Miral by Rula Jebreal - Bookclub Book

For the month of March, we read Miral by Rula Jebreal. Since we weren't able to meet up in person to discuss the book, we'll be leaving our thoughts on the blog. Here are some discussion questions to help the dialog along:

1. On page 8, Hind reminisces about the opening of the school and "how bare the spot had been before the school was established." What role does the school play in the story? What does it symbolize?
2. Do you fault Nadia for fleeing from her family and new stepfather? Did she make the right decision to leave her sisters? Did she have a choice?
3. The novel is divided into sections centered on a particular character. What effect do you think the structure has on the story?
4. Jerusalem is "a city divided in two" (19), "rooted in soil drenched with innocent blood" (9) but with "minarets and steeples jutting into the sky" (9). Consider the contrasts in the novel—the images of terror combined with the images of hope. What do you make of the contrast between the Old City and West Jerusalem? Do the characters in the novel believe they can coexist? Do you?
5. Compare and contrast Hind and Miral. How are the two alike? How are they different? Does Miral's rebellious nature and desire for justice seem similar to or different from Hind's? Are they fighting for the same cause?
6. Discuss the idea of solitude in the novel; how does solitude shape the lives of the characters? Consider Hind, Nadia, Jamal, Hani, and Miral's different lives.
7. What is Hani's influence on Miral's life?
8. While living at Dar El-Tifel, Miral loses a pair of classmates to the violent struggle, Aziza and Sahar. She reveals on page 118 "her sense that the world outside was a horrible place." How do these two stories inform the novel? How did they affect Miral's personal decisions in their aftermath?
9. What did you make of Samer and Lisa's relationship? What did Miral seem to take away from seeing the two of them together?
10. Revisit the torture scene on page 226. Did the brutality surprise you? What moment was most memorable in this scene? How did this experience affect Miral?
11. When Miral sees Hani for the last time, he shares his vision for the future and his ideas about peace with her. "This road is too bloody, it has no exit… we can't go on fighting forever" (288). Considering Miral's decision at the end of the novel, and the events that have taken place in Palestine and Israel since the Oslo Accords, what do you take away from the novel?

To Kill A Mockingbird - Novel to Film #4

We read "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee a few months ago, but since no one has posted about it yet, I thought I should start the conversation. I feel like everyone who goes to school in America ends up coming across this novel at some point in their academic history, so that alone separates this novel from others. It's a classic, a "must read". And while I had read it a very long time ago, it was nice to read it again and refresh my memory of the characters. I also re-watched the film that starred Gregory Peck (which one him an Oscar) and while there are a few things that are omitted from the novel, I think it stays true to what the core of the novel is about.

I love that the novel is centered around the two children, Scout and Jem. You see things so much simpler through their eyes and they question things is such an honest way. They are children, but they are able to see right and wrong better than the adults because they aren't jaded or influenced by life's lessons yet.

I also appreciated how the novel deals with race relations in such a tender, yet firm hand and there's never any ambiguity that choosing to treat others differently based on the color of their skin is acceptable or fair. But it's presented in such a way that says that although things are the way they are now, that doesn't mean that they'll be that way forever and you shouldn't be discouraged against your belief in the good of people. I will definitely be adding this to my children's bookshelf for them to read when they are old enough.

What did everyone else think of the novel? Did anyone else see the film? What were your thoughts?

The Witches of Eastwick - Novel to Film #3

As our 3rd choice in our "novel to film" round, we read "The Witches of Eastwick" by John Updike. As we discussed at brunch today, this film definitely deviated from the film in enough ways to make it noticeable and I think that I preferred the version on film as opposed to the version in the novel.

For one, the women in the novel are not sympathetic characters at all. They sleep with everyone in their neighborhood (single or married) and constantly neglect their children. They only use their powers to enact petty revenge on those who they are annoyed by. I felt like Updike was purposely making these women so vile that no one could identify with them. As though this was a snapshot of the evilness of women in general. Perhaps Updike had some serious issues with women. What do you think?

They definitely made the women more identifiable in the film and certainly more likable. I mean, who couldn't like Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, or Susan Sarandon? And they also added a bit of humor, which I appreciated over the dryness of the novel. Did anyone else feel like the novel was dry?

What are your other thoughts on the novel?

Gomorrah - Novel to Film #2

The next book on the "novel to film" list was Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano. I had watched the film when it came out last year and was not impressed by what I saw at all. I know that there were plenty of people who did love it though (it was nominated for an Oscar!) so I was interested in reading the book to hopefully change my thoughts about the film.

I found the film extremely confusing with all of the different storylines not really fitting cohesively with the others. I thought maybe it was the editing, but now that I've read the book, I see that it was the style of the way the book was written.

The book itself was interesting when discussing the role of women in the Italian mafia, as well as how Hollywood has been influenced by the Italian mafia and then conversely how the mafia has been influenced by Hollywood. Those chapters kept me engaged and weren't a chore to get through.

