We were 9 at the meeting: Amanda, Caroline, Catherine (new joiner from Cynthia’s other dying book club), Clare, Michel, Mark, Robin, Maren, Cynthia. Relatively strong opinions evenly divided: 4 of us loved the book, and 4 had varying reasons for not enjoying it. (one did not read it, but thankfully joined us anyway). To summarize:
Robin, who recommended the book, found it well-written and particularly liked the way Mo was able to describe the details of the war — for example, how to construct and install the mines. Ironically, this is what both Maren, (who couldn’t finish the entire book) and Caroline both disliked. Caroline particularly thought it dragged on and on during the war scenes and needed better editing. Maren did not see the point in all the description. Cynthia, one of the big fans of the novel, mentioned originally not understanding why the war scenes were so long but ultimately thought they were a vehicle to further develop the characters in the book. Catherine, who deserves extra credit for having found out about the meeting less than a week before, happened to have read most of Timothy Mo’s work while living in Hong Kong, and was also a big fan. Only Robin has read more of his books than Catherine, and both agreed that this was his best for having captured so well the moment in history, the people, the culture, etc.
Clare did not dislike the book, but found it gruesomely real enough to have a hard time with the subject matter. Michel seemed just fed up with the negativity, also commenting more on the subject matter being depressing, than the quality of the book. Mark — who shares an apartment with the author of these minutes — could not stop singing the praises of this book the entire time he was reading it, yet at the meeting was only remembered for having said at one point, “Ah, yes, I really enjoyed it.” One suspects this may have something to do with Clare showing an interest in horses, which of course means that Mark is not allowed to sit next to Clare at the next meeting. This now makes two people not allowed to sit next to Mark, the other being Robin, because the two of them tend to discuss war books/movies all through the meetings. Which, incidentally, is how we wound up with this selection for December, chosen at the October meeting. So perhaps in the end it isn’t such a bad thing letting them sit together, as it turned out to be a very good book discussion, indeed. Bravo, Robin.
One may have gathered by now that Amanda was the attendee who had not read the book, and it is interesting to note that she arrived when there were mostly fans of the book discussing it and had asked to borrow it to read it over Christmas break. As the discussion went on, however, she realized it would not be a light holiday read and decided against it. Further proof that we were a very evenly divided group!
Cynthia
