell on the villagers and how the missiles will fall on the Evil Empire, and all the other steps in the Ascent of Man.” Well, I can’t type the entire essay here, so if you’re going to read only one piece, I suggest the Carrier Bag.

As I told the girls, another piece “Places, Names” gave me a great idea for my family’s Third Annual Summer Road Trip. Le Guin’s VW journey starting in Portland in June of 1981 and her recitation of places and names she saw along the way, gave me the idea of outlining Road Trip Poetry for my grandson. One poem starts with “something he had for breakfast” on the first line, two road signs he saw on the second line, the number of miles to our next destination on the third line, the name of an attraction on the fourth line, two unusual objects seen today on the fifth line and a new word or expression he heard on the sixth/final line. That’s the first one — I’m working on other formats. Madlibs/Roadtrip/Ursula K Le Guin-inspired poetry.

Apologies for not doing this amazing, intelligent woman justice. I’ve admitted to more people than the girls in the club that some of her writing went straight over my head. I’ll hope that some of the girls add their comments. I’m so tired of the comments always being Russian or porn. You know, it was fun at first, but it just doesn’t hold up.

Our next meeting will be at Sharon’s on Tuesday, April 18th to discuss The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander.

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The Known World by Edward P Jones

(Book 154) Mary hosted our meeting for The Known World; seven members attended and three played hooky! (OK, maybe they weren’t playing hooky.) We had updates from Marcia about Karen’s husband Scott and from Chris about Geri and we are all praying or thinking positive thoughts for both of them.

Mary started us off with chips, crackers, salsa, guacamole and crudité to nibble with our wine, while she did the final preparations for dinner. The main course was a Southern recipe for Smothered Chicken, a dish of chicken and gravy served over mashed potatoes and accompanied by a delicious salad of mixed greens, beets and pears. Dessert was a triumph! The book mentions apples and apple pie several times which caused Mary to google crustless apple pie. The recipe that came up was a cousin to apple crisp, apple brown Betty, apple crumble, and apple pan dowdy. We are all waiting impatiently for Mary to send us the recipe!

As we sat down to dinner, Chris started the ball rolling with “So, what did everyone think about the book?” There was quite a moment of silence before I said that had a few problems with it and listed: 1) that I was bothered by the very idea that there were free blacks who held slaves and 2) that I found it difficult to read because of the blend of past, present and future within the same paragraph.

Chris added that she is somewhat skeptical of the Pulitzer Prize in general, but that The Known World is a story not that well or artfully told. She said that she thought the writing was dense in a purposeful way to emphasize the slow, heavy, complex nature of the subject.

Sharon was daunted by the massive number of characters in the story, as was Marcia, and wished that her copy of the book had been like others of us who had a Dramatis Personae in the back of the book. She noted that she liked the book as it started, but felt that it was more difficult as she read on. Chris and I felt the other way round, in that the book was at first off-putting but as we immersed ourselves into it, we became more interested in the characters and the interactions between them.

Linda appreciated the time-jumping, particularly when the author jumped to the future to tell us where a character was in old age. I agreed that I became more comfortable with the time issue as I read deeper into the book. Susan said she wished she would have heard what happened to Rita, the woman that Augustus had packed into a shipping crate and sent North. Marcia felt that were several characters whose outcome stories hadn’t been told.

Melissa didn’t finish the book because she misplaced it and hasn’t been able to find it. We imagine it will turn up someday when a customer tries to rent it for a photo shoot!

Mary admitted that she didn’t read enough of it to form a full opinion, but thought that the book was tedious. Everyone agreed that it was a slow read. I was reading the book concurrently with Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist and I have to agree with Roxane (as she talked about Django Unchained) that maybe we don’t need another book or movie depicting the atrocities of slavery despite a new angle.

We will meet next month at Linda’s on Tuesday, March 21st to discuss Ursula K Leguin’s Dancing at the Edge of the World.

