The End

Having an online book club was a great experiment - it's something Anna, Megan, and I have talked about doing for ages. And it's turns out that while we had some fantastic online discussions, the majority of what we thought about was talked about on the phone or not at all. Book clubs are meant to be held in person. So, we're glad to have tried, but this is the end. Thanks for reading.

--Jaclyn

ps. None of us finished Mere Christianity - probably should have chosen a fluffier book considering Anna was going to have a baby (and had a beautiful baby boy named Michael), Megan was preparing to move, and I had stacks and stacks of papers to grade. Nonetheless - still a magnificent book - just not a quick, chapter-before-bed type of book.

October Book: Mere Christianity

Pickwick is finally back!  We are going to be reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for our October book. Chances are that we will spill into November with this book, but we are excited to take on one of the most prolific and inspiring writers of the 20th century.

As always, happy reading! Can't wait to hear what you have to say--

-Jac

Still lost in Paris

Meg and I spent all this time trying to coordinate a phone call so we could talk about The Paris Wife.  Why?  Because this book is haunting.  It's well researched, well written, and so damn disturbing that I cannot seem to stop thinking about it.  A woman whose taste in books I trust implicitly said, "When I read it I had to keep telling myself it was fiction--it got that real to me. I had just seen Midnight in Paris so I had that back story. Do all talented (powerful) men have weak characters? Am I glad we're not talented, rich and therefore corrupt? Things to ponder...."  Throw in the relationship factor that Meg and I could not fully understand - how do you stay in a marriage like that?  How do you justify to yourself that someone loves you when they are sleeping with someone else and then coming to your room asking for your body and your heart and everything that you are?

There are many quotes that I could have pulled from this book to reference, but here are few that I keep coming back to. 

It is not what France gave you but what it did not take from you that was important. 
~Gertrude Stein (the Ms. Stein - not the character)

There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.
~Ernest Hemingway (the Hemingway - also not the character)

"It was the end of Ernest's struggle...He would never again be unknown. We would never again be this happy." (195)
~Hadley

"What's wrong with all of us? Can you tell me that?"
"Hell if I know," he said. "We drink too much for starters. And we want too much, don't we?"  (216)
~Hadley & Bill

"She chatters on about Chanel too much, but she's smart about books. She knows what she likes, and more than that, she knows why." (232)  [Let's be honest - I just liked this one because it articulated something I hadn't been able to put words to before.]
~Ernest

"Drink this," he said, filling the tumbler and passing it across the table. "You could use it."
"Yes, let's get stinking drunk."
"All right. We've always been good at that." (261) [This alone is insignificant, but it's the end of a conversation between Ernest and Hadley.  This is their way of coping with an impossible situation, an impossible conversation about the state of their marriage - the third party that is creeping into every sacred space Hadley clings to and worse, everyone the Hemingways know knows about what's happening.]

"It also didn't surprise me that he was feeling sorry for himself. There are men who love to be alone, but Ernest was not one of them. Solitude made him drink too much and drinking kept him from sleeping, and not sleeping brought the bad voices and bad thoughts up from their depths, and then he drank more to try and silence them." (264)
~Hadley

"And even if he didn't admit it to me, I knew he was suffering because he'd hurt me badly with the affair. Knowing he was suffering pained me. That's the way love tangles you up. I couldn't stop loving him, and couldn't shut off the feelings of wanting to care for him--but I also didn't have to run to answer his letters. I was hurting, too, and no one was running to me." (264)
~Hadley

"He wanted them both, but there was no having everything, and love couldn't help him now. Nothing could help him but bravery, and what was that anyhow? Was it reaching for the gun or sitting with the pain and shaking and the terrible fear?" (277)

"Even if I didn't want to live this way anymore, I also didn't want to die." (285)

"You've changed me more than you know, and will always be a part of everything I am. That's one thing I've learned from this. No one you love is ever truly lost." (307)
~Ernest

That's more than a few I guess, but like I said, I'm so caught up in the disfunctionality, the random glimpses of beauty, passion, and brilliance, and the voice of one of America's most prolific writers.  I know, I know - I'm a nerd to the core and it's only because I have something I want to look up that I am stopping now. 

