Thursday 19th April 2018 meeting at Lorraine's

Thursday 19th April 2018 meeting at Lorraine's

Present were Caroline, Sally, Jane, Chris, Francoise with her adorable little grandson, and Lorraine. Apologies from Jan who was back in England.

We discussed "Rebecca" By Daphne du Maurier.

Although all of us present had read the book in our youth. Some of us more than once and we had seen at least one of the films. Very strangely most of us could not remember the outcome of the story and what happens in the end!

We all agreed it was a gripping tale, beautiful written and kept us all enthralled to the end. Thank you Jane for suggesting it.

The book was awarded 5 stars by the majority.

I quote Jan's words as they seem to sum it up so succinctly

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

A novel that has never been out of print and sold nearly 3 million copies in the 30 year interval after its publication.  In 2017, it was voted the UK's favourite book of the past 225 years in a poll by bookseller W H Smith!!!

For me it started as a slow-burner of a novel. Mrs Van Hopper and her companion are staying at a hotel in Monte Carlo. Both these characters made me squirm a bit, Mrs Van Hopper’s shameless pushiness and the younger woman’s reticence and self-effacing manner. These are the opening chapters and then with the marriage of the young woman and Max de Winter the narrative takes off. Our ‘heroine’ was led like a lamb to slaughter. Du Maurier cleverly drew the creepily manipulative and poisonous Mrs Danvers well and the new young wife’s fearfulness and blind innocence at times made me want to shake the book at her! It was hard to feel sorry for her you just wanted her to show some mettle. She does finally gain confidence and become more assertive when Mrs Danvers is humbled. It was hard to warm to any of the characters except the man on the beach who refused to give up his secrets even though it was for fear of being locked into an asylum. 

Gradually the novel shifts from a psychological drama about obsession to a thriller: will the killer be unmasked and brought to justice. I thought this plot was cleverly written and at just the right pace. The twists with regard to Rebecca’s visit to the gynecologist and her confrontation with Max in the boat hut were clever. I did guess that Rebecca’s shooting was something which she engineered. 

A great ending to the book, rightly famous in the world of literature.

Two further comments: As the story reaches its climax I found myself wanting Max to ‘get away with it’. This sometimes happens when I read a book and a character is so obviously guilty but the author has contrived to make you engage with the guilty one. I think that is skillful writing because the author has manipulated her reader. Secondly it never occurred to me until I came to write this review that the second Mrs de Winter is never named. I went to the opening chapters to check what it was, assuming I had forgotten it, only to find we are never told. I wonder what prompted du Maurier to use that device? Perhaps it was to emphasize her identity as the second Mrs de Winter rather than a person in her own right and perhaps also to subordinate her to Rebecca whose ‘presence’ is constant and who is mentioned so often in the text."

About the author

Daphne Du Maurier also known as ‘Lady Browning’ was a British writer and playwright born on 13th May 1907 in London. She belonged to a creative family where her father and mother both were actors, her uncle was a magazine editor and her grandfather was a writer. This became the base for her literary talent as she started writing when she was very young. As a child she knew how to stay in the limelight having met many celebrities because of her parents’ career. At first she was not considered as intellectual as other famous authors such as George Elliot and Iris Murdoch and her work was seen as somewhat ‘old aged’. But now Maurier is recognized as one of the most brilliant writers and is called ‘the mistress of suspense’. She was home schooled by well-educated governesses and later attended the elite schools of London and Paris.

Because her childhood contained many literary and artistic experiences, it was not a surprise that Du Maurier had a very vivid imagination and a profound love for writing and reading. Her first novel ‘The Loving Spirit’ was published in 1931. It was after reading this very novel that Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick also called ‘Boy Browning’ sailed all the way to London to meet the author of this book. They got married the next year and remained married for the next 33 years till Boy died in 1965. They had 3 children. The marriage had its share of difficulties because of Daphne du Maurier’s secret bisexuality however she denied this fact.