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Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke

(Book 153) It is hard to believe we’ve already had our first meeting in our new year of reading! Five of the girls met at my home, where I made them go deep into a theme of airline travel. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t the PanAm fine china and lamb chops sliced at your cloth-covered table kind of airline travel. My VIP lounge served bags of nuts, trail mix and other snack items with tiny bottles of wine poured into plastic cups. They received little suitcases with travel-size necessities packed inside, including the all important pill bottle of mini M&Ms. Also included were those hand-powered face rollers, because we have to keep ourselves looking young(ish) and because the product looks so 60’s.

Once dinner service began, the food offering improved significantly. Our menu was Vietnamese, because that was the most fascinating aspect of the book in my opinion. I served the whole meal at once in little dishes on today’s airline-sized trays. I take no credit for making any portion of this meal; the food was brought in from Bon Bon, a Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood. The appetizer was a portion each of shrimp and tofu spring rolls served with peanut sauce, the soup was Chicken Pho (Pho Gà), and the main course was three sections of Bánh Mi sandwiches: the Char Siu Pork, Biulgogi Beef and Coconut Curry Chicken. The official dessert was a Lotus Paste Mooncake, because the Vietnamese eat them in celebration of the harvest. Though it is not September or October, one of our absent members recently harvested stem cells for medical treatment and we celebrated Geri’s good harvest with mooncakes, mango and melon. The unofficial desserts were other Asian pastries that I had to buy as long as I was there at the bakery. Below you see the tray and those darn plastic cups!

I want one of the Báhn Mi now, please.

Now to the book. Everyone enjoyed the book. On a five star scale, its average among the six of us was 4 stars. Some of the girls made comments that the research that went into the book was on par with David McCullough or Eric Larsen. There were facts made fascinating. While some of us (Melissa) had exposure to women who had flown in the early days, most of us were not aware of the education and language requirements that PanAm required. Because many of us were “coming of age” in 1972, we were surprised to realize that 1972 was the first year that unmarried women were allowed to obtain birth control pills. I was pretty sure that was the year I started taking them and one of the girls was able to get them at Planned Parenthood the year before.

We were all very intrigued by the connection to Vietnam. Chris talked to a Vietnam veteran about it, who told her that he clearly remembered taking R&R vacations out of Vietnam. We wracked our brains trying to remember whether we were aware of the baby or orphan airlift as it happened or whether it was something we only learned about later. We talked about some of the stewardess’ stories and had a little trouble keeping them straight.

The only negative that I could voice about the book is that the emotional tone is low. This is true even when a stewardess faces a horrible situation when Guinean passengers are removed from the plane. One of the passengers grabs her arm but is wrenched away, yet the aftermath is summed as “Tori stood at the top of the stairs, catching her breath” and later “she wondered what happened” to the women who gripped her arm. Perhaps because the women related these stories to the author so much later in their lives, the original emotional response is missing, but it sometimes felt a bit blasé for the circumstance.

I know I’ve failed to report plenty of information but it’s hard to keep notes when I’m a guest, and it’s even more difficult when I’m hosting I shouldn’t complain though, because I received so much help from my daughter Frances; she helped by getting the meals on the trays and making the “overhead announcements” about dinner service. And to add even more realism, my grandson came downstairs at one point in the evening and bumped into the back of all the girls’ chairs! It was a fun evening.

Our next meeting will be at Mary’s house to discuss The Known World by Edward P. Jones. We have settled on Monday, February 27.

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2023: Welcome to W.O.R.R.L.D. S. World Occupancy: Recommended Re-Location & Departure Services

I have to wonder if any of the girls have listened to the songs on the MP3 player. It’s like the soundtrack of my life using only the songs with the word world in them. The songs include:

I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire (1941) by the Ink Spots

Goodbye Cruel World (1958) by James Darren

The End /Ind/ of the World (1962) by Skeeter Davis

What the World Needs Now (1965) by Jackie DeShannon

My World is Empty Without You (1966) by the Supremes

It’s a Five o’Clock World (1966) by The Vogues

There’s a Kind of Hush All Over the World (1967) by Herman’s Hermits

Colour My World (1967) by Petula Clark

Wild World (1970) by Cat Stevens

Hand Me Down World (1970) by the Guess Who

I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (1971) by the New Seekers and all those people in the Coke commercial.

