Weatherbeaten

Hi all FnB clubbers - sorry to say that the weather has beaten me today so I'm a very late scratching for the meeting tonight.   Checked the radar at 5.30 and a big rain front was hitting VH (which I knew) with more behind it, and it was all moving up to Adelaide.   Hope you have a good night and discussion - my take on the books is as follows.

I didn't get that far into 'Brother of the more famous Jack'.  Maybe there was a lot more to it in the last two thirds of the book, but I found I wasn't really interested enough in any of the characters to continue.  I'm sure there are family units like the good Professor's (Jacob), especially in UK, but I didn't find them very attractive - and I thought it was a bit stereotypical of the oddball professorial type.  Perhaps I'm a bit too old for a 'coming of age' novel!! which is why I didn't go on to find if Katherine found true love.

I really enjoyed Amy Bloom's White Houses however.  I thought the writing was fabulous - there was a lot of wit and irony, and I really enjoyed the voice of Hick.  The time changes unsettled me to start with but once I found the rhythm of the novel I got in to it.  There were many interesting characters and much insight into the Franklin/Eleanor partnership - though it was clearly a novel, there has always been innuendo surrounding the Roosevelts.  I expect Amy Bloom took some license with it, but I also expect there was an undercurrent.  Some of the other characters were fascinating - Parker whatsisname for example - a really interesting scene when Hick when to visit him for lunch (eggs!) at White Horse.  And then later when he arrived a mess on the doorstep - I wondered who the black author who was with him was based on and thought maybe it was James Baldwin.  But who knows!!  In any case, the book made its way to its inevitable end (we always knew that was where it was going) and the last chapter was so sensitively written - it could have hovered on melodrama but didn't cross that line.

Hopefully you're all well and warm.   Its pasta, and a glass of wine by the fire for me now with Moj.    See you next time.