Ken’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2020)

Ken’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

Jan wrote: "Ken wrote: "To All: As our discussion of Ann Petry's amazingly-relevant book, The Street, wraps up, I'm pleased to say how happy this lark of an idea called The Obscure Reading Group has made me. O..."

I'm glad you like the idea!

It simply means at least one of the three books we read yearly will definitely be a classic over 120 years old. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't propose a classic for June and October, too, it's just that those classics might run against a 1940s book or something.

Kelly wrote: "Ken wrote: "To All: As our discussion of Ann Petry's amazingly-relevant book, The Street, wraps up, I'm pleased to say how happy this lark of an idea called The Obscure Reading Group has made me. O..."


Selfishly enough, we simply read books WE want to read in between our every-four-month ORG talks. But we do have this thread, where we can while away the time talking about this (and its cousin, that), not to mention about books we happen to be reading.

Plus a lot of us have friended each other, so we see who's read what and we comment on each others' reviews, etc. Meaning, if you're not everyone else's friend here and you're interested in what we all read, you know how to remedy the situation! 😀

To All: As our discussion of Ann Petry's amazingly-relevant book, The Street, wraps up, I'm pleased to say how happy this lark of an idea called The Obscure Reading Group has made me. Our first year of book discussions -- Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, Magda Szabó's Abigail, and Ann Petry's The Street -- have all been extremely fulfilling to participate in.

Our next discussion returns us to where it all began, the month of February. And as it began with a 19th century classic, Thomas Hardy's book, I'd like to propose that we reserve the February Obscure Reading Group choice to lesser-known classics from the 19th century or earlier and from the country of the nominator's choice.

This would mean, just after Christmas, I'd be sending out an all-call for obscure but classic nominations to be voted on during the last days of the year.

The other two ORG discussions (June and October) would remain wide open with no special considerations -- except, of course, that the books be "obscure" in some way and worth rediscovering.

I hope everyone likes this idea. It's not terribly radical, actually, but if enough of you feel ALL THREE discussions should be wide open, I can be convinced otherwise.

If you have an opinion, feel free to share it here!

Matthew wrote: "Ken wrote: "Matthew, to pick up the Kung Fu sidebar that sprung up in THE STREET discussion, I have to add that this new book caught my eye this week: Be Water, My Friend.

I have no interest in Ku..."

Yes, apparently Bruce Lee said as much, too, or at least so it seems when I read the book's preview of pages available on Amazon.

As that sage the Farmer in the Dell once put it, "Sometimes the cheese stands alone." OK, with apologies to Robert Cormier, I Am the Cheese.

Think of movies. When it's all realistic and believable, you forget everyone around you in the dark, including the dude slurping his Super-Size-Me Coke, and the chick munching her X-Tra Large Popcorn.

Then something strikes you the wrong way. You say to yourself, "Of all the ways this could play out, I highly doubt that's one of them. It's unbelievable."

Suddenly you're back in the theater, noticing people around you, the red glow of the Exit signs on either side up front, a blemish on the screen even.

Books work the same way. Read a good one like this and you get lost in it. Then you get a scene like the Bub and Mom one where the kid is being held at age freaking 8 (in itself an eyebrow raiser) for some hare-brained scheme that I doubt even a little kid would fall for involving mail theft. And the kid tells no one who gave him the key and told him he was helping the police?

Whether the fictive dream is filmed or written, it can bounce you back to your surroundings in a bad way. Well, unless I was reading it in Hawaii, and I wasn't (alas).

All that said, I totally understand others' acceptance and the fact that the author does and should hold the trump card on what happens. Just remember: Farmer in the Dell. It has to end somewhere, and then you're suddenly noticing hay and the smell of Muenster.

Not sure of the exact moment, Kathleen, but that "Dearie" bit makes it a definite Mrs. Hedges line. Everyone was "Dearie," seems. Except Jones.

Speaking of, to bring up what I mentioned in passing yesterday, did anyone else get jolted out of their suspension bridge of belief when Lutie BRIEFLY meets Bub in the institution where he's incarcerated, and Bub says nothing about Jones' role in his mail-stealing, the reason he's been given for being taken in by the police?

I just couldn't buy the too-convenient brevity of it all. Circling back to Jones, esp. with an additional chapter from Jones' POV as the law closes in, would have added so much to the book's denouement.

(And I've been waiting for a chance to throw around the word denouement, so I feel much better now, not to mention a curious urge for French-pressed coffee.)

Matthew, to pick up the Kung Fu sidebar that sprung up in THE STREET discussion, I have to add that this new book caught my eye this week: Be Water, My Friend.

I have no interest in Kung Fu, but much interest in eastern philosophies, and this book by Bruce Lee's daughter seems to fit in nicely. I have it on my library watch.

Cool. I will comment more on the "Between Books Thread" so as not to take us too far off topic here.

Wing Chu? I didn't know Kung Fu had different wings. Then again, I've never seen The Karate Kid or any of its sequels (including something on TV now that features Kobra Khan ... sp maybe).

Jan wrote: Within the last two chapters, she blamed herself for her son's choices, and she really had no other person to depend on for help. "


That's what got me. She KNEW Jones had run interference with her kid on the shoeshine box, yet it never occurred to her that he might have something to do with the mail theft bit.

