Timely & Timeless
JANUARY 2016 Meeting Review
January has started out with a bang for the Timely & Timeless
book club. (Or a fizzle…) Our book was Andrew’s Brain by E.L. Doctorow. Six brave members met at the library on
Tuesday to discuss this selection. It
did not score well among those of us who got to the end, but it gave us some good
conversation for the meeting. Those who
did finish the book teetered on the brink of abandoning it early on. One comment was that the book reminded her of
“when your brain can’t be still when you are trying to get to sleep…” (Arlene.)
Andrew’s story is one of many inadvertent mishaps that result in
two deaths for which he feels responsible and other astonishing events that
affect his mental state. One premise in
the narrative deals with understanding the mind vs the brain. Just as answers to this question are fairly
elusive, understanding Andrew’s journey and brain/mind are also confusing. Questions arise about whether his memories as
related are fact or fiction to the story.
Sorting out the first part of the book, where the reader looks for diacritical
marks to guide understanding, one eventually begins to understand the omissions.
This work was Doctorow’s final novel. His critically acclaimed works of 13 novels
include Ragtime, Billy Bathgate and Loon Lake, essays,
short stories and one play.
The novel Away
by Amy Bloom is scheduled for our February 23rd meeting. We will meet at El Dorado (formerly
Maria’s.)
“Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate
story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When
her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined
to make her way in a new land. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might
still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of
the Yiddish theater on New York’s Lower East Side, to Seattle’s Jazz District,
and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia.” …From Barnes & Noble
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