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| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/wintergarden/cover.jpg) | WELCOME
EVERYONE!
Please, join our
Pre-Discussion of
Winter Garden
by Kristin Hannah
The story of a Family
learning and connecting
to its history and
to each other. |
Discussion DatesPre-Discussion...April 23-29
Prologue 1972 - Chapter 6...April 30-May 6
Chapter 7 - Chapter 13...May 7-May13
Chapter 14 - Chapter 20...May 14-May20
Chapter 21 - Epilogue 2010...May 21-May30 |
Discussion Leader: Barb (augere@ix.netcom.com)
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Well we start - we've been looking forward to reading this book and Jonathan has posted a great endorsement for the story –
…you absolutely must read "Winter Garden" and participate in the discussion. It's a superlative book, on a par with Cherry-Garrard's "Worst Journey". It explores territory, which even angels would fear to tread. Absolutely engaging. My only advice would be not to read it before the discussion begins. Once begun, one can't put it down. It gave me the shivers.
In one breath it sounds glowing but on a darker note the Worst Journey was written by the survivors of a harrowing and ill-fated expedition– hmm ominous...
OK... we shall see what we shall see - this is the first time I’ve chosen not to read the book in advance. I would like for a change to be surprised by each event as we read using our schedule. I did read the last few paragraphs of a few chapters to determine where the logical breaks are for our discussion schedule – result, a few things popped up – could not help notice there appears to be a story inside a story with the last week's chapters devoted to an entire story that is told, I believe by the mother.
I did see mentioned, Indigenous Native craft and Cowichan sweaters, which suggests to me that we could spend some time this week finding out about the Cowichan people.
Also valuable will be some background history about the battle pf Leningrad during WWII.
Another topic to look into is the kind of apples they farm in Alaska. I had no idea the weather was temperate long enough for apple orchards to prosper. I laughed realizing, as many think of Texas as miles of flat, windy ranchland with no trees so, I think of Alaska as covered in ice and snow 10 months out of the year. We need Judy to pop in and give us the low down on Alaska.
But more, do you have memories of doing something in the arts, like acting in a play or playing music with your sister or if you don’t have a sister, a best friend or a brother – Have you written in a journal about some of your childhood memories?
Who has had their DNA analyzed? If so, did you learn anything that helped anyone in your family?
Have you shared on tape or in an interview the stories of your childhood? Do you remember asking your parents or grandparents to tell you what it was like when they were little?
How about – it would be fun - let’s all share one childhood memory of doing something, anything that involved our sister, brother or best friend.
OH my, yes - looking forward to this week with a variety of before the read issues and for us to get to know one another a bit more... Laissez les bons temps rouler.
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Good Mornin!! So excited to begin this book discussion.
I grew up in a family with six siblings, ( one brother and five sisters), and my mother took in my two girl cousins who were one year older, and one year younger than myself, when I was eight years old. So my younger sister, two cousins, and myself, became best friends. We were inseparable.
Barb, But more, do you have memories of doing something in the arts, like acting in a play or playing music with your sister or if you don’t have a sister, a best friend or a brother
I remember my brother, sisters, two cousins and myself dressing up like the Beverly Hillbillies and acting out a skit in our basement. I was Granny, my cousin was Jethro since her name was Jessie, afterwards Jethro stuck with her forever. I put on my step Dad's huge high top, dried muddy work books and clogged around in them. We had so much fun!
Have you shared on tape or in an interview the stories of your childhood? Do you remember asking your parents or grandparents to tell you what it was like when they were little?
It's interesting you should ask this question Barb. This past week-end our two youngest grandchildren spent the night with us and Saturday morning at the breakfast table Zak & Zoey kept asking my hubby and me to tell them stories about when we were little. They could not get enough, we would end one and they would say, "Tell us one more."
Have you written in a journal about some of your childhood memories?
I actually have begun writing a book, which includes my entire childhood. I get stuck and stop from time to time, because it can get very emotional remembering and reliving some of the difficult times.
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Got the book, haven't started reading it yet. Will only have it two weeks as there are people in line. Still behind four people on Overdrive.
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Your fine Frybabe - we do not start discussing the book this week - from what I see the excerpt that Amazon includes is not the beginning of the book that starts with a seven page prologue entitled 1972 and then it goes into 2000 and so if the book is delayed at the library for two weeks you've got it made because except for the first 7 pages you can read and share next week by reading what Amazon is giving as a freebee.
Well Bellamarie it appears you grew up in a houseful of youngsters - I'm thinking with basements to play in and long cold winters, playacting would be a fun activity. Were the plays made up or were they similar to a story that you heard.
I guess it is playacting but my sister and I spent hours making out of mud what looked like loaves of bread and rolls and then we would find various wild plants that we stripped, I guess the seeds that looked like oats and coffee and we would search and find the newest shoot of grass all in miniature and pretend they were foods for sale and set them up as if on shelves or store bins full of this and that making the store out of entwined twigs. Took us at least an entire summer to figure out a roof since if the roof was on we could not see the inside of the store and yet we wanted a roof - a few of the oak leaves fell and we used them but we were never satisfied with the result - we did not know how to build a gable so we could have a slanted roof
Its easy to get started isn't it Bellamarie, with one remembered play time after the other - I can see how writing about childhood would be an emotional roller coaster - I'm remembering when Robin Roberts, from the ABC Morning show, had her illness and she was being interviewed after her recovery saying how her mother taught her that everyone has something and so she sees that there is always something for everyone she meets. I do not know if that thought helps us or not but it sure allows us look at each other as humans with vulnerabilities.
