Edgware Synagogue's Ladies Reading Circle

Our group has been meeting for five years now, and we come from a variety of occupations.  Our ages vary from 40 years upwards and we only have two things in common – we all belong to the same synagogue and we are all highly opinionated!

The group serves as more than just as a vehicle for book discussion.  It has given us friendships, laughter, intellectual stimulation and has proved an open door for new people moving into the area.

We have very few rules and up until now have not limited numbers, even though this means we can have more than 20 people at a meeting.  The style of meeting is chosen by the hostess, (the woman whose home is being used), and she also chooses the next book from a list of suggestions.  Some hostesses have a pre-selected list of discussion topics; some go round the table, and others prefer names drawn from a ‘hat’.  The members also approach the discussions in different fashions; the maths teacher always draws up a family tree; the teaching assistant always prints off background information and discussion points; the secretary always writes a beautiful essay about underlying themes and character points – and then of course there’s the member who never reads the book but always comes to the meetings!

The reading circle has made readers of people who have not read a book since their O-level days; it has proved better than Prozac (but not quite as good as chocolate) at cheering us up!  It has encouraged us to see films and plays of the books we’ve read – and 20 of us are going to see ‘The Woman in White’ in November.

The books we’ve read so far are:
Chocolat- Joanne Harris
Yesterday in the Back Lane- Bernice Rubins
Black Becomes a Rainbow- Agi L. Bauer
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Pilot’s Wife- Anita Shreve
Tales of the City- Armistead Maupin
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone- J.K. Rowling
Enduring Love- Ian McEwan
White- Rosie Thomas
Music and Silence- Rose Tremain
The Forgotten- Fay Kellerman
Pursuit of Happiness- Douglas Kennedy
The Red Tent- Anita Diamant
The Breadwinner- Deborah Ellis
The Blind Assassin- Margaret Atwood
Back when We Were Grown Ups- Anne Tyler
The Rice Mother- Rani Manicka
The Potter’s House- Rosie Thomas
Memoirs of a Geisha- Arthur Golding
The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
The Other Boleyn Girl- Phillipa Gregory
The Colour of Water- James McBride
The Future Homemakers of America- Laurie Graham
Song of Names- Norman Lebrecht
I Don’t Know how She Does It- Allison Pearson
The Secret Life of Bees- Sue Monk Kidd
Life of Pi- Yann Martel
Tuesdays with Morry- Mitch Album
5 People you meet in Heaven- Mitch Album
Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time- Mark Haddon
Sea Music- Sara MacDonald
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon-Richard Zimmler
Notes on a Scandal- Zoe Heller
Perfume- Patrick Suskind
Undercurrents- Tamara McKinley
The Bookseller of Kabul- Asne Seierstad
My Sister’s Keeper- Jodie Picoult
Time Traveller’s Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
Woman in White- Wilkie Collins
The Shadow of the Wind- Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Rebecca- Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca’s Tale- Sally Beaumann
Catcher in the Rye- J.D.Salinger
Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
The Bone Vault- Linda Fairstein
The Gilded Chamber- Rebecca Kohn
Charlotte Gray- Sebastian Faulks (September 2005’s book)
 
The discussion
We were excited to be invited to read and discuss The Gilded Chamber as The Red Tent was an all-time favourite book of the group’s and, of course, we felt the biblical origins and the feminine nature of both books would invite comparison.  Although we are all Jewish, we try to read a wide range of novels and limit the number of books with Jewish themes.

Since The Red Tent, there has been a plethora of books dealing with biblical heroines.  We came to this discussion with an in-depth knowledge of the story of Esther as this is read in Synagogue – out loud – in Hebrew twice every year.  This takes an hour (including pauses for cheering for Mordechai and booing for Haman) and we were intrigued to know how Rebecca Kohn could extend this short biblical book  to a full-length novel. 

We are divided as to whether our knowledge of the story of Esther was an advantage or disadvantage.   Some people could suspend their knowledge and some not; those who could, were able to view the novel more objectively and discuss it in our usual lively and enthusiastic manner.  These were the readers who read it as a historical novel, albeit with familiar characters, (such as in The Other Boleyn Girl).

Then of course the real discussion started!

• We thought it was clever that the first line of the novel echoed the opening lines of the biblical version and these people then became irritated that the novel did not match the biblical story exactly
• We discussed whether the volume of description was simply padding or a tool to set the ambiance
• What did ‘The Gilded Chamber’ actually refer to? 
   - the womb?
   - the Queen’s living quarters?
   - the lifestyle?  This was highlighted when Esther saw her friend Freni (who had left the Harem and was married with two children) and saw how life had worn her down.
• We loved the idea that the women of the Harem had to be voluptuous to be desirable and that Brazilians and being a bottle blonde were not new beauty treatments!
• We thought the painting on the cover was beautiful and wondered who the artist was? [The cover painting is An Oriental Beauty by Giovanni Costa (1878).]
• One member pointed out that many novels had ‘cashed in’ on the idea of The Red Tent and even thought she had read the novel before until she realised the first chapter had been printed in a new books magazine she subscribes to!
• The majority liked the similarity with The Red Tent with descriptions of the exclusion of men from women’s lives even though the women were dependent on, and subjected to, the whims of men.  At this point our teaching assistant enthralled us all with her background research on the methods of castration for eunuchs.  We were briefly left speechless!
• Was Esther’s love for Mordechai a maiden’s fantasy (sorry if that’s too Mills & Boon-ish)?  How did she maintain that love over so many years with no apparent signs of affection from him?  Why did Mordechai not marry her when he was aware of the danger to her and they were already betrothed?  As the author had elaborated on the story and had put words and feelings into her characters, some of us would have liked to have known more about Mordechai’s motivations and personality.  Some of the other characters were also thinly portrayed and somewhat stereotypical – such as the fat eunuch (some people were surprised that eunuchs could still have sexual feelings), the kindly Jewish maid and the thin eunuch with the heart of gold.
• There was the dichotomy of Esther’s unrequited love for Mordechai against her sexual desire and enjoyment of the King’s attentions. 
• We had some sympathy for Vashti; particularly her refusal to attend the banquet and parade herself in front of a group of drunken men.  Although she was a sinister presence for Esther, even at the end, we had sympathy for her aspirations for her children’s success together with her treatment from the King.
• We found Zeresh (Haman’s wife) a mystery.  Whose side was she really on?  As the wife of Haman would she really have worn rags to visit the Queen, even though Haman wished to portray their austere way of living.
• Given that kingdoms were won on strength and being ruled by the sword, and Xerxes was so proud of his prowess in battle, would he really have handed control so readily to Haman, a virtually unknown courtier?  We think this unlikely – a modern day analogy is Saddam Hussein, who murdered any likely rivals, even if they were family members, as Xerxes had already done.  The idea that he might have suddenly handed over control to a stranger is laughable.  However, there was a feeling that Xerxes’ dissipated lifestyle might have led him to place his trust in an unworthy representative.  (Note to other groups – Google ‘Haoma’)
• Some of us were critical about the pacing of the story.  We felt the first half was slow which led to the second half having a lot of the action condensed.  Others felt the author redeemed herself with her accuracy and sumptuous descriptions.  One, in particular, felt students of fashion and textiles would learn a lot!
• We did use the questions at the end of the book to a certain extent (Penguin please note we’d like more of this!)

Although these points seem to be unconnected, this does reflect the nature of our discussions.

To sum up:

This is a good book for discussion particularly for women’s reading groups and we would definitely recommend it to friends and other reading groups.

Anna Churnin, Barbara Sherling and Susan Taylor on behalf of the Group, 24th July 2005