Re-reading Novels

The last blog of 2014, this is the 48th blog for the year.  Weeks when I was traveling either for family or book events or just plain fun I didn’t write a blog.  Everybody, especially me, needs a break from time to time.  Forty-eight blogs in a year is respectable, I think.

In 2015 I have agreed to be the discussion leader for two book clubs.  One book club is in a local assisted living facility.  The book club is the direct result of a community reading program sponsored by our local library to have the entire community read the book Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman.  The readers at the assisted living facility didn’t want to read just one book and asked me to continue leading a monthly discussion.  Who could resist a request like that?  The only condition the group had was that they wanted small books, 200 pages or less.  Our local library staff researched the availability of books with 200 pages or less and gave me a two page list.  Library staff scours other libraries to order the number of copies needed for our group and I deliver them each month. 

Our library has several book clubs that meet there monthly including the evening book club, the mystery book club, the romance book club and the afternoon book club.  The discussion leader of the afternoon book club is moving out of state and the group was in need of a leader.  They invited me to attend one month to lead a discussion and give me a try.  We talked about plot, writing style, characterization and author intent.  It was a different approach for them and they liked my approach, they took me on as their leader.

I also participate in the Tuesday Morning Book Talk group lead by Dr. Emily Auerbach.  Being a member of three book clubs means I get to read three books a month and inevitably, some of them are repeats.

This month I’m re-reading Plainsong by Kent Haruf, who died recently.   I distinctly remember my first reading when I had to work to become accustomed to his style of not using quotation marks for dialogue.  At my first reading I was also amazed at how he wove the stories together at the end of the book.

For my second reading more things are being revealed.  First, I realized it is a literary work, not commercial fiction at all even though it had enormous commercial success and received several awards.  I also now feel that the beginning chapters when the characters are introduced to us with their own chapters are bleak and dark.  Gutherie is a high school history teacher with two sons and a wife suffering depression who moves out of the house.  Victoria Roubideaux is a pregnant teen whose mother kicks her out of the house and ends up living with two bachelor cattle ranchers, the McPherons.  While the story is unlikely Haruf makes in believable and credible.

I know there’s the adage that there are too many books and not enough time to read the one’s we’re interested in.  However, I am also learning there are some books, some authors in particular, that deserve a second maybe even third reading.  Wallace Stegner is another author in that category for me.