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We're hearing about it now that women are doing so much good writing. Girls have more fun. That being the case I'm pleased that the book is about mothers and daughters. Mom was very pleased that her first child was a girl. She wished for a second and wouldn't give up until, four boys later, her wish came true. It was great fun growing up in the thirties. We lived in a rural, suburban environment, on the prairies. Lots of scope for outdoor activities. We spent a lot of time inventing new weapons, for hunting purposes, of course. We were very proud of our new slingshots and bows and arrows. Born hunters. And now I hear that girls were natural gatherers. But we were always pleased to show them where to find the blueberry bush or the wild chokecherrry tree. It was my good fortune to have the dearest mother and two lovely sisters.
What a fine winter scene, Barb. We're going to have a great time with this book. A wonderful journey.
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:) never thought but yes Jonathan, as kids we were true to Anthropology with girls gathering and boys hunting - love it - and yes, growing up before WWII we used much of the natural surroundings for our play - thinking on it, most of childhood was playacting wasn't it - boys pretended to be warriors, hunters, explorers or copy the movements of big league ball players. I remember my kid brother playing spy and they rigged up all sorts of wire and string that was supposed to send secret messages. They spent an awful lot of time hanging out in trees - there were a couple of big trees nearby and girls were not allowed - oh my - one memory does bleed into the next doesn't it.
Jonathan when were you conscious of being at war during WWII - Seems England was experiencing the affect of bombs long before the US entered the war on Dec. of '41 - was Canada kept informed and were y'all following the war experience in England, with the thinking Canada was at war or was Canada made aware of the war on, as President Roosevelt said, the day that will live in infamy?
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Jonathan, how exciting your childhood sounds! Growing up, I cherished my brother who is two years older than me, and was my protector. I was like his sidekick. He, my younger sister, and myself, would go exploring in the ditches on our rural road. I'll never forget the day we were all near a neighbor's huge oak tree near the ditch, and there wrapped around itself was the hugest snake I had ever laid eyes on. I had nightmares about that snake, even after I was married and moved away.
Barb, They spent an awful lot of time hanging out in trees - there were a couple of big trees nearby and girls were not allowed -
Oh dear, not this tomboy! There isn't a tree my brother, sister or myself would not climb. We had no toys to play with besides one doll we got new on Christmas morning, so we had to use mother nature's rocks, twigs, grass, flowers and other items outdoors like bricks, ropes, old tires and a very beat up bicycle without tires on it to keep us active on our acres and acres of land. Imagination was our greatest treasure for playing outside. Inside, my sister and I played paper dolls cut out from newspapers and catalogs. I was born in 1952, but we lived much like in the 40s, outhouse and all, until I was around 5 yrs. old. Funny, how those times seemed so rich to us, when in reality we were what people called, "dirt poor." Like my Mom would always say, "No matter how little you have, you take good care of what you own."
Barb, we always made up our own skits, that is what made me the writer I am today.
Frybabe, I'm so glad you got your book. If you are worried about not having it once the discussion begins take some notes of the high points so you can remember to discuss them as we read the book.
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My book is waiting at the library. I'll pick it up today. I can keep it for three weeks, and renew it if no one is waiting.
JoanK and I did go through a play-writing phase. Only one has survived, from our Greek period, a fairly straightforward three page retelling of the story of Circe and Odysseus. The chorus is Odysseus' crew, which had been magically turned into animals. We did another one of the story of the sculptor Pygmalion, who fell in love with his statue of Galatea, a beautiful woman. In the myth, he prays for the statue to come to life, and they live happily ever after. In our version, Galatea turns out to be a horrible shrew, and the desperate Pygmalion figures out how to turn her back into a statue.
Nobody ever tried to keep me from climbing trees, and I spent a lot of time in a wild cherry tree in our back yard. It was a good place to read.
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Pat how many years difference are there between you and Joan - vaguely I am thinking maybe you are twins but not sure - your memories of writing plays is fun to hear about - the Greeks no less - was it when you were 9 or 10 - I am having a difficult time thinking you know the myths that well at an earlier age
The trees we have climbed - do today's kids climb trees? Maybe they do it by way of virtual reality... I had a wonderful magnolia in the side yard that the grandboys used to climb - but they had so many other activities that climbing trees was not up front center for them - The one used to hang out for hours at the junk yard while my daughter went grocery shopping and he would cart home all sorts of bits and pieces - he did make his own go cart and a few other things he and his younger brother played with in the backyard and then the tears flowed when they moved to the Carolina's and he had to leave all that here. Oh oh oh.
Well change of focus - the book talks about apple orchards and that was a shock to me to even think there were apple orchards in Alaska - found this great site that includes a map of the well known orchards and a list of the apples grown in Alaska runs in a column along the side
https://www.orangepippin.com/orchards/united-states/alaska
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We are twins. JoanK is an hour and forty five minutes older. We learned some Greek and Roman myths in grade school, but we were also voracious readers, and read more somewhere or other.