On Top of the World Looking Down on Creation (1972) by The Carpenters

Color My World (1970) by Chicago

Any World That I’m Welcome To (1975) by Steely Dan

Message In a Bottle (1979) by The Police

Imagine by John Lennon

Sweet Dreams (1983) by Annie Lennox

What a Beautiful World It Would Be (1983) by Donald Fagan

World Weary by Noel Coward

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (1985) by Tears for Fears 

We Are the World (1985) by everybody and his brother

It’s the End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M

All Around the World by Paul Simon

What a Wonderful World (1967) sung by Louis Armstrong

Spice World: Spice Up Your Life (1997) by the Spice Girls

The Whole World (2001) by Outkast

Money Makes the World Go Around Fred Ebb and John Kander

Waiting on the World to Change (2007) by John Mayer

All the World is Green (2002) by Tom Waits

When the World’s on Fire by The Carter Family

I’ll Never Find Another You by the Seekers

Viva La Vida (2008) by Cold Play

How the World Works (2021) by Bo Barnham

And the BOOKS, I haven’t forgotten about the books, the books are:

January: Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke (2021)

February: The Known World by Edward P Jones (2003)

March: Dancing at the Edge of the World by Ursula K. LeGuin (1989)

April: The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander (2016)

May: Half a World Away by Mike Gayle (2020)

June: The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie (2000)

July: World’s Fair by E. L. Doctorow (1985)

August: Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems by David Rakoff (2005) It took him a while but he managed to get the world in there.

September: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes (1989)

October: Homesick for Another World by Otessa Moshfegh (2017)

November: The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina (2021)

December: An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (2013)

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The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore

(Book 152) We ended our year of Anatomy of a Book Club with The Stars Beneath Our Feet. As is often the case in our December meeting, discussion of the book took a backseat to the holiday cookie exchange and the announcement of next year’s reading list. But let’s take them one at a time.

This book counts as the second time we’ve read a book for young readers. The first was One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. Many of us are, after all, grandmothers and we have to keep our eyes on things to read to the grandchildren. While we all enjoyed One Crazy Summer, only one of us, Karen, enjoyed this month’s read. She said that she appreciated the easy read. (We have tackled some difficult books this year — I’m looking at you An Instance at the Fingerpost.) Chris noted that the book is a strange combination of too many issues. I thought that the story line about the girls starting a detective agency had the feel of a much younger book such as the Nate the Great series. It seemed out of place in the midst of all the other weighty issues.

Chris started a conversation about all of this year’s books by saying that she liked this year’s list better than any of our previous year’s. Our favorites were Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead with three votes (Sharon, Melissa, Teresa), Cat’s Eye with three votes (Susan, Mary, Rosalie) and River Teeth with two votes (Linda and Chris) I could have been in the River Teeth camp as well, it was a difficult choice. Karen chose The Beauty of Your Face and Marcia abstained. Geri couldn’t attend due to her health, but I will be taking her cookies.

