The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Six of us enjoyed a surprisingly extended chat about a novel that tells the story of African-American maids in white households during the 1960's. Day to day these ladies went about their work with a professional pride. By night they took the opportunity to quietly tell their stories in a book crafted by a young white journalist who had herself known and loved her childhood maid. The book is set at the time of Civil Rights activism that helped to shape a different future for women like Aibileen, Minny, Yule Mae and their families. 

The book had to work hard for our affections. Not everyone found it an easy read, some of us were able to put it down, we hadn't all got to the end in time for book group. For others it was a page turner. So the comments bounced around between us. 

"I loved the different voices" "I felt like an outsider" "I read for hours and hours, I couldn't put it down" "I wasn't absorbed by it" and so on. All that said, everyone found this a very good book and an exceptional story. 

The white women were pretty awful, but times were changing and characters like Skeeter (the determined young white journalist) and Celia (a troubled, innocent,  'white trash' social misfit) were able to make things a little bit different. We loved them for it. 

Of the characters, we thought Hilly was particularly despicable whereas Jonny and Celia were lovely. Skeeter was before her time and definately her father's daughter. 

Our conversation moved on to the real names that feature in the book - Emmett Till and Medgar Evers - who were part of the story of the Civil Rights journey in Mississippi. Oh and today was Malcolm X day so he got a mention too.

Inevitably one of our other recent reads - Fried Green Tomatoes - was compared to The Help (they both focus on Civil Rights). The Help we thought was more political and reflected on 'the time' rather than being 'in the time.'

We enjoyed being able to 'hear' the accents as we read. We loved the relationship between Aibileen and Minny who were women of different ages and mutually supportive of each others' hard circumstances. We disliked the small mindedness and snobbery of the middle classed women. 

The most memorable line in the book simultaneously recalled by two of us "I know how to stop the teapot lid from rattling". 

As we continued deep into the evening picking up on bits of the story, lines, characters, occurrences it became clear that this book had left its mark on us all. We did all enjoy it, we do all recommend it. So, despite the mixed response this was in fact an enjoyable, thought provoking, read that we all liked very much. 

For the next couple of months we will be reading Clochemerle AND Clochemerle Babylon, both by Gabriel Chevallier and we will meet on MONDAY 11th July at 8pm in Sue's garden (or conservatory) to discuss these books and celebrate the Summer. Let's hope its a sunny evening and a date we can all make. 

Book Choices - May 2016

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 19^th May 2016 at 8pm in The Hundred of Ashendon when we will be discussing The Help by Kathryn Stockett. 

Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Chang

A first-hand account of China's cultural revolution. Nien Cheng, an anglophile and fluent English-speaker who worked for Shell in Shanghai under Mao, was put under house arrest by Red Guards in 1966 and subsequently jailed. All attempts to make her confess to the charges of being a British spy failed; all efforts to indoctrinate her were met by a steadfast and fearless refusal to accept the terms offered by her interrogators. When she was released from prison she was told that her daughter had committed suicide. In fact Meiping had been beaten to death by Maoist revolutionaries

Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier 

Gabriel Chevallier's delightful novel Clochemerle satirizes the titanic confrontation of secular and religious forces in a small wine-growing village in Beaujolais. The eruption begins when the socialist mayor decides that he wants to leave behind a monument to his administration's achievements. He takes as his model the ancient Romans, who were famous for two things: hygiene and noble edifices. Thus, he decides to unite the two concepts...by constructing a public urinal in the centre of town. There is one problem, however. The chosen locale is next to the village church, and this outrages the ecclesiastical party.

Alternative/Optional Follow on: Clochemerle-Babylon

Ignorant of the outside world, the Clochemerlins had only one wish, to sell their wine and to sell it at a fair price. Was that an unreasonable demand? The thing to do was to find out what the big shots, those in power, had to say about it. Not being in office, the Opposition parties were ready to promise you the earth. They could offer to share out the moon in slices, it cost them nothing. The Socialist theory, founded on equal shares in all wealth, attracted numerous Clochemerlins. Not that they were disposed to share what they had. On the contrary they hoped, when the great share-out took place, to receive more from those who had more than themselves.

 

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

1918, the closing months of the war. Army psychiatrist William Rivers is increasingly concerned for the men who have been in his care - particularly Billy Prior, who is about to return to combat in France with young poet Wilfred Owen. As Rivers tries to make sense of what, if anything, he has done to help these injured men, Prior and Owen await the final battles in a war that has decimated a generation ... The Ghost Road is the Booker Prize-winning account of the devastating final months of the First World War.