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PatH., that is amazing how you and Joan learned some Greek and Roman myths in grade school. I don't think I even was aware of any until high school. Where did you grow up, and what type of school did you attend? The only two books I remember reading at all, in my entire school years were A Tale of Two Cities and Hiroshima, in high school English Lit class. Joining Senior Learn is where I have actually been introduced to Shakespeare and mythology.
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Bellamarie I could be wrong but I wonder - my two oldest children were born in '53 and '54 and where they were introduced to some of the myths was in their 4th and 5th grade readers - filled with stories that were read with a list of vocabulary words to learn and a list of at least 10 spelling words to memorize for each story.
My oldest was interested in a few of the myths and so yes, aside from school required reading, for Christmas I found a book of the myths for him and later when he was in 7th grade a book of American Indian myths so yes, learning the myths as a subject in English classes was not part of the curriculum but a few myths were sprinkled in their readers - those stories in those readers were never memorable and so I am wondering if that was your experience and the few myths you may have read were simply not memorable.
I guess I am thinking of the Harry Potter series that I cannot imagine the myths woven into that series was the first exposure grade school readers had considering the ease and popularity of those books. I sure miss that time when the new book was announced with book stores having the big todo the first night the book was released and seeing all those children pickup up their order when their name was called and then plunking down on any empty spot in or outside the books store and start reading in earnest - I used to go just to observe the excitement and see all the costumes.
With everything online now I wonder if they could even pull off the kind of release they did with the Harry Potter books - that may have been the last hurrah when a hardback book was given such an exciting launch that affected millions of kids.
What is on the front cover of your copy of Winter Garden? My copy is a hardback and the slip cover is mostly in medium to light blues with what looks like the row of trees in an orchard covered in snow with the backs of three people walking and in the lower right side of the cover is a close up of a fruit tree in bud with a few blossoms and a white butterfly. I'm curious what the significance is of the white butterfly - I'm guessing it will become clear reading the book. Have not started yet. Wrong time of year for fresh apples but the cover reminds me that reading in the afternoon with a baked apple and cup of coffee would be a nice treat.
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My copy is the same as you describe yours as Barb. Maybe we will find out the significance of the butterfly once we read it. I just finished reading The Women In The Castle today. Oh dear..... I am done with war stories for awhile, I need a break. The ending is so moving, melancholy, emotional and a bit depressing. It's going back to the library tomorrow.
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Dark and mysterious. That's the cover on my paperback Winter Garden. No white butterfly. But it does have a brilliant, white patch of sky behind the dark silhouette of a Russian ecclesiastical structure, the whole cover in various shades of blue. Very wintery. The reader is promised "A searing story with a breathtaking, beautiful ending."
Toronto has been devastated by the act of terror on our main street on Monday. It's going to take a big effort to get on with our lives. A good book in the company of friends...what a solace!
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Jonathan, it must be creepy to have something like that hit so close. My concert buddy was in Toronto Monday, but seems to have escaped unscathed. Life doesn't quite seem ordinary these days.
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Oh my Jonathan - did not realize you lived near Toronto - imagined you over in Nova Scotia - it is all very un-nerving isn't it - wasn't it in France or was it London that a couple of years ago had a vehicle plow into people on a bridge. - between public places and schools becoming war zones and the streets of many cities become places of slaughter - all since the first attempt at taking down the World Trad Center - this is easy to see that many folks can easily be riled by ordinary disasters to follow in the footsteps of this carnage.
And I am soooo sooo tired of every incident being made into a political diatrade that is purposely reported in a way to engage opposite thinking. I am getting to the point where I think there are puppet handlers behind all of it... or at least how it is reported.
This is when I am so glad we read A Gentleman in Moscow - I'm thinking voluntary, close by house arrest with only a limited access to the 'village' we live in may be our mental safety-net since there is little we can do about these world issues. I know I know pulling the shades down around me - but I am weary hearing about it and reading about it and seeing it on the TV that I barely turn on any more.
Well onward - it will be interesting to see how this family copes with world events that took place in the lifetime of some family members.
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Jonathan, I had no idea you lived in Toronto, like Barb I had envisioned you in a different place. I can't imagine how you all must be feeling. Our day to day safety is sometimes taken for granted, yet when something like this strikes so close to home it truly does shake us to our core. I am keeping all of the victims and their families in my prayers, as well as all Canadians.
Since I finished The Women In The Castle, I am going to begin Winter Garden today. It is a glorious sunny, warm day here in my city, so first it's outside to putter around in my Spring Garden of flowers popping up. Weeds and leaves must be cleared away. My first attempt to grow tulips has proven a success, they are just about to bloom and show their beautiful color of red!
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Let me tell you what a swell place Toronto has become with people from everywhere making it their home. I've lived here for most of my life and assumed you all knew that. How could it happen here, we're all wondering. I hope your concert buddy will come back, Pat, along with the many other visitors who come here to enjoy the many cultural amenities, including some splendid gardens. However the best years of my life were the early ones in the wild wide-open West. What fun to chop down a tree. After making sure the girls weren't up there on some branch reading their books.
