The Barga Book Club met last Wednesday graciously hosted by Krysia Bell. The book club meeting opened with an overview of the over a year and a half since its inception at The Osteria in Piazza Angelio. Since that meeting we have read and discussed a variety of books in many categories from autobiography through literary fiction and thriller. It can be said that all of the books have appealed to some of the readers but not all of the books have appealed to all of the readers, but in all, there has been variety and the challenge to read a book that one might not read on one’s own, has been worthwhile.
The first meeting of the Barga Book Club was notable both for attendance and enthusiasm! At least twenty five Barga bibliophiles, and a few from the surrounding territories including Bagni di Lucca, turned out at L’Osteria in Piazza Angelio to talk books.
The novel discussed at the meeting was The Glass Room by Simon Mawer. In consensus, it was one of the more popular books with the group. All agreed that it was superbly set and described. The plot left something to be desired and characterization had a range of support from ‘love, love, loved it’ from the delightfully delighted Salene to varying connections with characters as believable or accessible. Socioeconomic references to The Great Gatsby were acknowledged. The Story revolved around an architectural tour de force of the early 20th century, a home built in glass and steel in the Czech Republic with references to Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier and evocative of the whole of the inception of modern architecture and culture as it related to the rise of the Third Reich. The Glass Room was seen as a metaphoric parallel for Kristallnacht and the theme of the shadow of the holocaust overcame the serenity of transparency and freedom. Early 20th C. cultural mores were explored in the overtly libertine behavior of certain characters in contrast to those bound by tradition.
Wealthy Jewish car manufacturer Viktor Landauer and his gentile wife Liesel have been made a gift of land by Liesel’s parents to build their own house. “Something good and solid,” Liesel’s father advises. But Viktor doesn’t want something good and solid: what he wants is something modern. And what he gets is a modernist masterpiece, Der Glasraum, the Glass Room.
An engaging sense of history and evolving sense of time were successfully executed. The strength of the novel was clearly in a sense of place and evocative atmosphere recreating the sensual ambiance and shock of the new in architecture and elitist power potential rendered impotent through racism.
Thank you very much to all who participated and to our hosts Krysia and Chris Bell.
The book to be discussed on January 19th will be The Sea by John Banville. The following month we will review The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
The reading list to date has included:
The Glass Room, by Simon Mawer.
Seta (Silk) by Alessandro Baricco
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafòn.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Tehran Conviction by Tom Gabbay
The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells.
158 lb Marriage by John Irving
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters by J D Salinger
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Spilling the Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright
The Other Side of You by Salley Vickers.
In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Of Love and other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
We look forward to seeing you there. Kerry