babble book club final discussion of 'Something Fierce' by Carmen Aguirre

Started reading yesterday (borrowed electronically from the library).

Just pulled it off the shelf at the library. I've been meaning to read this for a while now. I see this woman around the drive all the time, and seen her do some small performances at local events now and again, so I've been curious about this book since it came out. We're facebook friends too, though we've never spoken in person. maybe I'll send her the link for this thread.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

Just pulled it off the shelf at the library. I've been meaning to read this for a while now. I see this woman around the drive all the time, and seen her do some small performances at local events now and again, so I've been curious about this book since it came out. We're facebook friends too, though we've never spoken in person. maybe I'll send her the link for this thread.

ooooo! how very cool of you to be facebook friends with her! That would be neat if she checked out the thread ... I have been a tad swamped with things, and unfortunately that means the bbc takes a bit a back burner. (I hate to admit it, but I did.)

My library copy arrived today and I've got it burning a whole in my bag as we speak! Exciting to read this one, but might finish a book of, what else, short stories first, to time better with out end date.

Caissa -- that is super cool about Thomas King. Tell us how it goes!

Caissa wrote:

Read the first 50 pages of Something Fierce last night. The writing is clear and the narrative carries you along.  As the father of an 11 yea, I can't help but questions the judgement of the author's mother.

Care to elaborate?

Finished it on the weekend. Found it a bit of a mediocre read. The Inconvenient Indian is reading so much better.

How are others doing with Something Fierce?

I had a difficult ime believing it won the Canada reads contest.

Mine is sitting in it's library wrapping yet to be read!

I'm surprised by the first recations Caissa and Unionist because of the hoopla around the whole thing! Not only Canada Reads -- which I think we all agree can be the worst -- but a lot of people/reviews in general have really praised this book.

Hmm, interested to dig in with a critical eye (if I can muster one up that is)

[size=12] 94%. Yeah, shorter times would probably do the trick, especially with the less enthralling books... [/size]

One of the worst books I have read this year.

It would definitely be the worst this year in the Jewish calendar.

What's the process? When can discussion start and when does it end? Do we wait till everyone says they've finished reading?

Hey all, a few things:

1. true to form, and since it has been a busy month, I am finishing up the book this week -- I know, I know.

2. Yes, to echo Caissa, please feel free to discuss the book at anytime; however, please try to leave any surprise "bombs" until the final disucssion this Friday.

3. EXCITING NEWS: we have been given the opportunity to submit questions to the author Carmen Aguirre after our discussion. She will answer the questions and I will post them on our books blog. This is a great opportunity to get some of those nagging questions off your back, obviously phrased with respect to the author.

Those questions will be submitted after our final conversation, but please feel free to drop any and all of those into this thread or our facebook group. So, it is kind of like an author discussion, but a bit more delayed and static.

*cough* haven't started *cough*

I got really into reading 'Visit from the Goon Squad' and a George Saunders books of essays. Starting tonight and going to power read. My usual style of course!

I have found it interesting that you two didn't enjoy it. So many have ranted and raved about this book!

Obviously, not everyone can like every book, but still, very surprising.

I'll be late to the discussion. I have a commitment from 1:30 until 2:30 EST today.

Also U and Caissa, I would be interested to start (either at 2pm or before, whatever, we're loose here) with your assessments of what you didn't like about the book.

I know you mentioned before that you disliked the book because of the actions of the mother, but I think that is separate from the actual book itself. And inside that, the author herself seems to echo those feelings at points.

It's an interesting conundrum because of the genre of memoir.

Hmmm...

Hi! I was busy, but I'm here!

Some random points for now:

1. It didn't manage the balance well between a child's memoir (which most of it is) and an account of counter-revolution and resistance. There are factoids about political events in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina... But they never add up to a coherent account. Those who don't already know the story of 1973 and the era of reaction that it reflected and heralded, won't get that understanding from reading this book. That's not my criticism - because it's clearly not the book's aim - but given this observation, much of those factoids should I think have just been left out.

2. It also didn't artistically manage the balance between exposing the resistance struggle and what motivated it, and the subjective feelings of a maturing girl. Which story did she want to tell? It must be possible to weave both together in a gripping way, but I wasn't gripped.

3. The author turns 18 and consciously, dramatically, takes up the revolutionary cause, until death if need be. I have no real understanding of why she did so. It's not stated, and it's not conveyed (to me at least) in unstated fashion either. So... I'm left with the uncomfortable analogy: the child of a devout Catholic family (substitute any religion you like) becomes a priest/monk/nun upon coming of age, just because that's the way things are in that family. Maybe some of you saw more deeply what her motivations were? Let me know if you did, preferably with reference to some passages I may have missed or misunderstood.

4. Going back to the "diary" phenomenon. Details, places, names of people. Either they are pertinent, in which case, dwell on them, bring them together, show me their significance. If not - leave them out. I couldn't figure out most of the time where we were geographically, who these people were who traipsed in and out of Carmen's life, and what I was to make of random detailed memories like these (I noted a few down or I never would have remembered them - I'll happily provide the context to anyone who wants to go back and see what I failed to see):

- papaya milkshakes (during some earthquake or bomb or something)

- Ale and Carmen arrive for some meeting "with 5 minutes to spare" (uh, so what? no narrative significance attached to that 5 minute gap; it didn't symbolize any undue eagerness; it was just as if she had said, "oh, we arrived at 12:19 daylight saving time")

- in some scene, someone was "pretending to read about a popular TV diva" (paraphrased).

