Love Requited, at George's

Acknowledgments

George deserves kudos on several fronts.  First, when his proposed titles were challenged, he promptly offered us an alternative that met with our approval. Second, the title he proffered had so much personal meaning that he had us close to tears when he recounted why.  Finally, his eggplant parmesan would have joined Fermina Daza and her mother-in-law in gustatory harmony, and his chess pie might well have convinced Dr. Juvenal Urbino that dessert is better than the game itself.

The Book

If One Hundred Years of Solitude put Gabriel Garcia Marquez on the map, Love in the Time of Cholera cemented his stature as one of the greatest novelists of the 20^th century.  Our 7.9 rating confirms how easily we were persuaded by the exquisite storytelling that is the hallmark of Garcia Marquez’ writing.  Set in a fictional city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Love in the Time of Cholera tells the compelling if convoluted story of unrequited love, with Fermina Daza at the middle of the triangle formed by her husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, and her first love, Florentino Ariza. 

Despite our collective thumbs up, our individual reactions were anything but uniform.  Indeed, many were quite cryptic—according to my paltry notes. Here are some examples:  the book “wrote itself” according to Larry, who nevertheless labored to finish it; the female protagonist wasn’t sufficiently endearing and neither were the long paragraphs (Jack); the plot benefited from “parallel male characters” (Doug, to whom I do no justice with this paraphrasing); the book “mesmerized” Roy until he reached the halfway point (or was it the halfway point of his family vacation in Southeast Asia?); the repeated use of symbols fascinated Stan, who still puzzled over the significance of the birds and refused all of our explanations; and, finally, the book seduced Glenn from the very first paragraph, even though he’d read it before. As for me, yes, I spiked the ratings with a 10, but I had to.  The characters are unforgettable, but it was the extraordinary dialogue—with all of its insight into human relationships—that had me from the beginning.

Next Up

Jack gave us the chance to step further back in time and read one of the few American novelists who compares closely (and favorably) to F. Scott Fitzgerald.  We'll see in July if John O'Hara deserved the accolades he received upon the publication of his first and arguably best novel, Appointment in Samarra.

The First Trimester of 2015: No Snow But Some Diverting Reads

Like last year, January’s ski trip was a bust.  Too little snow too early in the season canceled our Sierra excursion. Instead we met in February at Tom’s to see if Irving Stone’s 1938 work of biographical fiction (think The Agony and the Ecstasy, only much earlier and mercifully shorter) justified its selection as our first title of 2015. The verdict on Sailor on Horseback:  with a middling 6.4 rating, it didn’t quite deliver the goods. It certainly wasn’t the subject matter, as we all have a soft spot for local favorite and hero of Tales of the Fish Patrol, Jack London.  (Indeed, Irving Stone himself was a San Francisco native.)  Maybe it was the dated writing, the clutter of detail, or—as Stan put it—the fact that Stone “kept droning on,” but no one was actively applauding when the votes were tallied (except perhaps Tom, our resident Jack London fan).  No matter.  All in attendance enjoyed Tom’s food and wine pairings.  (Was it really Mondavi, Tom?)

March had us only two years removed from Sailor, as we brought back another local writer and past MBC author, John Steinbeck, but this time on an adventure down to Baja with his 1940 travelogue, The Log from the Sea of Cortez.  With fellow traveler and field biologist Ed Ricketts providing some of the narration, Steinbeck took cover from the furor over The Grapes of Wrath by embarking on a collecting expedition to Baja California with a notebook in hand.  His descriptions of marine life were frequently interrupted by a variety of philosophical and humanistic meditations.  Stan called them rants, and for once I had to agree.  While I criticized his constant riffing as self-indulgent and repetitive, others were much more forgiving. Larry and Glenn found the digressions refreshing, and Paul who likened these digressions to those in Moby Dick found enough to keep himself reading the interesting parts.   All of us, however, enjoyed Armando’s stories of his field work in the Sea of Cortez and especially the slide show of his most recent trip just a week before our dinner.  As an added touch, Armando’s main course (blue fin tuna) was caught, cleaned, and packed in the very locale described by Steinbeck. For that we gave Mando a huge thumbs-up and Steinbeck a very respectable 6.8.

