Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston's life seemed full of up's and down's. Born in 1891 as the fifth child in a family of eight, she enjoyed the privileges of living in Eatonville, Florida, which was the first integrated all black community in the United States. Here, blacks were able to exist without the prejudices of the age and area. Zora, thusly, portrayed much of her characters and their outlooks from this vantage point.
Although a participant in the Harlem Renaissance, she later found disfavor for her portrayal of black dialects in her writings. As an anthropologist, she remained true to this recording and has preserved some of this language. Reading books such as Their Eyes Were Watching God, you feel the power of utilizing this language instead of changing it to the "proper" English form. The rhythm and flow is uninterrupted through Zora's pen in this manner.
She eventually found herself becoming a resident in St. Lucie County Welfare Home and later died of hypertensive heart disease.

The Official Word

Since this is the "official" blog for The Great Works Book Club, I thought I would clarify the changes/decisions that were voted upon last night.
By popular vote, we will continue to hold meetings at 6:30pm every third THURSDAY of the month. We will reevaluate our meeting time in May. So, if this doesn't work out the best for you, it will only be for a few months before we can change.
The next meeting will be February 18th at 6:30pm at Loretta's house. If you need directions, please email or call me. We will read and discuss Zora Neale Thurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. It's a fairly short book, but get reading now so you have time to think about it and get ready for discussion!!

We have a little debate on the books for the next few months. Please talk to me about your preferences and questions!

Meeting Information

Our next book club meeting is just around the corner!! I hope you have enjoyed this month's selections and have some ideas and opinions to share.
There have been some changes to meeting times and such, but we still need to refine this so everyone has equal opportunity to make it to the meetings. In the meantime, our next meeting will be held at Jennifer's home on THURSDAY, January 21st, starting at 6:30pm (a half-hour earlier than it has been held). For further information, please remember to check the Facebook club page.
Until Thursday!!

Similarities

The future is always looked to with hope and expectation of technology and other advances. However, dystopian literature points out how good things can go drastically wrong (although The Giver isn't typically categorized as such, there are enough similarities to qualify it). There tend to be many similarities that authors put into their novels. The trash receptacles is one example. In both Fahrenheit 451 and The Giver (as well as other novels), there is a wonderful trash receptacle readily available to keep the society clean and orderly. This seems like a great concept and somehow you get the impression that this is the solution for our waste issue (go green!). Aside from the fact that burning actually releases toxins and other pollutants into the atmosphere, there are downfalls to such a simple system. Blindly, the civilians in Fahrenheit 451 promptly destroy materials without thinking, to the point that books have become prohibited. In a similar manner, the father in The Giver simply follows his directive and not only places but pushes the body of the infant into the receptacle. Although I am not promoting littering, it seems to be when the choice is removed, individuals no longer think about what they are doing. Habits are hard to break, but become impossible without thinking about it. The trash receptacle was created in response to littering and to break the bad habit of littering. Yet, the true issue would have been correcting the way people think about trash in the first place.
What other symbols and tools are repeated in the novels? Why? What are the pros and cons of each?

Slackerville

I have to apologize for my recent absence in postings on this blog. The holidays and birthday events greatly distracted me from other duties.
We had a great discussion over Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol earlier this month. I must say, I have a greater appreciation for the short story after the discussion.
Now on to The Giver by Lois Lowry and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Interestingly enough, both of these authors are living and have sites to reference their information from, so I thought I'd share those with you (click on their names above). By reading these, I hope you can become better acquainted with the author and their writing style and influences.
We just gave one of our nephew a copy of The Giver, if that gives you a clue as to how much I have loved this book. Fahrenheit 451 was a one night read for me, so, again, I enjoyed it a lot.

Discussion

If you haven't viewed the discussion board on FB for GWBC, please do. Just because we have finished reading a specific title and have "moved on" doesn't mean we have to stop talking about it. Feel free to discuss using either FB or the blog. If I see something in the comments, I will transfer it to a blog post so everyone will have a chance to discuss and think about what other members are thinking about.
Enjoy this holiday season! Our next meeting will be on the 15th, just a little over a week away. Don't forget to read A Christmas Carol!!
I'm still searching out titles for February and March, but I think I have some good options. Stay tuned!

Tiny Tim

Here's a thought to ponder....how would A Christmas Carol differ had there not been a Tiny Tim character? Would Scrooge have been able to come through his catharsis without the glaring image of depravation accompanied by infirmity in Tiny Tim? Was Scrooge truly only impressed by the goodness in this character BECAUSE of the physical hardships Tiny Time endured? Or, was it only that Scrooge's own sister was similar to Tim that allows Ebenezer to once again have feelings of compassion to another human being?
What are your thoughts?