Bread and Wine - Shauna Niequist

Any book that begins with the invitation to ‘read the book in the bath, and then take it to the kitchen to spill wine and oil on it as you cook’ is a book that ingratiates itself to me before I open the cover.  The principle of the book is hear about how an open kitchen and welcoming house can build, shape and create community.  It is a book to be used and returned to time and time again; as life shifts and lives meet together.

 

It is a book that explores themes of hospitality, hope, disappointment, miscarriage, faith, sacrament and food.  Part memoir, part recipe book, it is a strange book to categorise.  Each chapter has a journalistic style – short and sharp.  It is reminiscent of Giles Coren’s book ‘How to eat well’ but with less swearing and a little more humility.  Rather like a meal, Niequist enables people to savour each chapter; each insight into her experience – or to hurriedly move on to the next mouthful before the requirements of life interrupt once again.

 

Individual meals make Niequist’s reflections about life.  Food becomes her anchor to explore events and emotions in stark vulnerability and clarity.  She shares about the friends bought a casserole as she came home from a hospital appointment feeling empty and hollow.  The leaving banquet as she moved to a different city.  The baby shower where friends all bought their favourite dish to share.  And those serendipitous moments where good friends show up, uninvited, and make themselves at home by washing up, setting the table, and boiling the kettle.  

 

Niequist is an advocate of the principle that hospitality begins with being comfortable with chaos.  It is the invitation to join in with life that may not be fully hovered, dusted, or clean.  But amidst the physical chaos comes the invitation to share the stories of life.  The laughter and pain that happens in the security and safety of friendship and family.

 

As she goes, Niequist provides (gluten free) recipes along with the sections in the book, which culminate in a final section of menu plans for book clubs.  So there’s her final invitation.  Pull up a chair (or box or blanket); bring a dish – the recipes are included – and share our insights about ‘Bread and Wine.’  As you do, listen carefully – for therein you may indeed catch a glimpse of grace.

 

 

Questions for your book club:

 

‘I can’t imagine life without a table between us.’

                Who would you most like to eat with and why?

               

Niequist talks about the power of the dining table  What is the most important piece of furniture in your house?  What makes it significant?

 

Which room of your house helps you best connect to God?

 

Niequist recites numerous tales of chaotic meals shared with friends at the most humbling and crucial times in life.

                How does her willingness to embrace the chaotic side of hospitality make you feel?

                What is the one thing in your house that you would hide before letting someone in?

                Have you ever offered or received hospitality at a significant moment in your life?  What happened?

                When have you been offered bad hospitality?

 

Niequist reflects on the sacramentality of sharing food around a meal table. 

Why is sharing bread and wine significant to you?

                Is she right that every meal shared is a sacramental act?

                What makes hospitality holy?

 

What is the best meal you have ever shared?  What made it special?

 

This book is filled with recipes and invitations to share culinary experimentation.  What is your signature dish or family recipe?

 

Who are you going to invite for dinner this week?

The Colour of Milk

The Colour of Milk

Nell Leyshon

 

In this edition, we turn our attention to Nell Leyshon’s ‘The Colour of Milk’.  This novel has been compared to Alice Walker’s classic ‘The Color Purple’ and Margaret Attwood’s magnum opus ‘Alias Grace’ and  there are certainly similarities between these books both in terms of style and content.  If you are going to read ‘The Colour of Milk’, it is worth noting that, despite its short length, it is filled with are images that are both haunting and traumatic:  this is not a novel for the fainthearted.  One critic has written that it was a book that they ‘read in a couple of hours but the characters remain with me for weeks.’ 

 

The year is eighteen hundred and thirty one.  Mary – the narrator and sole voice in the novel - is fifteen.  She is a hardworking farm girl who is both powerfully self assured and yet naïve about the world.  Mary is sharp tongued, beautifully observant and strong willed, as is demonstrated by her refrain throughout the novel: ‘this is my book and i am writing it by my own hand.’  Mary moves from the harsh reality of an abusive father and an emotionally disengaged mother into the home of the local vicar, where her chief task is to look after the vicar’s wife during a long and protracted illness.

