The Covington Book Group

During 2002 the village had put a great deal of effort into renovating, extending and decorating our small village hall. The motivation to form the book group, apart from bringing together those in the village interested in books, was to find ways of using the village hall on a regular basis to help fund its upkeep.

The Covington Book Group held its inaugural meeting in March 2003, in the home of one of our members.  A small nucleus attended this meeting where we discussed such matters as charging a subscription for the rental of the hall, what types of books we would like to read and the use of Cambridgeshire Library Service to supply us with reading material. Of course, we also brought along books we had enjoyed to share with the group.

From then onwards we have met in our village hall on the first Monday of every month with a summer break each August. Our membership has been as high as 12 and attendance averages about 9 per meeting. You will see from our photo that we have an attractive open fire of which we make good use during the winter months. We take it in turns to supply light snacks and drink wine or juice sold by the glass with profits going into our fund. Since we budgeted the subscription to fund letting fees at a membership of 10, we are gradually accumulating a small fund, most of which we will probably spend on a special gift for the village hall as well as an event or excursion for the group.

We regularly invite villagers to join the club emphasising that it is not necessary to be an avid or experienced reader to become a member.  In fact, we have a few self-confessed non-readers in the group who just enjoy the social interaction of the group! 

The library service provides us with enough copies of each of two books to take away to read from every meeting.  We have opted for two titles each time to make it easier for the library to supply sufficient copies and to cater for differing reading tastes within the group.  Also, we tend to avoid choosing the ‘latest’ book award winners since they are in heavy demand from the library.

Well, what have we been reading and what has most caught our fancy? 

The Siege by Helen Dunmore
Blue Poppies by Jonathan Falla
Cold Mountain by Charles Frasier
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Absolute Friends by John le Carré
Homestead by Rosina Lippi
The Life of Pi by Yann Martell
Dancer by Colin McCann
The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie McDonald
Temples of Delight by Barbara Trapido
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
The Colour by Rose Tremain
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Miss Garnet’s Angel by Salley Vickers
Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

Particular favourites have been The Siege, Blue Poppies, Cold Mountain, Poisonwood Bible and Music and Silence. Due to the urging of one of our members we have also turned to Charles Dickens and have so far read Nicholas Nickleby and A Tale of Two Cities.

One benefit of have two titles on offer has been that we find at a meeting where there is a unanimously positive review of a book, those who have not read it ask to borrow and read for the next meeting. Thank goodness the library service is so generous in renewing books!

Our meetings are very informal and relaxing. Many good discussions on books and related matters ensue. We regularly review what books we might request from the library. Recently we had a number of proposed books on display and members were given browsing time and the opportunity to rank the books for selection. We also make good use of the publication Fiction Matters from the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in which books have been nominated by libraries across the world.

We took some time arriving at the discussion of White Teeth by Zadie Smith. The books were delivered just before Christmas last year and weren’t distributed to the group until February.  Eventually we got to the discussion, excerpts of which now follow.

L: There’s so many lovely images in it….. I think right at the beginning it grabs you, with the attempted suicide, doesn’t it? But the absurdity of the chap who runs the …it’s Mo, is it Mo?  Who is trying to kill the pigeons.  That is just so funny, isn’t it? Right at the beginning it says things like.  I liked her use of language since she says things like “resting his huge belly on the window sill, leaning out and swinging a meat” 

Laughter

P: He mashes up and slaughters six pigeons at a time.

Laughter

L:  And then there’s the work experience student who’s horribly fat and inept at what he’s doing.. “a massively overweight Hindu boy….. looking up like a big dejected blob, underneath… It was …’s job to struggle up a ladder and put spliced bits of pigeon into a small Kwik Save carrier bag, tie the bag up and dispose it in the bins at the other end of the street.

Laughter

S: Like the fact it’s Kwik Save

L: It just hits the nail on the head, the type of area.  Not a Waitrose bag but a Kwik Save bag.  But it all adds to doesn’t it, those little details that I think make it… the detail makes it absurd.

    ********

Then we had some discussion about characters and how they reflect society.

P: in the pub the person behind the counter is more important that any of the customers.

Laughter    

P: He rules them with a rod of iron. 

L: I did think…now, what nationality was he?

P: Pakistani, Bangladeshi….That’s right….An Irish pool bar….

L: They had various things on the wall besides.  What was that….?

P: They had bandits and portraits..

L: Ikbar’s great great grandma.  But they also had other things, didn’t they, which made it all very incongruous.  I did wonder if that was a bit overdone.  The fact that he’d got two mates, hadn’t he, as well, the owner?

L: Then you have the two West Indian guys, Denzil and someone.

P: They were like a double act, weren’t they?

S: I thought all the characters were very shrewdly observed but very kindly written.

P: They were caricatures.

S: You could see all those people in London.  You could go to any bit of London and see all those people or characterisations.  But I thought they were all very, gently written.  They weren’t partially written at all.

L: I don’t know whether I entirely agree…What about this one bit here, Mr Hamilton, the old pensioner that the children….

S: He’s awful...but he’s typical, isn’t he?

P: He tried to frighten them and he did, very well.  All about the war and murdering people.

L: Talked about people’s guts on his shoes.  I don’t know whether he’s doing it on purpose.  He seems completely oblivious to his own racist attitudes.

L: So in a way, I think she points up very well, lots of issues in society.  It’s not just funny. 

S: It’s not racist.  There’s no one there who casts the first stone.

L:  There were lots of wrong attitudes, for want of a better word.

       *********************
This was followed by some debate on some misperceptions.

H: But the whole book really was about all the immigrants respecting one’s image … and all the immigrants,  the Chalfonts are sort of secondary (third generation)….and the sad part is, that no matter what their preconceptions are, when he sends his son off to India, to be “Indianised”, he comes back not at all as he expected…

Laughter

L: You almost said it.  It could be called False Pretences, couldn’t it, ‘cause everyone’s on false pretences….

H: I thought it was called East Enders Goes

Laughter

H: Or Silver Street

S: It’s all about human weaknesses, as well, though.

P: For a 21 year old, it’s extraordinarily good.

L: Everyone’s misunderstanding everything, aren’t they?… It has a farcical..

S: It’s very funny, I have actually laughed out loud on the train.

       ***********

And finally to some talk about the title and cover.

S: I do think they could have chosen a better cover for it.  The cover doesn’t sell it at all.

M: Is it an apt title?

S: Yes, white teeth come in all over the place.

P: In the middle of the night.  Wanders in at one o’clock and was arguing with her mother and suddenly bites her on the toe.  And her mother’s false teeth 

 Laughter

P: She didn’t know her mother had false teeth! And finds it attached to her left foot.

Laughter

H: She says she used to think her mother was very romantic.  When she went in and spoke to her at night her mother was very sympathetic and sort of gave a one-syllable word.

Laughter

P: She was West Indian and thought she was speaking in sort of dialect.  But it was no teeth.

L: It’s all about pretence.

L: I must say, I think it’s a gripping read. 

P: It’s fun. It’s a fun read.

For our book group, White Teeth proved to be an astute and amusing piece of social observation with characters of and relating to an immigrant community shrewdly observed making it an entertaining read.

So, we hope that gives you a flavour of our village book group and what we thought of White Teeth!  We look forward to continuing with the enjoyable and challenging reading we have had in the last two years!