ACOM Book Club for September 2023
The ACOM Book Club met at the home of Azad and Karen Mesrobian just outside St. Peter on September 30, 2023. We had a large group for this meeting with five married couples attending - Azad and Karen, Margaret and Jim, Joe and Kay, Andrea and Lowell, and Leroy and Cynthia being present. Other than the obvious draw of the meeting being at Azad & Karen's house, another probable reason for the large group was the book under discussion - "The Island of Missing Trees" by Elif Shafak. How often do you get to read a book where the story is to an appreciable degree being told by a fig tree? We also took advantage of the relaxed location to return to our past practice of sharing food and drink brought by the attendees and hosts. We enjoyed Armenian Areni red wine, Armenian Tree of Life pomegranate wine, and a very nice white wine. To eat we had Armenian nuts and candies plus a beautiful Cheoreg and paklava made by Azad. Yum!
As usual over half of our time was spent discussing every possible topic other than this month's book, with quite a bit of talk on Nagorno Karabakh. I'll skip those discussions and focus on the book.
First, a brief intro to the book. The main story is split into two time periods. The first takes place on the island of Cyprus in the 1970s when Britain gave independence to the island and Turkey invaded to prevent a Greek takeover. The other story line takes place in London about 40 years later. The main plot involves a young couple on Cyprus, a Muslim Turkish woman and a Christian Greek man, who fall in love. Their families would both refuse to allow such a union so they get together in secret. The man ends up having to leave Cyprus and goes to London. Years later he returns, again meets the woman, they return to London together and have a daughter. They resolve their religious differences by spurning religion entirely. The daughter grows up unaware of their earlier life on Cyprus until her mother dies and her mother's sister comes to visit for the first time.
I think that everybody liked the book, except possibly Azad. He had a few reservations about it.
Jim thought that it was a very emotional story. Joe thought that it followed the story of Romeo and Juliet in some ways.
Several people commented on the way the aunt connected with the daughter and helped her life become more fulfilling.
Joe thought that the gay couple running the restaurant was so very welcoming. He also really liked the discussions of the life of trees. When he read about the father burying the fig tree to protect it from cold weather he researched that topic and found out that it's true and is commonly practiced in some locations.
Margaret liked the book but thought that it was sometimes a slow read and hard to follow.
Andrea liked the parts of the story that took place in Cyprus the most and appreciated the story about the gay couple.
Cynthia thought that reading the viewpoint of a tree was very interesting.
I noted the way society at that time rejected the idea of a Muslim/Christian couple, but rejected even more the idea of a Muslim/Christian gay couple, to the point of violence and murder.
Azad pointed out that besides the Greeks and Turks there were also a lot of Armenians on Cyprus. One of his college teachers was from Cyprus.
Peter's comments, from email: "Another multi-narrative. The tree, though, being a kind of unreliable omniscient narrator was great. It would reveal certain details in its ramble that would end up solving the tension/mystery in the following section. The daughter was the weakest character in my opinion, but she didn't detract from enjoying the story."
Francis's comments, from email: "I'm loving the book. Our 3rd Elif Shafak book."
I'll cut the discussion there. Next month the book will be "Tall Short Stories From the Mind of Garbo" by Chuck Hajinian. The meeting will be on the last Saturday of October, the 28th, at 3:00 in the afternoon at Andrea and Lowell's house in Lake Elmo. Chuck Hajinian will not be in town but may try to join the meeting through Zoom. We will provide more details a few days before the meeting.
I hope to see you all there. Until then, happy reading!
Leroy