Book Discussion, Saturday, September 10, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Meet the Author

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954. His family moved to England in 1960 when his father was invited to be a research fellow at the National Institute of Oceanography. This assignment was only supposed to be for a couple of years but kept getting extended, and Ishiguro didn't return to Japan at all until 30 years later. He attended a grammar school for boys in Surrey, the University of Kent in Canterbury, and a postgraduate creative writing course at the University of East Anglia. While attending university, Ishiguro worked as a social worker in Glasgow, and then after graduating in London. He is married to a social worker, Lorna, and they have a daughter, Naomi.

In 1982, after publication of his first novel, A Pale View of  Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro was named one of the "20 Best of Young British Writers" by Granta. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction four times, and his third novel, The Remains of the Day, won that prize for 1989. The Readers Roundtable has featured two of Ishiguro's books, The Remains of the Day in 1997, the second book ever read by the Readers Roundtable, and Never Let Me Go in 2007, one of the first books I read after joining the group. Both of these novels were made into movies.

In a conversation on a talk show from Toronto, Kazuo Ishiguro talks about his latest novel, The Buried Giant, his first novel in ten years.



Part 2 of this interview is also available on YouTube, as is a video interview conducted by The Wall Street Journal. If you have time, follow the links for more info. Of particular interest, in the WSJ interview, Ishiguro talks about the spare English dialect that he came up with for the characters in The Buried Giant.

Themes and Questions

I was going to do a lot of research about the post-Arthurian setting of the novel, as well as the themes and questions raised in The Buried Giant, but the more I read the more questions I had, so I'm just going to highlight some of the major topics we might want to talk about.

Memory and Forgetting

Modern research has indicated that forgetting is a necessary part of remembering, getting rid of conflicting memories in order to organize old memories and form new ones.  It is even suggested that you can intentionally dump unhappy memories. But should you? How can you dump unhappy memories without destroying associated good memories? How can you learn from your mistakes if you're always erasing them from memory?

How does this work in a marriage or a family? Among your family and friends, do you ever find yourself saying, like Beatrice, "If that's how you've remembered it, (insert name), let it be the way it was." How does it work in a community? Are the residents of Axl and Beatrice's community really forgetful, or do they just have different memory priorities than Axl and Beatrice? Is it possible that humans have done things so horrible that even God wants to forget about them?

What does Querig, the dragon, represent? By the end of the book, do you believe that it was the mist from her that was really causing the widespread forgetfulness? Who wanted to kill her and who wanted to keep her alive and why? Do you find the use of mythical creatures as an explanation for real-world phenomena jarring or does it fit in with the spirit of the age it represents?

The Legend of King Arthur

The first thing you find out when researching "the real King Arthur," is that there very likely was no such person. No mention of him is found in any historical chronicle until a single line in a history from 830 A.D. The legend doesn't appear in anything resembling its current form until 200 years after that, and it has been told and retold and reworked constantly from that time, its form depending on the sensibilities of the people doing the retelling. In some of the Arthur stories, Sir Gawain appears as the oldest male relative (nephew) of Arthur and therefore his heir-apparent. What is Sir Gawain heir to in The Buried Giant? How well does he uphold the tradition of Camelot?

The story of King Arthur's court, as it first appears in the middle ages, has become a story of distinctly medieval character and contains many anachronisms, in particular the code of chivalry, which didn't exist in the time that the story of Arthur purports to represent. By the time the tradition reached the current era, though, a medieval person would have a hard time recognizing their own era as it had been transformed through the retelling over the ages. In a BBC series available on YouTube, Terry Jones of Monty Python, a Medieval History major at Oxford before his Python incarnation, explains what are the myths about the middle ages and what is the historical reality.

Critical Opinions

I don't read reviews of books until after I've finished the book, in order to avoid spoilers, so if you feel the same way, avoid reading these until after you've finished The Buried Giant.

Loved it: Tom Holland, a historian, writing in The Guardian.

Admired it Greatly but Didn't Love it: Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman in The New York Times.

Thought It a Failure: Book critic James Wood at The New Yorker.

Book Discussion, Saturday, August 6, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Who is Elena Ferrante?

In one respect, my task this month was a lot easier than in previous months. I didn't have to trawl the internet looking up biographical information about Elena Ferrante. It turns out that "Elena Ferrante" is the pseudonym of a writer who has guarded his/her identity successfully and carefully in spite of wide success in Italy and abroad. In a way, though, that made my task more complicated, because volumes have been written about who this mystery writer might be.

