The Melbourne Athenaeum Book Club

Ath book club April 2008

Nicholas Shakespeare - The Dancer Upstairs (RATING: 4)

The Peruvian guerilla leader Ezequiel is responsible for tens of thousands of fiendishly cruel murders, yet he consistently eludes capture. But in Agustn Rejas he has an indefatigable pursuer. From secluded city streets to the paths of a mountain village the policeman persists, tracking and anticipating Ezequiel’s every move. Rejas’ only reprieve is his love for his daughter’s beautiful dance teacher — until he begins to pick up unmistakable signals that her circles — and Ezequiel’s — intersect.

Based on the extraordinary manhunt for the leader of Peru’s notorious guerilla organization, The Shining Path, The Dancer Upstairs is a story reminiscent of Graham Greene and John Le Carré — tense, intricate, and heartbreaking.

Ath book club comments:

The Ath Book Club members agreed that the story rings true and that the characters are sympathetic and believable. The structure of the book is essential to bring the story to the end, although some Book Club members found the story hard to follow at the start.

 The Dancer Upstairs is not only a political story, it is also a love story, a story of good and evil and how all is not how it seems. 4 is a very high score from The Ath discerning Book Club members who are hard to please.

Ath book club March 2008

Alex Miller - Journey to the Stone Country (RATING: 4)

Betrayed by her husband, Annabelle Beck retreats from Melbourne to her old family home in tropical North Queensland where she meets Bo Rennie, one of the Jangga tribe. Intrigued by Bo’s claim that he holds the key to her future, Annabelle sets out with him on a path of recovery that leads back to her childhood and into the Jangga’s ancient heartland, where their grandparents’ lives begin to yield secrets that will challenge the possibility of their happiness together.

With the consummate artistry of a novelist working at the height of his powers, Miller convinces us that the stone country is not only a remote and exotic location in North Queensland, but is also an unvisited place within each of us. Journey to the Stone Country confirms Miller’s reputation as one of Australia’s most intelligent and uncompromising writers.

Ath book club comments:

Alex Miller’s Journey to the Stone Country makes the reader smell and feel the country and want a cup of tea. After a boring 100 pages the story really takes off. The book tells more than the words in it, it takes the reader beyond the story – and honestly not many books are able to do that. Miller takes the reader to a journey on many levels, all very believable and deeply touching. His language and descriptions of places and events are beautiful.

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Ath book club February 2008

Hazel Edwards - Antarctic Writer on Ice (RATING: 3)

This candid diary is a unique look at electronic creativity on ice and the workstyle of a professional author.

This diary was compiled by Hazel using only the limited email resources available following the collapse of her laptop computer. Via satellite from a beset ship, she kept up correspondence with family and friends, fulfilled publishing commitments to newspapers and magazines as well as conducting polar radio interviews. Surrounded by ‘wildlife experts’ she researched fact, faction and fiction. To relieve the inactivity and close confinement of an ice beset ship, she created ‘The Lachieberg’ a personalised iceberg story which expeditioners could email to their children, started belly dancing classes and even conducted a virtual book launch.

This candid diary of Hazel Edwards’ adventure combines the writing styles of narrative text, email and published newspaper and magazine articles.

Ath book club comments:

Antarctic Writer on Ice is a collection of journal notes for other books, interviews and e-mails. The reader feels a bit cheated, like the author has not bothered to write a proper book. Antarctic Writer on Ice  is repetitive and some parts just page-fillers, being told again and again. The book also put off some Book Club members who until now had always wanted to go to the Antarctica.

Some re-work and the author could have published a very interesting travel book. This book is only interesting for those who plan to travel to Antarctica by boat and want a layman’s view of the trip.

Ath book club January 2008

Charles Dickens - Hard Times (Rating: 3)

Hard Times is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book is a state-of-the-nation novel, which aimed to highlight the social and economic pressures that some people were experiencing. Unlike other such writings at the time, the novel is unusual in that it is not set in London (as was also Dickens’ usual wont), but in the fictitious Victorian industrial town of Coketown, often claimed to be based on Preston.

It met a mixed response from a diverse range of critics, such as F.R. Leavis, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Macaulay, mainly focusing on Dickens’ treatment of trade unions, coupled with post-Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between capitalistic mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era of Britain.

Dickens’s reasons for writing Hard Times were monetary, educational and critical. Sales of his weekly pulp fiction periodical, Household Words, were low, and he hoped the inclusion of this novel in instalments would increase sales.

Gaskell’s North and South published a year later, was another state-of-the-nation novel to first appear in Household Words.

Dickens wished to satirize radical Utilitarians whom he described in a letter to Charles Knight as “see[ing] figures and averages, and nothing else.” He also wished to campaign for reform of working conditions. Dickens had visited factories in Manchester as early as 1839, and was appalled by the environment in which workers toiled. Drawing upon his own childhood experiences, Dickens resolved to “strike the heaviest blow in my power” for those who laboured in horrific conditions.

Ath book club comments:

Hard Times can be quite difficult book for the modern reader. Some of the Book Club members even read it out loud at times for a better understanding of the language.

Dickens is a good observer and his writing is satirical – he is also a master of using repetition to prove his point. Hard Times is very humorous and it is a non-political book of political problems. The Book Club’s Dickens fans agreed that a different one, such as Great Expectation and Tales of Two Cities, would have been an easier introduction for the first time Dickens reader. Dickens is well worth the effort though – after all he is  ‘second to Shakespeare’ as one of the Book Club members put it.

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