Du Maurier’s other works are ‘I’ll Never Be Young Again’ (1932), ‘The Progress of Julius’ (1933), ‘Jamaica Inn’ (1936), ‘Rebecca’ (1938), ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ (1941), ‘Mary Anne’ (1954), ‘The Scapegoat’ (1957), ‘The Glass-Blowers’ (1963) and ‘Rule Britannia’ (1972). She also wrote many short stories including ‘Come Wind, Come Weather’ (1940), ‘Early Stories’ (1959), ‘The Breaking Point’ (1959), ‘Not After Midnight’ (1971) and ‘The Rendezvous and Other Stories’ (1980).

Our next meeting is at Jan's on Thursday 17th May to discuss "The Light Between Oceans" by ML Stedman.

The March meeting was held at Caroline’s but unfortunately Sally and Christine could not attend.  Jan brought her sister-in-law Liz who participated fully having read The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry in two days. 

The meeting was lively and it was agreed at the start that we had all really enjoyed the book.  Sally had a few reservations.

Christine sent us a short description of the life and work of Sarah Perry. The Essex Serpent is only a second novel.

Jan had written a little about the texture of the narrative which she read to us and she had researched “very long fish” as the monster which came up on the shore had seemed a little improbable!  It could have been an Oar fish.  Perhaps the improbability of certain aspects of the novel added to the mystery and drew us all on to read the next chapter.

The Independent writes:

Set at the very end of the nineteenth century, the Essex marshes become Perry’s Dover Beach, the setting for a three-way clash between science, religion and superstition, three serpents entwined: the snake of Asclepius coiling round its staff, that from the Garden of Eden, and a mythical terrible beast, “a monstrous serpent with eyes like a sheep, come out of the Essex waters and up to the birch woods and commons,” claiming human and animal lives alike.

The Essex Estuary abounds with fearful rumours of the latter, but Cora Seabourne – a young widow and aspiring Mary Anning, recently arrived from London – is convinced it’s a previously undiscovered “living fossil.” Meanwhile, William Ransome, the local vicar – a man whose faith is one of “enlightenment and clarity,” not blood, brimstone and darkness – is unconvinced by either explanation.

When it comes to historical fiction, Perry’s achieved the near impossible; she’s created a novel and within it a world that seems to have sprung complete and fully formed directly from the period in question – a long lost fin-de-siècle Gothic classic – but her characters are as enticingly modern as they are of their period.

Cora is about as far from a stereotypical Victorian wife as one can imagine – unconcerned with looking pretty and in possession of exceptional (“masculine”) intelligence – William as questioning as he is devout, and the host of other characters with which they are surrounded are pushing for welfare reforms and medical advances.

Each of whom is beautifully rendered – their desires real and raw, and their pleasures and pains deeply felt. In terms of contemporary comparisons, I was reminded of Sarah Moss’s Victorian-set novels Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children: the two authors linked by period and a concern with medicine, but also a similar masterful but understated command of their subject.

Perry also showcases the most beguiling evocations of landscape. “Colchester. Colchester! What is there at Colchester? A ruin and a river, and web-footed peasants, and mud,” someone asks Cora. So much more, Perry goes on to prove! For only a second novel it’s a stunning achievement, one for which I predict prize nominations galore.

A good place to Hide: How One French Village Saved Thousands of Lives During World War II By Peter Grose

We met at Sally’s house, minus Jane and Lorraine who were sadly unable to be with us.

From Goodreads.com (who gave it 4 stars)

Nobody asked questions, nobody demanded money. Villagers lied, covered up, procrastinated and concealed, but most importantly they welcomed. This is the story of an isolated community in the upper reaches of the Loire Valley that conspired to save the lives of 3,500 Jews under the noses of the Germans and the soldiers of Vichy France. It is the story of a pacifist Protestant pastor who broke laws and defied orders to protect the lives of total strangers. It is the story of an eighteen-year-old Jewish boy from Nice who forged 5,000 sets of false identity papers to save other Jews and French Resistance fighters from the Nazi concentration camps. And it is the story of a community of good men and women who offered sanctuary, kindness, solidarity and hospitality to people in desperate need, knowing full well the consequences to themselves. Powerful and richly told, A Good Place to Hide speaks to the goodness and courage of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