As always, happy reading!

--Jac

Jaclyn's Paris Wife

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I knew very little of the premise of Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife when I started reading it.  I thought it was just about the writers and artists living in Paris in the 1920s.  Not quite a “Midnight in Paris” storyline in book form, but I thought it was more of a nostalgia piece. Probably should have read the book jacket – and yet, would I have read on so voluntarily? Don’t get me wrong, stories of failed marriages and disappointed dreams make for great literature (can we say Gatsby?), but McLain’s novel is not a work of pure fiction.

The Paris Wife is based heavily on the lives Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley.  So almost against my will I fell in love with their love and felt Hadley’s starry-eyed excitement over the tempestuous, young writer who was destined to become one of America’s most distinct voices. But I knew from the beginning that Ernie had fallen in love with a beautiful nurse during World War I, that she had broken his heart, and that as the boy had grown into a man, he turned to drinking in failed attempts to mend what had been broken.  Hadley came next, and it was she who was there as Ernest went from being merely in the shadows of Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald and the other brilliant writers who made Paris their home in the 1920s to being a reputable and sought-after writer.  Everyone in Hadley and Ernest’s circle drank too much, wanted too much, and in the end, had to run from the scene or be drowned in it.

McLain’s portrayal of Hemingway is uncanny. His voice that we have come to know in writing rings so clear that it adds an air of reality to what might have felt just like another overly-romanticized piece of historical fiction. And so while I knew from the beginning that Hadley was destined to be the first of four wives, I was drawn in to the carefully crafted details, to the authenticity of the characters, and to the hope that as Ernest said, “No one you ever love is truly lost.”

I can’t say you should read this book.  While it’s well-written and gives fantastic insights into some of the greatest creative minds of the last century, it is a book without a happy ending.  And it’s a book full of details that someone uninterested in English literature or history might find tiresome. I, as you well know, am a lover of both and am also so in love with Paris that I just couldn’t help but read on and try to find the fleeting truth that Hemingway was so desperate to find.

--Jac

The World According to Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway said, 
 There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. 

Judging from the book so far, he thought that about living, loving, an simply being - if it wasn't true, there was no reason to be.  I both admire and am afraid of such unequivocal living.  

Hope you're liking The Paris Wife!


--Jac

Jane Eyre? What?

Okay, so I know we all kind of signed off on Jane Eyre, but I really was reading it. I finished it a few weeks ago, and I just have to say that this book loves me back. Meaning, I feel like the more love I put into reading it, the more love it gives to me. That sounds so weird and kind of creepy.

Let me explain in a more appropriate way.

I read Jane Eyre in high school...and when I say I read it, I watched the BBC version and briefly glanced over the Cliffs Notes. And didn't pass my test. What a good way to stick it to my English teacher, right? And to be honest, I thought the book was weird and stupid and totally turned me off to British 1850's lit.

I read Jane Eyre in college (on my own accord) and loved it so much that I read it in three days and wanted to start over again when I finished.

I read Jane Eyre as an English major who hasn't read a classic for a shamefully long period of time. I wanted to remember why I read classics and to stop feeling like such a moron...so I post-it noted, I underlined,  I copied passages. And there was just something there this time that moved me. The themes of loyalty, forebearance, independence and knowing oneself were (are) stewing in my mind.

I love this, by Helen Burns: "Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it. It is weak and sill to say you cannot bear what is your fate to be required to bear." Stop griping about your lot in life...I needed this, right Jac?

And this, talking about Mr. Rivers:  "There would be recesses in my mind, which would only be mine, to which he never came." I just read another book where the main character entertains the idea of a relationship with someone who is too simpleminded for her, and I thought of this. What a sad day it would be to be "stuck" with someone who didn't "get" you.

And of course, how could I leave out Mr. Rochester (who, by the way, HAS to be better looking than the old BBC version of the movie...the new movie cast worked much, MUCH better for me): "He made me love him without looking at me." Oh my...

That is all. Just wanted to put this out there if anyone really did read Jane Eyre. And the new movie was fantastic.