Or maybe I'm just sore because I want to see Jones brought to justice so bad. Messing with a kid like that and getting off free yourself burns me.

I thought at least Petry would have Bub tell his mom it was Jones when they briefly met at the detention center, but no. WHY NOT? The oversight almost defies belief!

Matthew wrote: "I will also investigate the story, thanks Kathleen. I have a day off teaching, speaking of teaching, though sadly not literature. Or maybe for the best, I could just talk and talk and talk..."

What do you teach if not literature? What else IS there? 🤨

Me, I didn't care about the hope so much as at least ONE of the following threads -- Bub, Mrs. Hedges, Junto -- being woven back into Lutie's story. Instead, she does what she does, leaves, and all the rest are as good as the Coliseum in Rome -- seemingly ancient, forgotten history.

Hi, Ginny, and welcome. I still haven't read any Trollope, who is yet another hole in my Swiss cheese of a reading resume.

Glad Kathleen led you here. It could have been any of the members here. Smart cookies, as they used to say. Really smart cookies.

P.S. Sorry about the snow. Here in Maine, I know it's only a few weeks or so away, and my daughter in Minneapolis has already seen it fly, maybe from the same system that went over you!

As our final week of discussion winds down and we wait for Yvonne and John and others still playing ketchup (pass the fries), two things of note.

Diane read my review and agreed with my words but not my rating (I gave The Street a 4, she gave it a 3). Rating books is a dicey game we all play at GR, but in cases like this one it's dicier still. I mean, what am I rating? Like many here, I often feel caught between numbers. Call me 3.5 Man, then.

But in this case, I was leaning higher because I so enjoyed THE PROCESS of reading this book. I liked the parts that much. I was surprised beyond measure at how well this novel would fit in with the explosion of books on racism that came out in this, the year of Black Lives Matter (as much as whites' and not, as Donald Il Duce's dog whistle would have it, MORE than whites').

On the other hand, when I reached the end, I thought, "This works better as building blocks than it does as whole structure." I soured a bit because I thought the book as a whole didn't live up to the episodic delights that got us there. Thus, the urge to "mark it down," as our English teachers with red pens used to do.

The other question regards a willingness to read one or more of Petry's other books. This was her beginning effort, remember, so it could be that subsequent books were on a level with this one and it could be that they improved. I went on to read not one but TWO additional books by Magda Szabo after we read Abigail and, while I enjoyed neither as much as the one we discussed here, I was a better man (reader, what have you) for it. So yeah. Someday, some Petry book, I'm in.

Anyone else troubled by either stars or the prospect of more Petry?

Speaking of non-friend settings (which can be changed on your Profile page), one way we can check out each others' reviews on the books as we finish discussing them is to simply click on the book's title, which takes you to the book's page with ALL reviews.

If you are a FRIEND, then your review appears first in the thread of reviews below. I encourage all ORG members to befriend other active participants of this group. That way, one can easily access others' final thoughts.

I just posted my final review, though most of it comes from Post #10 in this thread, with changes here and there to avoid spoilers.

To put it mildly, Darrin, I agree that the book could have and maybe should have moved on a few extra chapters and / or ended differently to tie in some of the many (OK, most all) characters who were simply left in the previous pages and chapters, almost like they never existed.

If Lutie could find a building with intact families, children for Bub and wives and mothers as friends for herself it would have been worth the effort.

The question becomes this: Is that even possible? When you're a prisoner of poverty, moving to a neighborhood of Leave It to Beaver families is easier said than done.

In other words, intact families are hard to come by in impoverished neighborhoods, which leaves us with the question of just how much free agency Lutie has given her circumstances.

Cindy wrote: "That's true. Different bad things could have happened.

Ken, your question about the keys has me thinking about another aspect of the novel. What about the key Min was sent on an errand to have ma..."


Good one. I never connected the role of keys but it is a bit uncanny, whether by design or coincidence I cannot say. If I could think of a third, I'd definitely lean toward design.

I like, too the abstract "door of opportunity." It's a common expression: "the key to happiness," so perhaps Petry had something in mind. The keys to misery?

And in both cases, they wind up being keys to crime.

Great posts, Cindy. I never thought about what that type of door said about Boots beyond that given night and situation, but I am wondering how such a door is even possible. Maybe in the old days? As you said, clearly a fire hazard and no way we'd see it in modern day. I should think it would be prohibited even in the 40s, but who knows what the fire codes were in Harlem back then. Not this guy.

You said: However, had things gone right, would that have made a better novel? I don't think so. If there's no conflict, there's no story.

That's a definite no, but I do think DIFFERENT bad things (singular or plural) could have happened and made it a better novel.

Although I'm unfamiliar with doors that lock from within so you cannot get out, that is the case here, as Lutie must retrieve a key from Boots' pocket after the murder, lending credence to the set-up rape scenario and to her desperation (which turned out to be right). Without that locked door, all she had to do was leave.

True about Min. She is happier than she was with Jones, that's for sure. Mrs. Hedges seems to be happy, too.

Is that it for characters left happy? Junto is left without what he wants (Lutie).

Bub is left in a prison of Jones' making.

Jones is perpetually unhappy and damned, though the reader wishes he'd be damned for what he did to Bub and Lutie out of spite.

Lutie is miserable and perhaps destined for prison.

And Boots. Well, there is no happy or sad for Boots, rest his sole... (sorry).