The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Here are some questions for you to think about for this months book:

- Are Esther's attitudes toward men, sex, and marriage peculiar to herself? What role do her attitudes play in her breakdown? What are we told about her society's expectations regarding men and women, sexuality, and relationships? Have those expectations changed since that time?

- What terms does Esther use to describe herself? How does she compare or contrast herself with Doreen and others in New York City, or with Joan and other patients in the hospital?

- What instances and images of distortion occur in the novel? What are their contexts and significance? Does Esther achieve a clear, undistorted view of herself?

- With what specific setting, event, and person is Esther's first thought of suicide associated? Why? In what circumstances do subsequent thoughts and plans concerning suicide occur?

Slammerkin

This months notes were written up by a kind volunteer and are as follows:

- easy book to read but everyone felt there was something lacking
- the main character, Mary made big transitions in her life but ultimately ended up where she started. Although this did seem to be not so much from choice but making the best of a bad situation after she was found out by the innkeeper. Had this not happened, it may have been a different story
- Mary was driven by a want for the finer things in life
- Mary didn't want to be subservient or answer to anyone.  She was self-reliant and wanted control. She even tried to control the manner in which she died even though she had no choice
- the last chapter was poor and felt it was more about wrapping the book up swiftly
- disappointing that there was no reflection or remorse from Mary in the last chapters
- the book lacked depth and there was little evidence of emotions therefore it was difficult to engage with the main character
- despite Mary being a victim of a number of unfortunate events, it was difficult to feel sorry for her
- Doll was more likeable character
- Daffy came over as a bit of a hopeless dreamer and romantic.  It was strange he had access to so many books as they were expensive during this era
- Mary came under influence of a number of maternal influences, her own mother, Doll, the matron, Mrs Jones.  Mary had a better relationship with Doll than her own mother Mary had a difficult relationship with her mother and seemed determined that would not be like her.  Mary seemed to be a constant reminder of her father and she resented the promise made to Mary's father of ensuring Mary had an education
- although Mary was fortunate to have an education, it gave her ideas above her station and made it difficult for her to fit in
- the book showed how powerless women were during this time.  All the women in the story had had some misfortune or been let down by men.  The men in story had all the control
- overall the book should have been more interesting. It was a good story but this did not come through enough.  Not enough invested in the characters

Average score - 5.5

Wicked -

Only one person in the group had finished this book, everyone else was finding it a little hard going. We felt that it really needed to be read with your full attention so it wasn't really a book to read prior to going to sleep.

We felt there was a lack of a central plot, it seemed to consist of lots of fragmented stories which we found difficult to bring together. We also felt that there wasn't much done with regard to character building as well, which meant that between the two there wasn't enough plot or character building to entertain us. Maybe the author was rely on the fact that his readers would have already watched the movie and read all the books by Frank L Baum. None of us had read the books, and one member hadn't watched the movie so this may have had a detrimental effect on how much we all enjoyed this book.

We discussed various topics based around the themes we could find in the book. For example, whether good intentions with a bad ending are the same as bad intentions with a bad ending. We thought that it depends a great deal on whether you're the person doing the action or the person on the receiving end as to how you might feel about this question. We also thought that it was the intention behind the action rather than the action itself that was most important with regards the end result.

In the end we wondered whether Elphaba was a self-fulfilling prophecy, she tried to do what she felt were good things to improve the lives of the Animals but in the end her skin held her back. She looked like a wicked witch so people treated her as such. Was she really wicked and evil or was she just trying to get retribution for her sisters untimely death?

One positive element we took from the book was the fact that we felt Elphaba was a very strong female character of which there is sometimes a lack in literature.

Overall we gave this book 4 out of 10.

Wicked - Questions

Hello,

Here are some things to think about while you read Wicked over this lovely long back holiday weekend! Interestingly many of the questions compare the Gregory Maguire book with the original story, has anyone read the original?

- Gregory Maguire fashioned the name of Elphaba (pronounced EL-fa-ba) from the initials of the author of The Wizard of Oz, Lyman Frank Baum-L-F-B-Elphaba. Wicked derives some of its power from the popularity of its source material. Does meeting up with familiar characters and famous fictional situations require more patience and effort on the part of the reader, or less?

- [Galinda] reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom, was not clear to her yet". Discuss the transformation of Galinda, shallow Shiz student, to Glinda the Good Witch. How does she change — and by how much? What is her eventual "significance," both in Oz and in the story?

- Wicked is an epic story, built along the lines of a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy, in which the seeds of Elphaba's destiny are all sown early in the novel. How much of Elphaba's career is predestined, and how much choice does she have? Do you think that she was no more than a puppet of the Wizard or Madame Morrible, as she fears?

- Was Elphaba's story essentially a tragedy or a triumph? Did she fail at every major endeavor, and thus fail at life; or because she refused to give up or change to suit the opinions of others, was her life a success? Is there a possibility that Dorothy's "baptismal splash" redeemed Elphaba on her deathbed, or was this the final indignity in a life of miserable mistakes?

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

A Night To Remember

Everyone in the book group finished this book, mostly because it's a very small book.

We all felt that it gave a much more realistic feel for what happened on that night, more so than the more recent Hollywood movie. Maybe because it was very realistic we also felt that it was a little dry in parts (no pun intended) with long lists of names along with a small amount of background information. It could be that because this book was written very soon after the accident that people knew the famous names mentioned in this book that meant nothing to us now. This we felt was interesting because at the time these people were like the movie stars of today, with their every move watched by millions. The lack of personality to these people in the book made us feel somewhat detached from them even though at the same time we were reading about some of the tragic demise. We thought that the lists of extremely rish people were meant to give us an impression of just how amazingly luxurious this boat was, but we felt that we wanted to know some more about those on the lower decks.