- at the airport, just before a humiliating and terrifying and traumatic life event, the author is confronted by "a severe-looking woman in a light-blue smock". Really. Light blue. Ok.

Any of the many experiences and/or locations could, I think, have borne elaboration, colour, sound, more pages - and just remove 5 or so for every 1 that's chosen for detailed exposition. Maybe it's just me, but that's how objective events and subjective experiences and feelings come to resonate. Not a blur of sight and sound, as if speeding through life in a train.

OMG, the three of us are writing a novel. haha!

Well, I can't viscerally disagree with what you're saying. Maybe it's personal - I just wasn't affected the same way. I didn't know the actors well enough to feel more compassion that I would generally do for strangers in reading the news. I didn't think that was good enough for a demi-novel.

I knew the history (though not all the details e.g. about Bolivia). I demonstrated along with a few dozen others on the day after 9/11 (the real one - 1973). I participated in minor ways in some solidarity groups of the time (80s). Maybe the book is important in at least enticing readers to find out more, if they're not already aware generally of those events.

By the way, I fished out the papaya example, so you'll understand what I mean about meaningless irrelevant distracting details - and this is just after she dedicates her life to the revolution:

Quote:

Just as I finished reciting the oath, a bomb went off down the street. The café’s windowpanes shook furiously. My knees hit the table so hard that our papaya milkshakes almost went flying. Lucas and Juan grabbed the glasses a millisecond before they slid off the table. Not a hair on their bodies moved, not a single goosebump formed on their skin. I looked around. The necking teenage couples necked harder. The Indian-blooded waiters in their starched jackets kept whistling as they wiped tables and counters. I heard military boots behind me, running past the open door of the café. I didn’t pass out, which would have been humiliating. Lucas and Juan were big fish, and I was just a tadpole. But as they took a final sip of their drinks, I knew I’d passed the test.

“Welcome to the resistance,” Juan said, raising his glass.

None of it makes sense to me. "Not a single goosebump formed on their skin." Etc. Ok, I get it, bombs are a normal fact of life for the people there, and here she is, making the drastic transition from a pampered Vancouver life to a fighter for the cause, trying to look the part... It just doesn't do it for me.

ETA: By the way, I won't have much to say about the mother. The book seems to me to be by the daughter, and about the daughter. I read it from that angle. All that we know of the mother is what is reported, and much of that appears to me to be mechanical. The inner struggles and motivations don't really manage to pierce the surface of perception.

haha, U I just read through your list. Your number 5 points made me giggle a bit! ("light blue. really. ok")

Left Turn, I was hoping you would give us your insights because you were behind this choice! Thanks for coming too!

Do you have any specific reactions to U, Caissa and my opinions?

Kaitlin McNabb wrote:

Left Turn, I was hoping you would give us your insights because you were behind this choice! Thanks for coming too!

Do you have any specific reactions to U, Caissa and my opinions?

Hard to have enough time to read your posts and respond to them, and still have time to write my own thoughts in the hour. Unlike U, I didn't compose a long response ahead of time.

Unionist wrote:

1. It didn't manage the balance well between a child's memoir (which most of it is) and an account of counter-revolution and resistance. There are factoids about political events in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina... But they never add up to a coherent account. Those who don't already know the story of 1973 and the era of reaction that it reflected and heralded, won't get that understanding from reading this book. That's not my criticism - because it's clearly not the book's aim - but given this observation, much of those factoids should I think have just been left out.

I would definitely fall into the category of people who don't already know the story in full and obviously read that book with that context. I feel like the epilogue addressed some of this as "this is her story" and similar to ... ahh... one of the books we read that i can't remember now ... the story is told completely from her angle, her opinions as she experienced them, mimicking how events were revealed to her.

I liked that style, with the bits and pieces being unveiled because I felt like I was reading with Carmen as she discovered these things about her and her countries.

 

3. The author turns 18 and consciously, dramatically, takes up the revolutionary cause, until death if need be. I have no real understanding of why she did so. It's not stated, and it's not conveyed (to me at least) in unstated fashion either. So... I'm left with the uncomfortable analogy: the child of a devout Catholic family (substitute any religion you like) becomes a priest/monk/nun upon coming of age, just because that's the way things are in that family. Maybe some of you saw more deeply what her motivations were? Let me know if you did, preferably with reference to some passages I may have missed or misunderstood.

I can't think of a direct quote now, but in the end she says two things that stood out for me:

1. the message to her mother thanks her (I won't write the whole thing here)

2. oh this was at the end of the book, but when she is talking and says "Your generations seems to understand that you don't have to let your beliefs consume you. You have yoru loves and your lives and your activism, an dyou don't let anybody dictate to you what you can do." I was like WHAT! Oh, okay. So, I thought it had been ingrained in her, much like you said, that activism is a way of life, not something we pick up on the side.

Left Turn wrote:

For me the whole story seems to climax in Chapter 18 when Carmen meets Alejandro and tells him her life story. I thought it was brilliant how she kept the story of her personal experience in Chile after the coup until this point in the book. Much more powerful than if she had opened with it.

Everything prior to chapter 18 seems to lead up to it, and everything after seems to lead away from it.

Yes. When she talks about the Terror, finally and her whole life.

Throughout the read, I was consumed with the fear that she would be capture, "was her mother tortured?" "Is Ale going to rat them out?" etc etc and almost couldn't believe none of that befell them.

Also, can we talk about Ale. I think of her more of a character in my mind as opposed to real life (I almost want her to write a memoir of her own to see tha difference in opinion) but her stance and everything where SO DIFFERENT!