fugitive pieces

                                     

We met for Book Club last night and discussed Fugitive Pieces. Some of us hated it, some of us loved it (me) but all of us agreed that there was so much to say, and so much heaviness we harbored after reading it. Almost inexpressibly, you finished reading and felt a sag in your heart, because it was poetically so much.

We discussed the women in the story. Do such women exist? And if so, does such a man exist that counts his wife or lover as his savior? I suggested that we piece together the things in life that mean something, which makes up this story. We have everyday things like brushing our teeth and taking out the trash and falling asleep and we don't write about these things because they don't matter. The women then - may have been personified as a savior because the narrator chose the pieces that mattered to him, making her that. I confessed that I wished that a man would write about me with that same passion. When I asked Kevin if he would ever write about me, he shrugged and said, "Maybe in my journal." That is not what I meant. :)

We discussed the poetry. Did it work? Ingrid mentioned stars like peppermints and how it was so unrealistic. Too much. "Purple Prose" she called it - the entire work was "Purple Prose." It's nice to have someone as smart as she is around.

We discussed the themes - so many. Death, Permanence, Geology, Love, Fear, Humanity. How the Holocaust can seem like a theme that is discussed so heavily in literature. We all agreed that learning about the Holocaust from a secondary point of view was refreshing.

Brittany mentioned the fact that the author was a poet. You can tell when you read it. It is so much poetry! I would recommend reading it in pieces, like I suggest here to really understand and relate to it.

And finally, some of our favorite parts (that I remember)

Emma: “Love makes you see a place differently, just as you hold differently an object that belongs to someone you love. If you know one landscape well, you will look at all other landscapes differently. And if you learn to love one place, sometimes you can also learn to love another.” 

Hillary: “I see that I must give what I most need.” 

Mine: "a dissonance — like grief, whose pain is love"

Ingrid's: ''She imagines the stars as peppermints and holds them in her mouth until they dissolve" (Just kidding :)

Our next book is Gabriel García Márquez's Memories of my Melancholy Whores.

Thanks for those of you who came. I love you girls.