Bloggery

Sunday 6th Nov 2011

Lucinda Corby

Book Groupery: Halloween

Next Meetings: (Next Tremendous Tuesday Book Group: 15^th November (Brooklyn Follies, Paul Auster); Book Group Christmas Party: 12^th December (Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry)

Marvellous Monday Book Group

We had a pumpkin lantern (thanks Claire), we had scary music and we had Halloween themed nibbles. We also had so many book groupers for this meeting that we had to split into two. In best horror flick fashion, a small scout party had to venture into the basement. Fortunately, they all returned unscathed and we were able to establish that despite separation, both groups had had very similar discussions (spooky eh?)

Dark Matter is Michelle Paver’s first adult fiction outing – and we all agreed that the simple but effective premise and largely colloquial language (the book is presented as pages of a journal) would have sat quite well on the teenage fiction shelves. What sets it apart as an adult book then? The largely ‘psychological’ spookiness, we concluded. I guess there is a whole other discussion out there about whether younger readers could in fact cope with a plot where nothing much actually happens.

We felt that the most enjoyable section of the book is when Jack is left to run the camp alone. The slow, inexorable progress towards endless night was a tortuous concept in itself. By the time the last glimpse of sun for five months is seen, we are already dreading the dark. The idea of him losing a sense of time and clinging to dull routine was compelling. The constant reappraisal of inanimate objects; the measuring and pacing; the anxiety of isolation; were all very effective at building tension. Jack’s initial dismissal of the huskies turning to reliance on them as evidence of life showed how the environment changed his behaviour. We all had particular aspects of Jack’s descent into hysteria that we hoped would be explored in more detail in the book – so one of our gripes was that this section of the novel was over too quickly. The fact that we found so much to talk about around his psychological demise, meant we all wanted the book to dwell on just that: how it was all in the mind.

The 1930’s setting also raised some debate. Whilst some in the group felt that the expedition was too amateurish to be realistic, others felt that this was an era when personal safety often took a back seat to reckless progress. Everest was attempted in tweeds after all…Also, the historic setting allows for Jack’s father to be a WWI veteran. Given that this is a novel primarily concerned with lone experience, we wondered whether Jack’s inability to communicate his anxieties to his companions was an echo of shell shock. WWI produced veterans who felt unable to unburden their stories because their experiences were so unlike the everyday domesticity of home life. Jack’s inability to articulate (or even reconcile) his feelings for Gus was another example of ‘communication block’. 

The resolution to the book created much debate. There is a displacement, from the far Northern Hemisphere, to the tropics – and copious sunshine with no twilight. Did the author feel that she couldn’t leave her readers out in the cold? We also questioned whether there was significance in Jack residing in another ‘colonial’ land. Does he still need to be an outsider? Is he trying to escape himself or is it simply that he cannot bear any reminder (including snow) of his arctic exposure? All questions that can hopefully be put to the author when she joins Mr B’s for an evening of considered isolation.

The next book is the rather good [ed] ‘A Fine Balance’ by Rohinton Mistry. This will be discussed along with the usual high jinx that is the Book Group Christmas Party – Monday December 12^th….more details nearer the time, but put the date in the diary now!