Book club 2009-10
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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov |
Modoc by Ralph Helfer |
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards |
The UHS Book Club started in November
2004. Our group meets in the high school library and
is sponsored by Matthew Murrey, the librarian at UHS.
This year we will usually meet on the third Thursday (occasionally on Friday)
of the month in the library after school.
The group held a short first meeting on September 3rd, with over a dozen students attending. Students suggested several titles for the group to consider - 1984, Angel's Game, Rebecca, A Town Like Alice, Thirteen Reasons Why, Lolita, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Modoc, and Elantris. Lolita and Modoc received unanimous votes and so will be our first and second books of the year, respectively. Copies of Lolita by
Vladimir Nabokov
have been ordered and should be available by September 28th in the library. We will meet on Oct. 22nd (Oct. 15th is during Homecoming week) to
discuss the novel.
About 10 students met on Oct. 22nd to discuss Lolita. Everyone agreed that the complex style of the book made it difficult reading at first, but that after a while it was easier to get engaged with as a reader. Several students commented on the rather unique way in which Nabokov wrote the novel so that the reader is often addressed in a discoursive informal way. Most found this appealing. We commented on the controversial nature of the book - the main character, Humbert, is a pedophile and yet Nabokov makes him a sympathetic figure. Readers also noted how Nabokov makes Humbert more appealing than his victim, Dolores (Lolita).
At our Novemember meeting we discussed Modoc. It was unanimous that the story was entertaining, but not very well written. Several readers noted that Modoc was heavy on cliches. Most of us also decided that significant evens in the story were made up and one student made a strong case for putting the book in the fiction section of the library - instead of with the nonfiction. All of us liked certain parts of the book and found that the most sympathetic character in the book was Modoc, the elephant.
Toward the end of December the book club met to discuss The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Reactions to Edwards' novel were overwhelmingly positive. The first person to discuss the book mentioned how believable Edwards made the dissolution of the main characters' marriage. We also brought up various aspects of the novel such as the role of secrets, various characters that serve to parallel each other, and the subtle way of developing relationships between characters that Edwards excels at. A couple of readers did criticize Edwards excessive descriptiveness and noted that setting was not always as clearly developed as characters.
Since Elantris was not yet in, we decided to read Kafka's Metamorphosis for January. A small grouop of us met on Thursday, January 21st, after school in the library. We discussed the truly unique and bizarre elements of Kafka's tale of the young man turning into an insect one night as he slept. We agreed that the story - though very original and interesting - is also pretty bleak. Finally, we spent some time talking about how much Gregor as insect is to be taken symbolically or literally.
The book club met on March 11th to talk about Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. The reaction to the book was overwhelmingly positive. Readers commented that for a fantasy book, the supernatural elements were kept to a minimum and that these elements maintained an internal logic and consistency that was satisfying. We were impressed with the originality of the book and with its depth of subject matter - relations between society, religion, commerce, war, etc. There was some disagreement about the dialogue. Most readers thought it was skillfully handled, although one reader felt that the main character, Sarene, was overdone in the beginning. The conclusion of the group was that Elantris is a fantasy novel that we would highly recommend.
Our book for April will be Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice, and our final book for the year will be Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Our next meeting, to discuss A Town Like Alice will be on
Thursday, April 22nd, after
school in the library.
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| The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka |
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson |
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute |
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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See information from previous years of the UHS book
club by clicking on one the following: 2004-05,
2005-06, 2006-07,
and 2007-08.and 2008-09.
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