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X....marking my spot. I am #2 on the wait list for the e-book.
I'm an only child and grew up on 160 acres of pastureland 2 miles outside the city limits of my small hometown in southeastern Oklahoma. So I spent a lot of time roaming around the barnyard and to the two small ponds not far from the house.
There was a sandbox just outside the kitchen door with a long table on which I made mud pies, etc. One time I let a tarantula crawl onto the big spoon I was using - then took it into the kitchen to ask my Mother what it was. History does not record her reaction or reply. :D
After a huge tree (probably an oak) toward the back of our yard area was split by lightning, my friends and I would "set up housekeeping" on the three divisions of the split trunk. It was fun to crawl back and forth "visiting" each other.
Sometimes, my parents and I drove out to the middle of the biggest pasture on a moonless night and looked at the stars. They had given me a book of the myths on which the constellations were based and I fondly remember stretching out on the hood of the car to search from horizon to horizon for the shapes.
Am looking forward to following along with the discussion.
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Jonathan:
After making sure the girls weren't up there on some branch reading their books.
;D
My friend enjoyed Toronto immensely, and got back in one piece, in fact we went to a concert this evening.
JoanK and I grew up in Washington, DC, but I could still go stargazing, because it was wartime, and we had an enforced blackout, so stars were brightly visible. I learned my constellations from an excellent set of star maps in the July 1943 National Geographic, which I still use. They have pictures of the mythical characters, too.
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Callie, your childhood sounds idyllic, with your best friend. I can't imagine what being an only child could be like, since I grew up with never a private place, or moment with our gaggle of girls. Everyone used to say they felt sorry for the only boy in the family, which we would all laugh and say how spoiled he was, having all his sisters to wait on him hand and foot.
Star gazing is something I find myself doing more and more these past couple of years. My one friend posts the location of the satellite spaceship on Facebook, to keep us informed.
Jonathan, my hubby and I visited Toronto for our 10 year anniversary back in 1981. I fell in love with the beauty of the city. I was amazed at how you don't see parked cars on the streets, and the underground shopping mall. I'll have to find a picture we took when we were there. I'll never forget dining at a restaurant where this French waiter came to take our order. He addressed us so very formal, and I must say I blushed at all the attention he gave to me. My hubby found it just a tad annoying, but we both had a good laugh about it later.
PatH., so you grew up in the hustle and bustle of the life of Washington D.C. We visited D.C. back around 2001, and was thrilled to tour the White House. We loved getting first hand experience of what it's like to be around so much of our country's treasured monuments, buildings, and loved watching the Changing of the Guards. We hope to go again one day to visit the Smithsonian, since we were not able to find the time to get to that.
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BellaMarie, even though friends who lived in town and I visited back and forth during our childhoods, I longed to be able to walk out the door and find a neighborhood full of playmates as they could do.
The most special thing about those friendships is that they continue to this very day. We went through all 12 years of school together - then went our separate ways but still stayed in contact. We always saw each other at class reunions but, after our 50th reunion, really reconnected and, until age began taking its toll, had "house parties" in various homes and even did some traveling together. Two of the "Super Six" have died but the others, now in our 80's, are still in touch via phone, text and e-mail.
I miss the star-gazing. Too many city lights around me now.
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The street I lived on was like any residential area in any city or town, but I could hop on a bus and go downtown to visit the museums whenever I wanted to. The dinosaurs in the Smithsonian were my old acquaintances. And they're free. I'm still not used to paying big bucks to enter a museum.
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Grrrr how is THAT for a start - but it happens so many times - had a great post going - was interrupted and as a result several other windows were open - finally finish with those I was talking with and shoot, blast I eliminate the whole shooting mach - hit the button that even reminds me I have several windows open - had completely forgotten this connection and blasted all I deleted the whole thing... grrr now to start in all over again. Good Grief there goes the phone again - later...
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Grrrr is right.
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Barb, I wish I had a dime for every time I have wrote a ton, and lost it. Grrr.... and Ughhhhh.....
I read this coming week's assigned chapters and, OH MY, is all I will say right now. These chapters have my emotions all over the place, not to mention, has me rethinking my childhood memories of my relationships with my mother and siblings.
Jonathan, I guess the word, "shiver" is the perfect word to describe this story. I read a few chapters before I went to visit my sister and brother in law, who is recuperating from pancreatic cancer surgery. He is doing quite well after spending almost nine months in the hospital, due to various complications. She and I walked out on her front porch to look at our Mother's rose bushes that survived our homestead fire, after my Mother's death. She and her husband had purchased our family home after our mother died, their/our family house caught fire due to faulty electrical wiring after they moved into the house. Her husband rebuilt on the land, so when I visit it is still like, going home. I wanted to compare her rose bush growth, with how mine looked that she had given me a shoot from last year, and assessed by the looks of hers, mine will flower nicely this year. We sat talking and this book kept creeping up into my thoughts. I came home exhausted, tried to watch some shows on my DVR, and this book kept invading my thoughts. I decided to go to bed, and brought the book upstairs to read til I was ready to fall asleep. I woke up, and the first thing I saw was the book on my nightstand, and all the emotions came back. Mercy me, I am only up to chapter six and I already feel emotionally drained. Family dynamics tend do that to us.
