November is upon us and another fabulous Thanksgiving meal. Thanks to Denise and Don for hosting. A special thanks to Don who graciously agreed to help us take our updated "15 year" photo. We eagerly await the results (or, maybe not! haha). We did our traditional photo wearing black & white for continuity AND couldn't resist reprising our "Calendar Girl" version. It was a lot of laughs!
We're going to do another photo in December to hopefully catch those who couldn't be here this time - so wear your red and green!
Denise provided us with turkey, ham, stuffing and gravy. Carla G brought sweet potato casserole, Tammy brought rolls and butter, Laura brought green salad, I provided a cranberry/orange relish. Barb and Carla A brought dessert; pecan pie and bread pudding, respectively. Darby brought rum cider, Diana brought her Cranberry Kiss cocktail and there were two Reislings and coffee. Arnora brought the beautiful floral centerpiece.
We missed Lis, Janie, Pam, Leslie, Terry and Lou. However, we were thrilled that Darby was able to join us. We haven't seen her in over a year and it was great to catch up.
Our book this month was The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Darby brought this to our attention as he had just received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his body of work. This is his most recent novel. He is probably most well known for his book, The Remains of the Day for which he won the Man Booker Prize in 1989. Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan but moved to England in 1960 when he was 5 and grew up there.
Unfortunately, for most of us, this book just didn't resonate. Diana and Laura gave it the highest marks. Several were unable or, uninterested, in finishing it. The premise of the story takes place in an English village sometime just after the reign of King Arthur, which puts in sometime in the 1100's after the war between the Brits and Saxons. An elderly couple, living in the village struggle with memory issues. For example, they have a vague memory of having a son and they think they know what village he is living in now, but little else is remembered. They decide to set out on a journey to the son's village - which they believe to be within a few days walk of their own. Along the way they encounter all of the traditional fairy tale and metaphorical characters you would expect.
A boatman ferry's couples across a "river" but, they can only go together if they provide individual stories to the boatman of their undying love. There is a medicine woman, a she-dragon, a monster that is beheaded and, a knight - Sir Gawain of King Arthur's round table.
I, personally, was not resonating with the story or, connecting to the characters. It is told in third person, so I tried to give it a "Princess Bride" feeling in my head. I tried to envision the old couple as Billy Crystal and Carol Kane. But, I just couldn't get interested in it.
I understood the metaphors but, I thought this story has been told before and much better. I understood what he was trying to do with memory. And, most of us are at the time in life where we are dealing with this issue with our parents. This made it a difficult read for some - hitting too close to home.
It was a good discussion and the book received a decent rating of 3 and Carla's, "it was just fine."
Next month we will meet at Laura's and our book is The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. I just downloaded my copy on Audible. For our January book, I am bringing the book club kit from the Library for "Cooking with Picasso."
