I think Dimple needs Amina to ground her. Dimple has more-or-less cut herself away from family - not calling or visiting. She seems to want Amina to do the same, suggesting Amina ignore Kamala’s worry about Thomas. Dimple makes the comment that Amina has just recently been home and doesn’t need to go again. Amina represents the safety of family without the strictures of family.
I think much of Dimple’s out-there-personality is mostly bravado and she’s actually little-girl-lost. In high school Mindy takes her under her wing (and later dumps her for Akhil) rather than Dimple making her own way. Though even under Mindy’s influence, Dimple looks to Amina. When in need Dimple looks first to Amina: for help in biology or to complete her exhibit in Seattle. Dimple follows Amina to college and then to Seattle. (Remember Jane suggests the opposite in the interview and Amina, miffed, corrects her.)
I’m coming up blank on books to suggest this time around.
I’m currently reading The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I’d recommend to anyone looking for a novel with a linear narrative that is well-written and engaging (it’s about a 19th century woman botanist, something that I find really appealing!), but I’m not sure it would lend itself too well to discussion here.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell is another book that was mentioned as a possible choice last time. I read it and liked it, but I agree with Mary13 that it probably wouldn’t be the best book club choice.
I also read the nonfiction H is for Hawk, which is currently on the nonfiction bestseller list. It contains a lot of fascinating information about hawks and falconry, but I thought that there was maybe a little too much content about the author’s difficult period of mourning for her father and her fascination with the author (and fellow falconer) T.H.White.
A Penelope Lively duet - as suggested previously (and just now) by mathmom. (I just finished and liked How It All Began and would happily read another.)
*A Spool of Blue Thread/i - I read this. When I finished I wanted you guys. I felt a need to discuss this book - though my real life book club just chose it for next time. Still, they aren’t you and no use pretending the discussion will be as good. (You’ll have to file this book under a category called “easy non-linear format.” It looks at the Whitshank family now, then goes back a generation, then goes back another generation and then circles around to present. Not complicated but not linear either or rather maybe a sandwiched-by-the-present backwards linear - if that makes any sense at all … which I actually realize doesn’t really.)
And my new suggestion: The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro. One review: “What Ishiguro has delivered, after much labour, is a beautiful fable with a hard message at its core . . . there won’t, I suspect, be a more important work of fiction published this year than The Buried Giant. And take note, Peter Jackson. Ishiguro’s fiction makes wonderful films.” — John Sutherland, The Times (London)
I agree with you, ignatius (post #100)! I don’t think the two perspectives are mutually exclusive. Perhaps it might be more accurate for me to say that Dimple gets into her role of pretending that she’s the rock, when in fact she needs Amina’s “safety” as much as Amina needs her “bravado.” Dimple’s take-charge behavior, although sometimes irritating, served Amina well during her post-McCloud depression, when she hustled Amina out of bed and sent her off to that initial interview with Jane.
I’d be fine with the Penelope Lively duet or A Spool of Blue Thread.
When it comes to The Buried Giant, I’ve read some tepid reviews of it that make me leery. I adored Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day but found his Never Let Me Go to be so depressing that I don’t quite trust him any more.
^Any of those suggested so far would be fine with me.
Another option: Are there any “fun” classics (either traditional or modern) that you’ve always wished you’d read or that you’ve been wanting to re-read? No Proust, Boswell or Milton allowed—I’m talking about page-turners like Wuthering Heights, East of Eden, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The World According to Garp, True Grit, Beau Geste, Rebecca…
I like the idea that Dimple and Amina need each other, but I think it’s true that much of Dimple’s behavior is bravado. Maybe I like her better now.
The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro sounds interesting. I loved The Remains of the Day and always meant to read some of his other books and never did. The New Yorker review from the google headline appears to be a pan FWIW. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/the-uses-of-oblivion
I wonder if you all think that The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing will stick with you. I read it when it first came out and I can’t believe how much I’ve forgotten about it. Way more so than most books.
The one thing I do remember is that I found the whole photography subplot completely unconvincing and unbelievable.
For whatever reason, I’ve read a lot of Indian immigrant stories and books. Perhaps it is completely ridiculous to compare, but I’ve found Jhumpa Lahiri’s books to be much more memorable. And Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss was also wonderful.
I don’t think I’ve read Wuthering Heights. Should I even admit that? And how I missed doing so is a mystery.
I’ve been meaning to reread The Once and Future King. (If I don’t get The Buried Giant, I’d be content with T. H. White. NJTM encouraged a fantasy classic if we go the fantasy route.)
I want to reread True Grit and it’s short for those with a busy May.
Scarlet Pimpernel works for me too.
And of course it might be a good time to revisit To Kill a Mockingbird for those who are thinking about diving into Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman - releasing in July. (I’m not so sure about GSaW as I’m touchy about anyone messing with Atticus Finch - even Harper Lee. However, I’m always open to rereading To Kill a Mockingbird.
No, but that’s as much my own fault as the book’s. My brain tends to operate on a “catch and release” basis where reading is concerned. Our discussions do help me retain—for at least a little while—plot points that I would otherwise have forgotten fairly quickly.
More often what happens is that months or years later, I will be reading a novel with a scene that reminds me of something else. After a little free association, an entire passage from an earlier book will suddenly come back to me. So by next month, I may have forgotten that Akhil ever existed…until he re-enters my consciousness one day in the distant future when reading a book that happens to mention narcolepsy.
I have plans to re-read 3 books in the next few weeks - Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe (one of my all time favorites), Love in the Time of Cholera and 100 Years of Solitude.
I started it once upon a time but never finished. I can’t say that anything about the book itself caused me to put it down but only that I tried to read it during my time of toddlers and infants. For a while reading magazine articles stretched me.
LOL, this is one of our more eclectic collections! I listed everything mentioned above so that you could see the titles gathered in one place, but of course the list is too long to work with, so please veto at will. Also, this doesn’t have to be the final list. If you suddenly have a brilliant idea and want to add it, that’s fine, too. We’ll get there eventually.
Duet: Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir and Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (wasn’t sure if NJTM’s comments in #106 along with the panning by the The New Yorker constituted a veto, so for the moment it’s still on the list) Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Once and Future King by T.H. White True Grit by Charles Portis The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez East of Eden by John Steinbeck