Life as Mrs. Hemingway

When I said that our characters would be hanging out with Hemingway and other famous artists and writers of the 1920s, I obviously had not read the full description of the book.  Our main characters are in fact Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley.  I'm not sure what others of you are thinking as you start this book, but it's hard to read a story where you know that the relationship is not going to work out.

Oddly enough too, I'm still in love with Sandra Bullock as Agnes, Hemingway's first love (a nurse from WWI when he was injured on the battlefront).  Which is a roundabout way of saying that I really like Hadley and hope that her story ends well despite the fact that she married the amazingly talented and tempestuous young writer.

--Jac

July Book: The Paris Wife

The obsession of the summer is Paris so we thought it would be apropos to read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.  It's the 1920s in the City of Lights which means our characters will be hanging out with the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and all the other American ex-patriots that are responsible for creating some of the greatest pieces of music, art, and literature that the world as ever known.  Hope you'll join us.  We promise to have more discussion on this book so that it feels more like an actual book club. Happy reading and happy summer!

-Jac

Jaclyn's Possession

Possession by Elana Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am feeling a bit conflicted about this book.  On one hand I sat and devoured it in one sitting before I left for Europe.  On the other hand I felt like much of the plot was a blending of other teenage dystopian fiction with a few sparks of originality and a strong ending.  I think I feel most of my conflict over the fact that Meg’s friend wrote this book.  I am in awe that she did that – that she came up with a story and managed to sell it to a publisher.  I just wish I loved it more.  I would definitely recommend it to young people who loved Uglies or The Hunger Games.  My problem is that I would recommend those other books first.  All those contradictory things said, it was still an entertaining read.  Kudos to Meg’s friend for achieving her goal of getting published and on a national level.  So exciting!

On a totally trivial note, I love Johnson’s choice of character names.  Vi, Zenn, Jag, Gavin – they roll off the tongue well, and they are completely fitting for the type of story. 

June Book: Possession

Our June book will be Possession by Elana Johnson.  I know your mind initially goes to A.S. Byatt's classic when you first hear the title, but this is a completely different story.  It's a dystopian young adult novel that was written by our very own Megan's friend.  She went to the launch party last night and will be filling us in on more details later.
 
-Jaclyn

ps. We know you're tired and just glad summer weather is approaching. This book is a true summer read - hope you'll join us!

Getting Back on the Horse

Once upon a time three girls who had batted the idea of an online book club around decided to finally start one.  Hence the Pickwick Society Book Club was born.  And we read a few books, wrote a few reviews, answered a few questions, and talked on the phone about how we needed to pick up the pace of our respective reading.  Now it's June 9th, and things have gotten more than a little behind and our posting has been sporadic at best.

We are picking a new book for June and will be reporting its title to you very soon.  Even if you're working extra hours, have little people hanging off you constantly, or are traipsing to various locations for summer travel, we'd love to have you read the book and then tell us what you think.

As always, happy reading!

--Jac

Jaclyn's Failure to Run

I have to be honest - I never was that intrigued by Born to Run, but I trust Megan and Anna implicitly and so I bought into expanding my usual reading interests for our March book.  It is now May, and I have yet to finish this book.  I've tried.  I've picked it up repeatedly and feel more frustrated each time by how incoherent the narrative feels to me. Both Meg and Anna listened to this book before / if they read the actual text, and I think that would make a difference.  McDougall's writing reads like story that is being told around a campfire or after everyone's eaten at a barbeque which is fun, but feels in print, like it is one of those "you had to be there" stories. Don't get me wrong, it's a fascinating story, but it's just one where I'd rather be sitting in the spa than trying to follow which drug cartel is actually throwing bodies int he canyon. 

To the people who read the book, kudos to you.  Don't judge me too much for my failure to run.