For April, Doug convinced us to give short form fiction a try, and he sealed the deal when he offered to prepare and email us a packet of short stories with a combined page count of less than 100!  Not only were we engrossed by his selected stories (George Saunders’ Sea Oak took top honors in the length-of-discussion category), but every one of us claimed to have done the reading (impressive, even if some were embellishing a little).  With selections from Jess Walters (Anything Helps), Tom Perrotta (The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face), Dennis Lehane (Until Gwen), Steve Almond (Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched), and others, there was something for everyone.  With such impressive writing, I had high hopes our next selection would be from one of these men, but George tortured us and then steered us back to Gabriel Garcia Marquez (recall, we read News of a Kidnapping) and the work that sealed his Nobel Prize, Love in the Time of Cholera. In June, we'll find out whether a 50-year deferred romance in the Caribbean piques our interest as much as Bernie's lost appendages did in Sea Oak.

2014 In Review

With apologies, here’s a belated summary of our meetings in 2014, following our evening imbibing Joy Juice with Dan:

In March, I hosted and had the highest hopes for my favorite novel of 2012, Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars.  This first-person narrative chronicles the post-apocalyptic angst of a pilot (Hig) holed up in a rural Colorado airport with an ornery fellow survivor (Bangley), an aging dog (Jasper), and miles of open (and threatening) prairie around the airfield.  I thought Hig’s obsession with and eventual exploration of the world beyond would capture everyone’s imagination.  It did, but with reservations about Heller's plot contrivances.  At rating time, we gave the novel a modestly positive 7.1.  At least the Filipino food from Ma’s was a hit.

Glenn hosted us in April, with Rory graciously providing the venue.  The dark interior of the McNear House dining room was the perfect atmosphere as we ate stew and discussed Miller’s Cold War classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz.  Most were glad they read (for the second month in a row) this post-apocalyptic novel, but some quibbled with the narrative’s intentionally slow progression (yes, it took centuries before those monks figured out the meaning of a grocery list).  The church/state tension and the hostility towards science were fascinating, as was society's fate in repeating its cycle of self-destruction (barring a technological, not spiritual salvation at the novel's end). Were it not for the novel’s plodding pace, we might have rated it higher than 6.7.

In May, Terry had us reading another period piece, this time from the French Indo-Chinese conflict in the 1950’s.  Graham Greene’s The Quiet American generated ambivalence, as we struggled with the opium-laced duplicity of the English correspondent, Fowler, and the implausibly naïve American diplomat, Pyle.  The book had no likeable characters and instead was an interesting, if disturbing harbinger of the war that followed a decade later in Vietnam.  Following Stan’s loud protestations that Greene’s novel was “not a war book” (no one said it was, Stan), we gave it a thumbs-up rating of 7.1.

Stan hosted us for a twofer in June.  Our chosen book, Saramago’s Cain, was (thanks to the sudden generosity of Random House) twinned with a pre-publication edition of Alan Furst’s latest novel, Midnight in Europe.  Those of us who read Furst’s pre-WWII spy thriller were disappointed.  Thin, poorly plotted, and with unfinished characters.  Enough said.  Cain, on the other hand, was a provocative read for even those whose recollection of the Old Testament had grown dim.  From the Garden of Eden through Cain’s lengthy exile, Saramago's final novel moved along with an almost mystical hum.  Impressed but unpersuaded that Saramago had achieved anything close to the standard he set with Blindness, we gave him the benefit of the doubt with a 6.5 rating.

Following Doug’s summer party in July (thanks again, Doug), we met at Dean’s in August to chew over Reza Aslan’s critically-acclaimed Zealot.  It was mere coincidence that Zealot picked up where Cain left off.  And while no one was pining at the end of the meal for yet another story about the Bible, we were all quite taken by the extraordinary research Aslan poured into this latest account of the story of Jesus of Nazareth.  His thesis that Jesus was less a proselytizer than an overt revolutionary provided plenty of conversation to accompany our meal and as a story was impressive enough to earn a 7.6. And about that meal, Dean did a superb job replicating the cuisine of Israel while operating with a balky hip.  (Glad the bionic version is working well, Dean.)