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Oh my Bellamarie - well I need to ground myself and feel adequate than - and with that, a story that were my life guide experiences that I had only more fully tapped back into in the last few years.
Some backstory... Unlike several of you, I grew up in 3 different places, spread far from each other - As a very young child it was Tampa Florida. Only a few memories - I do remember being angry with my grandmother - I was 2, before my sister was born and Mama had me sitting on the shelf outside the big kitchen window so that my hair would dry in the sun - Grandma comes in angry and scolding my mother - of course in those years all in German, which alone sounds like the clouds have opened and all this sound is emanating from some hidden doomsday God - the gist of it was, "she could fall", including all these expletives about my mother being either crazy or dumb in the head - if I was a bit scared, no more - would not give in or agree with anyone scolding my mother. ;D
Then White County Ga. where there was lots of mud to play with and in and there was a lot of singing - both my mother and my Aunt played the piano and my Uncle played the Violin and an older cousin the accordion - music all the time.
Then much of my grade school years was in a Throgs Neck when it was all dirt or gravel roads, with fields of tall grass as far as the eye could see. A scattering of homes, a long, unpaved street with various shops and where the end of the line for the Trolley car was located that connected us to the city. Then in seventh grade we moved to City Island, an old 1647 seafaring community, where huge wooden boats were still handmade in several of the boat yards, there was a sail loft that made huge sails including the sails for the world famous America’s Cup yachts, lots of fishermen and lobster men and older folks dug clams - Three churches, with the Catholic Church having all of 14 pews. The grade school had 4 classes, with two classes sharing the same room and same teacher - High School was a daily, hour and a half bus trip into the city - lots of homework completed, books read and socks knitted on that twice a day trip.
Both places have changed dramatically since my childhood - still no High School on City Island but no longer a seafaring community - both areas are busy, full of houses, paved roads, shops, restaurants and lots of traffic. The same in Tampa with only White County remaining rural although, it too has paved roads and other amenities. However, the White County relatives all moved to various locations in North Carolina and most of the Tampa relatives are now in Ocala. After I married I lived 4 years on a small farm near Wappingers Falls NY and then back south, living over a dozen years in Kentucky and 51 years here in Austin.
Each place I lived had an impact on my life - mostly because of the opportunities each area offered - and now, after all that, the story of how I experienced feeling adequate to the task of living when the living is filled with the unexpected.
The Summer when I was about 7 my father made me a kite - we raided mom's rag bag for pieces of cloth to make the tail and he had a ball of string that he showed me how to wind like a figure 8 on a wooden stick - up our gravel street was the cross street that dropped off into a steep dirt hill that lead to the swamp and the top of the hill was at the end of our street - kids would fly their kite from that hill top - my father got me started - my sister, who is 2 and half years younger tagged along, watched but quickly lost interest –
I loved it - I could feel the pull of the wind and how my pulling against the wind was flying this kite – The other kids had store bought kites of wonderful colors - cost 10 cents that we just did not have - saved all winter and by the next Spring I purchased my kite - I chose a yellow one - then I asked my father if he could get any more string - I remember the smile he had when he came home with a large ball of string that we added with a special knot - I thought my kite could reach the clouds - One day a huge blimp from Germany came over and the people waved - I knew they could see my kite - this had to be the summer before the war when I was 8 – I turned 9 a month after the war started.
I remember holding tight that kite string, feeling the wind shifts and having to work when the wind dropped, pumping the string to keep the kite in the air - on and on I learned how to work with the wind - it was finally the third year of kite flying that the girl across the street joined us and my sister also tried but she could not keep her kite in the air and so she went back home. Chicky, the girl across the street did not like the silence - she kept trying to talk with the boys who were intent on flying their kite and not interested - nor did she like working the kite with the wind - so there I was again, the only girl among 5 or 6 boys spread across the top of that hill as we, from time to time made short comments for all to hear about what the wind was doing.
When I was a teen I loved sailing - there were sailboats of all sizes around the island and I loved not only sailing, I loved sanding down and varnishing the hauls each spring and re-splicing ropes and polishing the brass just as much as sailing the boats.
Pat Cranna, my best friend and I would climb aboard the large two and three mast sailboats that were waiting for repairs and climb the tallest mast to dive off making sure we cleared the deck - sometimes we were so high we were scared but did it anyhow. As girls, we were not allowed to join the long sail down the coast as most of the teen boys took those large yachts down to Florida each year in late Summer and came back by train - but we did get to experience the joy of cutting through the water, using the wind and knowing how to close haul (pull-in) or reach (let loose the sails) to get the most from the wind - I loved hauling tight the sail, catching the wind as close as possible so that we had to hang off the other side to keep the boat from tipping - no noise like a motor boat and clean cutting with a slicing feeling of moving along the water, watching the tiny directional streamers attached to the top of the mast - I loved it.
Later, as a responsible adult and Mom, I felt more like a serving tray than flying a kite or sailing - yes, I filled high my serving tray with lots of goodies to please and colorfully decorated everything on my serving tray and yes, I will always instinctively take care of others however, not realizing it, there was always a tiny piece of me, flying my kite or sailing my boat, reading the wind as I did at 7, standing on that hill, flying my kite watching for a change in the wind and learning from a few of the older, more experienced kite flyers what to do, when and why.
