sametimenextmonth: March Book Club 2013

Saturday, March 9, 2013

March Book Club 2013

It is already March. Officially, Spring is just a few days away. This month the ladies first convened on Main St. to spend a few minutes at the 2nd Friday Art Walk. I really appreciated all the support as I joined Gallery 1 2 3 and my paintings were highlighted this month. After an hour or so we met at Lou's lovely home and B & B. We enjoyed a veggie lasagna, salad, bread, tortilla spirals and cheesecake bites. We missed Terry, Denise, Janie and Barb this month.

We finished our second book for 2013. As in the past, our books often "tag" off one another. Our first in Jan-Feb was Barbara Kingsolver's "Flight Behavior" that dealt with the flight patterns of the Monarch Butterfly. Darby suggested we read "In the Time of Butterflies" for February. The first book dealt with literal butterflies and the second with the metaphorical.

"In the Time of Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez is an historical fiction that takes place in the Dominican Republic during the dictatorship of Rafael Trullijo. It is based on the true story of the four Mirabel sisters who make a commitment to overthrow the Trujillo regime. The code name for the sisters become The Mariposa's or... The Butterflies.

Trujillo was a man who connived and murdered his way to the top spot in the Dominican Republic. During his reign he had approximately 50,000 Haitians and Dominicans murdered in his mission to eliminate blacks who occupied one-third of the Island of Hispanola. He confiscated property land & possessions, imprisons without trial, rapes and pillages. Trujillo also had an eye for young women. He had many mistresses set up in compounds away from the capital. When he makes a move on Minerva, the third oldest Mirabel sister, he has messed with the wrong girl. Minerva has the heart of a rebel and ends up involving herself in the revolution against Trujillo. She marries into it and involves her family. Dede, the second sister, does not involve herself directly in the revolution but she plays her part by taking care of the children of the other sisters as they work to over throw Trujillo.

Our lively discussion started off by deliberating what politicizes each of us. Consensus is that people tend to become political when the issue becomes personal. The issue for Minerva becomes very personal when El Jefe, the chief, makes a pass at her at a very public event. She has already seen one of her friends swept off with him and heard the rumors about what what happens to his women. Minerva is not inclined to go along willingly and her fate is sealed when she slaps Trujillo on the dance floor.

We talked about which sister we most identified with, which we'd most like to be friends with, and which we'd most like to be like. There was much discussion about the men in the Latino culture. Trujillo had access to most any woman he wanted and he used his power over them. But, Minerva's father also had a second family hidden out on his own farm and Minerva's husband cheated on her. Part of the discussion was about the differences between Matriarchal and Patriarchal societies. We decided that there is a legal definition and also an emotional one.

The Mirabel sisters fought El Jefe for many years. Minerva's father was arrested and tortured. Some years later the husbands were imprisoned and tortured and then the sisters are imprisoned. When the sisters were released they were held under house arrest. And then, in a final act of vengeance, El Jefe moves the husband to a prison that is closer to the sisters but in a more dangerous terrain. On one of the visits to see their husbands, El Jefe has the sisters ambushed and murdered. Dede is the loan survivor as she stayed behind to take care of the children, and lives to retell the story for the rest of her life. Six months after the murders, El Jefe is assassinated.

The book rated a 4.6 among those who rated and at least 3 "I liked it very, very much".

We decided we needed a lighter more humorous book for April and so we picked "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran.

No comments:

2015 Hosts and Books

Jan 9 - Pam Boeck - All the Light We Cannot See
Feb 6 - Lou Christian - Alif the Unseen
March 6 - Terry Cummings - Kind of Kin
April 3 - Janie Tisdale - The Girl on the Train
May 1 - Arnora Parish - The Stolen Child
Jun 5 - Barb Barrow - The Elephant Whisperer
July 10 - Diana Beal - Lone Wolf
Aug 7 - Denise McGough - The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Sept 11 - Sherrie Phillips - H is for Hawk
Oct 2 - Arnora Parish - The Boy Who Drew Monsters
Nov 6 - Sherrie Phillips
Dec - Laura Madden - A Child's Christmas in Wales & Christmas Day in the Morning

The Honey Tree - Mary Oliver

And so at last I climbed

the honey tree, ate

chunks of pure light, ate

the bodies of bees that could not

get out of my way, ate

the dark hair of the leaves,

the rippling bark,

the heartwood. Such

frenzy! But joy does that,

I'm told, in the beginning.

Later, maybe,

I'll come here only

sometimes and with a

middling hunger. But now

I climb like a snake

I clamber like a bear to

the nuzzling place, to the light

salvaged by the thighs

of bees and racked up

in the body of the tree.