In September, Larry persuaded us to read Steven Kotler’s controversial work examining the state of “flow.”  In The Rise of Superman, Kotler posits that today’s generation of extreme athletes is achieving extraordinary success by hacking (his term) flow and that this state of being holds promise for all manner of human endeavor.  As a group, we weren’t buying it.  And I mean that literally, as some of us felt that Kotler’s book-length exposition was designed in part to sell his accompanying workshops, seminars, and the like.  While some felt that a state of flow was achievable (Stan and Dan, in particular), no one was willing to defend Kotler’s view that flow is the sine qua non of ultimate performance.  The anecdotes were interesting, but the hyperbole relegated The Rise of Superman to a subpar 5.7.

With the arrival of rain and colder weather, we convened at Peter’s to mull over Dan Brown’s best-selling account of the University of Washington’s 1936 Olympic rowing team, The Boys in the Boat.  To a man, we enjoyed the core story with its (obvious) themes of teamwork, redemption, sacrifice, honor, and the like. But, led by Larry, we panned Brown for larding up a compelling story with extraneous detail and trying too hard to eulogize an entire generation (yes, THAT generation).  We also decried the formula: part Laura Hillenbrand, part Erik Larson, Brown doesn’t quite do justice to either. George shared his early rowing experience in Pocock shells and that rowing gradually disappeared from the national consciousness not only because of the rise of televised sports, but also due to the taint of too many betting scandals. Notwithstanding our quibbles, The Boys in the Boat generated a healthy 7.1 in our final rating.

Roy hosted us—well most of us—in December to share reactions to Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story.  Ok, let’s cut to the chase. Since I didn’t attend, I can’t do justice to the conversation.  But I did collect the votes afterwards and was surprised that Shteyngart, whose peculiar brand of Russian émigré satire isn’t for everyone, managed to pull down a 7.5.  Either Roy’s distillations were especially powerful or I misjudged my fellow MBCers.  Regardless, kudos to Roy for a fine meal (according to my sources), and that’s a wrap for 2014!

September Book Selections

Having survived MBC's theological period -- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Cain, and Zealot -- my offerings for September's meeting are, for a change, agnostic although still philosophical.   They include: Two fiction and two non-fiction; Something new and something old:  Two sport themed  and two not; Two new authors, two not so new.     Here they are in no particular order:

1. The Rise of Superman;
2. The Art of Fielding;
3. A Tibetan Peach Pie; or
4. Moby-Dick.

The Details:

(1) The Rise of Superman -- Steven Kotler, 198 pages -- I always worry about reviews that use hyperbole like "ground breaking", but having read the book, my summary (note -- I 've summarized each of the four reviews below as these book reviewers must get paid by the column inch) of the Goodreads review is not far off the mark:

An exploration of how extreme athletes break the limits of ultimate human performance and what we can learn from their mastery of the state of consciousness known as “flow” In this groundbreaking book, New York Times–bestselling author Steven Kotler decodes the mystery of ultimate human performance. Building a bridge between the extreme and the mainstream, The Rise of Superman explains how these athletes are using flow to do the impossible and how we can use this information to radically accelerate our performance in our own lives. At its core, this is a book about profound possibility, what is actually possible for our species, and where—if anywhere—our limits lie.

(2) The Art of Fielding -- Chad Harbach, 512 pages -- This book was previously proposed by another MBC member.  At that time, I had not read it.  Last Christmas, my daughter gave it to me and I enjoyed it enough to offer it again to MBC.   My summary -- so we don't transition too quickly from our recent fascination with biblical references --  of the Chicago Tribune review of this book is

There should be a Biblical saying — For if a new novel, for which the publisher has paid an enormous amount of cash, lives up to its hype, all shall considered themselves blessed — and if that novel cometh from the Midwest, homeland to Floyd Dell and Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jim Harrison, then all shall be twice blessed. This should apply to "The Art of Fielding," which Little Brown had much bruited about and whose hefty hardcover we can now hold in our hands. It's a baseball novel, meaning it's a novel from which one can extrapolate about all life on earth. It's a college novel and thus a coming of age novel. It's a novel about families, by birth and by life-choices, and a novel about how to live, how to love and how to die. It's a novel about how to read and how to write, and it's all in all the most delightful and serious first book of fiction that I have read in a while.

