Well it was always destined to be an interesting evening having The Bee Sting and Lincoln in the Bardo to discuss.
First up was The Bee Sting, Paul Murray's depiction of the highly dysfunctional and hapless Barnes family who live in a small claustrophobic Irish town .The lives of the four family members are told through their dedicated chapters which over time build to a catastrophic conclusion. At 656 pages long this is a read requiring a degree of commitment and opinions were divided. Some of the group found the dedicated character chapters off putting especially if they didn't feel empathy with that family member. Others believed this story telling device was extremely effective as a means of learning the background to why this family is as it is. Scores therefore varied from 5 to 9 but overall it scored a strong 8.5
Lincoln in the Bardo the 2017 Booker Prize winner by George Saunders was not well received. Described as an experimental novel it was felt to be just a little too much so as to be described as enjoyable. Telling the story of Lincoln's grief through the voices of three main ghosts and a whole host of others was undeniably 'clever' and at times displayed a degree of humour albeit very dark. However everyone agreed it was odd, at times difficult to follow and quite disturbing. It may have won a Booker Prize but the Jambusters scored it a lowly 3.
Next month we will be discussing the merits of The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd Robinson and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. We meet on Tuesday 11th March at our usual venue The Solent Hotel at 7.30pm.
Have a great month of reading everyone 📚😁📚😁
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