March 2012 Book Club "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" by Dai Sijie

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