And so, the wind has changed again. Now I'm an elder in a town that has multiplied 3 to 4 times the size it was in 1966 when we chose this lot, that was then located on the edge of town and my children and grandchildren have since scattered. Over the years, my life has been calm to full of storms with a couple of tornadoes - during it all I kept my kite flying and sailed without cracking up or crashing on the rocks, even kept my serving tray afloat and so, I'm ready, let's see how the wind is blowing for the characters in Kristin Hannah's story.
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Barb, how wonderful your growing up years sound. Hold on tight to that kite, and get ready to set sail, because this story will have your emotions going in all sorts of directions.
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From Barb...'Grrrr! Had a great post going.' Like Coleridge, when he was tragically interrupted while working on Kubla Khan? What a loss!
How nice to hear from you, Callie. The environment in which you grew up sounds so familiar. The games we played with the stars that filled the sky. Find me this. Find me that. Do you see that stellar formation that spells out 'I love you'? And she would reply: 'I see it spelled out in six places.' I wonder if she ever suspected that I had rearranged them to send my message.
Bellamarie, I hope all the world reads your post and then goes for the book. Family dynamics! Indeed.
What a glorious post, Barb. As good as anything Coleridge composed. Seriously.
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Good news! I was able to renew Winter Garden the backlog of waits must have cleared while I had this one. I hope to start reading it today.
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Hurray for you Frybabe - catching up with all of us Jonathan - thanks for the kudos - today is the day Bellamarie - I will grab the string of my kite as the wind blows during this read - we start tomorrow - Cannot believe a whole week just zoomed by...
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Callie your two small ponds on the land of your childhood home have been in my mind off and on today - I wondered if they were tanks or natural - and if natural did they have any tall grasses like Cattails or Reeds growing along the edge of the ponds - Did you swim or fish in them?
I remember when the cattails held onto the furry, cigar-shaped seed heads we would break them or cut them and then have fun smoking them on a summer's night supposedly to ward off misquotes but actually to play act as if we were smoking a cigar - fun and games when we were kids.
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Half way in our first week's read - I am about to start chapter 4 - Oh dear - she sure knows how to write doesn't she - I need a break already - brings up a lot of my own family issues that I, like Meredith would just as soon not dredge up - even if you do share, no one can really say anything except 'they are sorry' and other noises that just does not help does it... well when the wind blows hard it takes a bit more skill but it sure does not stop dead either kite or sail - you go with it or let go and let the wind have its way with you so you are as lost as a kite flying into oblivion or a sail battering against the mast - onward through chapter 4 to 6
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Barb, I really relate to your talk of sailing and kite flying. But I'm too sleepy to say more now. Another time.
Jonathan, I admire your ability to let the stars write your love letters.
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Barb, the ponds had been dug to provide water for livestock. Both had natural grasses around them but I spent most of my time at the one with a big weeping willow tree on the bank. I don't remember any cattails. No swimming but, occasionally, my dad and I would fish - with a cane pole, a long string and a worm on a hook.
My dad was an attorney but loved the "rural life", even though he didn't look or act the part of a farmer or rancher - other than to drive around the pasture in his pickup. The pasture was leased to a local man who used it to fatten a few cattle at a time before selling them (I think; I didn't really pay that much attention to that part).
We did have fresh milk and home-churned butter (I still have my mother's Daisy churn) but, in general, our daily life was more like "town folks" than "country people".
Jonathan, I enjoyed reading about your romantic star-gazing. Unfortunately, by the time I reached that stage of my life, I lived in a city - haven't gazed at a horizon-to-horizon starry sky in probably 70 years.
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aha - interesting Callie here we call a man made pond or lake mostly used to collect and hold rain water, a tank. Most tanks the ranchers stock with fish that the state has a release every few years - and yes, the world we grew up in regardless its location is so changed now - we have all become further detached from nature haven't we. In one breath it's nice to think back and in another it is so sad - even the nicest city streets cannot compare to those empty forests and fields can they.
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OK Pat a whole post just to say goodnight and sleep tight and hope you wake refreshed in the morning - need to use up a couple of posts so we can start fresh with a new page tomorrow, the first day of our discussion.
Trying to remember what I read of hers years and years ago - something that took place in maybe Norway or Sweden I think - her ability in this book to tell a story that strikes the reader's emotions is as good as it gets - many authors can describe how someone feels or describe a sad or even horrific scene - but she knows how to get to it with the characters actions - not so much even describing how the character feels but just what they do and what they say - amazing.
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Learned a bit about the Apple industry - never thought that apples like many products lose their popularity - it's true for me - I seldom by Golden Delicious any longer - I remember when Golden Delicious first hit the market and everyone was delighted with the juicy sweetness - and grapes - interesting - I do now get a sack of grapes every week when I shop - I like to snack on them rather than cookies or muffins - and I realize there are so many fruits and berries available year round so that I no longer cook the sauces that I always had a bowl of some sauce or other in the frig - often a dollop was added to the side of a dinner that has meat and veggies - seem to have gotten out of that habit as well.
