From 'The Golden Age' to 'Golden Boys'

This month we will be reading Sonya Hartnett's Miles Franklin Short-listed Golden Boys.

Victoria Flanagan in her review considers this novel is Not for children? as well as exploring the concept of young adult novels.

This novel is certainly a different shade of golden to the one discussed in The Golden Age. It should certainly make for interesting discussion.

Looking forward to sharing your views on Thursday 29 October at Gordon White Library's Community Meeting Room at 6.00pm.





'The Golden Age' a little tarnished

I had enjoyed the light deft writing of Joan London's Miles Franklin Short-listed novel The Golden Age and was looking forward to hearing some positive reports at our get-together. Silly me! Never try to predict how other readers are going to experience a book!

Our first reader found the story too slow and was not at all impressed with it. She found it very difficult to become involved in the story. Another of our readers had not finished the book but had enjoyed it sufficiently to want to continue with it, so that was more promising. One of our regulars thought it was a light enjoyable story but considered it lacked depth.

One of our readers strongly believes a novel is character driven and was disappointed with the two dimensionality of all of the characters other than Frank. They considered that the array of characters were too lightly sketched. Comments included not really getting to know the characters in depth and therefore not being able to interact meaningfully with them. Some of our readers find they can only really experience satisfaction with a book when they care about the characters and in this novel they felt they could not interact with the characters closely enough to be genuinely concerned about them.

There was discussion about how authentic some of the characters were in the context of the historical setting of the novel. Some of our readers who experienced the 1950s at first hand strongly believed that the sexual freedom enjoyed and practised by Sister Olive Penny was not credible and certainly would not have been tolerated within the social mores of the time. Some found Ida's sudden change of heart regards her piano playing difficult to accept while others conceded it was feasible to reach a tipping point when one realised that the only way forward was to change one's position on such a deeply personal decision.

Some of our book clubbers thought that the emotional and mental maturity displayed by the main protagonists did not align with their ages and certainly not young teens in the 1950s no matter what their life experience had been. Most of our book clubbers thought they were more believable as 17 to 18 year olds.

One of our readers finds it very difficult to read accounts of World War Two in the fiction genre. When she encountered this section of the book the first time she was unable to read through it but on a later attempt she was able to push through this barrier and found the author's succinct style very enjoyable despite her aversion to some of the content.

Some of our readers recall having classmates wearing callipers or having other evidence of surviving polio. Some of our readers knew Perth quite well and were able to identify with place names mentioned in the novel even though the rural setting of Leederville where the Golden Age was located has now been integrated into urban Perth.

One of our book clubbers commented that they liked the way the Gold family's Jewishness was treated as a background rather than in centre stage. They were not depicted as stereotypical traditional Jews but were rather non-committal as regards their heritage. Despite this they had still suffered persecution in Hungary.

The Golden Age was really enjoyed by another book clubber. She found the book uplifting considering the context of the polio convalescent home and really appreciated the author's precise, concise writing style.

Overall our book club enjoyed Joan London's The Golden Age as a light read but felt it lacked depth. Most of our readers really enjoyed the author's neat crisp style but were disappointed with its characterisation.

We stay with the term 'golden' and with Australian authors for our next month's read: Sonya Hartnett's Golden Boys, another novel short-listed for 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

See you at 6.00 pm at the Community Meeting Room at Gordon White Library on Thursday 29 October!

'Tis time to discuss 'The Golden Age'

It's the last Thursday in September so we'll be meeting at the Community Meeting Room at Gordon White Library at 6.00pm this evening to discuss Joan London's The Golden Age.

See you there at 6.00pm!

This month we visit Joan London's 'The Golden Age'

This novel was shortlisted for the 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award. It tells of a time when polio was every parent's worst nightmare.

 

 

Geordie Williamson, The Australian's chief literary critic had this to say about Joan London's third novel.

 

 

Hopefully discussion will be more upbeat this month when we meet on Thursday 24 September at 6.00pm at Gordon White Library's Community Meeting Room.

'Go Set A Watchman" disappoints

Our avid readers had approached reading Harper Lee's long anticipated 'second' novel with some intrepidation. A couple of our readers had read and studied Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird in great detail and it had been an important part of their life journey. They had a great fondness and respect for this classic novel. It had helped mould their values and like Scout (Jean Louise) they had perceived Atticus' concept of justice as a worthy benchmark.The original movie starring the 'perfect Atticus' Gregory Peck also resurrected fond memories for many. Go Set A Watchman had a legendary child with a passionate loyal following to compete with.

A couple of our readers had heard of but not read To Kill A Mockingbird so they were in some ways better equipped to read Go Set A Watchman more objectively.They did not have to cope with the same level of expectation.

Most of our readers admitted to enjoying passages of exceptional writing but on the whole felt the book needed far more editing. There was much discussion of how a book left in draft form for 55 years could be effectively edited. The author would have changed so much style-wise and the audience and context would also have changed so dramatically that modern editing would have been glaringly obvious and continuity would have been difficult to maintain. The downside of this of course, was that our readers generally thought that  Go Set A Watchman felt like a draft. Moments of magic were separated by large gaps in the narrative.

There was also discussion about whether racism was still as widespread  in the US and depressingly it seemed from our discussion which considered recent events in the United States, that really not that much appeared to have changed on the North American societal landscape.

They spoke of To Kill A Mockingbird being peopled with a vast array of well drawn characters, many of whom were quite idiosyncratic, and a great deal of coming and going whereas the fewer folk in Go Set A Watchman were less clearly delineated and our readers had trouble connecting with them. Many of our readers found the grown Jean Louise quite irritating and did not consider her character as believable in light of her upbringing and background. Our readers spoke of the story line being very slow to start and then everything at the end happening at breakneck speed. One of our readers was very cross with the ending and just could not consider it as plausible.

Overall there was an atmosphere of palpable disappointment hovering over our meeting this week. Discussion seemed more muted than usual. When our readers were asked to rate our read out of ten, most suggested 5 or 6 and felt they were being generous at that. The isolated passages of beauty made reading it worthwhile but some commented that they would be reluctant to recommend this novel to anyone.

There was discussion about whether Harper Lee was wise to publish Go Set A Watchman and some were curious as to her motivation for publishing. There was a general consensus that the person who had recommended not publishing Watchman was probably wiser than the person who went ahead with its publication.

Some readers commented that they liked the book title and were more satisfied when they uncovered the origins of the title. They also liked the cover design that reflected the connection to To Kill A Mockingbird.

Apparently Harper Lee considers Go Set A Watchman as the parent novel of To Kill A Mockingbird. Life could prove a difficult journey for the parent of such a famous, well-loved child who has had fifty years to dwell in people's hearts.