Somehow, I failed to get a picture of the cookie exchange and I’m writing this so long after the fact, I will forget what everyone brought. I’m going to use the sign-up sheet my daughter created, but the girls will have to put corrections in the notes. Chris brought us colorful Spritz cookies; Karen gave us bags of Christmas Krack; Linda made her delicious Toffee and something else I can’t remember; Marcia baked us Eggnog Cut-Outs and English Toffee cookies; Mary contributed Christmas Cherry cookies and Spreds; Rosalie made Chocolate Cookies with mint chips and Raspberry Spitzbuben; Sharon baked Walnut Chocolate and Apricot Cookies and Nut Cups (and raised the bar with her packaging); and Susan repeated the excellence of her Cherry Biscotti. Melissa did not use the sign up sheet, so I have no recollection of her cookie treats because I went overboard with the body part theme and still haven’t recovered. My cookies included Rosemary and Orange Marmalade Cat’s Eyes, The Hand That First Held Mine was Wearing a Coconut Lime Mitten, Date and Walnut Bloody Pinwheels, The Stars Beneath the Chocolate Peppermint Boots on our Feet, The Ischl Tart Heart, The Beauty of Santa’s Honey Basil Face, The Peanut Butter and Cinnamon Heads of the Reindeer People, and the Non-Binary Gingerbread Body.

The new reading list will be discussed in full on it’s own page, but for now we will say that in 2023 we will be looking at options for abandoning this world (if only momentarily) and choosing another. All of our titles include the word world. I will be hosting our first meeting of 2023 on January 16, when we will discuss Come Fly the World, the Jet-Age Story of the Women of PanAm, by Julia Cooke.

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His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

(Book 151) Rosalie hosted this event which I was unable to attend because I had to leave the first bad weather days of snow and cold in Chicago to go to Hawaii with my husband. (There was some revenge exacted; I came home with the worst cough and cold of my life.) Typically, if I miss a meeting, Chris picks up on the note-taking and summary email, but Chris had to miss the meeting as well, so Linda was thrown into a baptism by fire, no, wait, by freezing temps. I’ll let Linda speak for herself.

Hi all,

I volunteered to summarize our lovely evening and book discussion. I would put the book discussion on the website, but I didn’t see a way to do that. So here goes. A small but merry (and cold) group assembled at Rosalie’s home to discuss “His Bloody Project”. Rosalie tried to discourage us by not answering her door, but we persisted! And we were glad we did. We entered to a cozy apartment to find delicious appetizers waiting for us. Stuffed crescent rolls, smoked salmon spread and a lovely blue cheese, yum! Assorted white and red wines were poured and we discussed the book.

No one thought to take a poll or get ratings, but the general consensus was positive. I liked the book but wasn’t sure I would recommend it to others – mainly because it was rather depressing. The theme of humans being treated horribly by other humans seems to be a recurring condition – up to modern day. Rosalie mentioned that on a trip to Scotland in the 80’s she visited a small town with a large fancy hotel where the townspeople were not allowed to fish in the waters off their coast. Only guests of the hotel were allowed to fish! And so it goes! Several of our group had wondered about the fiction vs family history aspect of the book. Our conclusion was that the Preface and the use of the author’s surname for the killer’s surname was a device by the author. (We decided it was all pure fiction.)

We moved into the dining room for a delicious dinner – seasonal salad with apples, a fantastic lamb stew, bannock. And a chocolate bundt cake with glaze for dessert (with root beer as a secret ingredient!). What more could anyone want on a cold snowy evening! We opened our monthly gifts – cookie baking tools – very timely. Thank you Teresa. We have chosen Tuesday December 13 for our annual cookie exchange/book discussion extravaganza! We have an open email from Teresa to state what appetizer we will bring. And we will not be celebrating Melissa’s birthday!

To top off the evening with a dramatic display of forgetfulness, I left my phone at Rosalie’s. Thanks to Marcia/Rosalie for notifying me and to Sharon who was kind enough to endure the trip back to collect it. (We were only halfway back to Chicago when we turned around.)

Thank you Rosalie for a wonderful evening, delicious dinner and excellent conversation.

Linda
(poor substitute)

In an email after the meeting, Rosalie told us she forgot to give out her Scottish shortbread — two different kinds! But she was reassured by Sharon: “no need to think of the imperfect things……….after a few minutes in your warm welcoming apartment and a few sips of wine then all was well. Also, in my family, it was a running joke to find the missing dish that someone forgot to bring to the table. There always was one. ” Chris and Susan added their stories of forgotten items at dinner parties, and we all take a deep breath and go on.