 

At the vicarage she is taught to read and write – which becomes the key sign of her freedom and developing power.  At the point in which she has power, however, the question facing her is how she will use it, and what the consequences of her actions might be.

 

The novel is heavily stylised.  It only uses lower case letters, and the narrative flow seems unsophisticated and childlike.  The novel’s other protagonists are caricatures,  sketched into the narrative by their flaws and failings rather than by their appearance or fortitude. 

 

Leyshon weaves a rural narrative strongly through the novel, with the chapters or sections of the novel reflecting the changing seasons.  The pace of the novel brings with it a sense of foreboding, as the pages quickly turn towards its heartbreaking finale.

 

Although beautifully crafted, the narrative never falls into a perfect idyll, and the final twist in the novel serves as a tragic climax to the story of a girl whose hair is the colour of milk.

 

Questions for discussion:

 

How does the style of the book affect your engagement with the story and the characters?

 

There are a number of tough events and themes in the book.  Which do you find the most shocking, and why?

 

What, in your opinion, is Mary’s main disability?

 

The novel is written from Mary’s perspective.  Who’s voice would you like to hear from next?  Why?  What do you think they might say?

 

What is the biggest tragedy in the novel?

 

What is ‘freedom’ and how it is exercised (or abused) by the characters in the novel?

 

If you were writing your own story, in your own hand, how would your story start?

Life of Pi

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

 

This month’s book club read is ‘Life of Pi’ – another award winner both in print and now on the silver screen too.  This choice means that you can meet as a book club, or as a film club – or indeed both!  It also means that getting hold of the book is relatively easy, because of the interest and momentum caused by Ang Lee’s movie.

 

‘Life of Pi’ tells the story of Piscine Patel (aka ‘Pi’) – a young man who begins his tale in Pondicherry, India – where he lives on the family zoo. There he learns all that he can about animal welfare as well as embracing and, to the bewilderment of those around him, practicing Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. 

 

Despite such a broad upbringing, the family is affected by the political instability of a newly independent India, and sets sail (zoo and all) for Canada.  But tragedy strikes and the boat sinks. All the inhabitants of the ship perish except for Pi, who is left to discover greater mysteries of the sea.  He is cast adrift on a surviving lifeboat with the only other survivor of the tragedy – a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

 

As the hours turn into a 227 day voyage, Pi is faced with all the challenges of survival – battling both the elements and the tiger on board.  Soon Pi becomes surrounded by death, decay and despair.  None of his religious rituals provide him with either the ideas or the solace that he so desperately searches for.  At his lowest ebb, Pi must facethe grueling reality of casting off his own assumptions and identity, confronting his terrors and the greater reality of God.

 

Yann Martel has deservedly won numerous accolades for this astonishing and gripping btome.  This is a mainstream book, not a religious text – and yet it asks the questions of faith and the faithful.  Utterly implausible, and yet somehow charming and captivating, this novel will continue to be an iconic story well beyond the rolling movie credits.

 

As ever, if you have read this book – or indeed if you use it in your own book club, write to us and let us know what you thought of it and which questions most engaged your community.  Email mrbookclub@methodistchurch.org.uk or leave your comments on the blog.  Further resources on the film can be found at www.damaris.org/lifeofpi where you can download clips, as well as check out conversations between secular and faith leaders talking about the issues raised in the film.

 

Questions about the book:

 

·         What is the value of hearing the author’s voice at the start? 

·         Does the story have a happy ending?

·         Which part of the novel do you like the most?

·         How do Pi’s father’s abilities as a parent compare to his skills as a zookeeper?  How might Pi’s experience with the goat affect the rest of his story?

·         In chapter 4, Pi offers a strong case for the benefit and value of zoos.  Do you agree with his argument or not?  Why?

