Category: By organization

This book was the Reading Club assignment for January 2019.

The magician’s assistant, by Ann Patchett, is a family story under odd circumstances. Set around the same time it was published (1997), it touches topics that were part of the life of many, although not part of the mainstream news at the time: violence in the family, how life differs in small and big places, homosexuality, and AIDS.

It’s told from the perspective of Sabine, the best friend, assistant, and wife of Parsifal, a homosexual man that lives with Phan, his partner. Sabine and Parsifal marry when Phan and Parsifal are diagnosed AIDS so Sabine can inherit their state. She is in love with Parsifal.

Upon Parsifal death, Sabine is shocked to learn that his family is alive, despite what he had told her. They are from Alliance, a small place in Nebraska, and want to visit Los Angeles, where Parsifal lived, to get a sense of how life was for him. Sabine agrees and tours them for a few days, in the hope of discovering why he hadn’t told her the truth. Through this tour, you are acquainted with the main characters. It’s like a warm-up before the real match.

Parsifal’s family turns out to be fine people, and the tragic event that made Parsifal break with them is revealed to Sabine. Fast-forward: she’s invited to a wedding in Nebraska, which she agrees to attend as an opportunity to connect with Parsifal’s childhood and find some rest. So we now have Sabine embedded in an environment so different to hers: a small town with little to do and few opportunities to reinvent yourself, a conservative society, and a family that had struggled (and still is) with domestic violence. This is the real match. We have now a vessel (Sabine) to cross the river of understanding: in one shore, a liberal society where you can be whatever you want; in the other, a conservative community that pressures you to be like the others.

The story ends with the liberal Sabine realizing that the only way that conservative family can break the vicious loop they find themselves in is by providing them an escape hatch. Perhaps this is also the message Ann Pratchett wants to convey: let’s be less judgmental and more empathetic.

This book is beautifully written. The rhythm is slow but steady, with enough details to fill your imagination but not too many to get in the way of the story. The use of magic as a second thread and the dreams to feed us information was great. It is a straight story, doesn’t have many layers to it. To a modern reader, it may feel perhaps a bit dated and certainly stereotypical in some ways (Nebraska, anyone?), but if you consider the time it was published (1997) I think it was actually a very brave book to publish.

This book was the Reading Club assignment for December 2018.

This is a character-driven story. Jules and Nicole are successful by most standards: they are wealthy, well-known, and have family and friends. They are also suffering an inner transformation. Jules’s parents have recently passed away and that event is the catalyst that pushes him to reconsider his life, put an end to his marriage, and give away his possessions. Nicole is a writer that’s suffering a block that has lasted for too long and has triggered an irreversible inner change. They’re both non-practicing Jews living in NYC and visit Israel as part of his longing for something else in their lives.

Chapters alternate Jules and Nicole. Jules is written in the third-person while Nicole is in first. Nicole’s part feels like a stream of inner thoughts at times, like a diary: raw, unconnected, unpolished, and without a clear place in the story. Jules’ is a bit more focused, but still rambly.

The plot has some under-developed areas and dead ends. I think this is intentional. Based on how well some parts are written and some vivid and rich scenes, I don’t think the author lacks the ability to write a novel. To the contrary, it felt like a sort of a meta-layer to the story, a post-modernist experiment to subvert the implicit reader-writer contract. The reason I think this is because, in the story, Nicole is fond of Kafka, and the fact that Kafka’s work was published after his death (although he wanted it buried because he considered his work incomplete) has a big role in the story; to the point that she plays with the idea that someone else has heavily edited Kafka’s manuscripts and created Kafka’s mythology. It leads me to believe the own Forest Dark is a little unfinished on purpose.

I’d say this book isn’t for everyone, I’d recommend a little research before reading. Although I tried hard to engage, the ratio of words that contribute to the story VS words that sound smart but are empty was remarkably low for my taste. It ended up being a little more experimental than I like.

This book was the Reading Club assignment for November 2018.

William Maxwell published this book in 1937, and I’ve read it +80 years later. One of the things I liked about They came like swallows is how the story builds on the use of simple words and ideas, how it doesn’t need complexity to give the scenes a sense of fear, warm, or excitement. It just describes what’s happening, it is honest and beautiful writing, it isn’t pretentious but real. Perhaps that’s why it aged well.

From the perspective of three males -husband and sons- we are told about the accounts of a middle-class family in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century – specifically in the Autumn of 1918, in the middle of the Spanish flu.

We’re introduced to the story from the perspective of the little Bunny, an 8-year old which comments on the adult world from his perspective. Then goes Robert, Bunny’s big brother, which I was prepared to hate after reading the first part – what I’ve got instead was a nuanced teen with his own struggles. Finally, the circle is closed with James, the father. Through the perspectives of these men at different stages in life, we learn what the author has to say about life, which is well captured by the title: swallows come and go, so does life.

This book has many angles a reader can enjoy: domestic realism, a historic account of the effects of Spanish flu at the beginning of the century, etc. One that I haven’t seen talked about is feminism and matriarchy. I believe you could read this as an homage to spouses and mothers of all times, but also as a plea for stopping offloading work to them, as for Elizabeth is the one that does the emotional labor, plans the future, and takes care of the house. I don’t think that was the intention of the writer, but the fact that she doesn’t get to say anything but through the voices of the loving men around her is just the perfect metaphor to channel that kind of message.

This book was the Reading Club assignment for June 2018, the last before the summer hiatus.

This is a thriller that builds slowly. Rachel is the main character, she’s a depressed, mentally unstable, and alcoholic woman that can’t cope with having lost her husband to another woman. Megan is also lost and has her own difficulties to find anything that fills her in life. Anna is a housewife and mother whose life goals are fulfilled.

Like in a jigsaw, we’re presented with partial and unreliable information about what’s happening to each one of them, which helps to build and keep the narrative tension. Through the story, they face different facets of emotional dependency, abuse, or personal struggles with life. There are some scenes that I particularly liked it because they embody so well one of the themes that give shape to the zeitgeist of our era: Rachel, in her daily train trips to work, invents any kind of stories about the people she sees through the window; their lives are always happier and out of struggles. We know that’s not true, but she doesn’t have that information. This made me reflect on our interactions through the so-called social networks and how they can be so much detached from the real ourselves in so many ways.

At times, I was so dragged to the story, that I even found myself reading while walking to board a plane.