However, the parts I didn't appreciate so much were the chapters where the author just told story after story of how different mobsters were killed. I felt like I was reading a police log from a newspaper! I didn't feel like I could connect to any of the characters in the story and I think it was because the author didn't allow for that connection to happen.

Did anyone else feel the same way? What were your other thoughts on the novel?

Northern Lights - Novel to Film #1

As the first book of our new round, we read Northern Lights by Nora Roberts. Personally, I was really interested to read the book because of all of the drama surrounding the stars of the made for tv film. I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth. Hehe.

I was pleasantly surprised that this was more than just a typical romance novel. True, it did have the sweeping, unrealistic (at least to me) love story, but what kept me turning the page was the murder mystery storyline that was woven in. I found myself really paying attention to the clues and trying to figure out who the killer was before the story revealed it. Of course, that didn't happen, but that's the point. The author let us know the answers when she decided it was time.

Beyond the love story with the murder mystery subplot, the core of the story, I found, was the internal struggle of Nate. He was a tortured soul who came to the town to escape his demons and he ends up going through a complete transformation. It was almost as if he was SUPPOSED to be in Lunacy at that exact time period so that not only he could experience the transformation, but so could other people in the town. I thought that he was the most interesting character of the book and the only one who could think with a clear head at all times. It was almost like he was the perfect man, except for the fact that you know that he's not. He's flawed, but he rises to the challenge of life and it was great to have someone like that to read about.

I haven't seen the film, but I just got it from work today (had no idea that we had the DVD rights to it! hehe) and so I'll definitely be sitting down to watch it soon. Not sure that I buy Leann Rhimes as Meg, but we'll see what happens...Eddie Cibrian as Nate almost works for me (he's very handsome), but I imagined Nate as a little older.

Who was your favorite character from the book? Any other thoughts on the book? Any thoughts on the film vs novel?

New Books from Book Club Authors - Part 3

In October comes The Museum of Love, the latest novel from Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red). I recently read an excerpt of it in the New Yorker magazine (which you can find online: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/09/07/090907fi_fiction_pamuk) and was mesmerized by it. It’s quite a departure from My Name is Red and seems to tell a modern story about love and marriage.

From Amazon:
It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it.” So begins the new novel, his first since winning the Nobel Prize, from the universally acclaimed author of Snow and My Name Is Red.It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal, scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie—a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, restaurant rituals, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay—until finally he breaks off his engagement to Sibel. But his resolve comes too late.

For eight years Kemal will find excuses to visit another Istanbul, that of the impoverished backstreets where Füsun, her heart now hardened, lives with her parents, and where Kemal discovers the consolations of middle-class life at a dinner table in front of the television. His obsessive love will also take him to the demimonde of Istanbul film circles (where he promises to make Füsun a star), a scene of seedy bars, run-down cheap hotels, and small men with big dreams doomed to bitter failure.In his feckless pursuit, Kemal becomes a compulsive collector of objects that chronicle his lovelorn progress and his afflicted heart’s reactions: anger and impatience, remorse and humiliation, deluded hopes of recovery, and daydreams that transform Istanbul into a cityscape of signs and specters of his beloved, from whom now he can extract only meaningful glances and stolen kisses in cars, movie houses, and shadowy corners of parks. A last change to realize his dream will come to an awful end before Kemal discovers that all he finally can possess, certainly and eternally, is the museum he has created of his collection, this map of a society’s manners and mores, and of one man’s broken heart.

A stirring exploration of the nature of romantic attachment and of the mysterious allure of collecting, The Museum of Innocence also plumbs the depths of an Istanbul half Western and half traditional—its emergent modernity, its vast cultural history. This is Orhan Pamuk’s greatest achievement.

New Books from Book Club Authors - Part 2

Also being published in September is Kazu Ishiguro’s (Never Let Me Go) new book, a collection of short stories, entitled Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall. “Music and nightfall” sounds so sumptious...I'm eager to dip into this book.

Here’s a short description:
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turning from the one certainty in his life . . . A man whose unerring taste in music is the only thing his closest friends value in him . . . A struggling singer-songwriter unwittingly involved in the failing marriage of a couple he’s only just met . . . A gifted, underappreciated jazz musician who lets himself believe that plastic surgery will help his career . . . A young cellist whose tutor promises to “unwrap” his talent . . .Passion or necessity—or the often uneasy combination of the two—determines the place of music in each of these lives. And, in one way or another, music delivers each of them to a moment of reckoning: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes just eluding their grasp.An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed works of fiction.

New Books from Book Club Authors - Part 1

I’m excited by three books that will be released in the next couple months by authors we’ve read in the club: Margret Atwood, Kazu Ishiguro and Orhan Pamuk. I have been hearing great things about their news books and can’t wait to pick them up!

Margret Atwood (The Blind Assassin) has written another dystopia novel, The Year of the Flood, which will be published in September.

Here’s the description from Amazon:
The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.