As an intro, here's a video of a woman with a pleasant British accent talking about Elena Ferrante as a writer.



Ferrante has permitted some interviews (via email). I am linking to one from The New Yorker and to a two-part interview from Vanity Fair, part 1 and part 2. There also seems to be more controversy online about the covers for the English translations of Ferrante's Neapolitan novels as there is about the author's real identity. The crux of the controversy is: Why do such serious novels have covers that resemble those of mass-market romance novels? Here is an example of a typical article from Quartz, a business magazine published by Atlantic Media.

Before her four Neapolitan novels, of which My Brilliant Friend is the first, Ferrante wrote two other novels, "Troublesome Love," and "Days of Abandonment," which have been made into movies (in Italian, of course).

Benvenuti a Napoli

The rough neighborhood in Naples where the fictional Elena grows up is as strong an element of the story as the individual characters. The city of Naples was founded  by around 470 B.C. by the Greeks, and it has been under the dominion, variously, of the Romans, French, Spanish, Austrians, in addition to the Italians. It's historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Even the schlocky tourist-trap kinds of districts,  with their narrow cobblestone alleys, shops and stalls at street level, and living quarters (with balconies) above, are thought to be the closest living representation of what an ancient Roman city looked like.

Apparently, New Year's fireworks are still a big deal in Naples. Keep in mind that this is just in a residential district and not any kind of official display.



As in all of Italy, food is an important part of social life in Naples. In My Brilliant Friend, Elena and her friends are constantly going to the local pizzeria. In fact, the oldest known pizzeria in the world is in Naples.

Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba, Founded in 1830

In case you're interested, here's how Neapolitan pizza is made. All you need is a wood-fired oven that gets up to 800+ degrees.



For a little atmosphere, listen to Neapolitan-style music as performed by artists from all over the world.



Naples has it's own dialect, Napulitano, which Ferrante refers to often in My Brilliant Friend. For an idea of how it differs from standard Italian, the table in the middle of this Wikipedia page has the Lord's Prayer in a couple of variants of Neapolitan, a couple of variants of Sicilian, standard Italian, and Latin. You may have wondered if Ferrante actually writes in dialect when a character is speaking in dialect. As Ann Goldstein, Ferrante's one and only English translator explains in the video below, the answer is no.

Michele Zagaria, boss of the Casalesi Clan, arrested in 2011

Naples even has it's own crime mob, the Camorra, as represented by Don Achille in My Brilliant Friend. The Camorra is as old, if not older than the Sicilian Mafia, and more powerful in Europe. It is a much more clannish and horizontally structured organization than the more vertically integrated and hierarchical Mafia. In looking for videos on YouTube, most of them were too gruesome for my taste, but here's a pretty good story told in Vanity Fair.

Book Discussion, Saturday, July 9, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

Helen and Mable

Helen MacDonald was born in Chertsey, Surrey, England in 1970. She received a BA in English Literature from New Hall, University of Cambridge, in 1993. From 1995-1999, she worked in falcon conservation, including at breeding projects in Wales and apparently also in Saudi Arabia. In 1999, she received a MPhil in the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and between 2000 and when the book begins in 2007, she worked variously as a freelance writer, poet, College Research Fellow and a teacher.

Helen and her father

H is for Hawk is more than a book about falconry, however. MacDonald's sudden passion for getting and training a goshawk was triggered by the death of her beloved father, press photographer Alasdair MacDonald in 2007. H is for Hawk is as much about loss, grieving, and humanity as it is about training a hawk. It also contains a mini-biography of T.H. White.

In 2014, Helen MacDonald was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction for H is for Hawk.

More about Hawks and Falconry

 To help you with your raptor identification, here's a silhouette chart. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain a goshawk silhouette.

For additional raptor identification help, here's a short slide show.



For help with training your falcon, here's a list of books on the topic available at the San Leandro Library.

