Having a family book club with the limited amount of time that Adam and I spend with my parents means that this was only our second meeting but the interest is heating up and talk of adding web cams or Skype like devices so we can meet anywhere anytime are thrilling until we all remember my parents are on dial up and so we have to wait and wait some more for that option.
The rules are not typical or they are a far cry from the rules of the book club I got myself thrown out of, for being myself too, which is the saddest thing about it. Really there is only one rule, do not talk about the book club book until book club. This is a lot harder than it was in the old book club because I didn’t live with any of the other members. And how can I be sure my parents aren’t pre-discussing the book? I don’t have any Big Brotheresque technology at my disposal to spy on them. And unless I find my Christmas and Birthday presents which I did every single year of my life until they caught on and wrapped them WELL before they brought them into the house with me in it, they are very good at keeping secrets.
Although it makes more sense to choose a book that no one has read, sticking with only one rule keeps it more fun and less ’so structured it feels like school’ and the first book picked was a book that none of us had read. On this trip home we had all decided on 1984, George Orwell, my dad and Adam had read the book my mother and I had not - Adam read it again as a refresher as did my dad - but I had recently bought it having decided it was literally unacceptable that I had never read it.
The end of the year was very busy, what with having to play Guitar Hero III every day and having a job outside the house, plus throwing my back out. I didn’t even make it through The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger, so I was forced to do something I almost never do and read two books at the same time, I started 1984 on Friday December 21, and we left on the Saturday. I was not able to read it nearly as fast as I would have liked, I found myself enjoying it so much that not only was it hard to remember the number one rule of book club but I was constantly re-reading over passages and paragraphs I liked but sometimes because a book that deep, for myself anyway, was a lot to digest in the normal speedy fashion I would finish a book I was late on finishing for a club meeting.
The only tradition I took from the previous book club was the one where we’d rate the book out of five stars at the beginning of the discussion and then again at the end of the discussion.
- Adam - 5 stars
- Corinna - 5 stars
- Mom - 3 stars
- Dad - 4 stars
We all kept with our original ratings at the end of our three plus hour discussion.
This meeting I think we all had epiphanies on just how great of an idea starting the family book club was. Being so far out in the bushes there really isn’t a lot we can do together as a family, not to mention I/we have completely different relationships with each parent. But we do play scattergories together, we hike and golf together and we all enjoy reading.
We printed some 1984 book club questions off the internet as a general guide but they were pretty weak and we didn’t end up needing them. The different views brought to the table from four people coming from two completly different generations, two of who had read 1984 at very different times in their lives made for brilliant topics and tangents in themselves. Listening to my parents describe their childhoods and then relate them to Orwell’s novel in the sense that looking back you can now take a glimpse into the beginnings of his fictional world forming, meant learning new things about my parents past as well as the time, bloody fascinating. It may now be the 21st first century but it is still almost creepy how bang on Orwell is with his descriptions of things such as Newspeak, inner and outer party members, proles, telescreens, Big Brother, the recording of history. The fact that for years people have been handing over personal information without even a second thought, OnStar being a perfect example. Sure you don’t have to slam a golf club through your window or walk ten kilometers holding six babies but when you think about it doesn’t the thought of a corporation, fuck the Government here, a CORPORATION knowing exactly where you are at ANY time creep you out in the least?
Adam warned me that once I read 1984 that I would see it everywhere. He wasn’t kidding. For a few days I felt surrounded by 1984. While stuck up North we popped in The Red Violin and even having seen it two previous times the whole Communist China section with the constant use of the name of ‘Comrade’, the speak, the banning of western music struck chord after chord with me. And when we returned home Adam felt like watching Notes on a Scandal, less than five minutes into the opening narrative by Judy Dench she uses the word Proles. I became so obsessed that my first read of 2008 was Animal Farm, it is not at all hard to draw parallels between the two books but I gave Animal Farm only four stars. I found the ending a tad bit rushed.
We don’t know when the next meeting will be but it is my mother’s pick.
And now I have finished two books whilst still reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, I may just start a new trend in my reading ways.
