October Book Club 2014

Happy Birthday this month to Barb and Pam. We were sorry they had to miss as well as, Darby, Terry, Lou and Carla G.  But, it was really great to have Tammy with is us again and to meet her friend, Michele.  Tammy and Randall have wintered their boat in Guatemala and she may be able to join us for book club for the next couple of months.  She also offered her brothers lodge to us a potential retreat location if we can find a date that works.

 

Diana hosted this month’s book club. She served a sweet and; spicy turkey chili that was perfect for this time of year. Arnora really out did herself and made warm brie and fig preserve pastries. Tammy brought cornbread, Lis brought a meat pie pastry. Lis brought a really savory bacon wrapped asparagus and wine. Laura, Denise and Janie brought beer and wine. For dessert, Carla A. brought apple pie, I bought the ice cream and Arnora provided the Kahlua.

Tammy also brought us a gift she made. She gave each one of us a necklace she made. Each piece contains two lines from the poem "The Honey Tree" by Mary Oliver. If you were unable to attend, Diana has one for you.

Tammy offered up this month’s selection, The Sea The Sea by Iris Murdock. It was the winner of the 1978 Booker Prize. Tammy said she read it while on the boat and out to “sea”.

The book sparked a lively discussion. Tammy said she picked it for us because she remembered that Laura was often commenting on the narrator of our novels and whether we considered them reliable or unreliable narrators.  She felt that our narrator, Charles Arrowby was an unreliable narrator. Charles has recently retired from the English theatre where he worked over the years as actor, playwright and director. He has never married, nor wanted to, but has left a string of ex-lovers in his wake.  As the book opens he has taken up residence on a remote English peninsula in an ancient house called Schruff where he intends to write his memoirs.

My impression is that he was a composite, for me, of Richard Burton, David Niven and Rex Harrison, all of whom are English actors who shared some of the same qualities. I described Charles to the group as either a being a borderline personality with sociopathic tendencies or having narcissistic personality disorder.  It turns out that our author was a psychology major, so this all made perfect sense to me. 

Also, after the fact, I read a review that described Charles as an egomaniac.  This by, by definition is one who is self-obsessive, follows his own ungoverned impulses, is possessed by delusions of personal grandeur and feels a lack of appreciation.  So, I wasn’t too far off the mark.

The author during the writing of this book.

In the first few paragraphs Charles describes himself as “not a womanizer” but then proceeds to give a laundry list of the women he has left in is wake and he may have loved one or two but used even them. That pretty much set the tone for me and let me know he did not see himself with any objectivity and without that you’ve lost all reliability.

I found the book to be an interesting case study of his personality disorder. However, the stream of conscious writing style and the tedious details made it difficult to stay engaged.  The discussion of this book is what made it interesting rather than the book itself.  Of those who read the book, it rated a 3. Two more are finishing and we had one who “didn’t read it but enjoyed the discussion.”

For the next two months we’ll be reading the Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.