We were certainly impressed by the relevance and importance of a story with which we weren’t familiar, and also by the significant amount of research that had been done.  We were somewhat less impressed by the lack of storytelling and characterisation that could have brought this amazing tale to life, but the author had not allowed his imagination to get in the way of a good fact.  If he didn’t know an exact number he explained it, perhaps to the detriment of the flow, which was also interrupted by the lack of a timeline.  People who must have been fascinating were presented just as names, and we did not feel a rapport with them.  As one reviewer puts it, ‘This is not "popular reading." While the author's prose is very readable, this is a book that would appeal more to historians than to the casual reader.”  We all commented that it was more of a factual history text than we would have liked – what was missing was detail of the everyday lives of these astonishing and dedicated people which would have made the book come to life.  Those of us who had read it on Kindle missed out on the photos which made the characters more real.  Caroline and Jan had read it all, but Chris and Sally were still only half way through having found it heavy going (matched by the lemon drizzle cake!)  We are encouraged to continue though by the fact that the final chapter has more to tell about what happened to everyone later on.  Having had a look at the reviews, I feel sorry that I didn’t get as much out of it as perhaps I should! 

A worthwhile rather than enjoyable read, we gave it 2.5 stars

We meet again at Chris’s house on 15 February at 5pm to discuss Days without end by Sebastian Barry.  Further future books/venues are:

March 15               Caroline                 The Essex Serpent

April 19                 Lorraine                 Rebecca

May 17                  Jan                          The Light Between Oceans

June 14                 Jane                        Hundred Years of Solitude

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

Val de Saire Book Club

The Poisonwood Bible: by Barbara Kingsolver

Lorraine, Sally and Caroline met at Jan’s house (new member) on 6^th November to discuss the above book.  We all found this to be a good and substantial book to read with an interesting structure and we were impressed with the depth into which the author went with her characters and the quality of the writing.  The narrative tells the story of missionary family, the Prices, who in 1959 move from the U.S. state of Georgia to the village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo close to the Kwilu River.

Orleanna, the mother narrates the introductory chapter in five of the novel's seven sections. The narrative then alternates among the four daughters, with a slight preference for the voice of the most outspoken one, Leah. The four girls increasingly mature and develop differently as each adapts to African village life and the political turmoil the Belgian Congo in the 1960s.

The story ends with a final chapter from Ruth May reflecting on her sisters and mother attempting to visit her grave but not being able to find it, and a woman telling them a place named Kilanga never existed. She watches her sisters and her mother, and has seen how they have matured; she has matured as well. Through her death, she finally is able to understand the Congolese term muntu, which describes the concept of unity and how all life is connected in some way. She understands that she is muntu, and a part of all that is around her. Ruth May only wants her mother to understand the concept and for her to move on. She asks for her mother to forgive herself and not live with the guilt anymore. 

Sally particularly drew attention to the final sentences of the book

We all felt there were so many details in the book, far too many to recall but we all clearly enjoyed the fact that the family had to wear as many of their clothes as possible on the flight out to Africa to get round constraints of luggage weight! 

The title of the book was cleverly chosen.  The father, who we found to be a thoroughly unlikeable character would hector the locals in his sermons saying "Tata Jesus is a bangala!" He meant "something precious and dear", but the way he pronounced ‘bangala’ meant the poisonwood tree."  As for the ‘bible’ this reflects that the novel is made up of the four daughters’ versions, like the four disciples who tell their story in the New Testament.  Sometimes titles of books can be rather obscure but Kingsolver’s title is so apt.

We awarded the book Five Stars.

Future dates and venues:

December 6         Jane.                         Remains of the Day

January 11            Sally.                        A Good Place to Hide.  

(at the meeting Lorraine said that her original choice was not as satisfactory as she thought and the Peter Grose book would be a better telling of the story)

February 15         Christine                Days Without End

March 15               Caroline                 The Essex Serpent

April 19                 Lorraine                 Rebecca

May 17                    Jan                             The Light Between Oceans

June 14                   Jane                          Hundred Years of Solitude

Finally, an idea that came out of our conversations was that in future the chooser of a title should say a bit about the author before we discuss the book of the day.

Our next meeting, then, is on December 6^th at Jane’s.