Tonight was my monthly book club meeting, and I was the moderator. We read A Doll’s House, written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879. I chose it because its themes of feminine servitude are relevant today, especially with recent Supreme Court rulings.
Book clubs are curious things. I’ve been in two over the past twenty years, and each is markedly different from the other. The first one I joined had a lot of members. So if you didn’t read the particular book, you could hide in the weeds. The books were interesting, for the most part, but the conversation wasn’t. It wasn’t even about the book sometimes. After about fifteen years, I resigned.
My idea of a book club is that you analyze the book. You consider the plot, the dialogue, the characters. You talk about the writing. For instance, what person is it in? Who is the protagonist, the antagonist? What do we learn from the experience?
The book club I’m in currently has only five members, which means we all show up having read the work. The others would know if one of us tried to fake it. And we actually discuss the book in the way I alluded to above. It’s a wonderful thing.
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