·         In chapters 8 and 56, Pi explores the importance of doubt.  When have you most doubted something and what did you doubt?

·         Are you convinced by Pi’s religious exploration?

·         In chapter 20, Pi says that ‘the presence of God is the finest of rewards.’  Where have you felt the presence of God?

·         Chapter 58 offers a survival kit and advice.  What would you pack in your survival kit, and what advice would you give to another castaway?

·         If you were stuck on a lifeboat, what animal would you most like to be trapped with, and why?

·         What is the significance of Pi’s blindness?

·         How did you feel when Pi reached land at the end of part 2?

·         Why does Pi hoard food from the Japanese inquisitors?

·         The author recognizes that this novel is an allegory.  What do you think the novel is about?  What is reality?

·         There is much storytelling in this ‘religious novel.’  Is there a relationship between storytelling and religion?

·         What literary genre does Life of Pi fit? Is it a tragedy, comedy, romance, or even a reference book?

·         Pi suffers a traumatic event that marks his coming of age.  What moment or event has marked a coming of age for you?

·         What are the key attributes of Pi’s humanity that you would like to see emulated in your own life?

·         Which part of the story would you like to have heard more about?

Pure

Pure
Andrew Miller

This month, we turn our attention to the 2011 Costa book of the year, and the intense drama of ‘Pure.’  On the front cover, the reader is captivated by the pistachio-coloured cloak, worn by the protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Barratte, as he seeks to find his place in the heart of Paris.  This is an historical novel, based around the overflowing Cemetery of les Innocents.  The task is a macabre one; to dig out the heart of the city’s cemetery in order to begin to bring life back into the heart of Paris.

 

 This is pre-Revolutionary France; a place of decadence and poverty.  Our hero meets both the best and the worst of Parisienne society, and crucially for the time, suffers for his art.  An engineer by trade, Baptiste embodies someone struggling to create a new society, whilst the very foundations on which life is built collapse beneath him.

 

Pure has been critically reviewed, with many critics noting its use of language and descriptions.  It is not an easy read, and some readers may well find the closing scene frustrating.  However, it is a beautifully written book with plenty to discuss with others.

 

Questions for discussion:

 

This novel was awarded the 2011 Costa Book of the Year.  To what extent does an award or recommendation affect your decision to read a book?

 

The novel is set in 1785, just before the French Revolution.  How does this context affect the story?

 

Some people have suggested that the Cemetery is a parable for change and revolution.

·         In what ways might this be true?

·         How do the different characters interact with the cemetery (as fact or as metaphor?)

·         How does the writer help the reader engage with the shifting context?

 

What is ‘Pure’ about the novel, if anything?  Why is the title so important for this novel?

 

Jean-Baptiste accepts his commission without flinching.  How does the exhumation of a cemetery make you feel?  Why?  What do you think about Jean-Baptiste’s task?

 

Monsiuer Saint-Meard is the church organist.  What part does he play throughout the novel?

 

As the burden of the destruction of the cemetery bears down on Jean-Baptiste, Lecoeur consoles him with the words that ‘tomorrow will break our hearts.’ 

·         Why does Jean-Baptiste insist that ‘tomorrow will be easier.’

·         Who is right?  Why?

 

Doctor Guillotin is very clinical when it comes to dealing in death.

·         Why are some of the characters revulsed and silent by this?

·         How do you respond to death?

·         Why are we afraid to talk about death?

 

The final act of the book involves the gutting of a church.

·         What did the miners and Jean-Baptiste save?

·         What would you save?  Why?

 

Jean-Baptiste is a character in contradiction.  He walks the line between traditional and modern, rational and religious.

·         How do you respond to this?

·         In what ways is this contradictory nature a barrier understanding the character?

 

There are a number of gritty and macabre scenes in the novel.

·         What do they add to the narrative?

·         What elements of light are there in the book?

·         Which do you respond to positively?  Which are more difficult to reconcile?  Why?

 

In what ways does this novel help you engage with your own choices and mortality?  Why?