Our March meeting was hosted by Carla and attended by Colette, Linda, Marg, Michèle, Sharon and Shirley. Carla had an excellent variety of cheese, olives, asparagus rolls and a wonderful Milk cake or some call it a Lazy Daisy cake. Many of us mentioned that it is a cake that our mothers used to make.
We discussed Sharon's book choice Held by Anne Michaels.
We also discussed the possibility of changing the time of our meetings now that we are all retired. We have decided to try the 4th Monday of the month at 10 am., coffee, tea and muffins or scones, whatever we prefer to serve.
Sharon gave us a short bio of the author Anne Michaels. She is a poet and novelist. She has written two other novels, Fugitive Pieces that was adapted into a feature film and The Winter Vault. She has also published several poetry books, including All We Saw. She has won several awards, The Giller Prize 2024 for Held , It was also short-listed for the 2024 Booker Prize. She received the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry. She was Toronto Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2018.
Most members found the book difficult to read and not enjoyable. They felt that it had no easily understood plot and little character development. However, many found that her texts were poetic and quite beautiful. A couple of our members felt that it was more poetry than a novel.
A couple of our members did enjoy the book. The language was beautiful and it was interesting to connect John and Helena's descendants throughout the book. The story begins with John in WWI, lying in the fields injured, thinking of his life and goes through to the 21st century. Ms Michaels describes well the change in women's roles and their increasingly important lives through Mara who is a doctor and who travels the world to help where she is needed.
It is a novel that certainly took us out of our comfort zone. Some of us will re-read it and some of us will go on to something else. Thank you Sharon, you have certainly had us push ourselves, some to the limit of our reading enjoyment but some of us accepting new writing styles. That is what Book Clubs are meant to do, I believe!
Anne Michaels introduces Held
