The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

The Lacuna over Lasagna.

For November, the BBC presented The Lacuna for visual digestion on the recommendation of Andy, filled with promise after reading Barbara Kingsolvers previous offering, The Poisonwood Bible. Even an endorsement by Oprah did not dissuade him. So over Tempranillo the group met to discuss The Lacuna and its gaps.

Set in Mexico, the Lacuna follows the fate of Harrison William Shepherd from 1929 to 1951. We first meet him when he is 12 years old, living at a hacienda on Isla Pixol with his self dramatising mother , Salome, who had ditched her American husband and followed her heart and dreams back to Mexico to live with an oilman who turned out to be not quite the romantic romeo she had hoped for. Both are petrified of the howlings from perceived carnivorous demons, which they later learn to be monkeys in the trees above: “You had better write this all in your notebook”, Salome laments to Shepherd, “so when nothing is left of us but bones, someone will know where we went”.

From these roots, Shepherd’s documentary dictations capture his experiences at the incendiary revolutionary household of Diego Rivera , Frida Kahlo and later Leon Trotsky. Upon Trotsy’s assassination, he leaves Mexico for the United States, spooked by the virulent press denouncing his employers and their murdered ward “like the howlers on Isla Pixol”. There, he becomes the reclusive author of swashbuckling Mexican historical novels, until McCarthyism drags him unwillingly into the spotlight...

The tapestry of The Lacuna created many word pictures for the BBC and at times we loved its threads. Denis and Andy’s duelling analogies and anecdotes rivalled the velocity of Wild Bill Hickok, but both agreed there was a lack of narrative, and that, for the Lacuna, the 22 year journey of vignettes was the destination of the book. Leanne loved Kingsolver’s craft, the recurrent motif of the howlers which drew you back, but warned us to mind the gaps! Kevin found the lack of narrative difficult to burrow and settle into the book. Mark suggested that lovers of The Lacuna would read for the texture but not the plot. And Alena, monobrowed, dreamt of what might have been.

Collectively, the BBC conceded that we liked but not loved The Lacuna and found it difficult to recommend.

Scores:

Andy: 7 ½ -as it was hard work and the plot was too diffuse

Leanne: 8 -who would take sips but not gulp when imbibing the novel

Denis: 7 ½- overall (9 for the immediacy, 6 ½ for the narrative or lack thereof)

Kevin: 6-found the mastery of the immediate unsettling and longed for narrative

Mark and Alena: abstained

Overall score 7 ¼

The BBC’s Happy Hanukkah will be held on the 15th of December where the subject of dissection (Kosher style) will by Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. Muzzletoff!

Post by Alena, image by Kevin

Bowling Pin Fire, a collection of poetry by Andy Quan

Everything is not illuminated...

Between delicious courses of Pork curry (with pineapple) and Mark’s Carmen Miranda birthday flan, the BBC dissected Bowling Pin Fire by Andy Quan. Nathalie, dissecting Belgian chocolates in Melbourne provided a definition of poetry in these extravagant times:

“A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme.”

Bowling Pin Fire (BPF) was devoid of meter and rhyme. Metaphor predominated with a pretext of recounting firsts: the first listening to a Joni Mitchell song, the first dance, the first loss of a friend leading to a view through a lens of youth experiences of sexuality and substances and ultimately reaching a midlife equilibrium filled with dynamics of family, travel and relationships.

The BBC agreed that BPF burned well - it was a well written book of “reflexions” and served a number of purposes:

• A good accompaniment to an evening dose of Pernod (Mary)
• A cure for insomnia (Nathalie)
• A method to clear the throat but not launch into song (Andy)
• A route of escape from perennially late tradesmen (Mark)
• A reminder that the most memorable poetry we can recite in our busy lives seems to be come from scenes of good Richard Curtis films (Leanne)
• Or mediocre films featuring Robin Williams (Alena)
• Provided an accessible vessel for poetry, a good excuse to use an iPAD and gave an insight into a fellow ‘Bee' (Kevin).

But alas, BPF didn’t rhyme and maybe didn’t manage to say everything that the author intended, for the BBC anyway. Was there incongruence between the book’s cover and its contents? And between its three parts? Quite possibly. Regardless, it was good to explore the path of poetry, less travelled in a club for prose.

Scores were:

Kevin 7
Dennis 6
Andrew 5.5
Alena 6
Mark 6
Leannie 6

Average 6

Here are Denis’s thoughts (what’s “less than enthralling code for Dennis!):

Firstly I am more interested in prose than poetry, so confess the prospect of a book of poetry was less than enthralling. I did rather struggle with the early part of the book, and like others thought that his poetic style of line spaced continuous sentences might better be served writing beautiful fiction rather than actual poetry. Yes he can write the stuff, but I actually thought while I was reading that I wished we were delving into his prose works instead. He provides some lovely insights but I enjoyed the very last segment/chapter of the collection a great deal more than the first few.

I warmed up from the Aeroplane Long haul/Short Haul ones onward. Probably because the observations became more prosaic – in a good way- and more accessible to me. Some of the snapshots he provides in poems are exquisite but I wanted to flesh that out into a whole character or situation. That may just be my personal style prejudice, but I would be intrigued to know if he has the skill to expand the observations, or if these snapshots are as far as his skill permits him to go.

6 out of 10. Not bad, just of no great interest to me - nor indeed the material I wish to spend my time reading. Give me a novel next time please Mr Quan.

The next book will be The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, selected by Andy, who’s already sweating over what to cook.