Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier ~ November Book Club Online

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

November Book Club Online

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

In Remarkable Creatures, Tracy Chevalier brings to our attention, two historical figures, telling their tale in two distinct voices. Mary Anning is the young one, the uneducated girl with the uncanny gift of finding fossils.  It is the older woman whose voice dominates the novel, another historical character, a middle-class spinster sent away by a married brother to live more cheaply in England's coastal village of Lyme Regis.  To Jane Austen's readers, she will sound familiar.  Both women played a key role in understanding the earth with their discoveries, though not without controversy, at a time when there was no place for women in science. This  is  the story of their friendship which allowed them to stand together and prevail as they challenged the thinking of the day.

DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:

November 1-8    Chapters 1-3 November 9-15    Chapters 4-5 November 16-22  Chapters 6-7 November 23-30 Chapters 8-10

SOME TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

 Chapters 8-10

1.  Were you surprised to learn that months after their "fight" Mary had sold another creature to Col. Birch - a new one, called a Plesiosaurus.  Who identified and named this specimen?

2. How  do Mary Anning and Elizabeth regard the fossils they collected?  Works of art or bones of the dead?  What does this tell about each character?

3. The Western Flying Post described Mary's next  find as "something different from an Ichthyosaurus and a Plesiosaurus," though William Buckland tells Elizabeth it is a Plesiosaurus.  Where would the newspaper have gotten this information? How did Elizabeth describe it when she entered Mary's workroom?

4. Why did Cuvier reject Mary's description of her latest find?  How did Elizabeth Philpot get involved this time?

5. More lightning bolts!  How does Chevalier describe their occurance in Mary's life? Do you remember any specific instances?

6.  How has Elizabeth changed since her rift with Mary and her journey alone to London?  Do you recall the metaphor Mary/Chevalier used to describe how she appears now?

7. Lots of Information mentionned in the Postscripts at the end of the book.  Which caught your attention?

8. Your overall rating of the book - how many stars? (one to five scale) Would  you recommend it to a friend?
 

Related Links:
Comments from the Prediscussion of this novel ;  Video ~ Tracy Chevalier on Writing Remarkable Creatures; The Annings' House and Shop;

DLs: AdoAnnie,   BarbStAubrey,   Marcie,  JoanP

[JoanP]

You are lucky, Deb~  Are you cooking?  In the kitchen today - or will you be dining out?  I'm up to my elbows in pie and stuffing.  Can anyone tell me why, after years and years and years of making pie, the crust is always a struggle?

Happy tomorrow, Deb!

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JoanP....just took the underground railway book back to the library; wasn't quite what I expected but very enjoyable read anyway...am going to pursue other books by Tracy Chevalier

no am not cooking we are invited to a friend's home.... we met in Bradenton 8 years ago in a trailler park....but when at our home my husband does the cooking and I do the clean up; he is an excellent cook and very creative with the mess following as well it is a combined effort when we have company as well, works for us


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[ANNIE]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL HERE. 
And thanks to all who have participated in our discussion and added to our knowledge of Mary Anning and her good friend, Liz Philpot.  This has indeed been most interesting and great fun!

Our dinner tomorrow will be celebrated at our home but cooked and brought by our DIL and her mother and dad.  We provide the house and they do the cooking.  There will be 12 of us at the table (4 are grans) and we will play dominoes afterward.

Hope you all enjoy the day.

[marcie]

This has been an enjoyable discussion with lots to think about due to everyone's varying points of view. Thanks, to everyone here. I hope you all enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving.

[JoanP]

Dinner at son's home...means no untidy kitchen here today - and no leftovers!  Not to worry, I have a turkey thawing in the downstairs refridgerator to cook tomorrow...and I do have extra stuffing I made on Wednesday and didn't take with me yesterday.  Husband's idea...wanted turkey cooked here!  

Deb, I was curious about Tracy Chevalier's latest book,  The Runaway,  released in August, 2013.  (She says in her website she is planning to hibernate during the winter...no word on next topic.)  

