Week 7 Class: Book Club

Our book club session was a predictably pleasant time. It was nice to get others' thoughts about the pieces, to see the different opinions and interpretations everyone brought to the discussion. My group went first, and it did seem to take everyone a bit of time to warm up to both asking and responding to questions. We had a difficult time keeping the discussion in the order we had attempted to arrange in our questions; from our feedback surveys, we determined that not everyone was on the same page of background information, and we were perhaps a bit too worried about overtaking the discussion. Still, we did get some good cerebral activity going.

It was easier being a participant, of course. It turns out that my interpretation of the Virginia Woolf piece was maybe too influenced by my preconception of her work; the other participants found it to be a pleasantly un-depressing surprise. Of the mislaid street piece, we were asked if we would do as the main character did and move onto the street (and keep the secret) that his job would demand he report. To my surprise, most replies showed a lot of caution, wary of eventual repercussions. Our discussion of the Queen's Tarts was fun indeed. I wasn't aware of the actual Alice in Wonderland connection, and, while we did talk a bit about the content, the discussion ended up addressing the place of classics like this in children's literature, and the trend of telling parts of the story and side stories through illustration with no explicit text narration.

Last thought: this was very much a librarian book club. Not all book clubs will be so full of well-read, enthusiastic members on the up-and-up about the nuances of literature's place and connections in society. Not to say that book clubs aren't formed of interested individuals with plenty of knowledge, just that the discussion would have been a bit different if the members had been more diverse in occupation, age, or experience.