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| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/wintergarden/cover.jpg) | WELCOME
EVERYONE!
Please, join our
Discussion of
Winter Garden
by Kristin Hannah
The story of a Family
learning and connecting
to its history and
to each other. |
Discussion Dates
Prologue 1972 - Chapter 6...April 30-May 3
Chapter 7 - Chapter 13...May 4-May10
Chapter 14 - Chapter 20...May 11-May17
Chapter 21 - Epilogue 2010...May 18-May24 |
Discussion Leader: Barb (augere@ix.netcom.com)
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Good morning all!
The opening paragraph of the prologue is powerful, IMO. It set a scene and mood, immediately, for a frozen, winter world. Like Barb's picture of the winter orchard, with its bright red apples still clinging to the trees, the rest of the prologue paints a picture of a few bright spots (the children and their play, perhaps Dad trying to make up for Mom), trying bravely to cheer and thaw the frozen heart of the household (Mom).
I looked up Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), whose poems are before and after the prologue. I had never heard of her. She was short listed for a Nobel Prize in 1965 and is considered one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century. I can see why Hannah chose her poetry for her book. Poetry Hunter has a selection of her poetry which is translated into English. https://www.poemhunter.com/anna-akhmatova/poems/
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I need to find it Frybabe - but we did a month of her work back when Anna was still with us and for over a year, maybe two years we were doing a poet a month. Anna knew of her work - I did not - I will try to find it again - we did not do a separate discussion for each month so the month of sharing the work of Anna Akhmatova will be buried amid the thousands of posts that are and were part of the Poetry discussion.
Yep Frybabe, agree, the opening lines of both poetry and the prologue are so perfect for the story that follows. The line in the first paragraph of the prologue that captures for me so much is, "Everything froze, turned fragile." All three women freeze their show of emotion and turn fragile.
They all three pour so much of themselves into their work and the result is they create wonders - Nina with her telling photographs and Meredith successfully running the business and Mom having created a beautiful Russian style home and a garden with not only her frozen emotions but without the ability to see color.
I know well having a mother whose emotions are frozen and at times seems confused - from the time I was quite young I took care of some of the important jobs - both because I knew they needed doing but also, trying like Meredith appears to be doing, feeling your own value is tied to how well you can take care of your mother's jobs - it is how in my family, among all the cousins I was labeled the 'responsible one'.
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Oh Jonathan, I loved your romantic message in the stars. You must share with us how you were able to line them up to spell out "I Love you."
So today we begin this story of a family battered and broken...... I can't imagine living in a home where the mother is so rigid, unfeeling, and secluded. It does indeed give me "shivers" reading how she refuses to have an emotional attachment to her two daughters, who so desperately vie for her love and affection. The father is the backbone of this family, he must get exhausted juggling the happiness of his wife and his two daughters.
pg. 9 She knew what would happen: Dad would calm Mom down and then he'd come up to their room and make them laugh and hold them in his big, strong arms and tell them that Mom really loved them. By the time he was done with the jokes and the stories, Meredith would want desperately to believe it.
Growing up, my mother was never affectionate to me or my six siblings. We never heard the words, I love you. We never got hugs, stories read to us, good night kisses, or good-bye hugs, but, the one thing I can say for certain, I never doubted her love for each and every one of us.
pg. 20 And there she was: her eighty-something-year-old mother, bundled up in blankets, sitting on the black bench in her so-called winder garden.
As a child it had scared Meredith__all that solitude in her mother__but as she got older it had begun to embarrass, then irritate her. A woman of her mother's age had no business sitting alone in the cold. Her mother claimed it was because of her ruined vision, but Meredith didn't believe that. It was true that her mother's eyes didn't process color__she saw only white and black and shades of gray__but that had never struck Meredith, even as a girl, as a reason for staring at nothing.
This Russian mother who loves solitude, and made up fairy tales is an enigma to me. She obviously has gone through tremendous pain in her life.
And what about the other sister Nina, she copes with NOT coping with life, by going off far away taking photographs of war torn countries and impoverished, wounded people. She much like her mother seems to be avoiding the pain, in her own type of solitude.
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Barb is having electrical problems, and might not be able to get in for a while.
Yes, Frybabe, the opening is stunning. And it leads up to two really intense chapters. (I've only read through chapter two; when I got my library book, it was saturated with perfume, to which I'm allergic, so I let it rest a few days. That often helps, but didn't this time, so I'm keeping it inside a plastic bag to read.) She really can paint word pictures. Another good one--the Himba woman, covered in ochre dust.
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Bellamarie, you point out so well the difference between lack of demonstrative behavior and lack of love. And look at the cost of no love.
Nina, when she learns of her father's heart attack, doesn't want Danny to come with her: "She didn't know how to respond to that, what to say. Relying on people for comfort had never felt natural to her, The last thing she wanted was to give someone the power to hurt her. Self-preservation was the one thing she'd lerned from her mother."
Brrr.
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'It does indeed give me "shivers" reading how she refuses to have an emotional attachment to her two daughters, who so desperately vie for her love and affection....' What do you think, Bellamarie? Is mother too busy living with her shadow as described in Anna Akhmatova's beautiful lines: 'We don't know how to say goodbye. You're moody. I am your shadow.'