1. Falconry today by Samson, Jack, Publication Date 1976, Call Number 799.23 SAM
    
2. Falconry and hawking byGlasier, Phillip, Publication Date 1998,Call Number 799.232 GLASIER
    
3. Falcons and falconry by Illingworth, Frank, Publication Date 1969, Call Number 799.23 ILL
    
4. Falconry : the essential guide by Wright, Steve, Publication Date 2006, Call Number 799.232 WRIGHT
    
5. A rage for falcons by Bodio, Stephen, Publication Date 1984, Call Number 799.23 BODIO
    
6. The goshawk by White, T. H. (Terence Hanbury), Publication Date 1951, Call Number 799.23 WHI
    
7. Falcon fever : a falconer in the twenty-first century by Gallagher, Tim, Publication Date 2008, Call Number 799.232 GALLAGHER

Book Discussion Group, Saturday, June 4, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

According to Sue Monk Kidd's official biography, she was born and raised in Sylvester Georgia [in 1948], graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970 and later took creative writing courses at Emory University and Anderson College, as well as studying at Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and other writers conferences. Kidd's earlier published work was mainly essays about her journey from evangelical Christianity to feminist theology.  When she was in her 40s, she began writing fiction, winning the South Carolina Fellowship in Literature and the 1996 Poets & Writers Exchange Program in Fiction. Her short stories appeared in TriQuarterly, Nimrod, and other literary journals and received a Katherine Anne Porter award and citations in Best American Short Stories’ 100 Distinguished Stories. Her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, spent more than 2½ years on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than 6 million copies in the U.S. and 8 million copies worldwide, received many awards, and was made into a movie in 2008.

Kidd’s second novel, The Mermaid Chair, has sold well over a million copies since its publication by Viking in 2005, reaching #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and remaining on the hardcover and paperback lists for nine months, also nominated for and receiving awards, and made into a television movie by Lifetime. The Invention of Wings, Kidd’s third novel was published January 7, 2014 by Viking to wide critical acclaim. It debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at #1 and remained on the hardcover fiction list for over six months. It has sold over a million copies and been translated into 20 languages thus far. The winner of several literary awards, including the SIBA Book Award, the novel was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0.

Kidd serves on the Writers Council for Poets & Writers, Inc.  She lives in Southwest Florida with her husband, Sandy.

Sue Monk Kidd discusses The Invention of Wings at the Florida Book Awards:

 

The History Behind the Historical Fiction

The Grimke Sisters

Sarah Moore Grimke

Angelina Emily Grimke

The story of the abolitionist, feminist Grimke sisters, as told in The Invention of Wings is actually fairly close to the historical record, although Kidd admits to having tweaked the timeline somewhat. The character of Hetty (Handful) was based upon a real-life Hetty who was given to Sarah, as in the story, but the real-life Hetty actually died shortly after being given to Sarah, so the character in the book is entirely fictional.

One interesting connected story that was not referred to in the book is that one of their brothers had three mix-raced sons, and after that brother's death, the sisters brought their brother's sons up north to receive an education.

Denmark Vesey

The freed slave, Denmark Vesey, was a real historic character, born in the Virgin Islands around 1767, he was brought to Charleston by his master, a sea captain, won $1500 in a lottery, and used his winnings to purchase his freedom and that of his first wife and their children. The rebellion planned by Vesey and described in the book, was the most ambitious of the planned slave rebellions in its scope. It was inspired by the revolution in Haiti in 1791 and scheduled to take place on Bastille Day (July 14) 1822, though the plan was betrayed before it could be put into action.

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston

The congregation of African American freedmen and slaves that Handful attended in The Invention of Wings was most likely based on Emanuel AME Church, a congregation that Denmark Vesey helped to found. The church building housing the congregation was burned down in 1822 after Vesey's rebellion. The congregation rebuilt the church for a while, but was outlawed in 1834 and forced to meet in secret. After the Civil War, the church building was rebuilt (picture at left) with help in part from Robert Vesey, one of Denmark Vesey's sons. That building was destroyed by an earthquake in 1886 and rebuilt on its present site in 1891. The congregation sadly was thrust into the limelight again on June 17, 2105, when a racist young white man, Dylan Roof, entered the church on a pretext of joining evening prayer services and then proceeded to shoot and kill nine members of the congregation.

Stories Told in Pictures

Sue Monk Kidd states that in creating the character Charlotte and her story quilt, she was inspired by the Bible quilts of Harriet Powers, an African American folk artist from rural Georgia, born a slave in 1837. Harriet Powers technique was influenced by the appliqué style of the Fon people of what is now the country of Benin, and Kidd created Charlotte as a descendant of the Fon. Here is an example of Fon  appliqué from Benin.

This appliqué also reminds me of the Royal Palace in Abomey, Benin. The walls of the palace are decorated with bas-relief sculptures of sun-baked clay that tell the stories of the Fon kings who lived in the palace at the height of their people's power.

