You Deserve Nothing

Despite being set in an international high school full of Americans, our lively discussion at Catherine's last night of Alexander Maksik's first novel You Deserve Nothing was profoundly French. We spoke of philosophy and literature, Sartre and Camus, cafes and Paris, teenagers and sex (quite a lot of the latter as it turns out).

It was a good book group read which provoked some interesting and animated views. Were we being especially conscientious in our debate in order to impress Lucy who attended for the first time I wonder? There was general agreement that it was well written and that Paris provides a dazzlingly seductive and atmospheric backdrop to the novel. There was some disagreement about the credibility and depth of some of the characters although we all thought that Will was perfectly portrayed and totally believable as a teacher who inspired, albeit one who ultimately disappointed his pupils with his moral ambiguity and failure to live up to the ideas he taught. We thought that the the storyline's weakness is its inevitability and so the ending is predictable. There were comparisons with Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach and with Julian Barnes' A Sense of an Ending (which I suppose if you are a first time author might be rather thrilling if they hadn't come from a book group in Kew) in terms of the tone, pace and some of the characterisations.

So an enjoyable read and a lively evening.......all the more so once we started discussing Fifty Shades of Grey. In the interests of research and in order to demystify this, here is a link to BBC Newsnight's solidly respectable Paul Mason's "business" interview with the author which includes some extracts from the book and a warning not to google S&M: Newsnight. Apparently, it sold 2 million copies in 4 weeks in the US and the popularity of erotic "literature" seems to have grown exponentially with the growth of the Kindle (you don't have to buy it in a shop and no one knows what you're reading on the tube). Alarmingly, the BBC piece also refers to the growth in paranormal erotic literature: "that's bonking vampires and bonking trolls" according to Mason. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to listen to his views on quantitive easing in quite the same way again.

We meet again at Alison's on 18th June when we will discuss Anne Sebba's biography of Wallace Simpson, That Woman. By then some of us will, no doubt, also have views to share on frisky vampires and trolls.