Lloyd Jones was born in 1955 in Lower Hutt,
New Zealand, a place which has become a frequent setting and subject for his
subsequent works of fiction. He studied at
Victoria University, and has worked as a journalist and consultant as well as a
writer. The novels we have chosen to read are Choo Woo (1998), Mr Pip
(2007), A History of Silence. A Memoir (2013) and Hand Me Down World (2010)
Mr
Pip won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker.
Choo Woo
BEV: Worst book she’s ever read. Felt ill
reading it. It was about the sexual molestation of a teenage girl, the mother
knows but does nothing.
JULIA: Only read up to pg 41, couldn’t finish
it. Written from the
perspective of the father of a 12 year old who has been abused by her de-facto stepfather.
CLARIS: There was no character development to
support the storyline.
Choo
woo is their ‘baby talk’ when the stepfather violates the 12 year old girl.
Felt
unnerved by the book, being led into voyeurism by the author, the voyeur.
Mr Pip
On
a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled
with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind; the
eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the
ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles
Dickens’s classic Great Expectations.
CLARIS:
Wishes she had read Great Expectations before
picking up this book.
Although the ending is not woven that well into the
book, thought the writing was an improvement on Cho Woo.
DENISE:
Moral of the story was ‘honesty’. You see all the
lies that are told and the problems they create. People are being dishonest
about what they want their lives to be.
Had some resistance to reading it, but once started,
actually liked it.
PAMELA:
An excellent book and the ending is very good.
Themes include the power of the narrative and the
resilience of the human spirit.
On the negative side, identification can be
dangerous.
SHEILA:
Had a personal interest knowing one of the Bouganvillian
rebels who negotiated with Australia. Thought the author took the basis of the
book from newspapers etc. Didn’t think he had done much research.
Beautiful book. Mr Pip is a natural teacher, taught
the children how to think. They were uneducated, only knowing village life.
JOAN:
Set in
a village on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville during a brutal civil
war there in the 1990s. Huge copper mine has been opened changing forever the
idyllic life of the islanders.
Thought
the simplicity of description of the atrocities needed further explanation.
DIANN:
Liked
it and highly recommends it.
When
the war began, the children needed a diversion. Mr Watts took them to the age
of “Great Expectations”, a time of stability and different from island life.
WENDY 2:
Not
enamored with it so didn’t finish it. No depth of characters.
JUDY 4:
Lyrical,
beautifully written. There was brutality, simply written, but it hit you when
it came. Made you want to find out more about the area and the conflict of that
time.
WENDY 1:
Simple
language contrasts with the turmoil of life. No much growth in the characters
but fairly well explored.
Enjoyed
it but can see how it strikes people differently.
A History
of Silence
JOAN:
Laboured
to get into his family history. Thought short story writing would be better for
him.
PAT:
Hard
to get into. Writing was boring, his background was boring. Only interested by
one chapter, the story of his mother and grandmother.
JUDY 3:
Loved
it, word pictures were beautiful. You could feel the emotions and see the
scenes especially after the devastation of Christchurch. As the city rebuilds
he sees the need to trace his own roots.
Story
was scratchy in parts, but so was Christchurch.
JO:
Confusing,
but a good read. Interesting reading about Christchurch earthquake.
CONNIE:
His
description of the earthquake and how it affected him gave a great insight into
what it was like then. So he looks for his own family.
Felt
sorry for him – had no joy in his life or family. Felt he didn’t give enough
detail about family members and seemed to give up too easily while researching.
DIANNE:
Author
needed to chase up his own family, hence the title.
Depressing,
he knows more about the history of their dogs than the people in the family.
Found
it annoying that he flips around from one person to another.
Hand Me
Down World
A woman washes ashore in Sicily. She has come from North Africa to find
her son, taken from her when he was just days old by his father and stolen away
to Berlin. With nothing but her maid's uniform and a knife stashed in a plastic
bag, she relies on strangers to guide her passage north. These strangers tell
of their encounters with a quiet, mysterious woman in a blue coat each account
a different view of the truth. But her sacrifices won’t be fully understood
until she retells her own story as the conclusion to the novel.
BEV:
Easy
to read with an interesting approach to the story. Each of the narrators has
their own chapter as they tell of their experience with Ines. The ending is
told in an unusual way in the last chapter.
PAULINE:
Enjoyed
it. Different people tell different parts of the story. Her chapters tell the
complete story, connecting up these earlier ones. Some narratives were
unreliable.
The
writing was sparse and simple, but there was a lot of power to this story.
ROSEMARY:
Book
of 2 halves, 2 versions of the same story.
Applicable
today with the refugee situation around the world.
It’s
a mother’s tale of determination. The ending was not necessarily a happy one.
TAM:
Having
read it twice, gained so much more about each character. Same stories but told
from different perspectives. The author uses his characters to express social
issues.
LINDA:
Hard
to get to know the main protagonist, Ines.
Shows
the length a mother would go to find her child.
Interesting
book, hard to say if enjoyed it or not.
JUDY 1:
Enjoyed
the book. Like a collection of short stories featuring many different
characters. Quote from a recommendation for the book- “….how the
disenfranchised accept the world as it is handed to them, on the weakness of
men, on the deeply moving kindness of strangers, and on the power of maternal
love”
Paint Your
Wife (2004)
PRUE:
Seems
different from his other books. Set in country NZ, the men have gone to war,
and the paint factory has closed. One man who did not go to war, goes around
sketching and painting the wives left behind. When the husbands return, there
is trouble.
Not
much depth of characters, no social issues, just a rollicking good yarn.
VAL:
Recommended
a new book tipped to be ‘best fiction book published this year’.
Adrian
McKinty is an Irish author who now lives in Australia. His latest in the Sean
Duffy series is called Police at the Station and They
Don’t Look Friendly. Looking forward to reading it!
Join us for upcoming Third
Thursday Book Club discussions.
MARCH ~ Peter Goldsworthy
APRIL ~ Margaret Attwood
MAY ~ Mothers - your own selection
JUNE ~ Classic Australian books
JULY ~ Jane Austen (not Emma)