 

Book Discussion Group, Saturday, May 7, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

From Hanna Kent's biography at her official website:

Hannah Kent is a Melbourne-based writer, born in Adelaide in 1985. Her first novel, Burial Rites, has been translated into over twenty languages and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) and the Guardian First Book Award. It won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier's People's Choice Award, and has most recently been longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Hannah is also the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. She is currently writing her second novel. 

In the following video, Hannah Kent tells how Burial Rites grew out of her experiences as an exchange student in Iceland.

Background Information on Icelandic History and Language

Follow this link to a timeline of Icelandic history, which lends some insight into the tangle of overlapping jurisdictions and the necessity to quarter Agnes Magnúsdóttir at Jón Jónsson's farm while an official determination was made as to who was going to execute her and how.

There was a brief discussion of the Icelandic alphabet and pronunciation at the beginning of the book, at least in the hardcover version. Here is a link to a page on the Icelandic language that provides a more detailed

A Story of Cold, Dark, Long Winters and Isolation

Shoreline at Illugastaðir

This would be the area of the north Icelandic coast near where Natan Ketilsson's farm was located.

Sod construction on Icelandic farm

Row of sod-constructed buildings in winter

Typical Icelandic badstofa (communal sleeping quarters)

Farm families were pretty much confined to quarters during the height of the Icelandic winter.

Agnes Magnúsdóttir?

This is a photo floating around the internet which purports to be Agnes Magnúsdóttir, but I cannot find any verification of that.

The site where Agnes Magnúsdóttir and Friðrik Sigurðsson were beheaded

Grave marker of Friðrik Sigurðsson and Agnes Magnúsdóttir

Agnes and Friðrik were originally buried in an unmarked grave, but they were later re-interred, and this grave marker was placed.

Book Discussion Meeting, Saturday April 2, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore

Wes Moore (L) and Wes Moore (R)

Two boys named "Wes Moore" were born in Baltimore within  a year of each other. One would go on to work for the State Department; the other would wind up in prison for life, convicted of murder.

The author Wes Moore's story is covered in detail in The Other Wes Moore up until he is a graduate of Valley Forge Military Academy and on the point of becoming a college student and a military officer. His website notes that he went on to graduate as a Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins university in 2001 and then went on to become a Rhodes Scholar  studying International Relations at Oxford University.

After college, Wes Moore completed his military service, serving as a paratrooper and a captain in the army. He did a combat tour in Afghanistan. He talks about his military experience in the TED Talk video below.



After completing his military service, Wes Moore "then served as a White House fel­low to Sec­re­tary of State Con­deleezza Rice. He serves on the board of the Iraq Afghanistan Vet­er­ans of Amer­ica (IAVA), The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity, and founded an orga­ni­za­tion called STAND! that works with Bal­ti­more youth involved in the crim­i­nal jus­tice system."

According to Wes Moore's website, a portion of the proceeds from The Other Wes Moore go to City Year, an education-oriented volunteer project for young adults from ages 17-24, and the US Dream Academy, an after-school and mentoring program for at-risk youngsters, especially the children of incarcerated parents.

Book Discussion Meeting, Saturday, March 5, 2016, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

 

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, The Big Read selection for 2016

In Robert McCrum's 2014 article on The Maltese Falcon for a series by The Guardian on the 100 all-time best crime fiction books, he quotes Raymond Chandler, creator of the Philip Marlowe detective series:

...“He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.” He also gave his characters a distinctive language and convincing motivations in a genre that had grown stereotyped, flaccid and uninvolving.

The Maltese Falcon is the Hammett novel that jumps from the pages of its genre and into literature. It’s the book that introduces Sam Spade, the private detective who seduced a generation of readers, leading directly to Philip Marlowe. Dorothy Parker, never a pushover, confessed herself “in a daze of love” such as she had not known in literature “since I encountered Sir Lancelot” and claimed to have read the novel some 30 or 40 times.  

Perhaps The Maltese Falcon is most widely known through the 1941 classic movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, but there were two prior movie incarnations of the novel.

The first movie version of The Maltese Falcon was filmed in 1931 and is somewhat racier due to having been made prior to the Hayes Code, which regulated "morality" in movies. Some critics have rated this movie as equal, if not superior, to the familiar 1941 version.

The second movie version of The Maltese Falcon was made in 1936, starring Bette Davis, and renamed "Satan Met a Lady," and according to critics, sometimes seems as much a comedy as a crime story.

I was able to locate a short documentary about the life of Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, on YouTube.



On line, I also found a memoir of Dashiell Hammett by his long-time friend and companion, author and playwright Lillian Hellman, from the November 25, 1965 issue of The New York Review of Books.