SPL Reads!

We’ll be meeting at 6:30, September 6th, in the Shiloh room to discuss Atonement by Ian McEwan – the day before the film version’s release in the United Kingdom! Atonement was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize, and Time Magazine named it the best fictional work of the year.

The novel begins in the luxurious world of a British summer home in 1935, where the Tallis family has gathered to endure the blistering heat (Blistering heat! Something we can all relate to this month!). The oldest Tallis daughter Cecilia, is home from college for summer vacation, along with Robbie Turner, son of the family’s cleaning woman who Mr. Tallis has taken under his financial wing. Cecilia’s younger sister Briony, a thirteen-year-old fledgling writer, is becoming increasingly disturbed by the romantic tension between Robbie and Cecilia. Briony accidentally witnesses a confusing scene, and then a crime, which leads her to tell a lie that will shatter several lives.

Ian McEwan earned the nickname “Ian Macabre” for his first two novels, The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981), a gruesome pair of psychological horror novels which confronted extremely uncomfortable realities with an unblinking eye. In 1997, he published Enduring Love, which begins with the rescue of a child trapped in a runaway hot air balloon and received immense critical acclaim. His most recent novel Saturday (2005) recounts an eventful forty-eight hours in the life of a British neurosurgeon, and received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2006 ALA Notable Fiction Selection. 

In addition to his favorably received work, Ian McEwan also made headlines when he was denied entry to the United States in 2004. McEwan was detained by the Department of Homeland Security due to an improper visa, causing a mild media storm. McEwan later quoted a customs official as saying, “We still don’t want to let you in, but this is attracting a lot of unfavorable publicity.”

For more information about Ian McEwan and his body of work, see his website. For a refresher on Atonement, take a look at the wikipedia article (contains spoilers!), or read reviews at Salon and The Guardian. If you’d like to start thinking about discussion points of the book, take a look at the discussion guide at Reading Group Guides.

Happy reading, and we hope to see you September 6th!

The book club met today for the last time at noon on Tuesday (we’ll be switching to the first Thursday of each month at 6:30, beginning in September!) to discuss Jonathan Safran Foer’s second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. We had a great time discussing this complex novel over strawberries and chocolate chip cookies.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close follows the adventures of Oskar Schell as he struggles to process his father’s death in the attacks on September 11th. The grieving nine-year-old finds a mysterious key in an envelop labeled “Black,” and sets off on a city-wide quest to find the key’s matching lock, hoping to better understand his father and the events that led to his death.

However, Oskar is no ordinary nine-year-old. He engages in regular correspondence with Stephen Hawking (undeterred by form letter responses), Ringo Starr, and Jane Goodall, among others, and carries a business card which reads, “Oscar Schell, inventor, jewelry designer, jewelry fabricator, amateur entomologist, francophile, vegan, origamist, pacifist, percussionist, amateur astronomer, computer consultant, amateur archeologist, collector of: rare coins, butterflies that died natural deaths, miniature cacti, Beatles memorabilia, semiprecious stones, and other things.” Oskar finds some degree of solace in his limitless imagination, constantly dreaming up fantastic inventions designed to keep people safe (a birdseed jacket, for example – birds would flock to it and allow the wearer to fly away from danger). However, his whimsical inventions and startlingly broad interests mask a deeply injured child – Oskar gives himself bruises, refuses to ascend above the third floor for fear of falling buildings, and emotionally disengages from his mother in the face of a tragedy he is unable to accept or understand.

The novel was published in 2005, uncomfortably close to the tragedy of September 11 for many readers. We discussed the ethical dilemma of writing about such a recent and devastating tragedy. Our group, however, was able to read Foer’s sophomore effort without offense – as a whole, we all felt that Foer’s work was, in its own way, very respectful of the tragedy, and did not undermine the experiences of the families in real life. Furthermore, his nine-year-old narrator has no interest in the political mess lurking behind the attacks – he only knows that he loved his father very much and cannot understand why he has been taken. We felt that this grief without anger or agenda allows Foer’s story to proceed without seeming exploitative of those horrible events. In fact, the book did not seem to be about September 11th, at all, but rather about deep personal loss and the process of healing.

In addition to Oskar’s offbeat quest in present day New York, Foer also includes a parallel narrative about Oskar’s grandparents and their experiences in the bombing of Dresden. The group was a little put off by this storyline – while we saw the significance of Foer’s juxtaposition of two mass tragedies in history, we found ourselves confused and not quite as convinced by the grandparents’ story. We thought the writing was unnecessarily dense, and the characters not quite as accessible as the irrepressible Oskar.

The group was a little divided on the issue of the multimedia presentation of the book. It includes photographs, blank pages, and varying font sizes and spacing. At one point during a particularly emotional scene, the text becomes smaller and smaller, running over itself until it becomes unreadable and the page nearly completely black, as though Foer himself realizes the inability of words to convey certain powerful emotions. However, whether or not the visual devices Foer employs add to the novel or merely distract the reader is a question open to discussion.

 Have you read this book? What did you think about Foer’s use of September 11th as a plot device? Did you think the mixed media presentation added to or detracted from the novel as a whole?

Houghton Mifflin’s Reader’s Guide for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Check out the video of the author tracing Oskar’s footsteps!

Jonathan Safran Foer’s Website