Double feature September and October
The September meeting didn’t take place due to flooding at the Library so 9 of us discussed both books at the October meeting.
We started with Saville by David Storey a Booker prize winning book about Colin, the son of a coal miner. His parents want him to win a grammar school scholarship so he can get an education and a better job that doesn’t involve being a miner.
Our views were somewhat mixed. The book has autobiographical elements to it but is overly long and nothing much really happens. This said we felt evoked the isolation of communities based around a single industry well. His writing contains some beautiful phrases and passages, one member was even reminded of a passage from Anna Karenina!
While the book is written from Colin’s point of view he doesn’t seem to have much character, seems to get rather lost in the middle of the book and we couldn’t picture him. He seems caught between the mining world his parents want him to escape and the middle classes he mixes with at school, not quite fitting into either. His journey reminded some of us of aspects of our own lives.
Overall we felt it was believable and that the author understood the life he portrays and how education is key. However, the book is too long and needed a good editor. We gave the book a marking of 6/10.
We then moved onto the second book Kim Jiyoung by Cho Nam-Joo. Again the author draws on her own experience as a woman in 1990’s South Korea. The book is short and the story tells of the pressures of tradition and modern life impact women. While the book is intended for a Korean audience we felt that it was representative of how women are treated around the world. The way it includes footnotes linking to supporting data makes it more a sociological commentary than a novel.
The final chapter is particularly interesting in terms of how her husband, an educated man, treats her. His world is one where boys are valued over girls and men are promoted over women and paid more because they’re male. Her story reminded some members of a past when women had to give up working if their husbands were bank clerks or teachers and where female teachers had to give up their jobs if they married.
The book has sold more than a million copies and has had a huge impact in Korea. We gave it a marking of 5/10.