Dubliners by James Joyce

In Dubliners, completed when Joyce was only 25, he produced a definitive group portrait. It is a book, as suggested in the Introduction, ‘rooted in an intensely accurate apprehension of the detail of Dublin life’.

Full of brutal realism, each chapter is a story within itself. And yet, beyond its bitter truths, lies a book full of enigmas, ambiguities and symbolic resonances.

Dubliners remains an undisputed masterpiece, a work that compels attention by the power of its unique vision of the world.

It is surprising how easily our perception can be influenced. When it comes to classic literature, this is doubly so! How long have you had the idea that reading James Joyce is just too hard? Well this year our book club took the challenge and Joyce’s Dubliners has scored the highest yet. We were all in agreement that the writing was superb and that Joyce has that very Irish knack of telling a tale that is entertaining yet sorrowful. As we have said before … no one does it like the Irish!

It was commented that the narration serves as an observer to what, in anyone else’s hands, would be ordinary, everyday stories. But Joyce has a way of bringing his characters to life with everything that makes us human. Clever turn of phrase and descriptive language all come together to weave a picture of Dublin at a time that it was truly Irish.

Our discussion included an interesting look at Joyce himself and some of the challenges he faced getting published. As a group we always try to do a little background into authors. I helps to round out our discussions and also adds an extra dimension to what we learn from the literature we read.

We shared real life experiences in Ireland and had plenty of opinions on the traditions and uniqueness of the Irish people. We also felt we were able to pin point the difficult position the country and its people were caught in at the time of Dubliners publication. Somewhere between the modern and traditional world.

Something that only a writer of Joyce’s calibre would be able to deliver.

The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson

John Batman, ruthless, singleminded; four convicts, the youngest still only a stripling; Gould, a downtrodden farmhand; two free black trackers; and powerful, educated Black Bill, brought up from childhood as a white man, this is the roving party and their purpose is massacre.

With promises of freedom, land grants and money, each is willing to risk his life for the prize.

Passing over many miles of tortured country, the roving party searches for Aborigines, taking few prisoners and killing freely, Batman never abandoning the visceral intensity of his hunt. And all the while, Black Bill pursues his personal quarry, the much-feared warrior, Manalargena.

This month’s book divided our group in a clear ‘loved it/hated it’ form. A handful of us, although admitting the horror of the storyline, nevertheless found the writing, characterisation and realistic setting a pleasure to read. And where some found the lack of punctuation difficult, others found the narrative flowing and well fitted to the character style.

There seemed to be a deficiency of emotional punch for some of our readers. They could not be moved by any of the roving party or their quarry and Anne went so far as to pronounce it ‘boring’ and ‘pretentious’. This in complete contrast to Jeanette’s ‘marvellous’ and ‘stunning’.

The imagery held strong for the book’s fans though and we found that Wilson’s writing draws a clear and far from glamorous picture of this alpha-male world, with small and subtle reminders that these characters are human, regardless of what they find themselves doing. And as a reader you are forced to acknowledge their weaknesses, and dare I say it, feel some empathy for them!

Our discussion traveled through the obvious territory of racial discrimination and genocide, but also some interesting historical details from Tasmania’s past, sorting out the fiction from facts.

Short-listed for numerous awards and winner of last year’s Vogel Literary Prize, The Roving Party has found its place in Australian literature, if not into all of our club members' hearts.

In a little coffee shop in one of the most dangerous places on earth, five very different women come together. Sunny, the proud proprietor; Yasmina, a young pregnant Afghan woman; Isabel, a determined British journalist; Candace, a wealthy American and Halajan, the 60 year old den mother whose long hidden love affair breaks all the rules.

As these five discover, there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they form a unique bond that will forever change their lives and the lives of many others.

The term Chick Lit has an accepted presence in today’s list of genres, and although we know it can come under many umbrellas; mystery, fantasy etc … it came as quite a surprise to our group that this ‘Little Coffee House’ counted among them.


There was a general underlying disappointment in this light and fluffy look at Afghanistan and its people, but then again, the book’s enjoyment factor rated high and contrived or not, there was value in its insightful information, particularly for the audience it was aimed at.

The majority of us were not really interested in Sunny’s love interests, and in fact we thought the story may have been more digestible without it! We are not known for our romanticising by any means! But the coming together of cultures, the character of Halajan, the 60 year old den mother, and the volatile setting of Kabul was enough to keep all of us reading, even if the tension and danger was down-graded.

The author, Rodriguez, was found to be fascinating and a few of our members actually believed the interview at the back of the book to be more interesting than the novel itself. She had spent time in Afghanistan, so this gave some credibility to her story, but it was suggested that the book’s approach may have been publisher driven, focusing on what we said earlier, the Chick Lit brigade.

Regardless of who the book was written for, our group derived something from the reading and had an immensely enjoyable discussion on the life of women in places such as Kabul and even here in Australia. And after dissecting every character; the good, the bad, and the unbelievable, we came to the conclusion that Little Coffee Shop was worth the read.

Just don’t expect to be blown away … you will only be gently lifted in to a world where everything turns out just fine!

February - Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, 11 year old Harrison Opoku lives on the 9th floor of a block of flats on an inner-city housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers – the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen – blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him.

With equal fascination for the local gang – the Dell Farm Crew – and for the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of life in England; watching, listening, and learning the tricks of urban survival.

Our first book for 2012 raised little in the way of enthusiasm for this debut novel. There were numerous comments of its disjointed narrative and lack of character empathy which kept our club scores down, ranging from 3 to 8 points.

Joan mentioned the paradox of Harri and his family moving from the violence of Ghana to the toxic world of gang warfare in a south London estate. She also found an all too real glimpse of immigrants coming to a new country for a fresh start only to be alienated and separated from loved ones.

