Muchas gracias Mrs. Medina for hosting our little group last night! We had some great discussion about a very poignant story. And thank you for our two new members for coming to the meeting and sharing your insights on our reading!
Before I get to summarizing our next reads, I wanted to share some other things:
From a New York Times article, The End of Life As She Knew It October 4, 2005
...Nor could she control her own thoughts. Try as she might to suppress them, memories of her life with Mr. Dunne - of trips they had taken with Quintana to Hawaii, of homes they had lived in Los Angeles and Manhattan, of walks and meals shared - continually bobbed to the surface of her mind, creating a memory "vortex" that pulled her back in time only to remind her of all that she had lost. She began trying to avoid places she might associate with her husband or daughter.
The magical thinking of denial became Ms. Didion's companion. She found herself "thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome." She authorized an autopsy of her husband, reasoning that an autopsy could show what had gone wrong, and if it were something simple - a change in medication, say, or the resetting of a pacemaker - "they might still be able to fix it...
The article basically talks about all the points that we reviewed and I thought it was interesting that her "magical thinking" was described "of denial," which is exactly what it was.
From Wikipedia
The title of the book refers to magical thinking in the anthropological sense, thinking that if a person hopes for something enough or performs the right actions that an unavoidable event can be averted. Didion reports many instances of her own magical thinking, particularly the story in which she cannot give away Dunne's shoes, as he would need them when he returned.[3] The experience of insanity or derangement that is part of grief is a major theme, about which Didion was unable to find a great deal of existing literature.
Also, Quintana passed away from pancreatitis in August of 2005.
Our next meeting will be on Wednesday January 6th at 7pm at Tina's house. We will be reading your choice (or both) of:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
From Bookmarks MagazineIt’s difficult to tell if critics’ reactions to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies should be characterized as praise or astonishment. Some reviewers treated the book as a delightful gimmick. Others found that, beneath the surface, the book actually constituted an interesting way of looking at Austen’s novel. Zombies answer certain puzzling questions: Why were those troops stationed near Hertfordshire? Why did Charlotte Lucas actually marry Mr. Collins? (She had recently been bitten by zombies and wanted a husband who could be counted on to behead her—of course!) But critics also pointed out that this parody shows that Austen’s novel has remained so powerful over time that even the undead can’t spoil it. Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
From Publishers Weekly 
Starred Review. Thirteen linked tales from Strout (Abide with Me, etc.) present a heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection. The opening Pharmacy focuses on terse, dry junior high-school teacher Olive Kitteridge and her gregarious pharmacist husband, Henry, both of whom have survived the loss of a psychologically damaged parent, and both of whom suffer painful attractions to co-workers. Their son, Christopher, takes center stage in A Little Burst, which describes his wedding in humorous, somewhat disturbing detail, and in Security, where Olive, in her 70s, visits Christopher and his family in New York. Strout's fiction showcases her ability to reveal through familiar details—the mother-of-the-groom's wedding dress, a grandmother's disapproving observations of how her grandchildren are raised—the seeds of tragedy. Themes of suicide, depression, bad communication, aging and love, run through these stories, none more vivid or touching than Incoming Tide, where Olive chats with former student Kevin Coulson as they watch waitress Patty Howe by the seashore, all three struggling with their own misgivings about life. Like this story, the collection is easy to read and impossible to forget. Its literary craft and emotional power will surprise readers unfamiliar with Strout. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Starred Review. Thirteen linked tales from Strout (Abide with Me, etc.) present a heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection. The opening Pharmacy focuses on terse, dry junior high-school teacher Olive Kitteridge and her gregarious pharmacist husband, Henry, both of whom have survived the loss of a psychologically damaged parent, and both of whom suffer painful attractions to co-workers. Their son, Christopher, takes center stage in A Little Burst, which describes his wedding in humorous, somewhat disturbing detail, and in Security, where Olive, in her 70s, visits Christopher and his family in New York. Strout's fiction showcases her ability to reveal through familiar details—the mother-of-the-groom's wedding dress, a grandmother's disapproving observations of how her grandchildren are raised—the seeds of tragedy. Themes of suicide, depression, bad communication, aging and love, run through these stories, none more vivid or touching than Incoming Tide, where Olive chats with former student Kevin Coulson as they watch waitress Patty Howe by the seashore, all three struggling with their own misgivings about life. Like this story, the collection is easy to read and impossible to forget. Its literary craft and emotional power will surprise readers unfamiliar with Strout. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
One last thing, here's a picture of me reading the book club book in the ship's library. I'm so dedicated...
Keep an eye out for R&EL Extracurricular Events.
Karina
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