Month: October 2017

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

There were a lot of people that were “unlikable” in this book.  From the cheating parents to the drunk author, there was a litany of characters in this book that weren’t good people but somehow they became endearing.  From the beginning, Bert Cousins was identified as a bad father and a bad husband.  Beverly Keating was a bored housewife on the verge of an affair.  Fix was a grumpy cop distrustful of all people and suspicious of everyone’s actions.  Teresa was the oblivious mother of four kids who was not domestically inclined.  Although these characters have bits of them that are unlikable to each other and the reader, they become endearing to us as the story moves on and as the family members grow older.

We remember things differently.  We have different views and perspectives on the same events.  Due to age, maturity and life experience, the characters weigh in on the same events with differing ideas and the “why” of something happening.  Two main events seen from different views are Franny’s baptism and Cal’s death.  Fix, Bert, Beverly and Teresa had their own version of Franny’s baptism and what it meant as a pivotal moment in all of their lives.  This moment impacted each of them and, by default, affected their children as well.  Cal’s death affected the parents but this event was mostly felt by the children.  They were each there but each of them had their own version of what happened and how it happened.

The dynamic between the parents and children is unconventional and is probably why the reader will find some commonality with this dysfunctional family.  The parents are unaffected by the kids and their feelings.  The parents never consider how the children will feel if they divorce, relocate, don’t move, remarry, or ignore them.  The kids seems to be perfectly happy to be ignored.  The children in this book are left to their own devices, which results in a deadly incident.  Many other incidents could have ended just as badly.  It’s a stark comparison to today’s parenting that hovers over their children and doesn’t make a decision without contemplating the children’s opinions.

I enjoyed this story because it was so real.  It didn’t hide the mistakes that they each had made in the past.  It accepted them with realism.  It reminded me of “stories” from my family.  It reminded me of the crazy, unbelievable things we do to each other as families and the things we choose to accept and to forgive.  Despite all of the things that went wrong in their lives, they loved one another and these pivotal moments brought them together in good ways.  Baby Franny was the common thread that brought them all together.  She is the constant element to the story and the one that keeps the story moving forward.  In the end, it is Franny who is still holding them all together.

Was it love at first sight when Bert first met Beverly?  Or was she just something he couldn’t have?

Did this story revolve around Franny?  Why?  Why not?  Is she the main character?

What does the writing/publishing of the “book” and movie mean to the family?

Why is Albie the only one that is offended by the book by Leo Posen?

What does this book say about families and time?

What does this story say about forgiveness and time?

Did you think (initially) Cal died from the gun shot or from the bee sting?

Why do Franny and Bert have such a strong connection?  Is it because he named her?

Why don’t any of the girls keep in touch with each other?

Were you surprised that Franny ended up with Kumar?

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

I’m so glad that I picked up this book.  I’m so used to reading historical fiction from WWII and I forget how significant our own U.S. culture and history really is.  I will say that I picked up this book because of how little I knew about the Underground Railroad.  The extent of my knowledge came from school history books that didn’t quite portray this heroic part of our history with much detail and definitely did not spend much time other than some history regarding Harriet Tubman and her association with the movement.

This books conveys an amazing journey during slavery.  The process of getting to a free state and remaining free must have been anxiety laden.  I can’t imagine the complexity of making the decision to flee the only home you’ve ever known, to travel through unknown paths, all the while trusting that your mode of transportation and destination will bring you freedom and keep you alive.  You must have a deep trust of people to think that not everyone is like those that have oppressed you.  Cora trusted that when she arrived at her destination, slavery would not exist and she would be free…but, what if freedom wasn’t at the end of the railroad?  Cora found out that South Carolina had a different kind of slavery and control over its citizens and North Carolina was worse than Georgia because it did not allow blacks at all and had no tolerance for those who helped slaves.  It seemed that Cora could not escape and was still being hunted.

Cora’s story is an Everyman story during our country’s time of slavery.  Her journey to survive and thrive was hard fought and difficult.  At every turn, she was bound again and challenged to fight harder.  Her final act in “the secret beneath us” and following “the one who escaped” was in defiance and she won.  She escaped her hunter and used her salvation, the Underground Railroad, to make her final passage.

I think that we fail as a nation to honor our past by addressing the good and the bad things about our country.  I think in order to appreciate the good, we need to understand where we went wrong morally, culturally and justly.  Our problem is not with the mistakes we made but with how we have dealt with them since their execution.  By ignoring our past and pretending that these atrocities did not happen, we ourselves and future citizens a disservice.  We forget.  We re-commit the crime.

I think that we allow Europe to “relive” the past, good and bad, and we understand their ability to reassess, retell, and feel those betrayals again.  Why don’t we allow ourselves, the U.S., to look back and reengage those acts that embarrass us so much?  Are we too good to learn from them still?  Do we think that we are so far removed from them that we don’t need to talk about it anymore?  I just moved from the state of Georgia and I saw more Confederate flags waved there in 2 years than I did in my 40 years of life.  This racism exists today…we only pretend to be better than it.  It is still there.  How do we address it?  We read about it and learn from it.

What was Terrance Randall’s obsession with Cora?  Why was she so important to find?

Why was Ridgeway a failure in his ability to catch Mabel and then Cora?

Why did Cora trust so many people along her journey?

Would you have been as trusting of other humans, black and white, if you were in her place?

Should Cora and Caesar have continued on their escape further North?  What did Cora learn from her stay in South Carolina?  North Carolina?

What did freedom mean during slavery?  What was Cora seeking?

What does freedom mean in the U.S. in 2017?  Has the definition changed?

Why did Homer let her go?  Why was Homer so dedicated to the slave catcher Ridgeway?