Håber I begge er kommet ind i det nye år med bravour. Og Susanne, håber du nyder tiden med den lille ny – har han fået et navn endnu?

Hvis jeg nu kaster nogle læseforslag på bordet – hvad siger I så til at vi mødes og diskuterer, hvilken vi skal læse?

Hvilke dage vil passe jer og hvor?

Forslag (alle karakteriseret ved at de står ulæste på min bogreol):

‘Slip mig aldrig’ af Kazuo Ishiguro

(Kathy, Ruth og Tommy bor på Hailsham, en kostskole i England. Her passes og uddannes de af forskellige værger. Alt ånder fred og idyl, men snart ved vi, at dette langtfra er sandheden.)

‘Den fjerde hånd’ af John Irving

(En aften forfatteren John Irving sad og så på et indslag i TV sammen med sin kone om den første håndtransplantation i USA, sagde hans kone : “Hvad nu hvis donorens enke forlanger at få besøgsret til hånden ? “
Det spørgsmål inspirerede forfatteren til at skrive denne roman.)

‘Komplottet mod Amerika’ af Philip Roth

(Flyverhelten Charles A. Lindbergh vinder over Franklin D. Roosevelt ved præsidentvalget i 1940, og isolationisten Lindbergh lægger en ny politisk kurs for USA, som kommer til at gå ud over den jødiske del af befolkningen)

‘Livret’ af Kristian Ditlev

(Da Robin, som er madanmelder ved et dagblad, mister sin japanske kone, Midori, som begår selvmord, forsøger han at genvinde sin psykologiske ligevægt og retten til et anstændigt liv, via et hektisk liv som bringer ham kloden rundt, til excentriske madoplevelser og bizarre oplevelser.)

Lidt vi kan overveje….

1. Ugwu is only thirteen when he begins working as a houseboy for Odenigbo, but he is one of the most intelligent and observant characters in the novel. How well does Ugwu manage the transition from village life to the intellectual and privileged world of his employers? How does his presence throughout affect the reader’s experience of the story?

2. About her attraction to Odenigbo, Olanna thinks, “The intensity had not abated after two years, nor had her awe at his self-assured eccentricities and his fierce moralities” [p. 36]. What is attractive about Odenigbo? How does Adichie poke fun at certain aspects of his character? How does the war change him?

3. Adichie touches very lightly on a connection between the Holocaust and the Biafran situation [p. 62]; why does she not stress this parallel more strongly? Why are the Igbo massacred by the Hausa? What tribal resentments and rivalries are expressed in the Nigerian-Biafran war? In what ways does the novel make clear that these rivalries have been intensified by British interference?

4. Consider the conversation between Olanna and Kainene on pp. 130-131. What are the sources of the distance and distrust between the two sisters, and how is the rift finally overcome? What is the effect of the disappearance of Kainene on the ending of the story?

5. Discuss the ways in which Adichie reveals the differences in social class among her characters. What are the different cultural assumptions—about themselves and others—made by educated Africans like Odenigbo, nouveau riche Africans like Olanna’s parents, uneducated Africans like Odenigbo’s mother, and British expatriates like Richard’s ex-girlfriend Susan?

6. Excerpts from a book called The World Was Silent When We Died appear on pp. 103, 146, 195, 256, 296, 324, 470, and 541. Who is writing this book? What does it tell us? Why is it inserted into the story in parts?

7. Adichie breaks the chronological sequence of her story so that she can delay the revelation that Baby is not Olanna’s child and that Olanna had a brief liaison with Richard. What are the effects of this delay, and of these revelations, on your reading experience?

8. Susan Grenville-Pitts is a stereotype of the colonial occupier with her assertion that “It’s quite extraordinaryÉ how these people can’t control their hatred of each other. . . . Civilization teaches you control” [p. 194]. Richard, on the other hand, wants to be African, learns to speak Igbo, and says “we” when he speaks of Biafra. What sort of person is Richard? How do you explain his desires?

9. Adichie makes a point of displaying Olanna’s middle-class frame of mind: she is disgusted at the cockroach eggs in her cousins’ house reluctant to let Baby mix with village children because they have lice, and so on. How is her privileged outlook changed by the war?

