March: The Tao of Pooh

For our second meeting, we met at Kristy's place to discuss the Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff. Four of us were present: Kristy, Kyla, Caitlin and Christine. Sylvie and Jill were unfortunately unable to meet us. Kristy's adorable and fluffy cats also joined us for a fun-filled evening of books, wine and yummy food.

Unlike last meeting, which featured two hours of intense discussion, we were slower to start talking about this book, and much faster to dismiss it. Overall, I don't think many of us were impressed with Hoff's rhetoric. Some of us felt he was being of a bit of an Eyore, an Owl and a Rabbit all in one, and his criticism of Western society was predominantly slanted to the negative. At this point, Kyla pointed out that a true Taoist would have seen the positives of Western society rather than criticising it. We were also slightly miffed at the author's criticism of Western exercise habits.

Ever the optimist, Kristy did point out that the book had its own value, notably in pointing out the importance of enjoying the now...Kristy has spent the last ten years in Victoria, where the pace is much slower than that in Toronto, and pointed out that if nothing else, Hoff reminded her of the need to just enjoy nature. Why, she asked, must we rush to get to work and work all day, then rush home to eat and go to bed. We must remember to slow down and enjoy the time in between work...To leave work at work.

Anyhoo, reading this book a second time was interesting to me. I was very struck by it when I was in my early 20s. Now that I'm older, I'm not sure if I'm wiser, but it just didn't make such an impression on me...

Next book: A Sand County Almanac...Looking forward to it!

First book: Reading Lolita in Tehran

Well ladies, it was my pleasure to host our first book club meeting ever at my place a few weeks ago and discuss Reading Lolita in Tehran. The discussion was stimulating, the company very enjoyable and the wine tasty (including Kyla's dad's black cherry wine - like candy!).

I won't try to capture all of our discussion, but here are some of my impressions of our conversation:

We discussed at length the idea of cultural perspective or lenses...How it's difficult (virtually impossible, some would say) to step into someone else's shoes without losing your cultural perspective, but also how distance from one's culture can give new perspective on it. Thus, by reading novels in Tehran through the narrator, we distanced ourselves from our traditional readings of them, and therefore read them in a new light.

Some readers felt cheated by the author's claim that this was a real novel, when in fact much of it was fabricated. We discussed why it is that we feel it is important for a novel to be "real" if it claims to be so, but also whether "real" exists...Again, we come back to the cultural lens.

The issue of being implicit in one's own fate was raised - just as the narrator chooses to wear the veil and yet deplores it, by the same token, she could have chosen NOT to wear it. We discussed whether we are truly the makers of our own destiny.

Many of us noted the author's strange detachment from her topic, even when depicting scenes and events that must have been traumatic. It was suggested that perhaps this was the only way for someone in these circumstances to deal with such daily trauma - to become frozen to it - or whether the author was suffering from post-traumatic stress. In fact many of us felt that it was strange to be reading about the upheaval in Iran through novels, as though that trivialized the topic. By the same token, these books became a safe haven for the people reading them, and reminded us of how lucky we are to live in a country where we can read (almost) whatever we want).

It was also iteresting that many of us in reading the book felt just as strangely detached from the topic as the author, and the question was raised as to whether this was a conscious decision on the author's part - to represent the feeling of daily shock that the author must have felt in the situation. Others felt that the novel's tone was too academic, and was written as an academic treatise rather than a novel...Perhaps this was a failure on the publisher or editor's part - promoting what is in fact an academic book as a novel.

In addition to the author's detachment from her topic, we discussed her escape from the world into the book club, and her criticism of the magician: by retreating from society, we felt that she was becoming more complicit in it and becoming more of a participant in her world. (one of us...we won't say who...suggested that the magician may not even exist, but most others felt that he does).

Penultimately: the book is one that makes you want to read other books. And even if you haven't read the books it mentions (Gatsby, Lolita, etc), you can still follow the plot and glean from it the impact that reading these books had on Nafisi's readers...Their questions about the role of the novel and its morality are ones that we may not ask ourselves when we are blessed with being able to read mostly whatever we want.

Finally (well, not finally, but this is all I can recall), we discussed that most of us were interested in the book club itself in the first chapter, but that this is lost in the rest of the book, even though that's what we thought the book was about...

Funnily enough, only one of us read the entire book. Three of us read the beginning, and one of us read the beginning and the end...All in all, it made for a great evening, and I'm looking forward to our March meeting, when Kristy will host our discussion of:

The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff

That's all for me, but if you all have any thoughts/oppositions/additions, feel free to add!

Ceebie

The birth of a book club...

A few people have given me a funny look when I say I'm starting another book club. Well why wouldn't I? If one is good, two is better! (Although applying this philosophy to dessert has not always worked well for me.) ...But I enjoy my "other" book club so much that I thought another would be twice as much fun. I get so many things out of book club: mental stimulation (discussion and the exposure to books I wouldn't normally pick), social interaction (to people I might not otherwise spend time with), and a wonderful source of support. I read the books so my brain doesn't turn to mush, and I meet up with people and chat about books so my social life doesn't consist solely of phone calls and now-and-then visits to out-of-town friends... But the support I get from book club came as a total shock and still completely blows me away. My other book club has been meeting for four years, and has come to be a place we turn to for advice, for sympathy, and for updates on the lives of our friends. I look forward to book club like nothing else. If it came to attending a friend's wedding or attending book club... well, there would be some serious sleepless nights.



So... another book club: isn't one enough? Well, I have time to read more than one book a month, really. And besides, I came to my new workplace and discovered the people there are not only incredibly nice, but there is a large pool of people in just the right demographic to form a book club! After spending far too much work time devoted to non-work book club organizing, I found enough other like-minded people that we went for lunch and started sorting out the details. Luckily, we're all pretty easy going so far and tend to work towards compromise. (Did you know that that some book clubs implode over issues like how to pick the books?!? True!) After using the phrase, "Well, in my other book club..." at least a thousand times, we managed to successfully pick a book, pick a host, sort out food and beverages, and have our first meeting.



The book discussion was great, but I'm more curious about the social side. Who makes the first personal comment? Who first links the book's events to something from their own life? Who makes the first completely outrageous and blatantly vulgar joke? And who laughs the loudest at it?!? These are the things I'm watching for, and these are likely what I'll be writing more about, since book club is an amazing way to watch group dynamics evolve and friendships grow. If the first meeting was great, remember it only gets better!