But, let’s talk about the book just a little more. In her email after the meeting Chris said:

“I personally liked this one a lot. It really made me think about the whole issue—a big one today—of how much a person can endure without losing their mind. Bullying and other forms of oppression never end. I would have loved to be in on a discussion of what “fairness” is and when others should rise up (always, basically).”

This was my second reading of the book. After the first reading, I wrote a short review on Goodreads and gave it 4 stars. “I may come back and give this five stars. I had more desire to read and finish this book than anything I’ve read for at least six months — it is shamefully clever — so much so that it takes a while to realize just how clever it is. It was particularly surprising to be so drawn to this book given my usual avoidance of situations in which a character is powerless to change or protect himself from intimidation, injustice and everydamnotherevilthing!
Really well done.”

After second reading: (11/22)
“Well, i did come back to give it five stars but it took me five years to do it.”

One of the reasons for my higher score was the detail of the footnotes in the trial records. Dr Munro attests: “I have encountered prisoners who spout incomprehensible gibberish; whose speech is nothing more than a stream of unintelligible, unconnected words, or is not even recognisable as language.*** “The footnote attached to this reads “A mischievous sketch in The Scotsman suggested that the prisoners to whom Dr Munro referred might merely have been speaking Gaelic.” I just think that the levels of fictional cleverness are stunning.

The second reason for my higher rating is also based on the quality of writing — one paragraph in particular that just struck me this time. It relates to the grief felt in his family after his mother’s death.

“This event brought about a great number of changes to our family. Chief among these was the general air of gloom which descended on our household and hung there like the reek. My father was the least changed of us, largely because he had never been much given to joviality. If we had once enjoyed some moments of collective amusement, it was always his laughter that died away first. He would cast his eyes downward as though this moment of pleasure shamed him. Now, however, his face acquired an unalterable bleakness, as if fixed by a change in the wind. I do not wish to portray my father as callous or unfeeling, nor do I doubt that his wife’s death grievously affected him. It is rather that he was better adapted to unhappiness, and that to no longer feel obliged to feign pleasure in this world came as a relief to him.” Not having to feign pleasure came as a relief. Stunning.

Finally, I was thinking of the unreliable narrator. As I read the book the second time, I liked Roderick, I wanted to like Roderick. Linda and Chris both mentioned the bullying. How much can a person take? But then there’s this little flash of the unreliable narrator. His neighbor mentions him peeping in windows at her daughters, the violation of Jetta’s private parts never mentioned in Roderick’s confession of his deeds. I’ve spent some time trying to reconcile those aspects with the simple Roderick of his own report. I’ll grant it’s not an easy book to read, but it is genius.

Our next meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, December 13, at my home. I have to go clean it.

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An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

(Book 150) Yes, we’ve reached the milestone of having read 150 books together. I gave each of the girls a new framed document displaying the 50 books we’ve read since the idea for Book Club 101 originated. Perhaps, I’ll add a photo later.

Chris hosted this event and there was much discussion over the appetizers of cheese, paté, tomatoes, olives, crackers and fresh figs stuffed with bacon, sherry vinegar and red pepper flakes. There was great discussion about the deliciousness of the appetizers as well as discussion of the book. Most of us who finished the book agreed that there were times when we thought we wouldn’t finish! Many of us were overwhelmed by the detail of each of the four narrators’ accounts. Some of us wanted to stab one or more of the fictional narrators. But those who finished, agreed that they were very happy to have stayed with it, to reach the fourth narrator’s telling of the story. It’s hard to give a book like that a solid recommendation and yet a few of us did!

