2008•03•13 ~ Tania's Book Club
Tania’s Book Club has been in existence for 17 years! Last night, I paid a visit to Tania’s Book Club (not the official name but Tania was the one who offered up the invitation). We talked about Doubting Yourself to the Bone, and a little bit about Columbus at 4 AM. Their questions were really good – great actually. The wine was fabulous. And even though Tania was ill, she was a gracious hostess. Near the end of my visit, the topic of “what is literature?” came up. This question haunts me. It’s an interesting discussion but in the end, does it matter if we sort out the definitions of “literature” or “literary” or “plot fiction” or “trade paperback”? I’m trying to write characters and stories that stay with a reader. Characters that are flawed and needy and make mistakes. Characters in search of love, or retreating from it. Characters that surprise and titillate. Characters who search for understanding. Perhaps it’s as simple as that. If you put a book down and something in the book has resonated at a deep level in you, well, that’s literature. If Grisham does that for you, so be it. Or, if a reader takes a character with them into the weeks and months and years beyond their reading…Or, as in the case of Tania from the Book Club, who finds herself purposely slowing down near the end of a book, because she does not want to let her relationship with the characters end….well, that might be literature. (Actually, Tania admitted to NEVER ending some books because she loved them so much). Thank you, again for having me over last night. It was a pleasure to have a chat with such articulate readers!
Here’s a raw bastard-ghazal I’m working on for tomorrow’s sorbet:
Spring (bastard) ghazal
Daylight saving time difficult for daughter; she sleeps through breakfast,
is quiet on the drive to school, arrives with boots on the wrong feet
Listening to the soundtrack from Cinema Paradiso, I suddenly know
yearning for home, lost love, a caring between men, melancholy
Standing in a crowded waiting room, waiting for results of dad’s x-rays,
I reconnect with my sister
Letting go of this book, I say a small prayer – a wish inside a single breath –
that some editor out there in the world will love this story as much as I do
Orthopedic surgeon says the bones are not quite lined up but will heal.
Outside, my father asks, like he wasn’t sitting there: Are they going to operate?
I’ll just lie here until she’s asleep, then get up and put a “happy birthday” sign
on her car so she sees it in the morning. When I wake up, she’s already gone.
4 Comments
1. deb had this to say: Mar 15, 2008 ~ 07:33 ~ #
Now I’m nervous. But I did warn you what our book club was like.
I didn’t know what a ghazal was, had to look it up. Literally it means “speaking with women”, I like that.
2. thomas had this to say: Mar 15, 2008 ~ 08:41 ~ #
Deb, you have nothing to worry about. Truly. We’ll have a chit-chat, a good conversation….I’ll bring wine.
I’m really looking forward!
Best
Thomas
I had no idea that a ghazal means “speaking with women”. That is so cool. I knew: a minimum five stanzas, self contained, and unrelated stanzas. Traditionally about yearning love, illicit love…
3. deb had this to say: Mar 15, 2008 ~ 19:38 ~ #
Two years ago I came to a point in my life where I wanted to die. I have battled depression off and on for almost forty years and two years ago, depression almost won. That’s when I read a book called “Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn” by Kris Radish and I realized I needed more women in my life.
So I started a book club. But mostly it’s a place for us to talk, to share, to complain, to compare, to learn, to drink and to laugh. We support each other and this book club means so much to me. I guess that’s why I’m nervous.
And it will be a ghazal.
4. thomas had this to say: Mar 17, 2008 ~ 09:12 ~ #
Deb,
Another book to add to my list! Well, of course, books clubs are meant as meeting places, places for conversation, a confluence of shared experience (the reading of the book). I’m doubly honoured to have been invited to yours. Ghazal indeed.
Namaste