The Free-Range Bookclub
Bookclubbers without boundaries in Nelson, New Zealand
The Female Eunuch – Germaine Greer
READ FOR BOOKCLUB
Chosen by Rachel
✔ The Female Eunuch is a 1970s book that became of international note for being an important text in the feminist movement. The author’s theory is that the traditional family represses women sexually, and this devitalises them, rendering them eunuchs.
Greer comments on biological differences and historical definitions of the two sexes as well as the psychological differences that result from social conditioning. She examines women’s perception of self and critiques what is considered normal. She also argues that men hate women, though women do not realise this and are therefore taught to hate themselves.
In the popular imagination hairiness is like furriness, an index of bestiality, and as such an indication of aggressive sexuality. Men cultivate it, just as they are encouraged to develop competitive and aggressive instincts, women suppress it, just as they suppress all the aspects of their vigour and libido.
We all agreed this was not our usual kind of bookclub read. Greer is bold, coarse and confronting in her choice of language and subject matter and one must remember the book was written in the 60s, when yes things were much worse for women. We acknowledge there is still progress to be made in accepting women for who they are and not who society wants us to be, and for that reason there were parts of the book that were empowering. But all parts of it were thought-provoking and good conversation fodder, though perhaps not as shocking as it once was.
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Published in 1970
Harper Collins
400 pages
Sons For The Return Home – Albert Wendt
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Chosen by Suzy
A Samoan family migrates to Wellington in the 1960s, leaving the sons unsure to which culture or country they belong.
✔ “Sons for the Return Home is a love story set amongst a time and setting of racism. A post-colonial work, it tells the story of a young Samoan who lives in New Zealand and falls in love with a white female university student. The man is expected to become a doctor and one day return to his home but his new love affects his parents’ plans for him.
“Wendt uses several techniques to make the experiences of many Samoan New Zealanders also the experience of the characters. He examines racial prejudices from all angles, especially how it intersects with other factors like education, culture, and religion. Polynesian myths and history sits poignantly alongside contemporary life in New Zealand, providing a real grounding to this story. Importantly, this was one of the first novels ever published by a Pacific Islander – in 1973!
✔ “This book seemed to encapsulate a lot of what NZ & PI societies were experiencing as they slowly merged together. My knowledge of this particular period in NZ’s history was fairly small and I relied, rightly or wrongly, on this book to help me understand what it was like for both ‘sides’. It’s also a love story. I’m not being particularly articulate am I? Anyway I can highly recommend this lovely novel.” – Suzy
✔ “The basic premise of this story is one which many people can identify with, and that’s confusion over identity. This was such a real story with true-to-life characters, it’s impossible to not feel connected to it. I loved it.” – Rachel
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Published in 1973
Penguin
228 pages
Ragtime – E L Doctorow
READ FOR BOOKCLUB
Chosen by Sophia
Centering on an unnamed New York family, Ragtime hosts an array of fictional and real characters who seek to find their way at the turn of last century.
✔ Ragtime is a snapshot of life in the US between the turn of the century and World War I when poverty affected many families, racism was rife, and immigrants struggled to integrate into the American way of life.
There is a tapestry of fictional and real life characters introduced to bring this snapshot to life. The primary narrative focuses on a New York family, referred to only as Father, Mother, The little boy, Mother’s Younger Brother, and Grandfather. They feature on the opening pages with Harry Houdini crashing his car outside their house.
From here the family’s life is altered when Mother discovers an abandoned new-born baby in the back yard. The child’s troubled mother, a black woman called Sarah, eventually comes to stay with them. Father returns from an expedition to the North Pole to learn of the new addition to the household and how it has affected his relationship with his wife and family. Younger Brother, meanwhile, is infatuated with the pin-up girl Evelyn Nesbit, and learning to make explosives.
There are immigrant peddlers, ragtime musicians and other notable people such as Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, JP Morgan, Evelyn Nesbit and Sigmund Freud who slip in and out of the pages.
Poor Father, I see his final exploration. He arrives at the new place, his hair risen in astonishment, his mouth and eyes dumb. His toe scuffs a soft storm of sand, he kneels and his arms spread in pantomimic celebration, the immigrant, as in every moment of his life, arriving eternally on the shore of his Self.
The narrative moves with pace at all times, sliding between people, scenes, dialogue and moralities without slowing down. Sometimes this and the sheer number of characters can be too much, but everyone has their story to tell and you just need to accept the hive of activity and roll with it to truly appreciate it. It is a portrait of America at a turning point in its history, but history never stops and it feels like this book and it’s messages won’t either.
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Published 1975
Random House
270 pages
Crime And Punishment – Fyodor Dosteovsky
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Chosen by Jo
A Russian student commits a murder believing humanitarian ends justify the crime
✔ “Raskolnikov is a destitute and impoverished former student who wanders through the slums of St Petersburg in this 1866 Russian classic. Without warning he commits a random murder with no immediate remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law, and that humanitarian ends justify vile means.