Chris noted that she found it surprisingly engaging; we were very intrigued that many of the characters were historical figures cleverly inserted into the story: the mathematician John Wallis, the historian Anthony Wood, the philosopher John Locke, the scientists Robert Boyle and Richard Lower, spymaster John Thurloe, inventor Samuel Morland and the Anglican cleric Thomas Ken. I found it interesting that the author took a bit of a shot at John Locke on p. 107 saying there was: “Something about the man which could always inveigle himself into the good graces of the powerful.” I appreciated the bookended quality of the chapter about the dove and the vacuum; the bird trapped of air seems to die, but returns to life when the air is returned. The same is true for Sarah, or we believe it to be. The historical foundation of the book gives way to the premise that in every generation Jesus Christ is born again, and in each incarnation is doomed to be martyred, come back to life, disappear – and be reborn again in the next generation. My mother would have been proud that I recognized the moment of Peter denying Jesus three times when Anthony Wood reports that people came to him in the Fleur de Lys, the Feathers and finally the Mitre, and “I shrugged, said I did not know, none of my concern, she might have done it for all I know.” Later leaving: “a cock crow strange for this time of night,”

We discussed the medical aspects of the book, the concept that at this time, doctors were just beginning to leave behind the “aspect of Venus” — to move beyond astrology in medicine and concern for the humours. We enjoyed that notion that one of the characters stops for a blood-letting, as we might take a Tylenol, to see if that would make him feel better. Yet there were aspects of medical thought that seemed not unlike those one hears espoused today: You can’t get pregnant if you take no pleasure in the act. I can only imagine the serious blow to population growth if that were true.

And of course we talked about the treatment of women: da Cola tells Anne that Sarah is more outspoken than a girl has a right to be. Anne corrects, she is more outspoken than a girl is allowed to be. “Da Cola: Is there a difference?” When I read this aloud at the meeting, Linda, jumped in with “Yes, sir, there is.” Adamant but polite.

We had a little fun talking about the comment on p. 204, “Every man alive can remember exactly what they were doing when they heard that the King had been beheaded.” While we are used to instant news, our reactions all occur in the same moments, or at least the same day. We are spread all over the world but our reaction is almost simultaneous. With the slow travel of news in the time period, there was probably a fairly wide spread of “when” they heard.

A barrage of thoughts and comments. We gave Geri the floor to address the quote: “The Irish use words of honey to disguise their natures.” We marveled a bit at Anne’s battle cry: “Follow, or I die alone!” I particularly enjoyed the really horrible review of the King Lear production. And again, how pertinent to today is: “You wish to guard the integrity of good society, yet you use the habits of the gutter to do so.”

Finally to dinner. Chris made her own ravioli with her own pasta machine. I buried the lede. She made butternut squash ravioli with sage and it was divine. But I should go back and say that Chris took her theme for the night’s cuisine from da Cola’s Venice, a Venetian evening complete with fireworks. The meal was cleverly influenced by Brunetti’s Cookbook, which includes recipes and excerpts from the Guido Brunetti books by Donna Leon, as well as essays on food and life in Venice. I’ve mentioned the first course of butternut squash ravioli with sage, but I did not mention that it was served with a wonderful caprese salad. The main course was turkey breast stuffed with prosciutto, provolone and spinach served with rosemary-garlic potatoes and a bitter greens and pear salad. Dessert included two offerings (pieces of both came home with me) — a Torta al Ciocolato with apricot jam between the layers and an Apple, Lemon and Orange cake soaked in Grand Marnier.

I’ve been giving “body part party favors” this year and tonight’s was witch’s fingers for this Instance of the Fingerpost. I have to include a photo. Just casually listening. Nothing untoward.

As we enjoyed our desserts, I made the girls give their rating of the book on a five star system. Mary and Melissa gave it 3 stars, Linda gave 3 and 3/4 (!) stars, Susan and Geri gave it 4 stars, and Chris and I gave it 5 stars. I reserved the right to remove 1/2 star for wanting to stab John Wallis in any or all of his body parts.

Our next meeting will take place at Rosalie’s home on Thursday, November 17.