Seven brave book clubbers ventured out to Chaussée St Pierre in the snow last night, and were warmly welcomed as ever by our two hosts, Deanna and Barbara. One was Anastasia, attending her last meeting as she soon takes off to Brooklyn NY, and bearing generous gifts of cast-off books to save on the removal bills. We all wish her lots of luck and happy reading across the pond.

The first half hour of discussion of the book focussed on the narrator, Barbara, who was certainly nothing like her namesake, our host. In fact poor Barbara in the book was described variously as desperately lonely, bitter, sad, jealous, misguidedly self-justifying, fat, thin (make your minds up!), repressively lesbian, and even psychopathic. Clearly all necessary attributes of a good teacher. Oh and Barbara's pet, Portia, was described variously as a cat and a dog. Shurely shome mishtake, Deanna dear. (-:

We then congratulated ourselves on the fact that we'd spent half an hour talking about the book without even mentioning the scandal itself - that a 40+ year-old female teacher had had sex with a 15-year-old boy. But we soon made up for that. I instigated a prurient, but clearly necessary, tour-de-table demanding to know who had slept with younger men. A few had (in fact I've just remembered I have, clearly forgettable because it passed me by last night), but nothing approaching a 25-year age gap with an impressionable pupil.

Nonetheless we decided we could empathise with Bathsheba, initially the seductress but ultimately the victim, because her illicit affair was clearly a form of escapism - from her brattish daughter at home, her unfulfilled artistic ambitions, and her well-meaning but hopeless teaching abilities. And it seemed we could all forgive her because after she crossed the line and slept with young Stephen of the pee-coloured hair, she was no longer responsible for her actions because she was genuinely in love. Ahhhh. (-:

All in all an interesting novel and an unusual one because as you read it becomes increasingly difficult to empathise with the narrator or trust her version of events.

Then there was the usual discussion of what to read next and when to meet. In a departure from the enjoyable but generally lightweight women's lit of recent meetings, we decided on a philsophical tome. It remains to be seen how wise this is (I suggested it so blame me if you hate it!), but it seemed most were willing to try anything once. And it's only 200 pages. Soo....Straw Dogs by John Gray.