Happy
Easter Everyone!
It is
officially springtime and our book club has sprung into April with a lively
pick. We are reading Death Comes to
Pemberley by P.D. James. Over a century later, James continues the saga of
Elizabeth and Darcy, Jane Austin’s lovable couple from her novel Pride and Prejudice. Death Comes to Pemberley opens with Elizabeth
taking her position alongside her husband as the new mistress of Pemberley. Her
presence brings a fresh spring-like air to the once stuffy estate. In stark
contrast to Elizabeth’s fervent character is Darcy’s sister - quiet,
conservative, and most importantly, eligible. With such a prize to be sought by
aristocratic bachelors, it is no surprise that evil will strike Pemberley. In
his sequel, James gives us a mystery to dig into during breaks from April
gardening.
We’ll meet at
Panera Bread on Monday evening, April 23 at 6:30 PM to discuss Death Comes to Pemberley and whatever
other seasonal topics arise. We reserved the back room again as it worked out
very nicely for our last meeting.
In recapping
the March 28th book club, we had seven members present: Barb, Becky, Cheryl,
Ginnie, Lori, Mary Beth, and me. Our book Balzac
and the Little Chinese Princess evoked a very political discussion. The
story set in China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s is somewhat based on the
author Dai Sijie’s own personal experience in a remote “reeducation” village.
Most of us were not even aware that this revolution was happening as we were
only children during the time. However, the movement coincided with the radical
hippy era occurring in America and Becky recollected her own activist roots as
a college student of the 60’s. She understood more about Communist China’s
“reeducation” than the rest of us. Most importantly, she explained the
parallels of our own government’s subtle stripping of personal freedoms to
China’s direct confiscation of intellectual rights. Although historical-fiction
in its premise, Sijie’s story may truly be allegorical. Should we recognize our
own present social state in Sijie’s accounts of the Chinese government’s seizure
of cultural progress?
Becky brought
to the book her experiences born from her status as an offspring of the WWII
generation. Having experienced as a young adult the impact of Vietnam through the
draft and loss of friends and loved ones, Becky like other friends of mine born
in this era are very concerned about the direction our country is taking today
and vocalize their beliefs. I find it
inspiring that they are still as ardent about their viewpoints as much now as
they most assuredly were in the 60’s when they were either picketing on a
college campus or fighting in the battlefields of Nam. If these newly
established retirees would “organize” nationwide in a movement such as the
“Activists Reunited” (now that they have the free time to devote to political
causes once again), just maybe they could change the course of our government’s
push toward socialism. Although, this time, their influence may carry more
clout than when they spoke out in the 60’s. At that time, a major deterrent for
a few may have been long straggly hair and a distinct odor of weed!
Balsac and the Little Chinese
Seamstress forced us
all to think, forced us all to see a reality that is creeping into our own
nation beneath our apathetic preoccupied noses. Through highly sophisticated
propaganda proven to affect a largely politically illiterate nation, the
government is insidiously controlling our lives. James’ characters suffer the
loss of great books, art, and cultural experiences as the Chinese banned them
from learning. Our government is cutting
funding for cultural centers and education systems. Free enterprise is being
forced to run their businesses in the way the government sees fit by
controlling global markets and health care benefits. We also discussed the
effects of the “National Common Core Curriculum” which will standardize in our
nation’s public schools lessons taught in Math and Reading. At a given age, on
a given month, on a given day, all students will learn the same thing. With
that said, it was a heated book club as we analyzed our current state of the
nation.
Definitely a
lighter read than Balzac and the Little
Chinese Princess, I hope you enjoy April’s pick, Death Comes to Pemberley . In conclusion, I do want to add that we
have scheduled a book club movie night for Wednesday, April 18 to see the film The Hunger Games, based on our January
read. If you plan to attend, meet at the Regal Theater for the 7 P.M. viewing!
Yours in
reading,
Tammy
