I’d mixed up the order of the books on
the blog and as a result; we had a member who had read Cloud Atlas (our next
read) and was halfway through this one. My fault entirely and we managed to
avoid all spoilers for about 30 minutes before...the inevitable occurred.
Someone spilled the ending and from then on we totally, completed and utterly
went through every last detail killing all suspense for this poor member.
So...sorry about that!
When the book was initially picked, I
announced that the author was a woman. Actually, it turns out not so much.
However, with so many people not
realising the true gender of the author after finishing the book, this raised a
very interesting conversation point.
We were fairly evenly divided into those
that felt the author expressed himself well as a female protagonist and those
that didn’t. The emotions, confusion and shock seemed authentic to many of us,
particularly in relation to the knowledge of having had a child but no memory
of it but instinctively knowing that it was true. The other half felt that
Christine focused too much on the physical aspects of her condition - her
visibly aged hands and saggy breasts. In the main, these astute readers were
less surprised or had suspected that the author was male.
We wandered off course for a bit
discussing those authors who did actually use initials, pseudonyms or
gender-neutral names to disguise themselves. We briefly touched on George
Elliot, the Bronte’s and PD James. It's hard to believe that as recently as the
90's, a certain Joanne Rowling was advised to write using a name that wouldn't
put off young boys - thereby inventing an initial for herself! Though we were
amused, we were none of us unaware of how ridiculous this reality within the
publishing world remains. After all, the writers mentioned above retained
their successful careers even after their gender was revealed. It’s infuriating
that this sort of thinking still exists in the publishing world - even worse is
the realisation that this may well be based on a gender bias actually true in
our society at large.
It's become apparent to me that there is
a strange sort of pattern emerging throughout our meetings. Where we have
disliked a book - we have a tendency to discuss the aspects we had responded to
well resulting in a discussion that seems to have a positive tone; then reveal
in the last few minutes that it hadn't been an enjoyable reading experience.
When we like a book, we say so and then instantly move onto the small
niggles, plot holes and characters that drove us mad. Sometimes it feels like
we have nothing but criticism for a book then we almost all allocate high
scores. This discussion *defines* the latter route.
Structurally, the book was interesting
in a number of ways. On the one hand the experience of Christine waking up
every day and recording her life and reading and re-reading it over and again
was one being shared by the reader. This led to a kinship between the two in
some cases. Additionally, with a fresh start every morning, the book couldn't help
but be repetitive yet the majority of us felt that it avoided becoming stale
for the most of the book. However the use of the present tense during the
narrative really bugged at least one of us.
In the main, the book seemed to start to
slow down about two thirds of the way through. When the journal was introduced,
the narration became a little less interesting to some of us.
The concept itself felt very
experimental to us, with many accurately guessing that this was a debut novel.
One of the book club members explained the writing process that the author had
undertaken and we discussed the twitter write-a-book-in-a-month group (the
improbably entitled NaNoWriMo). As a final note on the
structural aspects, most of us had responded with an eye roll to the 'Not The
End' notice on the final page.
A few of us* found certain practical
considerations rendered the plot a bit feeble in places. Christine is terrified
daily and has to go through a huge rigmarole each day to find her journal. She
spends her days waiting for her husband to go out, finding her diary, reading
it then writing it. And at no point does he ever seem to notice? She also
never seems to leave the house. Then suddenly starts wandering off into parks.
This inconsistency was barely touched upon. Why did she never use a
map? Grr.
Here - I can't remember why - we went on
off on a tangent about fan fiction and Fifty Shades of Grey and the fact that
our mothers were probably reading it. Hilarity ensued.
Additionally - I know there are
spoilers, but I’m trying to be spoiler lite here - the whole premise of the
story was orientated around One Giant Coincidence. This
really grated upon me in particular.
We also debated on whether this was a
crime mystery – as it was sold to one person, or a psychological thriller.
While we all agreed that it felt like the second, we couldn’t deny the classic
crime mystery elements – there are multiple potential perpetrators, a red
herring and a twist ending. In the end we agreed that it mattered only in how the
book was sold. Many people had felt very put off by the blurb; which hyped up
the paranoia and tension while giving away too many key plot points.
We agreed that it certainly wasn’t
written from a medical perspective. Having said that, apparently the author
wrote the book then found out that the actual condition exists – though I image
there are stark differences between the realities and the fiction.
We also compared this with our previous
read – Sense of an Ending. Book books featured an unreliable primary narrator.
Here we commented that we responded well to Christine’s mundane rituals. In the
previous book there was a similar theme but in the end the protagonist doesn’t
actually do anything. Here Christine is an active participant of her life – the
bits that she remembers. She constantly tries. Even when we didn’t like her, we
respected that about her.
At this point, we started focusing in
more on the characters throughout the book. By now the cat was out of the bag,
so we felt more comfortable exploring the secondary characters.
We were very ambivalent towards the
doctor. He was very vague on the topic of his study and his repeating a major
story telling device to Christine believing it to be true because she had told
him it in the first place seemed very out of place. In the end, we none of us
ever really trusted him and believed him to be a potential ‘bad guy’ throughout
the bulk of the book.
Clare we all responded to very
positively. She brought a sense of humour that was often sorely lacking across
the book and their interactions felt realistic. However, most of us found it
hard to believe that she would have just stopped visiting her friend after her
[redacted for spoilers]. It seemed to us that she would have continued
visiting her best buddy out of a sense of obligation if nothing else.
We didn’t like the way the bad guy had
been introduced. It places us in the uncomfortable position of judging the main
character during a terribly traumatic time. Enforced victim blaming is not a
pleasant feeling.
This is getting a bit long so I’ll skip
the more spoiler-y parts of our chat. For many of us the ending was a let down.
It felt rushed and the last two pages especially seemed taken from the Wayne’s
World souper-douper happy ending. Yet there were at least two people who loved
the ending and thought that it made the journey worthwhile.
*Point of Note: Those of us who noticed
the plot holes and practical considerations most tended to be reading the book
for a second time. We all of us admitted that when we initially read it; it was
at breakneck speed, utterly engrossed and desperate to figure out the (so
stupidly pointed out in the blurb) twist. The inconsistencies only became
obvious after a second, slower, more considered read.
Also mentioned:
- Jane Eyre Laid Bare
- Blog - 50 things that annoy me about 50 Shades of Grey
- Death Becomes Her
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
- Momento
- Sliding Doors
