Report on Book Reports

 

My portable oxygen generator and I went to Book Club this morning. It was somewhat difficult, especially since the wretched little machine insisted on beeping at unreliable moments as well as chuffing. I became, quite soon, so annoyed with it that I shut it down and spent the rest of the meeting breathing normally. I did not notice much if any difference. I was, however, talking, and that tends to keep my blood oxygen count up.

It was a small meeting as three members had other pressing commitments, leaving five of us to report on an amusing book by a female author. What was first reported by most of us is that it was difficult to find such a book. One member lugged in three that she had searched out at the library and allowed as how none of them were good enough that she bothered to read the whole book. An interesting, but quite telling, comment came from one of the two who had thought to look through the Stephen Leacock awardees. Almost all of these winners have been men. Only a very small percentage have been women. 

And so we went on to discuss what makes a book, especially by a female author, funny. One of us said that she had noticed that she was not laughing a lot lately. “Not a real belly laugh,” she said. And when I heard that, I felt the same. While there was no firm consensus, the propensity of women to go to personal anecdote, to tell funny stories on their family, was noted. Also noted was that ‘jacket blurb’ is not to be believed and that what we are told is funny often isn’t.

Stephen Leacock was again mentioned and his humour discussed. Interestingly, Wickipedia agrees. They say “Between the years 1915 and 1925, he was the best-known English-speaking humourist in the world. He is known for his light humour along with criticisms of people's follies.”

What was perfect is that one member had found and reported on a book by Canadian journalist, author and ‘Wife Of’, Sondra Gottlieb. Her husband was appointed Ambassador to the United States and Sondra wrote a book about her experiences as a diplomat’s wife in a high-pressure environment. She has written a good number of books, but our member could only find one in audio.Gottlieb’s humour is in the Leacock tradition, the criticism of foibles being those of herself, her husband, his job and anything else that her sometimes wicked mind came up with. I read her newspaper column in the Globe and Mail for years, and enjoyed what I would describe as acerbic wit. Certainly not many belly laughs. 

The same member reported, however, that she had also found a really good read, Normal Women, Nine Hundred Years of making History, a non-fiction book by Philippa Gregory and she recommended it highly. It recounts the ‘extraordinary roles of ordinary women’ in British history, ‘a landmark work of feminist non-fiction’. I am getting this book as soon as ever I can.

I was more than a bit stumped by what I could do with this topic; I don’t read much that I would consider humour. And so I went back in time and found If Life is a Bowl of Cherries What am I Doing in the Pits?, Erma Bombeck’s take on marriage and family life described as “fun from cover to cover”. And yes, it was. It was a lot more topical and funnier when I first read it as I also was raising a young family and coping with husband, house, job and all the minutiae of life at that stage. 

We were also told about Dance, Gladys, Dance by Cassie Stocks, described as an ’okay read’. This book wond the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour in 2013. Our presenter commented that as humour is not an area she normally seeks; she wondered what the criteria are for the award. The website for the competition says: “The major emphasis of each entry MUST be on humour, but literary merit and insightful comment are also important. Books of cartoons and graphic novels are eligible only if they contain a substantial amount of textual material.”

Dance is ‘an easy read when you follow the lead of the main character and her ‘contact’, Gladys, who is a ghost. The connection with the ghost causes the protagonist to see life in a new way, and is a ‘witty, affectionate tale -= with a supernatural twist – of several women who are coming to grips with the dreams they have sacrificed or given up on and the changes that they make to their lives to follow their dreams once again”.  The summing up? “I guess the humour comes from the basic premise of the book.”

I also have notes on the three books that the reporter was too bored to finish. I will spare you.

Next month we are meeting for a picnic in the park, rain date to be negotiated, and deciding what we will do in book club next year. My personal bias is toward the method we have used this year of picking a genre and having each member report. But since I was responsible for collecting the list of the types of books, the genres, that we were to use through this year, and since I lost the list and we have had to wing it, I think I may be told to be quiet and eat my picnic and let someone more organized, organize.