Thursday 10 May 2012

Book Review - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

I love our book club. I love my amazing friends that are in it. I love (most of) the incredible books we've read. I love getting together on a weeknight for snacks and catching up and intelligent discussion. I love getting to see everyone's houses. It's just been such a successful, enjoyable idea. I'm so impressed that we've managed to keep it going now for 22 months. We regularly have five or more people at the monthly meeting, which is a great size for discussions.

Jenny is hosting this month's meeting and I just finished reading her pick, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. SPOILER ALERT! Don't read below the picture unless you want to know details about what happens!


Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is about a retired army major (Pettigrew) in England who falls in love with the local Pakistani shop owner (Mrs. Ali). They find common ground in literature, the deaths of loved ones, and the trials of their families - his spoiled and arrogant son, and her highly religious nephew who reunites with his ex-lover and their illegitimate child. Their romance, however, is hounded by various stigmas - he is very aware of class separation for a landowner versus a shop keeper, and she is divided by both race and religion. I highlighted a number of my favourite passages in my Kobo, and I'll just go over them one by one as to my opinion on a number of subjects raised by the book.

"I think my son tries to organize my life because it's easier than his own - gives him a sense of being in control of something in a world that is not quite ready to put him in charge." ~ said by Pettigrew to Mrs. Ali re: his son's constant attempts to manage Pettigrew's life.
     - I think most people try to do this to some extent, not just to their parents but to everyone around them. It's so much easier to give an opinion on someone elses' life. Especially since making the plans is always much simpler than attempting to carry them out. I think this is part of why we can all be so judgmental and also why people are becoming such bad listeners. We always think we know better. In this book, Roger (the son) is a terrible listener. 

"It's funny to be suddenly presented with the possibility of making new friends. One begins to accept, at a certain age, that one has already made all the friends to which one is entitled. One becomes used to them as a static set - with some attrition, of course."
     - Sadly, the attrition part is right. The older I get, the more I realize people I thought were my closer friends  have fallen away. I think it's important to keep yourself open to new friendships, though. As people change, they change in ways to make them more interesting and relevant to other people, and sometimes you can find yourself becoming friends with someone you never would have known, who is absolutely wonderful and so in sync with your life. On the other hand, though, I don't think people work as hard to maintain friendships as they should. Old friends are a comfort - they know the things you've done and been through, and if you value them, they love you nonetheless. 

"It also occurred to him that perhaps this only meant that the less he saw of people, the more kindly he felt toward them, and that this might explain his current mild exasperation with his many condolence-offering acquaintances."
     - Absence makes the heart grow fonder, for sure. This was something I really realized when I moved back to Peterborough. It was a great move for me - most of my friends are here, Peterborough was the place I needed to be socially. But now I miss my family a lot. I don't call as often as I should, but I think about them all so much. I value the time we do spend together a lot more. But I'm certain if I moved back, that would fade. 

"America wielded her huge power in the world with a brash confidence that reminded him of a toddler who has got hold of a hammer."
     - Ha. I don't really have a lot of commentary on this one, I just liked it. It made me laugh for a while.

"Are you not afraid it will suggest dilettantism and lack of moral fiber? All this lack of commitment these days - doesn't it smack of weakness of character?"
     - In university, we had to read The Paradox of Choice by a psychologist named Barry Schwartz, which theorized that too many choices create anxiety in the choosers. I think that the sheer number of people we are capable of coming into contact with in our modern lives causes us to be less likely to start a deep relationship with anyone. We are given the idea by media that there is a 'perfect' someone out there for us, so we always look for something better, instead of being happy with what we have. I think we need to appreciate people for their strengths. If you work with someone, then you need to work on it together. Relationships, I'm sorry to say, are often a great deal of work. 

"The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations: a startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia."
     - Myopia, or nearsightedness, is the condition where you can only properly see what is right in front of you. This fits with the impulse control part of the comment - he's basically saying that we have a tendency to want what's right in front of us, possibly until someone/something else is right in front of us. Micro viewings of the world, I think, is very common. We get focused too much on all the individual little things instead of looking at the whole. I like the idea that a romance can be planned out and move in stages where you enjoy each stage as it comes. Too often it seems like we're looking at the goal - marriage, kids, retirement, buying a house - instead of just enjoying the moment.

"However, philosophical rigidity is usually combined with a complete lack of education or real world experience, and it is often augmented with strange haircuts and an aversion to bathing. Not in your case, of course - you are very neat."
      - This is another quote that made me laugh. I do feel like people who have more experience in the world, whether in business or travel or higher education, are less narrow-minded. Less prejudiced, less racist, less homophobic. I think all of these bigoted characteristics come from being scared of what you don't know, and if you can just get a person to go out and immerse themselves in society, they'll lose some of that fear. 

"He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time on avoiding ridicule."
     - I wish people would say everything nice we wanted to say! But I found this line so true - I tend to become quiet, especially in groups, because I don't want to say anything that might be taken the wrong way or that might embarrass someone or cause them to reject me. But I feel like this has caused me to leave so much unsaid. I've tried in the past few years to become better at telling the people I love just how much they mean to me. I've also tried to be more honest in my conversations with people in general, without becoming outright rude.

"She hurried down the driveway and as she disappeared, blue dress into the deep night, he knew he was a fool. Yet at that moment, he could not find a way to be a different man."
     - Same as the above comment, kind of. The things we've left unsaid. This takes it down to a character level, though. How much of our behavioural habit is so ingrained that we find it impossible to overcome? I like deep seated manners, but sometimes our expectations of ourselves and how we think society expects us to behave keeps us from being how we want. This is such a fine line to walk - I think we'll always be on one side or the other. 

"It was never wise to get in the middle of a couple who were having a domestic squabble: one inevitably got sucked into takings sides and, just as inevitably, the couple worked things out and then turned on all who had dared criticize either party."
     - Ah! So true. This is something that is so hard to remember, especially when the person is your friend and they're so angry or hurt by someone. It's hard to be supportive and not judgmental. Sometimes they act like all they want to hear is you bashing the other person, but that is almost never a good idea. People will forgive each other, but not you for what you've said about a third. It's like the old, "I can make fun of my own family, but come hell or high water - you surely can't!"

"Soon after the New Year, the major admitted to himself that he was in danger of succumbing to the inevitability of Grace. Their relationship had developed a gravitational pull, slow but insistent, as a planet pulls home a failing satellite. In his unhappiness, he had allowed this slow drift to happen."
     - In sadness it's easy to allow yourself to be consoled by the next best thing. Which can be wonderful in it's own right, but is just a placecard for what you really want. Rebound relationships are usually those. It's not fair to the other person if you're just going to continually compare them to whomever or whatever you really wanted. You can make it work if you appreciate the person for themself and grow into the new relationship. But treating it as something you've settled for is not something you should ever do.

"He was sure, now, that life could never live up to its anticipatory moments and he became quite certain that today would be a disaster."
     - Christmas is a good example of this. You hype it up and hype it up and then the day comes and it's not at all as good as you expected. I've been trying actively to lower my expectations of things so that I'm pleased when they happen instead of disappointed when they don't. I have also been trying to focus more on creating my own happiness through activities that please me, rather than having my happiness dependent on someone or something external.

"They had developed a strict policy of mutual avoidance, so rigid as to show clearly that they still felt a strong attraction."
     - Reminds me of "Thou dost protest too much." When the strongest attraction or affection is felt, it seems like people try the hardest to avoid it if they think they can or should. To the point where a lot of time it's obvious how they really feel about each other to everyone around them.

I really genuinely enjoyed this book. I think it's going to bring up some great discussion at the end of the month!

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