Last week I had three friends sitting on my living room floor surrounded by candles, drinking red wine and eating chocolate chip cookies while discussing Cormac McCarthy's (arguably) finest novel, The Road. Thus, the book club has begun. Another item is crossed off my life list.
Sarah, my next-door-neighbour here in Merritt, and I decided in December to start with a first meeting at her place in January. We figured two does not a book club make, however, so she, being a social butterfly, rounded up a few others, namely Jody, a local musician, Paul the Shaw Cable TV guy, and Jonathan, a guy she met on the Grayhound just after Christmas. I, of course, was also there, along with late-comer and honorary member for the evening, Cornelia, who was visiting me from out of town.
After much talk of everything except literature, and probably too much wine, we finally got down to business and each chose a title of a book we'd like to read. Sarah produced pieces of paper, pens and a baseball hat. Jonathan's choice -- The Road -- was picked as our first read. What an awesome choice that turned out to be! I could have done without the graphic cannibalism scenes, but there were so many other things to discuss...
When and where is the story set?
What was the catastrophic event?
Who or what do the boy and his father represent?
What does "carrying the fire" mean?
Is the man at the end good or bad? What IS good or bad as defined by McCormac?
These are the kinds of things we got into discussing. It was a great book to talk about because of so much being left to the imagination. At first I found it hard to take the slow-moving plot, but the writing is amazing and it really did hold me right to the end.
We ended up digressing a lot to talk about what's happening in Merritt these days (not much - big surprise), what movies are worth watching, and the hilarious nature of local Scotsman Brian Snee who was in a play with Sarah at the Legion last month.
Actually, I'm surprised we discussed the book for as long as we did. There's always a lot of other stuff going on when you get four people together in a room who haven't seen in other in a month.
I don't know what the next book will be, but I'm looking forward to meeting at Jonathan's place on March 5 to discuss it. Yay for book club!
Posts related to Book Club:
(March 18, 2010)
Book Club Blues
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