Unlike crime stories of the time, there is no mystery as to the crime or the perpetrator. Instead the story concentrates more on the psychology of the murderer than in the specifics of the crime.
As such Raskolnikov embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator. Though he is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.
Like many of the great 19th century novelists, Dostoyevsky often uses a series of incredible coincidences to move the plot forward. Nonetheless, the story takes on a life of its own. Dostoyevsky’s use of parable, dream sequences and a cast of memorable characters is also notable.
It is also an exposé of social conditions in 19th century Russia and a dramatic study of the nature of good and evil.
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
It is fair to say the bookclubbers were all a little nervous at the prospect of reading a many-paged Russian classic! However we were all surprised to find it was less daunting than we thought and we all liked it – albeit at varying levels. It may have sounded ominous but it was actually engaging and entertaining. The crime is committed early but there is still a catchy plot, examining the crime from every angle throughout the rest of the book as Raskolnikov himself tries to understand it and seeks redemption in the form of punishment. The serial publication of Crime & Punishment had to be taken into consideration when some pages got wordy and dragged on.”
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Published 1866
The Russian Messenger
574 pages
Bliss & The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
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Chosen by Rachel
Bliss tells the story of a dinner party where secrets abound. The Garden Party captures the story of an upper-middle class NZ family preparing for a garden party.
✔ “Considered Mansfield’s finest piece of short fiction, The Garden Party is said to have influenced such modernist authors as Virginia Woolf with its stream-of-consciousness and symbolic narrative style. It incorporates many of Mansfield’s defining themes: New Zealand, childhood, adulthood, social class, class conflict and innocence.
“Structured around an early afternoon garden party in New Zealand the story has clear connections to Mansfield’s own childhood in New Zealand. The main character, Laura, is an idealistic girl who wishes to cancel the planned gathering when she learns of the death of a working-class labourer who lives down the hill from her parents’ home. The story concerns Laura’s alternating moments of resistance and conformity to her mother’s idea of class relations.
“Another of her most revered short stories is Bliss, which tells the story of Bertha, an extraordinarily happy woman who spends the opening pages summing up the terrific things in her life: her home, her husband, her baby and her friends.
“As she contemplates her good fortune she prepares a meal for dinner guests who are friends of the couple, glancing out the window at a stunning pear tree which she considers represents herself and her wonderful life.
“The friends arrive and the dinner proceeds but the conclusion of the evening is not the outcome Bertha was expecting.
“At the time of its publication in 1920 the story was considered controversial, dealing with infidelities, sexuality and superficial characters.
What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful.
✔ “These two short stories were our favourites of all the Katherine Mansfield we read this month. Not only astounding that so much can be said in such a short space, but that important social and moral commentaries are woven amongst the decadent narrative. Stunning imagery, too – We all seem to recall these stories vividly.”
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Published 1918
The English Review
In A German Pension – Katherine Mansfield
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Chosen by Rachel
A young woman observes the absurd and grotesque while staying in a German pension.
✔ “In A German Pension was Mansfield’s first short story collection, written when she was 22. The stories are semi-autobiographical because Mansfield herself was sent away to a German pension for being unmarried mother to be.
“The collection’s narrator is stuck in the pension and feels she is surrounded by grotesque fools. She unleashes her disgust by writing sharp and satirical anecdotes of them, which usually portray their revolting habits
“The stories are about gender roles and sexism, violence towards women, class discrepancies and the exploitation of children. The stories start off lightly satirical but get progressively more absurd and unpalatable.”
✔ “Very much a book of character studies, with short stories all featuring the same protagonist, a young Englishwoman in a German pension. As the story unfolds we discover her complexities – she feels she is kind of pitted against the Germans, who all seem to be described as grotesque. Fascinating.” – Rachel
✔ “My attention was captured by Mansfield’s often tragic themes and boring everyday life written so sharply and with a dark sense of humour. Especially interesting considering such quality of writing was produced by someone so young at the time.” – Jo
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Published 1911
134 pages
Where We Once Belonged – Sia Figel
READ FOR BOOKCLUB
Chosen by Suzy
Where We Once Belonged is written in the traditional Su’ifefiloi style. Literally this means a woven garland of flowers. As a narrative technique, it refers to the stringing together of individual stories or fragments, told in different styles without regard to order or continuity, producing a slowly revealed plot. The story reveals the coming of age of 13-year-old Alofa and her traditional and sometimes brutal upbringing as she finds her place in the world as a Polynesian and a woman.
