Comments for The Booker Tea Reading Group

Comment on Little Bee by Barbara in DC

Barbara in DC — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:01:00 +0000

Yes, indeed! Barbara

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Comment on Little Bee by Judithcheerful

Judithcheerful — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:37:00 +0000

After getting over my initial discomfort wondering if I’d been confused about reading what I thought had been reviewed as “a great little book”, I found myself irritated. This was the book and what I was reading was not a moving insightful entry into the painful lives of frightened desperate immigrants I had not understood before, but instead a Hollywood vision of an import asocial issue which was so manipulated and silly that I lost sight of the humans behind the story.

How Little Bee got the accolades it got must be a story in itself.

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Comment on Little Bee by Tammi L. Coles

Tammi L. Coles — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:52:00 +0000

Flawed by implausible characters

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Our reading group chose Little Bee/The Other Hand for April’s discussion — a choice driven, no doubt, by the incredible praise the book received from major literary outlets and an absolutely fawning introduction from the book’s editor. Out of 18 attending readers (yes, the Berlin group’s attendance is that strong), the majority would not recommend the title to other readers.

What was liked: what one member called the “literary engineering” of Cleave’s storytelling. There’s no denying that Cleave has a talent for catchy text, and that he created a “page turner” of a book. Book supporters and detractors agreed that what the author described of the immigration detention center was impressive and (sadly) believable. Yvette, Queen Elisabeth and the coin, U2, the ice cube maker, etc. — these were all pieces that, as one critic stated, should themselves be clipped, collected, and organized into one pamphlet for distribution on their own merits. These charmed most readers.

What was disliked: characters and scenes that were over-engineered, if you will. The co-protagonist, Little Bee, is a 15 year old, the sole survivor of an entire community that was butchered for oil/land theft, and the eyewitness to the rape and dismemberment of her beloved older sister. She’s a social castaway, then a stowaway, and finally a runaway, and even her fascination (!) with death is written with a certain wry witticism that speaks more to the author’s puppetry than the character’s real (and obscenely brutal) experiences. The other protagonist, Sarah, is written in the same unbelievable way. Although she lost a finger to a machete, her husband to suicide, and her idealism to a whole range of experiences, Sarah takes her (annoyingly precocious) 4-year-old son back to the very Nigerian beach where all of the violence took place just two years before (and continues to take place). Not one of the attendees — even the book’s supporters — could understand this unlikely and utterly implausible behavior. That this beach is the concluding scene left most readers with a sense that the whole narrative was “contrived.”

The other characters — Charlie-as-Batman, the adorable/insufferable child character; Lawrence-the-monstrous-civil-servant and the “ripped from chick lit” cornball romance; Andrew the drunk Irishman — I’ll leave for others to say more. In short: not recommended.

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Comment on Day of the Oprichnik by Cordula Gdaniec

Cordula Gdaniec — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Thanks for lending me the English translation which I have read and found indeed a very good piece of work. No idea why that German publisher printed this appalling translation! It is very difficult to translate, but a good translator will be able to do the job… Anyway, although the English version made me laugh a few times, it has not changed my mind of Oprichnik being an awful book And this is with a background of knowing the country pretty well. I am making inquiries about its reception in Russia and can let you know if you’re interested.

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Comment on Day of the Oprichnik by Marge Inden

Marge Inden — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:34:00 +0000

The Washington DC chapter discussed this book today. It was one of those rare circumstances where we were pretty much in agreement about the book. Most of us felt as if we weren’t sufficiently knowledgable about Russian current events and Russian history to “get it” at the level a Russian person would. We all felt the book was much better suited to a Russian reader, or one with a high level of familiarity with Russian politics and history. While the satire came through, we knew we were missing a lot of subtleties…and perhaps some main points, too! There was also some dismay over the level of violence in the book. We wanted to know more about how the author’s books are received in Russia and elsewhere. We were especially curious about how the Berlin chapter received the book…so let us know!

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Comment on Jennifer’s Spinach Curry by Tammi L. Coles

Tammi L. Coles — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 08:17:00 +0000

Made this dish twice now, after getting it from Jennifer. Absolutely outstanding. Ralf hunted up some paneer at a local Indian market to make it the Palak Paneer dish we’re always ordering out. A real keeper recipe!

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Comment on Ilustrado by ritamaria

ritamaria — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:16:00 +0000

I had liked the book but was not totally convinced – I thought it was going for a “protagonist discovers live is wonderful and calm in tropical climates and gives up initial goal to enjoy life”. After the discussion I read as quickly as I could and, in the end, I liked it way more. The ending really did it for me!

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Comment on Ilustrado by Tammi L. Coles

Tammi L. Coles — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 19:57:00 +0000

As of today’s discussion, I was halfway through and wasn’t sure that I was going to bother finishing. Thereafter, I was certain. LOL, I loved the chat, but the (SPOILER ALERT) “is our protagonist the student of the man floating in the river or the very man himself” question took the wind out of my sails. I simply do not find the main characters compelling enough to muddle through an already complex story.

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Comment on The Imperfectionists by Marian

Marian — Sat, 14 May 2011 22:56:00 +0000

Sorry to have missed the meeting on this one, and wondering how the discussion was, Berliners. I enjoyed most every individual story in itself but was disappointed that the stories never came together in an emotional arc. I began to suspect this would be the case as I got closer to the end, but misleading cover blurbs (yes, you, Christopher Buckley) had led me to expect otherwise.

I think the author is hugely talented and obviously has great insight into what we humans want and what we will do to each other. But he didn’t have the emotional courage this time out to stay with any of his wounded characters and see them through to the other side, or anywhere really.

I loved the story of the newspaper’s ups and downs and the nitty-gritty detail and the comic pity of many of the characters (oh, the copy desk!). But that wasn’t enough; a novel is about characters, not institutions. In a weird way, I think of certain things withheld, as in the numinous “Lost in Translation” by Sofia Coppola. Not that Rachman’s book is any way like that work except that both show incredible insight and talent yet both show the creators holding back.

Of course, I have seen Coppola’s film a bunch of times and will see it a bunch more. It gives off a glow. Of course, I’m being unfair to Rachman, a different species, but I doubt I will see a need to re-read his spunky but limited book.

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Comment on The Night Counter by Tammi

Tammi — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:54:00 +0000

We’ll be discussing this book in Berlin on Sunday. It’s…not as I had hoped. Washington, D.C. — what did you folks think?

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