Friday, April 30, 2010

May Book Club

SUITE FRANCAISE

By Irène Némirovsky

Translated by Sandra Smith

Suite Francaise - Next Book

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Road - my comments

I wanted to contribute to the BBC, but due to being in Sydney tonight I can't make it. So, what follows is more a stream of consciousness rant rather than a structured response to the carefully crafted questions.

Why would anyone want to read this book? This was my initial thought as I worked through the first few pages. A tome on a nuclear winter sure sounds fun. But, incrementally, as I pushed my cart in front of me, thoughts and feelings emerged which I found intriguing. There was an initial urge for me to continually ask questions, 'so what's happened here?', 'a catstrophe of some sort....nuclear war? erupting volcanoes? collision with asteroids?' I looked for clues. I wanted to know where they were and what year it was. I wanted information beyond what the author was prepared to divulge. But slowly I saw that this was all very intentional, as a central theme of 'survivalism / minimalism' emerged. Actually, I don't know if one could describe it as a 'central' theme, as that theme was not revealed until the very end of the book. But minimalism, for sure. It's in the staccato-like dialogue, the brevity of the paragraphs, the economical use of apostrophes. 'Get used to this' the author is saying, 'because there isn't much left of what you know as familiar'. Everything we take for granted is gone and in its place this particular form of hell. I don't want to dwell on the obvious existentialist theme, so acutely portrayed in Ely. Which, of course, wasn't his real name. So to answer the question 'when you have nothing what do you have?' returned to me constantly. Strip away everything in our lives which are not fundamental to our survival and classify them as 'luxuries'. The fundamentals for survival may include shelter, warmth, food, safety from harm. What else? Love? Those fundamentals consume the man's every thought and action. But it doesn't answer the question of why? Is it hope? Hope that by going south to avoid the perpetual winter there may be warmth? By making it to the sea there may be food and shelter and safety from the marauding slavers? With a perpetual winter and no sunshine there was also no colour. No sunset and sunrise. These also were stripped from their lives.

It seemed that when the catastrophe occurred, people made the choice to 'self destruct' (as the child's mother apparently chose to do), or to move on. The man, however, had his gun which at the start had 2 bullets: one for him and one for the boy in case they were about to be captured by the slavers. He wasted one bullet so had to fashion fakes out of wood to give any new potential threat the impression he had a full revolver, and so keep that last bullet. Hope has its boundaries.

It was interesting to note that he used a supermarket shopping trolley as the means to carry their possessions. I read recently that if one were to take out of the 'average' shopper's trolley of 100 items, all those items not necessary for our very survival (water, unprocessed foods, clothes for warmth) then there would be just 4 items remaining. 96% of what we purchase can be classed as 'luxuries'. Of course in the man's trolley the ratio was reversed. Sweet irony. Just as the physical image of minimalism / survivalism was so starkly portrayed, so too were emotional minimalism and spiritual minimalism. The man had so few emotions he appeared a mega-stoic. In the end he did express rage, and in between he showed compassion and love for the boy, but not for others. The boy on the other hand seemed to have a magnified spiritual dimension. His concern for the little boy, compassion for Ely, fraughtful reaction to how the man made the thief strip naked. It was difficult to dispel the Christ allusion, that in this child resided the hope of humanity. The fire within him was so bright. Indeed, probably the most poignant line in the book was when the boy said to the man, as tears ran down his cheeks, that he has to worry about everything. On his tiny shoulders had been laid such a weight.

The ending was difficult. The man dies. The boy is 'rescued'. Salvation is at hand? Hope continues and never dies? Most unsatisfactory, but not so that the rest of the novel is devalued, rather my own sense of hope was challenged. We are all burdened with our luxuries.

So, to whomever recommended the book I say 'thanks'. I will resist seeing the film because my own images still sit in sharp relief, not yet ready for replacement by others. With volcanoes blowing their top in Iceland, and Krakatoa about to erupt just to our north, and the San Andreas fault showing signs of a major shift, I might just start collecting tins of food. And the odd shopping trolley.

Friday, April 23, 2010

THE ROAD - BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS


DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE ROAD

PLEASE NOTE THESE ARE JUST AS A GUIDE FOR DISCUSSION, IT IS FREE FORM AROUND THE FIRE FOR THURSDAY - DRESS WARM!!

