Book club

On Sunday night we discussed Belfast writer Glenn Paterson’s book The International, about a hotel in Belfast and the characters who frequented its bar in the months before the Troubles kicked into high gear.
Tomorrow night we will discuss The Children’s Act by Ian McEwan. The first book was a string of anecdotes put together without an overriding narrative. Mostly negative reviews from book club members. The second book was well loved b/c it was so incredibly well written. And it tackled religious issues that are very timely. Do the children of an orthodox Jewish family or Jehovah’s Witnesses have the right to enjoy what Western society offers (attending school with the opposite sex, medical care), or do the religious views of the family trump what the state might see as being in the interest of the child. While the state offers important opportunities the family would abjure, the family offers a support system that the state cannot. One of the book club members saw The Children’s Act as a bookend, so to speak, to Saturday, in which McEwan apparently focused on similar themes among Muslim immigrants to London.
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