Oh, anyone can see

how I love myself at last!

how I love the world! climbing

by day or night

in the wind, in the leaves, kneeling

at the secret rip, the cords

of my body stretching

and singing in the

heaven of appetite.

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Lis and Diana's Review of Isaac's Storm

Lis said: This book centers around the devastating hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, in 1901 and is blamed for the death of over 4500 people. Although the story wasn't a page-turner for most, it was full of interesting historical and scientific data while building up to describing accounts of the devastation and aftermath that the storm created. In my opinion, it is debatable whether the book should be considered a true fiction or a non-fiction. Hand in hand with the storm description, the book tells about the creation of the National Weather Service and the struggle that the organization went through to earn the people's trust. When looking back over the disaster, the author identifies areas of misuse and false pride - in the bureaucratic sector as well as the people's personal lives - that, if it had been overcome, might have averted some of the lost lives. Building up to the storm, the author touches on many historical facts surrounding the era, such as the state of Arkansas passing legislation a few decades earlier to legalize the proper pronunciation of its name to be "Arkansaw." Into this background, the author creates the characters that he was able to find in his research that made up the early Weather Service and some of the residence of Galveston, their spouses and children, making us shiver with dread over successful and unsuccessful rescue efforts. After bringing to life the unimaginable aftermath, with whole neighborhoods destroyed and bodies at every step, the book concludes with Galveston's recovery and a large chapter of Acknowledgements for the extensive support and research that the author relied on. I for one enjoyed the book immensely and, after the first third, found it difficult to put down till the end. Elisabeth Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine. I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

Diana said: The old saying, "hind sight is 20/20" comes to mind while reading the hurricane account of Galveston, Texas in 1901. Author Eric Larson's story reminded me of his first book we read, Devil in the White City, as he combined historical facts and real people while piecing together a plausible tale of personalities and lives. I have huge respect for writing historical fiction, as the writer not only has to devise an interesting story but also works as an investigator and researcher in the process. The first third of the story was slow and at times I found myself skimming the pages waiting for action. I think this may have been purposeful by Larson. As a reader I was going about my daily business and uninvolved like the townspeople of Galveston noting the changing winds and heading off to work. I took occasional notice of Isaac's trip to the American west by stage and his appearance as a "dandy", the use of telegraph as the primary form of communication from on location to another and it was surprising to find out the American and Cuban weather men held so little regard for each other. Americans found the Cuban forecasters primitive, romantic and unreliable. But once the hurricane was upon Galveston, I was spellbound for the remainder of the book. With the exception of once when I had to put the story down due to the brutal descriptions of decaying bodies which I found overwhelming. For me the story telling mimicked the event itself. Galveston and the rest of the U.S. were going along with business as usual, and then wham! A hurricane the magnitude no one expected or had experienced before bursts forth with action and drama and left no one untouched including me.

Lis' review of A Thousand Splendid Suns

The story playing in Afghanistan made it another compelling read and a walk through a different culture, very foreign to most of us. I had the fortune to have also read the book The Kite Runner by the same author and found that the two stories make great companion books, almost a must-read duo. Our month's selection takes us into the Arabic culture through the life of two women, one of them a servant girl's bastard child - and yes, I used the old fashioned term for illegitimate child on purpose to stay with the tone of the novel. The other woman is depicted as a well-educated, emancipated young woman from a progressive, westernized family. Through the turmoils surrounding Afghanistan's recent 30-year history, their lives intertwine with the same abusive husband and their attempt to deal with the changes brought on by the Russian occupation, the takeover of the Mujahedin and, eventually, the Taliban. The companion book, The Kite Runner, deals with the same political and social upheavals in Afghanistan but is told through the life of a man and his very devoted male servant. A Thousand Splendid Suns evoked a lot of emotion for most of us, feeling comfortable as well educated American women that have rights and can expect a certain social standing that greatly exceeds the animal-like treatment of our female Afghan counterparts under Taliban rule. Needless to say, we had a lively discussion about Afghanistan's troubles, the interactions of both women's parents' influences, their different upbringing, and how it made them relate to each other. We found similarities to the book Shanturam in this author's use of the cinema, especially Bollywood movies. One thing we did not discuss though that I found enticing, was the advantages of being able to skip hair and make-up treatments through the use of a Burka! Blue was, after all, the favored color of my youth, although I always preferred much darker shades. What do you think, ladies, Burkas in our future?

sametimenextmonth

Saturday, March 9, 2013

March Book Club 2013

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