Viti picked up on a subtle atmosphere of menace that lay beneath the whole story and also pointed to the Lord of the Flies analogy of loss of rules and breakdown of family and social structures. Well done Viti!

Everyone took Harri’s pigeon to be the carrier of his thoughts and emotions. A small but meaningful balance to Harri’s new world of Adidas trainers and gangland murder.

By far the most condemning aspect of Pigeon English would have to be its failure to connect our readers with the main characters and their plight. As a whole, our group prefers to connect with and care about those within the pages, so no matter how clever, innovative or profound a work of literature is, if we cannot relate or feel compassion, our enjoyment level drops and so does our recommendation.

As always, we would be interested in your opinion. If you’ve read Pigeon English, make a comment and let us know what you think.

January - The Long Song by Andrea Levy

July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation named Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. She was there when the Baptist War raged in 1831, and she was also present when slavery was declared no more.

My son says I must convey how the story tells also of July’s mama Kitty, of the negroes that worked the plantation land, of Caroline Mortimer the white woman who owned the plantation and many more person besides – far too many to list here. But what befalls them all is carefully chronicled upon these pages.

This month’s book The Long Song by Andrea Levy has started our year off in great style with a stimulating discussion, on the book itself and the many issues found within.


We could all be forgiven for our first reaction, ‘another story of slavery’. We have read plenty covering this topic over the years, but as all good book clubs do, we uncovered more than the usual heartbreak and injustice … humour being a major contributor to our club’s enjoyment.

This is not to say we felt the author took her theme lightly. It is more the narrative approach, that of July, in her impatient, slightly defiant senior’s voice that had us chuckling through this biographical memoir that her son has persuaded her to write. The tricks and antics of her forbearers revealed comic insubordination and rebelliousness that is rare in a slavery novel.

However, we did have some conflicting opinions. Nancy read on only through a feeling of guilt, … she felt she should feel empathy and remorse, yet the book left her with no such feelings, and she found the narrative tiresome. Tera could remember little about the story, yet she did remember enjoying the subtle humour, and Anne again was left with nothing more than a few notes that she jotted down simply to keep track of who was who, and what was what.

But overall the comments were positive. It was thought to be a well researched and beautifully told novel. Clever and possibly written for the screen. Viti and a few others would have liked a little more historical background of the place and time, but we all agreed the purpose of the story was more in the form of a personal account of native Jamaicans and plantation slavery.

Regardless which view point you took, we ended up discussing social and economic wealth and distribution, historical and contemporary injustices and what they all mean today. Not bad for the start of a new year.

Were we suitably impressed? Levy’s previous books have all been noted down for further reading. Always a good indication with our group!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the coming-of-age story of young, sensitive and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the turn-of-the century Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn. This poignant and moving tale is filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident.

From the moment she entered the world, Francie needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Betty Smith has artfully caught this sense of exciting life in a novel of childhood, replete with incredibly rich moments of universal experiences.

As a book group, we are no strangers to American classics. We’ve delved into more than a few over the 10 years we have been meeting, and on no occasion have they been described as ‘saccharine’. But there is a first time for everything, and this is exactly what approximately half of our group thought of Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Francie was too good to be true and many of the outcomes in the story lacked in the reality stakes. Others believed the story was devoid of intensity and some of the more interesting issues were glossed over.

There were of course references made to McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes (which everyone had read), but as A Tree was written in the early 1940s, it was accepted that Smith had obviously written a book of her time, which we generally agreed was to some extent biographical.

On the positive side, others believed it to be a wonderful read and historically correct. There was a strong sense of place and Francie’s character was exactly what the book’s protagonist needed to be. We then proceeded to have a great discussion on the book’s many characters and it was mentioned that there was a clear depiction of pride written into them. Something that everyone felt and agreed was common among Smith’s social class of the time.

It was about here that we began some reminiscing, as several of us could recall similar childhood memories of a time when space and money was short. Growing up stories are always entertaining and a wonderful way of rounding off a great discussion. For, regardless of a book’s original intent, if it inspires thoughtful and enjoyable discourse, it is always a winner with us!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our readers. We look forward to another great year of reading and sharing with you!

The Alchemist by Paul Coelho

An Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest.

No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly good turns into a discovery of the treasures found within.

Lush, evocative and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.

How many self-help books does the world really need? This and other probing questions were inspired by this month’s book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

A few of us had read this before, some a few times before, and in true Tuesday Book Club tradition we had plenty to say of its content and what it all might possibly mean. Deep and meaningful? Not completely, there were plenty of laughs thrown in, mostly to do with the self-help market and its promotion strategies. Many thought it to be a well written fable/biblical telling of life’s lessons. Viti searched for symbolic meaning, such is her way, but came up with no ground breaking insight, just that she had enjoyed it more with each reading, which to date has been three, and that it was a metaphor for life. We all tended to agree, but not sure exactly what the metaphor was telling us other than the obvious; learning of life’s lessons through experience and travel; be true to yourself; grass is always greener; own backyard; life’s real treasures, the journey …. etc.

Anne was the biggest fan and found it to be a wonderful story full of beautiful language, innocence of youth and an uplifting coming-of-age tale.

On the negative side were comments such as under-whelming, repetitive, and lacked involvement. We discussed the time, place and setting aspects and also whether anything was lost in translation from its Spanish origins. This we thought could be a possibility.

Unanimously we decided this story had certainly been told before under the guise of new-age literature, which there is no shortage of, and that in all probability The Alchemist is more adhesive to the young, inexperienced mind. And as there is an unlimited supply of such, there will always be a place for this type of literature.