(3) A Tibetan Peach Pie, Tom Robbins, 362 pages -- This is Tom Robbins recently published memoir.  I read Still Life with Woodpecker and may have read his more famous book, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (but that part of my college life is a little hazy).  For sure, I have not read this book (but will), so to give it its due, here is my summary of the New York Times review:

The story of how Tom Robbins became Tom Robbins is a pretty good one, and in relating it, he’s written his best book in many years. “Tibetan Peach Pie” should be sold in one of those marijuana vending machines now extant in Colorado. Like them, it provides an afternoon’s affordable buzz.

(3) Moby-Dick -- Herman Melville  640 pages --  Alright, so the length is probably a "bridge too far" for  MBC.  I've included it because I'll now read it after not so subtle references in The Art of Fielding (see above). I assume no review of this book is needed.

Do I have a suggested favorite?  Yes.  My suggested read is the first book -- The Rise of Superman.  While Stephen Kotler is probably not a Pulitzer candidate, The Rise of Superman should lead to a lively MBC debate around the book's premise -- that extreme athletes can attain a state of consciousness (he calls the "flow) that allow them to push beyond what was thought to be the limits of human performance. Further, how can we mortals (sorry Stan) tap into this state of consciousness or do we already do so without realizing it. Oh, BTW did you notice -- its 198 pages (not counting the bibliography).

Voting begins now.  As my Chicago brethren  might say -- vote early, vote often.  -- Larry

Dan Celebrates Black History Month With Onion and Joy Juice

 
Acknowledgments
Dan spared neither effort nor expense to ensure a satisfying evening last Tuesday. Hard spirits came first, with an assortment of whiskies that included a bottle of Joy Juice with Little Onion on the label. Once we tucked in to dinner, several John Brown-inspired varietals were poured, courtesy of the graphics arts division of San Marino Cellars.
 

Strong stuff, but a suspect likeness

John Brown: A Family of Vintners

Even with so much "giddy water" lubricating our evening, none of us missed the chance to fill up on Dan's tri tip and jambalaya. We did leave room, though, for a slice of pie that was 9 parts Jack Daniels to 1 part pecans. Eyes watering and throats burning, we turned our attention to the book that inspired such hospitality.

The Book
Most know James McBride for his deeply affecting memoir, The Color of Water, in which he examines race relations in the 50's and 60's through his own mixed-race upbringing. Our McBride selection, The Good Lord Bird, presents a different segment of black history, but also with a mixed-race child as narrator. Seen through the eyes of a slave boy involuntarily rescued (and thereafter dressed and addressed as a girl) by John Brown, the story is both poignant and hilarious as Brown and his outlaw band ultimately meet their destiny at Harper's Ferry two years later.

As a group, we were divided in our impressions of McBride's latest novel. Roy took issue with its historical accuracy, complaining that the pre-war reference to eating pheasant was sloppy (since pheasant wasn't introduced to America until the 1880's) and the caricature of John Brown as a nutcase fails to acknowledge that Brown was demonized by post-war historians with an axe to grind. Peter found the story slow and purposeless, but (like Dean) he enjoyed reading it in conjunction with seeing 12 Years A Slave. Most of the rest of us were less critical. John enjoyed the colorful vernacular, Doug and others appreciated the mixed motives of both Free Staters and Pro Slavers, Glenn and Paul remarked on Onion's story as a narrative of disguise, hiding, and survival (yet failed to mention The Book Thief!), and Jack and George (with murmurs from the rest of us) enjoyed a novel they might not otherwise have selected on their own--although George loudly objected to the cross-dressing conceit at the heart of the novel.

One indicator of a book's popularity is how many of us are able to finish it in time. In this case, 14 of us did, including Larry in absentia. Kudos to McBride. Unfortunately, his talents couldn't overcome the vote-canceling antics of Dean and Roy, who were egged on by Doug's pre-emptive 10. With a 7.6 average rating, McBride still produced a superior contribution to the MBC booklist.

Next Up
Due to Stan's upcoming travels, it fell to me to propose titles for our next dinner.  Because I pressed hard for my favorite read of 2013, the group graciously turned down Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and Walter's Beautiful Ruins in favor of The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.  Next month we'll find out if others are as intrigued as I was by Hig, the protagonist at the center of a world undone by disease.