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Set in the smoking ashes of a postapocalyptic America, Cormac McCarthy'sThe Road tells the story of a man and his son's journey toward the sea and an uncertain salvation. The world they pass through is a ghastly vision of scorched countryside and blasted cities "held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred and anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers in the commissaries of hell" [p. 181]. It is a starved world, all plant and animal life dead or dying, some of the few human survivors even eating each other alive. 

The father and son move through the ruins searching for food and shelter, trying to keep safe from murderous, roving bands. They have only a pistol to defend themselves, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food--and each other.

Awesome in the totality of its vision, 
The Road is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

Reader's Guide

  1. Cormac McCarthy has an unmistakable prose style. What do you see as the most distinctive features of that style? How is the writing in The Roadin some ways more like poetry than narrative prose?

  2. Why do you think McCarthy has chosen not to give his characters names? How do the generic labels of "the man" and "the boy" affect the way in which readers relate to them?

  3. How is McCarthy able to make the postapocalyptic world of The Roadseem so real and utterly terrifying? Which descriptive passages are especially vivid and visceral in their depiction of this blasted landscape? What do you find to be the most horrifying features of this world and the survivors who inhabit it?

  4. McCarthy doesn't make explicit what kind of catastrophe has ruined the earth and destroyed human civilization, but what might be suggested by the many descriptions of a scorched landscape covered in ash? What is implied by the father's statement that "On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world" [p. 32]?

  5. As the father is dying, he tells his son he must go on in order to "carry the fire." When the boy asks if the fire is real, the father says, "It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it" [p. 279]. What is this fire? Why is it so crucial that they not let it die?

  6. McCarthy envisions a postapocalyptic world in which "murder was everywhere upon the land" and the earth would soon be "largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes" [p. 181]. How difficult or easy is it to imagine McCarthy's nightmare vision actually happening? Do you think people would likely behave as they do in the novel, under the same circumstances? Does it now seem that human civilization is headed toward such an end?

  7. The man and the boy think of themselves as the "good guys." In what ways are they like and unlike the "bad guys" they encounter? What do you think McCarthy is suggesting in the scenes in which the boy begs his father to be merciful to the strangers they encounter on the road? How is the boy able to retain his compassion--to be, as one reviewer put it, "compassion incarnate"?

  8. The sardonic blind man named Ely who the man and boy encounter on the road tells the father that "There is no God and we are his prophets" [p. 170]. What does he mean by this? Why does the father say about his son, later in the same conversation, "What if I said that he's a god?" [p. 172] Are we meant to see the son as a savior?

  9. The Road takes the form of a classic journey story, a form that dates back to Homer's Odyssey. To what destination are the man and the boy journeying? In what sense are they "pilgrims"? What, if any, is the symbolic significance of their journey?

  10. McCarthy's work often dramatizes the opposition between good and evil, with evil sometimes emerging triumphant. What does The Roadultimately suggest about good and evil? Which force seems to have greater power in the novel?

  11. What makes the relationship between the boy and his father so powerful and poignant? What do they feel for each other? How do they maintain their affection for and faith in each other in such brutal conditions?

  12. Why do you think McCarthy ends the novel with the image of trout in mountain streams before the end of the world: "In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery" [p. 287]. What is surprising about this ending? Does it provide closure, or does it prompt a rethinking of all that has come before? What does it suggest about what lies ahead?


Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Discussion Questions - The Road (optional)

WARNING: DO NOT READ TILL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE BOOK
  1. Why do you think McCarthy wrote The Road?

  2. Why did the father choose to survive and not the mother? What did he see that she could not?

  3. What do you think the coast represents (physically and literally)? Why?

  4. One man they meet on the road says "There is no God and we are his prophets." What does he mean by this?

  5. What are the key moments that help push the father to keep striving on?

  6. When does the boy become a man? What does he see that his father can’t?

  7. What do you think McCarthy is saying about humanity in The Road?

  8. What would you do in a world like this? Would it change your beliefs? What would you hope in?

  9. What do you think of the end of The Road? After such a fate, could things be "put back again?" Could they be "made right?"

  10. What do you think McCarthy is thinking of when he speaks of "the deep glens where all things are older than man and hum of mystery?" What does it make you think of?

  11. Rate The Road on a scale of 1 to 5.

Friday, April 9, 2010

The BBC is open




Hi all book clubbers, you are all welcome to add to the BBC blog and if we wish to invite geographically challenged people (ie those who do not live in Bundeena - and yes we all feel very sorry for these people but must use the politically correct title for their shortcomings).

Please remember date change for The Road - April 29