Reading: It’s the quintessential “hobby” to add a little pizazz to your bio. Somewhere along the line, it became de rigueur for companies (particularly of the hip start-up variety) to have their employees include whimsical and totally-unrelated-to-their-job tidbits in their bios in an effort, I suppose, to humanize and personalize the faces behind a (hopefully) profit-making enterprise. This is a completely unscientific and totally anecdotal conclusion, but I believe this to be the most common line in a professional bio: “Outside of work, Employee X can be found with a book in hand, enjoying [insert craft beer or designer coffee].” Now, to be fair, the beverage can sometimes be replaced with sporting hobbies (kayaking/climbing/skiing, most likely) or the ever-generic “travel,” but you know what the constant will be the majority of the time? Reading. “You like to read? Hey, I like to read too! I just knew I wanted to do business with this company!”
So, we’re a society of “readers,” and contemporary culture has glommed on to this. Take a look at the success of Oprah’s Book Club, the brouhaha that Amazon caused when Kindle was first introduced, and the $15.05 billion in book sales in America in 2013. Notice, too, the number of book clubs in your community or circle of friends. If you’re a woman of any age with the luxury of just a tiny bit of post-workday leisure time, and you haven’t frequented at least one book club meeting, you may be an anomaly. (Why is the converse such an anomaly? I met some neighbors down the road recently and was pleasantly surprised that the husband was a part of a men’s book club.) I love book clubs and am ever grateful that my next-door neighbor invited me to join hers, as it is comprised of a bunch of smart women who choose thoughtful books as well as “supplemental” materials, such as interesting documentaries that we can find on Netflix. It is nothing like this:
But with a culture of book clubs, internet-based publishing, and the domination of large bookstore chains that put what they want us to read front and center, are we choosing what we’re reading based on the experience of reading something “together”? This notion of communal reading can be a great one; Dublin, for instance, hosts a “One City, One Book” initiative every year. But in the years that I’ve been a “reader,” I’ve learned that there are some books that are simply better-designed for group discussion than others, and that sometimes those selections fall flat when read with the intent of individual contemplation and enjoyment.
The Children Act, Ian McEwan’s latest (as well as—surprise!—my book club’s selection for next week), is the perfect book club book. Full of the type of moral and ethical dilemmas that require some mental and emotional gymnastics to unravel, McEwan’s thirteenth novel nonetheless provides an overly tidy look into the institutions of religion and marriage. High Court Judge Fiona Maye must simultaneously balance the potential implosion of her marriage as well as a People magazine-esque case wherein a just-underage Jehovah’s Witness refuses a blood transfusion to treat his leukemia on religious grounds as well as due to the implied pressure from his parents. McEwan deftly weaves these issues together with two rock-solid themes. Here, in lieu of a back-of-the-book discussion guide, are two points to consider at your book club meeting:
First, the concept of “need” arises as soon as the novel opens and Fiona’s husband Jack declares his intent to start an affair with a much-younger colleague: “I need [an affair]. I’m fifty-nine. This is my last shot.” McEwan further describes the man’s “unmet sexual needs.” And then, of course, the title of the book references a piece of 1989 legislation in the UK by the same name, and McEwan takes care to outline the many “needs” of a child: “On the whole, [Fiona] believed in the provisions of family law. In her optimistic moments, she took it as a significant marker in civilisation’s progress, to fix in the statutes the child’s needs above its parents.” Before she hears leukemia patient Adam Henry’s case, she presides over the case of divorced Jewish parents—the father more observant and conservative than the mother—and hears how the man “accused his wife of being unable to separate her own needs from the children’s. What she said they needed was whatever she wanted for herself.” And of course we have Adam, the almost-adult who needs a blood transfusion if he wants to live. The book is ripe for discussion about the idea of “necessity” and where the line falls on the “want versus need” continuum—and whether or not legislation can touch what one determines to be a “need.”
Second, the notion of motherhood colors the novel. McEwan delineates Fiona’s thought process in predictable form. “Yes, her childlessness was a fugue in itself, a flight – this was the habitual theme she was trying now to resist – a flight from her proper destiny. Her failure to become a woman, as her mother understood the term.” Is it any wonder that Fiona, therefore, is drawn to Adam’s case? The author seemingly takes a stereotypical notion and inserts it into interactions with the patient, while Fiona probes his relationship with his own parents. To remind readers that Fiona is not a mother but enjoys the younger generation, nieces and nephews of Jack and Fiona make random appearances throughout the book.
Between the discussion of needs and motherhood (and, if your book club would like to take it to the next level, how those two themes intersect), your book club meeting can be a fruitful one. But if you’re looking for some extra guidance, McEwan gives Adam this idea and therefore the perfect trifecta for book club discussion: “And if God, poetry and science all said the same thing, it had to be true, didn’t [Fiona] think?”
All this is not to say that The Children Act is trite. Rather, it touches upon the types of ideas that are appropriate for communal discussion—perhaps best deliberated over an aforementioned pint of craft beer or cup of designer coffee. It’s the sort of book that can bring out the best in readers when we blur the lines of personal and professional by sharing not only our life experiences but the details and facts about how we believe our world to work.
Yet that begs a tree-and-forest question: If a book is absolutely spectacular, but isn’t read with the intent to discuss with others, has it earned acclaim in our “reading” culture?