✔ “Oooh spooky, when I started typing this up Sia’s Chandelier came up on Spotify. Moving on … Nice to read a book about young Samoan females set in Samoa by a Samoan author. A series of interlinked stories that I felt I happily floated amongst.” – Suzy
✔ “This book is engrossing right from the first page with its merging of poetry, prose and mythology. Alofa is well written, and it is heartbreaking to read about the difficulties she endures in her regulated childhood.” – Rachel
✔ “This story involves domestic violence and cultural repression of sexuality in a coming-of-age story set in a Samoan village. The themes of racial and sexual discrimination are disturbing at times. I enjoyed the way the Samoan language peppers this book, however this was sometimes frustrating as not all words/phrases were included in the glossary translation. A good read.” – Jo
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Published 1996
248 pages
Back Booker 2002
Time for another Back Booker and this time we’ve focused on 2002. A year with a kind of seriousness about it. Though not in a moralistic or melancholy kind of way, rather the authors have demonstrated the impact of significant themes and topics with well constructed characters. As such they’ve offered points of view and reactions to the weighty matters of real life in a poignant way.
As a result there are some really heartfelt stories amongst the shortlisters. We considered, to what level do fictional families represent society in general? Here are our thoughts:
Family Matters has three generations of a Parsi family in Bombay living under the same roof in a cramped apartment with religion, hierarchy, untruths and wanting for better plaguing them every day. It is a strong novel with both modern and traditional elements that we’re sure many readers would relate to.
Set in a fictional fishing port in Western Australia, the characters of Dirt Music are contemplative and secretive. Yet they live in a society of wealth and indulgences, accidents and near deaths, criminal acts and violence as well as the serenity of the Australian way of life in a real slow burn of a novel.
The Story of Lucy Gault is not about what happened to Lucy Gault, it’s about the story of what happened to Lucy Gault, an Irish girl who disappeared, and how that affected her friends, family and community. It is a haunting book of silence and secrets where nothing feels quite right.
The chapter headings in Unless illustrate its pensiveness. Notwithstanding. Despite. Whatever. It is about a family whose daughter sits on a Toronto street corner with a begging bowl and a sign that says GOODNESS. They don’t know if she’s serious or acting. Though her mother wonders if she gets her life in order will she get her daughter back.
Life of Pi explores questions around faith, friendship and fiction in the tale of a religious Indian boy nicknamed Pi who becomes stranded on a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Life experiences and morals abound as Pi establishes peace with the tiger, which he sees as his only possibility for survival.
Fingersmith is the most lighthearted of the lot. A story of a Victorian pickpocket who is enticed into a bigger job of theft. It’s long and twisted and satisfying, detailing the extent to which an orphan will go for acceptance, and the consequences for those who are conned. An enticing read!
But in the end Life Of Pi won out for us both, with its unusual plot and twists and turns. The author took a gamble, expecting the reader to go along with his absurd tale, but it seems many are willing to stretch the imagination in search of a great story and are able to see the serious intent of its foundations.
Best book 1st-6th: Suzy:
Life Of Pi
Fingersmith
Unless
Family Matters
Dirt Music
The Story of Lucy Gault
Best book 1st-6th: Rachel:
Life Of Pi
Unless
Fingersmith
Family Matters
The Story Of Lucy Gault
Dirt Music
2011 – Thematic Construction
The best characters exist within the construct of firm guidelines, and life-changing literature becomes so because of the meaning which permeates every turn of events. It is these sturdy but often subtle parametres which define our love of books.
With this is mind we have opted this year to implement strategies to further enhance our enjoyment of our reads, and what better way than the construct of the very thing we discuss at length each month: themes.
Yes, along with the addition of a new book nerd, the lovely Sophia who joined us mid last year, we have integrated a structure to our book choices this year. This not only encourages a more solid framework to bookclub but allows us to delve deeper into genres, authors or literary forms that interest us.
Here’s how the year will shape up:
Sophia – The Great American Novel
Suzy – Maori & Pacifica Writers
Rachel – Feminist Novels
Jo – Russian Classics
It’s not only this which supplies us with additional form, but the feeling of stability and connectedness which has emanated now that we are four. Some things are just meant to be; our reading interests and knowledge are both complimentary and diverse, our thoughts on what makes a good book always up for debate. The midnight candle is often burning, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Here’s the reading schedule:
Where We Once Belonged – Sia Figiel
Selected Short Stories – Katherine Mansfield
Crime & Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ragtime – E L Doctorow
Sons For The Return Home – Albert Wendt
The Female Eunuch – Germaine Greer
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Freedom – Jonathan Franzen
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Pregnant Widow – Martin Amis
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
2010 – End of Year Thoughts
Harry’s Bar was our destination for EOY bookclub in 2010. Joined by our newest arrival, the fabulous Sophia, we had a lot to discuss. We found that we had many conflicting opinions on this year’s readings, which we welcomed as it makes for lively and prolonged debate – a nerdy bookclubber’s perfect night!
We agreed there was a lot of disturbing features present this year (characters, scenes and themes) and the relevance of each was always up for discussion.
Book of the year:
Sophia: Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids
Jo: The Sea, The Sea
Suzy: The Sea, The Sea
Rachel: Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids
Runner up:
Sophia: The Sea, The Sea
Jo: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Suzy: Novel About My Wife
Rachel: The Sea, The Sea
Most interesting author:
Sophia: Iris Mudoch
Jo: Iris Murdoch
Suzy: Iris Murdoch
Rachel: Simone de Beauvoir
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