Cherisa’s Comments (group member since Sep 26, 2021)

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

Kiernan's book sounds really interesting and the chapters you suggest do sound like they would be highly relevant for our discussion. But, more reading before we read?! LOL

It's not available on my Libby nor from the interlibrary loan of my municipal library. Hmm, but maybe I'll spring for it on Amazon.

That sounds good to me too Darrin, but I won’t ignore any postings that go up during the week either! 😜

Yes, no rush on this read!

The Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng'en
Revised Edition, Vol 1, University of Chicago Press, 2013, 576 pages
Translated and edited by Anthony C Wu

Hawaii for a big marker, Darrin, how great! My husband and I are doing Kauai and Maui 8 days each with 3 days front and back in Napa and Carmel CA for our 30th in Jan/Feb!

Yes, let's start a separate thread and dive right into the story, saving the intro for afterward.

Here is the new thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I’m about to start Journey to the West. There’s a 99 page introduction! Is this part of the actual read? Do we want to skip it it and dice right into the story, or be able to talk about why such a long intro is needed?

A movie is coming!
https://collider.com/the-monkey-king-...

When I finish the two I’ve got going now I can begin

So that’s Univ of Chicago Press 2013 576 pages

Plateresca wrote: "Cherisa, I do hope you can join us!..."

I'm confused as to which version you are considering to read - seems the enclosed links go to different editions. How many pages (versions are all over the map as to length depending on how abridged each is), and can you tell me the publisher and year.
Thanks!

Craig, welcome! Regarding the difficulty on finding the book, yeah, wow, right? Obscure is one thing, but being unable to snag a decent copy of the masterwork of a a Nobel laureate, that’s just weird. Who woudda thought?! We are going to have to do better next time! But we did have a really good conversation to compensate.

I appreciated all your thoughts and insights also. My takeaway however, is a bit of disappointment with the book. Cited as the author’s masterpiece, I don’t think Deledda comes off well a century later. She doesn’t seem to stand up to the test of time.

Plateresca wrote: "By the way, has anybody read anything else by this author?
It might be that immature young men are a feature of her work...."

Earlier this year I read Deledda's novella The Mother, which is about a mother and her son, who is a priest. The man in that work is nothing like any of men in this one, though he does show some stern characteristics which might put him in the camp of the "father" in Reeds. That story began feeling somewhat quaint and simplistic then turned into an exploration of faith and love that was deeply moving. I think I liked it better than Reeds. The people were more sympathetic and understandable.

Plateresca wrote: "Will Giacinto and Grixenda be happy together, do you think?"

I think Grixenda will be pretty undemanding and let Giacinto get away with plenty. That could make the marriage satisfactory over the long haul, that is along as they can keep the family fed and a roof over its head. Happy might be expecting too much.

I wonder if Don Perdu will be happy. Though he finally wins Noemi, do you think it will be a good marriage? The last sister, Ester, will be all alone at their crumbling home.

Plateresca wrote: "I also got the impression of determinism; when Efix says that they're all like reeds in the wind - which must be important, since it's the title of the novel, right? - isn't this what he means, that their destiny is not for them to decide, and that ultimately things just happen to them? "

I don't think determinism drives them as much as fatalism. Efix says 'We are the reeds and fate is the wind,' and this submission and resignation to whatever happens to each is what blights them. Yes, leaving here, going there, some of the characters try to outrun their fates, but for the most part, staying put and hoping but mostly suffering is the standard mode of living.

Sue wrote: "...The role of being a beggar then came naturally to him, as long as he could be honest about it…and with other honest beggars...."

I thought Efix's time with the beggars ended when he learned "his" beggar wasn't blind after all, and so not "honest."

Plateresca wrote: "What do you all make of Giacinto?

I've found an article that might be interesting to discuss, here are some excerpts (I do not necessarily agree with each and every word here):
“My husband is like..."

The idea of the patriarchy and how it has gone wrong in this world is pretty important. The father was a strong and overbearing man, whose toxic malehood basically destroyed the lives and livelihood (or at least inheritance) of his girls. Giacinto is an ineffective male on the opposite side of the coin, a goodtime boy just hoping for good things to come his way with little effort, and always getting the benefit of the doubt because of his privilege until it's just impossible for the other party to overlook his shortcomings any further. The sisters are rooted in the snobbery that came from the patriarchy even though they have nothing to show for it now, and their scornful reserve is all the patrimony they have left. That and the prison they have made of their home.

Plateresca wrote: "For me, there were three distinct parts in the novel...."

I think your three distinct parts idea is good, Plateresca, but for me the thread all the way through each bit was Noemi and Efix and what tied them together. I felt I was missing something. We know Efix was involved with Lia's escape and the accidental death of the sisters' father, but what was it that bound Efix to Noemi?

I just want to get this off my chest before we actually start talking about the book. The first Nobel Prize in literature was awarded in 1901. Leo Tolstoy was nominated the first several years and never won. Though perhaps his greatest work was earlier than the inception of the prize, lifetime contributions to literature have certainly facilitated bestowal of the award. Comparatively speaking, as much as I like her, I don’t think Deledda holds a candle to Leo. Her first major novel was published in 1903 and Reeds in the Wind in 1913. She won in 1926. Her body of work was so much smaller and she had such a shorter career compared to him I find it hard to imagine she could win and he could not. Okay, moving right along.

Her writing is lovely. The natural world is written with the author’s love and attention as carefully as a human character. My husband’s family is from Lombardy, and their summer vacations were always on Sardinia. It always made me interested in the locale and so this was a opportunity to learn a little about it. Thanks to Ginny for telling us that the Redeemer statue is real and help us learn something about it!

What struck me a lot about the story is the class structure within the society. The sisters are hardly better off than their servant Efix, and they probably only do as well as they do because they gyp him on his pay year after year. Their privilege and his willing subservience seemed, quaint isn't the quite the right word, but outdated or passe. The guilt he carried and the secret that burdened him didn't seem to explain that after so many years. What do you think?