Seven of us met this month, welcomed into the home of Erilys. However, some of us, despite gathering in the house of a former teacher, had failed to do our reading homework! Previously, with all good intentions, we thought it might be interesting to tackle a classic – The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. Our founder member reported that she thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of us had read the opening chapters, others had progressed a little further and one member, although she had not managed the whole book (yet) provided us with some interesting newspaper articles featuring the Old Curiosity Shop.
So we spoke about the changing times, and in fact how many of the social problems in the days of Dickens are still relevant today. The original telling of the tragic story of Little Nell was by serialised instalments (the literary soap of the day) and it was suggested a good way to tackle the book may be a chapter at a time. Like any soap today there are villains and heroines, compassion, injustice – 72 chapters (episodes if you prefer) no less of wonderful quirky characters, beautiful descriptive passages and intense situations. So, although not all of us completed our assignment, it was pretty impressive that by us merely owning a copy of the book today Mr Dickens had managed to provoke some meaningful discussion.
As usual we all had books to exchange and along with books we discussed cakes, trees, William Morris, the wonderful voices of the WI, holidays …… so, it would appear its good to talk as well as read! The next meeting will be held at the Bengal Lancer in Longbridge Road – so anybody up for curry and conversation should come along on Wednesday 14th of December at 7pm. As its Christmas it was decided that we would all bring a gift of a wrapped book, one that we have particularly enjoyed – a wonderful idea. Will anyone receive The Old Curiosity Shop, I wonder?
A suggested to read was The Time of my Life by Cecilia Ahern – and it will be interesting to see if more of us complete the journey of Little Nell.
New readers welcome – wrap a book you would like to share and come along on the 14th – guaranteed an excellent curry in good company.