We discussed the differences between the super rich on board the Titanic compared to the rich of today and felt that those on board the Titanic were really in a completely different league. They had private trains meet them at the dockside, and not only that they seemed to think that they were different to those with less money. These days we think that people don't tend to like to show off their wealth to such an extent, it seems slightly vulgar these days when there are people with nothing. In those days the super rich seemed to be separated much more from those with nothing, we felt that maybe the days of the Titanic were probably the death throes of this kind of lifestyle. The rich seemed to think they could build anything and do anything as long as they threw enough money at it, but they were being proven wrong with things like the Titanic and other similar disasters. We wondered whether having such rigid social hierarchy was a good a or a bad thing. We thought that it maybe created a feeling of responsibility to others, and a kind of structure in which you knew what was expected of you.

It was obvious in the book that the poor were overlooked both for being rescued, and even being mentioned at all in the book. There were very few names of those on the lower decks within the pages of this book compared to the actual amount of them on the ship and also compared to the amount of rich names being thrown about.

Somehow, although we all knew the ending we all wanted it to be different in the book, we weren't sure why this was. We all felt that there were some sadly poignant moments with small babies and children dying in the water, juxtaposed against the humour of the baker who survived by seeming to drink his own body weight in alcohol prior to stepping off the ship.

We also discussed the old saying "women and children first" we wondered where this came from and when it was first used, and also is it still in use today. We also wondered whether it is used all over the world or whether it was something that only really happened during the pre-titanic era amongst the ultra-politeness of the time. It would appear, given the amount of second class men who died, that they really did stick to this. Although the first class men appeared to allow women and children first to a certain extent and then their inherant feeling of intitlement may have taken over as a higher percentage of them survived than the female steerage passengers. We all wondered how we would react, we all felt that we would put our chilren into the life boats first but after that we wouldn't really know what to do. When the fight or flight reaction takes over you have no control over yourself and we felt that people should not be called cowards just because of a hormonal reaction.

Looking back on the tragedy it's easy to see where all the errors were for example, why did they turn off all the radios at night, why did they use such inferior bolts, how did they not know what flares meant etc. To be honest given the amount of errors and the complete lack of life-saving equipment on board it is actually surprising that they saved as many people as they did. We felt that those at sea did learn from these mistakes and new measures were put in place to ensure that these errors were unlikely to happen again. We felt that the biggest error may have been human arrogance that nothing bad could happen to such an amazing ship.

Overall we gave this book 7 out of 10.

Titanic Background Information

Hello everyone,

I hope you've all been enjoying this months book, i thought i would send out some information about the Titanic since there is so much around at the moment.

Here is the BBC website commemorating the Titanic:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/17488357

Across the pond there are commemorations too:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Photos-of-the-Titanic-from-101-Years-Ago-202521581.html?c=y&page=1&navigation=thumb#IMAGES

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Full-Steam-Ahead-Our-Roundup-of-All-Things-Titanic.html

I hope this all makes it a little more real, more so than the movie.

The Other Boleyn Girl

Almost everyone in the book club finished the book this month, and for those that hadn't it wasn't for want of enjoying the book it was just a time consideration. One member of the book club was on their second read of this book and still enjoyed it, they had also read some of the later books as well. Everyone felt that the book was very enjoyable and easy to read with just the odd moment when we felt that the language being used was just a little to modern.

We discussed how the notion of childhood and family has changed a great deal over the centuries, with children now being treated a great deal more with kid-gloves than in the time of the Boleyns. Children then were used far more as items to gain wealth and status, more so than today. Daughters seemed to be sold into marriages that would benefit their family, in fact this was the only thing they had to do other than produce male offspring. It all felt rather harsh compared to today, however, we thought we still hope our children make good marriages today but love comes into it a little more. We were also quite shocked at the young age that Mary was given to her first husband and also to the King, she was a great deal younger than we felt comfortable with in todays society.

The historical accuracy of the book was also discussed as it appears at first glance to be very good, however, with a little extra knowledge we discovered that a lot of literary licence has been taken with various aspects. This could be partly due to the lack of accurate historical records, and partly to make the story flow a little more easily, either way you do get a lot of historical accuracy but take some elements with a pinch of salt. We felt that the book was a very romaticised and slightly lengthy version of events, although the end of the book seemed to be rushed through in comparison.

The discussions of King Henry centred around his being very spoilt and childish, this could come from him being a second child, or just because he surrounded himself with sycophants. He seemed to remove those who didn't bow to his demands pretty quickly, even changing the laws and religions of the time so he could get his way. Once he had removed the power of the Pope and the Cardinal we felt that felt that he was now god within England and he could do whatever he wanted and still be able to justify it to himself and his people. He also seemed to very much enjoy the thrill of the chase both with women and with his hunting addiction. We felt that towards the end of the book he was feeling his age and it scared him, especially as he was still unable to conceive a son. This need for a son seemed to completely take over his world.

We discussed the two queens, and felt that Katharine was far more royal and regal with regard her behaviour compared to Anne. Anne we felt was a bit of a power-hungry chav only wanting the King as something to acquire and once she had him then she realised what she had achieved was possibly not in her best interests. Interestingly she really did sign her own death warrant by making Henry feel he could do whatever he wanted with regards "annulling" his various marriages.

Given all this we might chose to read another book in this series but wouldn't read them in close succession. Overall we gave this book 7.5 out of 10.