Saturday, April 7, 2012, at 2:00 p.m.

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Well, I was going to post all kinds of preparatory and supplementary information about Parrot and Olivier, especially about Alexis de Tocqueville, the real-life French political philosopher and historian on whom the character of "Lord Migraine" is (apparently very, very loosely) based. However, my own computer melted down early this week, so I have only very limited access to a borrowed computer. For those of you with some curiosity about Alexis de Tocqueville, here is a link to a site about all things de Tocqueville, which includes further links to excerpts from Democracy in America (de Tocqueville's great work on the subject), also a link to his journal of the trip. I think that, there, we might find some of the famous passages that Carey said he borrowed and buried in Parrot and Olivier.

I scanned a few reviews, and the question that at least one of them thought was central to the book was, "Are art and democracy compatible?" which is a good question and one that we might raise at the meeting. Another question that occurred to me is: Among the few European languages that I have tried to learn, English is unique in that it has only one level of the second person. Every other that I know of (granted that my knowledge is not that broad), has a formal "you" (vous, usted) and an informal "thou" (tu). Throughout the the book, you'll notice that Olivier is perpetually irritated with Parrot for "tutoyer-ing" him. So when the English speaking world decided to simplify things by using only one form, "you," why did they choose the formal "you," instead of the brotherly "thee" (as the Quakers would have had it)?

The Big Read

"The Big Read," according to the National Endowment for the Arts' mission statement, is a program, "designed to restore reading to the center of American culture." The San Leandro Library is a NEA grant recipient again this year, and the book they have selected is Sun, Stone and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories, edited by Jorge Hernandez. If you were at last month's Readers Roundtable meeting, you had the opportunity to sign up for "The Big Read" and get your free copy of the book. If not, you can attend the Library's kickoff event tomorrow, Saturday, March 3, 2012, at 2:00 in the Karp/Estudillo rooms and hear readings from the story, "The Cooking Lesson," by Rosario Castellanos (both in English and in Spanish), see a cooking demonstration, enjoy some light refreshments, sign up for the program, and receive your free book.

We will be discussing Sun, Stone and Shadows at next week's Readers Roundtable. Be there or be cuadrado.