Dear ‘Clubbers
My profound apologies for sending this report so late. My only excuse is that I was struck down ill immediately after book club, confined to bed for a week and then forgot. No excuse, I know.
5 Sydney book club friends met at the Alfred Hotel in Camperdown to discuss the Red Shoe. We soon realised that unless we were discussing the Bowie lyric “put on your Red Shoes and dance the blues” we were not going to be able to talk at the Alfred as we were being drowned out by a Trivia Quiz. We retired to Yen’s house which is conveniently located around the corner from the Alfred. So as not to break a 10 year tradition, we purchased chocolate biscuits, jelly snakes and freckles from the 7/11 on the way to Yen’s house.
Jackie and Elizabeth had called in their apologies. Jackie said she was ‘tired’ and wouldn’t make it to the meeting. It was only at the meeting that Celia asked whether that meant Elizabeth was ‘tired’ too, which was when the penny dropped that ‘tired’ might have been a euphemism for ‘in labour’ (although no doubt they were tired as well).
The general consensus amongst the Sydney readers was that The Red Shoe was engaging and entertaining (except for Michelle who could remember nothing about it). Michelle read the book very quickly and it didn’t stay with her. She thought the newspaper extracts were disjointed Yen thought the characters were believable and the book generally was complex and subtle. She liked the excitement and the intrigue and thought the ending was good.
Andrew also liked the book a lot. He said it was evocative of his childhood – he used to go to the Basin at Christmas time and could remember the feeling waiting for the ferry to arrive. He thought the themes were a bit dark but the writing was very accessible. He liked the way we got into Mathilda’s head but thought the bits where we got into Frances’ and Elizabeth’s head was a distraction. We had a good discussion about the Petrov affair which seemed to serve no other purpose than to anchor the book in the 1950s. We were all of the view that the story would have been better without the Petrovs in it.
Celia thought the book was generally well written, while there were lots of good things about it there were also lots of bad things. She thought it jumped about a bit too much which was distracting. I can’t remember now whether Celia thought that the newspaper clippings were a distraction (although that comment was definitely made) she did think the Petrovs could have been left out.
We established beyond a reasonable doubt that the man shot in the shooting gallery was Uncle Paul and not the girls’ father (in case anyone was wondering). We solved a few other mysteries as well such as “was Easter the first time the father was supposed to come home after Christmas?”, “how long was Elizabeth off school?” and “does anyone use the phrase ‘nervous breakdown’ anymore?”
I can’t remember my comments, but I do remember that I adopted everything Elizabeth said in her email. She’s so clever.
Stars:
Andrew – 4
Michelle – 2
Yen – 4
Celia – 3
Me – 4
Next meeting is an end of the round. We were almost lost for ideas and guidance, with our intrepid leaders busy producing a baby. We settled on a pre-Christmas dinner at my house – the theme is Food Books (could be cook books or just books about food or which feature food). If you are in Sydney, you need to cook a recipe out of your favourite foodie book and bring it to dinner at my place. It will be pot luck so if we all cook dessert, that will be very fitting. We might start the proceedings at 7.30pm to allow for eating to take place.
For the Melb, London and Canberra folks – you have three options: send us your comments on your favourite food book, organise your own food book dinner that night and / or come to Sydney for the night!
Jackie’s turn to choose next.
A few days after book club we received the glorious news of the birth of book club’s 5th girl: Merryn Elizabeth Kirk Quang. An LOTR name if ever I heard one. Hurrah!
Love
Elissa
elissa
theemc2
