Greetings bookclubbers, attending, distant and prospective,
We had a bookclub meeting about … um, last Monday I think it was, at our favourite library with beer, The London in Balmain. I was there, and so were Jackie, Yen, Elissa, Andrew and Michelle. After quite a long time discussing the exciting news of Yen’s pregnancy and the equally exciting-but-not -in-a-good-way news of Michelle’s husband’s heart attack (he’s fine now), we talked about The Captive Wife for a while. According to my very cursory and almost illegible notes, we said some things more or less along the following lines.
Andrew claims to hate all historical fiction, especially when it’s comprised of fake letters and fake diary entries – he says it reminds him too much of year 9 projects involving staining paper with tea to make it look ye olde. So faced with a novel which starts with a fake letter before moving on to a fake journal entry, it’s not surprising he didn’t make it past page 68. Everyone else managed to struggle through to the end with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The general consensus was that Ms Kidman’s historical research seemed solid, with Yen and Michelle enjoying the bits about life in colonial Sydney, Jackie being surprised to learn of Maori cannibalism and the culinary tip referred to in the subject line above, and myself, unlike Aoife and Anne, much preferring ‘How to Catch a Sperm Whale in Six Easy Pages’ to its obvious source in the longwindedness of Mr Melville. And theme-wise, Jackie and Elissa in particular opined there was food for thought in the author’s attempts to explore the choices women make/are forced to make in a patriarchal society and you know, stuff like that. Where everyone thought the novel fell down was in the drawing of the characters; fatally for a novel written in several characters’ voices, none of them seemed convincing or even really distinguishable, with the governess in particular seeming like nothing more than a plot device (were she to appear in an Austin Powers film her character would have been called Adeline Exposition). This lead to a wider discussion about why historical fiction works when it does – Wolf Hall, The True History of the Kelly Gang and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet being given as examples – which was really interesting and I bet you wish you had been there because from a distance of six days I can’t really remember any of it and my notes say unhelpful things like ‘ws a levic – dumsy need to?’ so I think I’m going to file that under lost in the mists of time and hope I get my brain back once I stop breastfeeding.
Anyway. Stars:
Elissa: 3
Michelle: 3
Yen: 3.5
Andrew: didn’t make the rigorously applied 150 page cut off
Jackie: 2.5
Elizabeth: 2.5
The next book, which won in a Barry O’Farrellesque landslide from Marg’s shortlist of first novels, is Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. The next meeting is on 2 May. After our traditional discussion of where to meet when it’s an interstater’s choice, we eventually said, as is traditional, sod it, let’s come back to The London. Next to choose is Elissa and I think after that is Wayde.
love and jaffas
Elizabeth
P.S David Mitchell is speaking at the Sydney Literary Festival on 20 May – anyone want to go?
P.P.S This email is being copied to our friends Ruth and Hayley, who have, perhaps foolishly, expressed an interest in joining bookclub. I shall leave the effusive introductions until they actually commit themselves by showing up. They’re nice though. You’ll like them.
elissa
theemc2
