Never Let Me Go -- now in cinemas

The 2006 Book Club selection, Kauzo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go has been made into a film that will be released today, Sep 15th.

Salon.com says the film "captures the slightly seedy and rundown reality of '70s and '80s British life in astonishing and even tragic detail; this is more like a period piece than a science-fiction movie. In fact, it resembles a Merchant-Ivory tragedy about doomed love in a war zone, except that the doomed love involves human guinea pigs and the war zone is not some tropic zone but the alleged good intentions of medical science."

NPR says of Ishiguro: "Born in Japan and raised in Britain, Ishiguro is fascinated by how people adapt to life in repressive societies. (It's no coincidence that three of his six novels turn on World War II.) Whether home is Never Let Me Go's ominous boarding school or the country estate of a British fascist (as in The Remains of the Day), the novelist's characters do what is expected of them. In the novel, Kathy's final statement is that she drove off "to wherever it was I was supposed to be.""

The film version of Never Let Me Go stars Keira Knightley, who must have an affinity for the Book Club selections. She also starred in the film adaptation of Atonement.

Summer Reading

The Alexandria Campus Book Club will discuss Chris Cleave's Little Bee for its first selection in Fall 2010.




*Starred Review* Little Bee, smart and stoic, knows two people in England, Andrew and Sarah, journalists she chanced upon on a Nigerian beach after fleeing a massacre in her village, one grisly outbreak in an off-the-radar oil war. After sneaking into England and escaping a rural “immigration removal” center, she arrives at Andrew and Sarah’s London suburb home only to find that the violence that haunts her has also poisoned them. In an unnerving blend of dread, wit, and beauty, Cleave slowly and arrestingly excavates the full extent of the horror that binds Little Bee and Sarah together. A columnist for the Guardian, Cleave earned fame and notoriety when his first book, Incendiary, a tale about a terrorist attack on London, was published on the very day London was bombed in July 2005. His second ensnaring, eviscerating novel charms the reader with ravishing descriptions, sly humor, and the poignant improvisations of Sarah’s Batman-costumed young son, then launches devastating attacks in the form of Little Bee’s elegantly phrased insights into the massive failure of compassion in the world of refugees. Cleave is a nerves-of-steel storyteller of stealthy power, and this is a novel as resplendent and menacing as life itself. --Booklist

The Book Club will meet off-campus in September to discuss Little Bee.

Stealing Horses

The Alexandria Campus Book club met on Friday 26 Feb to discuss Per Petersen's novel Out Stealing Horses.

Is the narrator a sympathetic character or someone hard to connect with? Does the novel have an inconclusive ending or is its ending, like life, simply an end and not a conclusion? Was the attention to detail tedious and repetitive or an engrossing slice of life? Has anyone ever read a Scandinavian novel that wasn't bleak?

These and other questions exercised 8 Alexandria faculty members who engaged with Sullivan's story of isolation, alientation and loss.

The next book club selection will be John Patrick Shanley's play Doubt. Copies available in the Library.

Reading The Reader

The Alexandria Campus Book Club met on campus for the first time on Thursday 19 November to discuss Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. Discussion focused on Hannah's decision to go to jail rather than admit her inability to read, and a more general discussion on shame in western culture -- especially in matters of educational accomplishment.

Although several book club members also saw the film, no one took a bath at the meeting.

Book Club Date Change!

The Book Club will meet again on campus on Thursday Nov 19th in room 158 at 2pm.

This is a change from an earlier date which conflicted with an author talk on campus the previous week.

This month's selection is Bernhard Schlink's The Reader (also a motion picture with Kate Winslett). Copies of the book are still available in the Library, and a copy of the film is also on Reserve. You are encouraged to come if you have read the book, or seen the film or both!

It's the Romance and Suspense, stupid!

A multi-disciplinary group of Alexandria Campus faculty* met on Fri 25 September to consider the Teen/ Young Adult phenomenon Twilight. We concluded the combination of romance, suspense, and short sentences plus vampires account for the popularity of an otherwise somewhat unintersting book. And some of us liked the film better.

From Vampires to Nazis...

The Book Club next takes up Bernhard Schlink's The Reader (also a major motion picture!). The Book Club's next meeting will be at 2pm on campus on Thursday 12 November.

* we're not all English profs! Teaching disciplines represented included history, mathematics, biology, economics, physical education, and political science. Plus librarians.

Twilight is a like a vampire...

...it sucks.

So why is the Book Club reading this trashy teen novel? Because teen-agers (and college-aged young adults, and a good many normal adults) are also reading it. What is the appeal of this abstinence-parable (or rape fantasy depending on where you're standing) and why has it sold over 20 million copies? And how did it become a blockbuster movie -- of which which even Peter Travers of Rolling Stone says "The love story has teeth."

(even if some of us thought less love story and more bad vamps would be an improvement):





Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com went on to pronounce "If you care about pop culture at all, you owe it to yourself to see Twilight." The Alexandria Campus Book Club, dutifully caring about pop-culture, will discuss Twilight on Friday 25 September. Contact Sylvia Rortvedt for more info.