Born To Run - Megan

I have two very different responses to this book: my immediate emotional response and my later critical response.
1: I loved every page and was post-it noting (could we please make that a verb?) way more than I anticipated. It made me want to run better and have more fun with it. It made me re-think why I run. It made me LOVE the fact that there are people in the world who just...who just run. And it was SO much more than a running book. It was a fascinating anthropologic study, it was insightful into the human spirit, and it was very journalistic, which is exactly what a book about running should be. There were no long-winded technical chapters describing the mechanics of running, or perhaps there were but they were so well disguised by fantastic writing that I didn't even notice. Just fabulous.
Then, I thought more about it, and here is what I have determined:
2: While the book is inspiring, interesting, and really a delicious read, there were a lot of characters, a lack of continuity and maybe a bit too much anti-shoe preaching for a non-runner. There were a few spots where I felt the need to follow up on the research because it seemed a bit far-fetched/colored to fit the belief system of the writer. 
So, depending on if you'd like to wear your happy pants or grumpy pants during a read of this book, there you go. Two pair of pants. 

March...April...Spring Books

Hello all-

As most of you know, the three of us who run this little book club are either in graduate school or have a husband in graduate school and have two little boys to run after.  This means that this time of year is borderline insane.  Hence, the lack of posts on our March book "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall and why our April book is yet unannounced. 

So here's the plan - we're overlapping books because that's our prerogative.  We will continue reading "Born to Run" and would love to hear your thoughts as they come (whether you're finished or not).  We will also begin discussing Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" which will serve as our April/May book (since classics take a bit longer to get through).  Whether you've read "Jane Eyre" every year since you were twelve or whether you are taking on "Jane Eyre" for the first time, we want to hear what you have to say. 

I personally am on a mission to get through "Jane Eyre" as soon as possible because I really want to see the movie, but not until I've read the book.  Other another literary movie note, "Water for Elephants" comes out in just over two weeks on April 22nd.  Call it blasphemy or uncultured tastes, but I think the movie will be better than the book. 

Happy reading, happy movie watching, happy running, happy spring, and everything in-between!

--Jaclyn

Meg's take on Wednesday Wars

Always the last to the table. I just finished Wednesday Wars last night, and let me just say, I loved it. I didn't think I did until I was halfway done. I didn't want to surrender my critical observations of how unrealistic I felt this 7th grade boy was, but in the end, I gave in. Holling may have been a bit more introspective than what I assume the 7th grade species to be, but in a time like his, perhaps that was required for kids of all ages. Can you imagine trying to make sense of assassinations, a senseless war, and the atomic bomb issue looming over you every day? And where better to look than Shakespeare? (which, by the way, was my absolute favorite part...I want to be Mrs. Baker. I love how Holling says that perhaps he really believed that all Mrs. Baker had ever done was sit behind her desk...So funny.)

I thought the way he described his parents' marriage falling apart was interesting. About how it doesn't all end at once, and it is the little things that start to go. A very observant 7th grader, I would say.

I loved the running part: a perfect segue into our next book.


And here's my favorite...a definitive description of the complete non-definition of the world:

That’s the way it is in the real world.

It’s not always smiles. Sometimes the real world is like Hamlet. A little scared. Unsure. A little angry. Wishing that you could fix something that you can’t fix. Hoping that maybe something would fix itself, but thinking that hoping that way is stupid.

And sometimes the real world is more like Bobby Kennedy, who was a sure bet for the Democratic nomination and probably would have been president of the United States and stopped the war, but who got shot at point-blank range.

Changing our perspective-Anna's Wednesday thoughts

I loved the scene from Wednesday Wars when Mrs. Baker took Holling on a drive to see all of the buildings in his town. She explained to him the significance behind them, and then Holling thinks the following,

"On a bright blue day when there wasn't an atomic bomb on any horizon, when the high clouds were painted onto blue canvas, when tulips were standing at attention and azaleas were blooming (except for the ones in front of the Perfect House) and dogs were barking at all the new smells, I saw my town as if I had just arrived. It was as if I was waking up. You see houses and buildings every day, and you walk by them on your way to something else, and you hardly see. You hardly notice they're even there, mostly because there's something else going on right in front of your face. But when the town itself becomes the thing that is going on right in front of your face, it all changes, and you're not just looking at a house but at what's happened in that house before you were born. That afternoon, driving with Mrs. Baker, the American Revolution was here. The escaped slaves were here. The abolitionists were here.
And I was here." ( p.222-223)

How do you think we can look at our individual circumstances "as if we had just arrived"? How can we look at the people around us in that light? Could they be the "houses" that Holling was talking about? I think so.