10. The poet Okeoma, in praise of the new Biafra, wrote, “If the sun refuses to rise, we will make it rise” [p. 219]. Does Adichie seem to represent the Biafran secession as a doomed exercise in political na•vet? or as a desperate bid for survival on the part of a besieged ethnic group? Given the history of Nigeria and Britain’s support during the war, is the defeat of Biafra a foregone conclusion?

11. The sisters’ relationship is damaged further when Olanna seduces Richard [p. 293]. Why does Olanna do this? If she is taking revenge upon Odenigbo for his infidelity, why does she choose Richard? What does Kainene mean when she bitterly calls Olanna “the good one” [p. 318]?

12. How does being witnesses to violent death change people in the story—Olanna, Kainene, Odenigbo, Ugwu? How does Adichie handle descriptions of scenes of violence, death, and famine?

13. What goes through Ugwu’s mind as he participates in the rape of the bar girl [p. 457]? How does he feel about it later, when he learns that his sister was also gang-raped [pp. 497, 526]?

14. The novel is structured in part around two love stories, between Olanna and Odenigbo and between Kainene and Richard.  It is “really a story of love,” Adichie has said (Financial Times, September 9, 2006). How does Adichie handle romantic and sexual love? Why are these love plots so important to a novel about a war?

15. The story begins as Ugwu’s aunty describes to Ugwu his new employer: “Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair” [p. 3]. It ends with Ugwu’s dedication of his book: “For Master, my good man” [p. 541]. Consider how Ugwu’s relation to his master has changed throughout the course of the story.

16. How is it fitting that Ugwu, and not Richard, should be the one who writes the story of the war and his people?

17. In a recent interview Adichie said, “My family tells me that I must be old. This is a book I had to write because it’s my way of looking at this history that defines me and making sense of it.” (She recently turned twenty-nine, and based parts of the story on her family’s experiences during that time and also on a great deal of reading.) “I didn’t want to just write about events,” Adichie said. “I wanted to put a human face on them” (The New York Times, September 23, 2006). Why is it remarkable that a woman so young could write a novel of this scope and depth?

Som sædvanlig en hyggelig aften!

Vi blev enige om følgende datoer:

8. oktober hos Camilla. Bog: Mister Pip af Lloyd Jones

3. november hos Susanne. Bog: En halv gul sol af Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2. december hos Eva. Bog endnu ikke valgt.

Også tak for sidst herfra – synes planlægningen fungerer godt, så der netop ikke går for lang tid i mellem at vi ses!

Tak for de mange gode forslag, Camilla. Jeg har ikke læst nogle af bøgerne, så som udgangspunkt er jeg frisk på dem alle. For at være lidt konstruktiv har jeg alligevel prioriteret dem:

1. Agnes Grey
2. Leoparden
3. Alkymisten
4. Fruen til Wildfell Hall
5. Iagttagelserne

Jeg har i øvrigt lagt hele listen inkl. links ind under Læseforslag, så har vi dem til en anden gang.

Så er siden opdateret med ny dato og bog – og ikke mindst nyt tema! Jeg har lånt bogen, men jeg har indtil videre haft lidt svært med at komme i gang med den.

Har vi aftalt noget at læse til næste gang vi skal mødes? Og hvornår skal vi mødes igen?

Jeg er p.t. i gang med Blekingegadebanden 2 – de kan klart anbefales!  De er letlæselige, spændende og man er fanget fra starten.

Er der nogen?

Hvornår skal vi mødes igen? Jeg har læst Volvo lastvagnar og er lidt i gang med naiv.super….

Knus Eva

Tak for sidst – det var jo som sædvanligt rigtig, rigtig hyggeligt.

Vi skal have fundet en dato og et tidspunkt for næste gang. Hvad siger I til fredag den 3. august, kl. 19?

Jeg har i øvrigt lavet et link under “Allerede læst” til Khader.dk og Ære & Skam, samt Terningemanden, men de kunne godt bruge lidt mere tekst, hvis en af jer er det kreative hjørne….

Tak for en superhyggelig eftermiddag. Jeg er glad for, at jeg ikke er ene om at synes, at Staten var dræbende læsning. Lad os håbe at Undtagelsen bliver lidt bedre læsning for os alle.

Puha, hvor må jeg dog kæmpe for at for at holde mig vågen. Jeg er næsten kommet i gennem “Første bog”, og jeg ved ærlig talt ikke, hvor godt jeg har forstået debatten om retfærdighed. Nå, men jeg glæder mig til at høre, hvor langt I andre når!