The Runaway's main character - a young English Quaker, Honor Bright, who emigrates to America in 1850.  Story of the underground railroad...and those quilts!  From a review:

"Ultimately, however, it is two secondary characters – Mrs Reed, a free black woman and the milliner Belle Mills – and Honor's relationship with each of them that lends imaginative fire to the story. In 2009, Chevalier published Remarkable Creatures, an extraordinary novel that captured with astonishing clarity and accuracy the rhythms and pacing of a friendship between two women. Here, too, the most exciting glimmers of life come from Honor's fledgling friendships with two unusual, world-weary and courageous women"

Is there a theme running through Chevalier's books...Girl with a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures and the Runaway?  Courageous women who stick together to overcome  injustice and adversity?  Thinking again about the title, Remarkable Creatures and am more certain that it is the relationship between these two women that Chevalier views as "remarkable" - more so even than the fossilized creatures they are unearthing - (unshaling?)...

We haven't talked much in this discussion about what was going on regarding women's rights elsewhere during this period.   Elizabeth Philpot travelling alone on the ship to London was unbelievable to some of you who have been reading Jane Austen...but Jane's women were all under the domination of the men in their households.  Mary and Elizabeth had no such restrictions.   I'm wondering when women began to take control of their lives, stand up for themselves?    Tracy Chevalier seems to be pointing out how daring, how remarkable,  these two were.  If there were other strong women at this time, they surely didn't have their example.  

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JoanP...after reading your post perhaps that is the theme, 2 different personalities from an era differing as to the 'norm' of the times
Honor from 'the runaway' was leaving behind her a fiance who jilted her and left the relationship and Honor consequently felt she could not hold her head up in her English society (the society she had been born into ) she elected therefore to accompany her sister who was leaving for America to marry a man older than herself, not having any prospects in her native England, sadly to die just after arriving on the new continent....this leaves Honor alone, afraid to travel back to England due to extreme seasickness on the ship, moving in with her sister's fiance, and newly widowed sister-in-law of the fiance's brother....strange combination to be among her religion and Quakers in her town ....Honor met a business woman and spent some time in her home recouperating from an illness before moving to the home of her deceased sister's fiance and also met a negro woman whose path she was to cross later in the book......

would be interesting to find from the author about her thoughts while writing the books and how she saw the women....

I am presently reading about women in the civil war and how they fought alongside men dressed and impersonating men to be able to do so....I find it very intriguing women who go against the grain of their times and are not caught up in 'the norm' around them

Tracey has written a number of books beside the 3 mentioned and I would be interested to know if this is a running theme she enjoys writing about....

your thoughts

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[JoanP]

One of hers that I've been intending to read...The Lady and the Unicorn- had uneven reviews as I recall.  Praised for the detailed description of the making of these famous tapestries, but criticized for the depiction of the characters...too many of them, speaking in voices difficult to identify.  I think it was written around 2004...shortly after she wrote Girl with a Pearl Earring.  Trying to remember the women in Pearl Earring.  I know there was the young servant, Griet, who posed for the famous painting.  And his pregnant wife.  Trying to remember their relationship, the girl and the wife.  I think I have it upstairs.  Don't remember it as being the theme.  It may have been.  Does anyone remember Girl with Pearl Earring?  My memory is really awful these days.

Since Chevalier chooses historical fiction, based on well-known events and carefully researched works of art, relics, fossils of a previous age, I like your idea of noticing her choice of the women of each age and how they cope with the "norm"...  I seem to remember that from the Earring girl...

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one thought I would like to add....after this about 'women who move against the norm'....I find in the last few weeks I have been reading a couple of books on women who were in the civil war and fought with the troops, mainly disguised as men and the freedoms they found in doing this, among other things, like learning to spit and swear so as not to give away their identity

the book I am reading now
Patriots in Disguise
  women warriors of the civil war
 by Richard Hall

and before this book I read 2 books of the same topic found among the young adult/children section in the library

I guess thats where this discussion has led me, not to mention the amateur fossil show coming up in Fort Myers this week...I'll be thinking about this discussion as I take in what they offer

all the best
Deb

[JoanP]

I love it when our book discussions don't end - when we are inspired to go on in different directions as you are with those women fighting in the Civil War,  Deb.

The fossils fascinate me.  I read in Sunday's Washington Post of the discovery of soft tissue in fossil remains from the Jurassic Period - no telling how much paleontologists will learn from this discovery! I certainly intend to keep up with this.

What a fun discussion this has been...on so many levels!  I'll add my 4 to Tracy Chevalier's book...giving our group's overall rating a 3.6.  Maybe the ranking reflects what was added by you, our DLs and participants.  Thanks, all!