I heard a lady from my ward speak in Stake Conference tonight. I have always thought she was just an awesome example of someone who quietly serves. She's not the Relief Society president, she doesn't really talk that much. She sits quietly, but loves openly. She is always the first one to sign up when we need a volunteer to help clean the building, or when someone needs a meal. I found out tonight as she shared her testimony that she had a son die of leukemia a few years back. I had no idea. I already thought highly of her, but somehow knowing that little tidbit of information, my heart opened to her even more. My love and admiration for her faith and quiet service increased.

One of the ways Mrs. Baker helps Holling open his eyes in this scene is that she goes against the grain. Mrs. Baker, who always seems to be following the rules, breaks them. She keeps Holling working every Wednesday, when all of the other classmates are gone. There seems to be no relief. But here they were, supposed to be having another bomb drill, and she busts him out of school! This must have caught Holling off-guard and he realized there might be something important about their little jaunt.

I think if we are to see people and situations "as if [we] had just arrived" we have to step out of our own lives and sometimes even break the rules. Do things we wouldn't normally do. Be brave, and bold! Who knows what we might find.

What do you think?

Jaclyn's "Wednesday Wars" Review

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have been exceptionally tired, and so I have put off reviewing "The Wednesday Wars" though I could not stop talking about it while I was reading it and the days after I finished it.  This book, despite its detailed depiction of rats running around in the classroom ceiling, was wonderful.  I love that it took place in 1967-1968.  I love the political and social references, and the wording used to characterize the main character Holling Hoodhood's (yes, Hoodhood really is his last name) teacher Mrs. Baker.  I love the Shakespeare references and how well Schmidt captured the simple desires a seventh grader has for validation and acceptance. 

This is simply a story of a seventh grader named Holling who doesn't quite fit in (in all honesty, what seventh grader ever feels like he/she fits in?) and his path to figuring out his worth over the course of a school year.  Throw in Mickey Mantle, Vietnam, an unrelenting father, Catholics, Jews, and cream puffs, and you have "The Wednesday Wars."

I'm not sure a middle schooler (the intended audience) would love this book as much as adult, but I think they would enjoy it - perhaps for different reasons than an adult would.  Teachers, especially, would enjoy this book - we can't help but love well-written characterizations of ourselves. 

As for being a Newberry Honor Book, I am glad to report, that Schmidt's "Wednesday Wars" is very deserving.  Happy reading!

March Book: Born to Run

As soon as I hear the words "Born to Run" I start humming Bruce Springsteen.  This month though we're taking on a different "Born to Run"  - we're reading Christopher McDougall's Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.  

This book is a total departure from anything we have read previously, but it should be an entertaining and eye-opening read.  I promise that this is not a book only runners or athletes would enjoy because as anyone who knows we well knows, I am definitely not a runner.  I don't understand running when there is no ball to chase. 

The Goodreads summary of McDougall's book says the following, "Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong."  All of us can use a bit of inspiration to reach our next goal.  Join us.  I think you'll thoroughly enjoy it.

--Jaclyn

A kid's book?

Don't get me wrong, I loved The Wednesday Wars.  I'm just wondering if a middle schooler would also love this book.  A twelve-year-old would miss most of the 1960s references and most likely, would miss the Shakespeare references unless he/she had previous exposure.  Is the story of a struggling kid enough to compel someone young through the story?  Just wondering what you think. 

-Jaclyn

ps. I am a huge fan of Mrs. Baker. 
pps. I loathe Mr. Hoodhood. 
ppps. I double heart you.
pppps. This is what my notes to my friends in seventh grade looked like...why didn't I include the contents of the post-scripts in the body of the letter?!

Have you started The Wednesday Wars?!

Hello Pickwick Society-

Just wanted to tell you that if you haven't started The Wednesday Wars then today is your day.  It is fantastic and exactly the type of book to read after your last few serious reads.  You'll love the 1960s references to politics and social movements, and if you're an English nerd, you'll love the references to Shakespeare's plays - both the overt line references and then the ones that are cleverly woven into the prose.  

Happy reading!

-Jac

ps. I'm not kidding when I say start today.  You won't be disappointed.