Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman - First part

A short little book, compelling and fast moving, it starts with the narrator introducing us to the one event that shakes the peaceful conversations of a small group of people staying at a hotel on the Rivera.

Just in a few pages, plenty of feelings, characters, situations and values are presented for reflection. 

How did you first feel about the narrator? What would you answer to Mrs C's question considering what it implies about prejudice, acceptance and respect? If you were married, would you introduce such a woman to your wife as if nothing had happened?

Do you think times have changed with regard to the perception, consideration and value given to virtue, love and passions?

What about the gentleman of Mrs C' story? What are your thoughts and feelings about this character? 

At one point, Mrs C expresses that she would find it difficult to give a clear name to the feeling that drew her so compulsively after the unfortunate man. Could you give a name to that feeling?

As always, looking forward to reading your long, short, deep, or first-impression thoughts on the book.

And the winner is ...

… Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman, by Stefan Zweig


Thanks everybody for your participation in the poll.


Although this is a short book, we are going to take it easy this time - so members can recover for the previous long books! Find the suggested reading pace for sharing at the "Book Discussion Schedule" page.

Freedom - Final Discussion

Some questions to follow the interesting discussion already started with Jorge's post and the comments from Kristen and Rocio - and even Nayra's! if we want to extract conclusions from her statement...


Did you got annoyed by the book or did you enjoy it? 
Did you feel the characters were not interesting, boring, not redeeming, or did you like them?  Even if you did not like them, did any of them arose any feelings in you that make it attractive to keep reading?
What about the end? Do you think it is a happy end or a tragic end?
If Walter had written a memoir, what might he have said about his victories and his suffering?
What character do you think is the least free? And the most free?
How is Lalitha different from the other characters? How does her motivation for working with the Cerulean Mountain Trust compare to Walter's? 


Too many questions! and still, there is much more we want to hear from you.
THE last one: As Rocio said, do you think you will read another Franzen?

Freedom. Final discussion, by Jorge

I have to say that I voted for this book, the description provided and the commercial success seemed to me that I could be an interesting book to read. I was mistaken.

Continuing with the masterpiece debate I like in every book, I think Freedom is not a masterpiece at all. The one who wrote “a masterpiece of American fiction… Like all great novels, FREEDOM does not just tell an engrossing story. It illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral intelligence, the world we thought we knew” was either drunk or was earning a lot of money just telling that (maybe both). I find this book a very good one for Oprah’s followers: middle class bored people with marital problems that only want to project their lives into others’ problems. I don’t see neither a deep description of today’s American society nor an intense, well written story. Some of the characters are really unnecessary and overall I find this book an accumulation of disgraces, without sense, only chronological in Patty’s life.

Patty is annoying, Walter boring, Katz funny but all are a stereotype. If I have to choose a character I’d rather choose the cerulean warbler: is the best character, is the only one that is really suffering on the main characters’ decisions and the only one that does not have the freedom to decide its own fate.

The book is increasingly tragic (sometimes too tragic, why has Lalitha died? Was it necessary?) but the end of it is really disappointing: it is a happy ending, in which the couple reconciles and everything is allright again (come on! What was the writer thinking about?? I think only commercial success). I think this is the kind of ending that mass, main street, readers want, but betrays the way the book is written, the dramatic evolution of facts that builds the story line of the book.

I have found this book long, boring, "too many pages" as some of you said for Vargas Llosa’s. It tries to be a complex description of a couple difficult life in current society, but in my opinion only gets that done in part, it ends being an addition of characters, clichés and stereotypes that could be summarized in half of the pages (and could be done with a more profound description of the couple and less waffle around it). I think that this book is good for soap opera (culebron) followers, not for anyone with a little bit of interest in literature.

That said I would like to ask for a shorter book next time; good or bad, shorter will be better for all!

Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno. :)

Freedom, part three

We are getting to the end of the book (at least some of us! ;-) and each page turned seems to bring more unhappiness, more conflict. No character is good or bad, but they all bring their problems with them, their fears, their frustrations, and that is something I really like about the book: characters, though extreme, feel so human.

But however, I want to bring the discussion to the politicals that the narration tells us. What do you think of the way the Cerulean Wabbler Park assures its existance? Does the end, keeping nature only for nature, justify the means (the implications with the mean corporations)?

And second, what do you think of the phrase "Kenny Bartles was clearly one of those daredevil clowns, a bush-league sociopath who would end up in jail or in Congress soon enough"? Isn't it just too real?

Freedom, second part.

So we get to know the characters better, Katz with his anti pop culture, Walter within two worlds, Patty married with one but in love with another, Joey and his independence and Connie the dependent. What do you think? Is any of them free?

From my point of view none of them are, and that takes me to the thought that probably, nobody is, there are always circumstances, family, money, careers... so why challenge with the title "Freedom"? What do you think the author is trying to say with it?

What do you think of what is happening in the book? Do you like it? Do you find it realistic? Because I think that Franzen ultimately wants to be realistic, but to me, maybe they are all too extreme and together tied by a fine rope, it just sounds like too much at times.

Freedom - First part

I am a little in advance this time, and I've got the permission to start with the discussion. Here some questions as appetizer:

What do you think about the beginning of "Good neighbors" up to the autobiography (not included)? Does it fit with the rest of the chapter? Not too much for me. The start is like a bad chapter of desperate housewives: a little too much of gossiping-nothing to do-ladies which really does not encourage to keep on reading. A bit of stereotype male thinking of a woman... Luckily the books turns out to be different from the autobiography onwards. Good shift? Definitively.

What about the freedom? How does affect to the book structure? to the characters?

It seems to give this strange section arrangements with an autobiography cut and placed in different parts. The concept is given the main position already in the title and its developed through the evolution of the characters. Do you think characters are really free to chose their ways? This "freedom" seems to make them quite miserable.

And the Winner is...

… Freedom! by Jonathan Franzen 

Where are you gonna get this one? Wherever, time to go for it!

Suggested reading schedule, coming up soon.

Although it's a dense, long book, I am enjoying it a lot (I haven't finished it yet, I must say :) I think that, this one, can be cnsidered as a masterpiece.
I think that the complexity of the book and the big amount of different characters are a good 'picture' of Brazil's society in a moment of time, and many things/situations are descriptive of other societies (mainly from South America, but not only) as well. The author has been very brave and ambitious writing this novel and I think that he has succeeded with it (so far, I hope the end will not disappoint me :)
Some people have said that this book could be better with two hundred pages less; so far I don't agree, I am enjoying it as it is.
Looking forward for your comments!
Best,
Jorge

The War of the End of the World - Final Thoughts

Who feels like opening the discussion?
From what we have commented on previous posts (and from some emails that have been exchanged), we can extract that there are a lot of mixed feelings about the story, the characters, and about the book itself.