What a prologue! Beginning with 'this icy season when every breath becomes visible', and ending with a vision of their mother's 'white, white hair
Akhmatova's great. I belleve the author could also have started with a line from Tolstoy: 'All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Anna Karenina
We've begun a wonderful journey. And I've also been reminded that I was going to cook up a pot of apple sauce with that bag of McIntosh in the frig. What do you think, Barb? Were those apples being grown in Alaska started up by an apple farmer from Novgorod. Alaska after all, was Russian at one time. That part of Alaska must be warmed by a mild ocean current, no doubt.
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Thank you Pat - yes, first half the house than all the house without electricity since this morning - I'm back but with no answers from the city as to what happened I feel like I'm walking on Tissue paper - who knows if electricity will go out again - and I do not have an alternate device to this computer - so yes, If there are no posts I'm without electricity again - both neighbors gone for the week so no one to check in with but it does appear to be affecting the people behind me - no big storm however, rainy all day - I bet it is the squirrels - this is an older area of town before underground utilities that came along very soon after this house was built.
I'll get back to everyone later - have tons of calls to make... yes, my phone is affected - it is hooked into whatever runs the computer which is all dependent on electricity. Now that it came on it appears I have 11 calls to return - Ok till later...
Just a quickie - this story really brings into focus the conflict between self and others doesn't it - or is it trust - is it that we feel we are giving up part of our own defense to be intimate - but then the mother had an intimate relationship with the father that both girls have difficulty sharing with the men in their lives. Is it that both girls feel they could not trust another to protect their feelings and so they must be their own sole protectors.
Their mother's inability to show warmth seems to be directed to the girls - is it because as children the girls were needy for her approval and affection where as, the husband is able to give, expressing few needs?
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Bellamarie, I considered your comment that Nina was avoiding pain by gallivanting all over the world to do her photo journalism. What I came up with is that she is not so much avoiding pain but transferring her pain by documenting the pain of others. But you are right, too, because she refuses to let herself get, on a personal level, emotionally close to anyone.
I have just gotten to the Himla. Did you notice how attuned she was to possible emotional entanglements on page 34? Danny's comment about his age could have been a vague attempt to test the waters for a possible closer connection with Nina. She picked up on it right away. My guess is that she is so paranoid about being emotionally close to anyone, that there is lots of room for her to misconstrue even innocent comments.
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Barb, I am so sorry to hear you are having electrical problems. I pray things get repaired and you don't experience any more outages.
Their mother's inability to show warmth seems to be directed to the girls - is it because as children the girls were needy for her approval and affection where as, the husband is able to give, expressing few needs?
I tend to think the mother's inability to show love and affection to the daughters has something more to do with how her mother may have raised her. The husband wants the mother to share the rest of the fairy tale with the girls. I feel what ever the rest is, will be the insight to why the mother in not able to connect with her daughters. She promised her husband she would finally tell them on his death bed, yet she does not follow through. He is desperate to get her to share this with the daughters before he dies. He knows her story, he accepts her and loves her in spite of what ever her story is, this is why she is able to love him unconditionally. The daughters do not know her story, they only know the fairy tales she has told them, and it appears the ending is the key to unlocking the mother's reason she sits in the winter garden endlessly remembering and reliving what ever it is that keeps her from feeling the freezing temps, and does not allow her to let her daughters in.
Frybabe, Meredith and Nina have men in their lives who want to love them, and want to help them through their loss and pain, but I fear they both may lose these men, if they continue to refuse to let them into their lives to comfort and love them.
Jonathan, applesauce sounds so comforting, while reading this book. Yum!
PatH., The last thing she wanted was to give someone the power to hurt her. Self-preservation was the one thing she'd learned from her mother."
Sadly, this may be the one thing that also causes her to lose the man who cares so much for her. She manages to give him her body in love making, yet she is not able to give him her trust.
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I almost feel like re-reading the entire 6 chapters to find clues - so far it appears the Dad was the hub of the family holding everyone close - until the very end of his life, he loves without being needy, he has an intimate relationship with his wife, he knows and encourages his two daughters, showing his affection for each of them. The two daughters have in their minds a good, loving and caring relationship with their Dad.
Between each other the two daughters are typical sisters - they are close but also have their opinions - Meredith has something to say about Nina's cleaning ability and Meredith calls Nina on her 'running away' and yet, does not acknowledge her own 'running away' that she accomplishes through her obsessive cleaning and perfecting her ability to respond to the physical needs of the business and the family. Both girls have a good relationship with Meredith's two daughters. Both girls have men in their lives who love them and where both love their men, neither can share their pain and sorrow or even the intimate day to day living with these devoted partners.
I thought it interestingm as Pat points out Nina does not want Danny to comfort her. It is telling that although Danny knows the pain of lose because of the deaths he witnessed and assisted in Ireland that fact was not enough to persuade Nina to share her pain of lose. Which suggests that Nina is protecting herself from more than the pain of lose. Instinctively Nina knows this loss is touching in her more than the loss of a beloved father.
And Meredith - as Jonathan sees beauty in the lines written by Anna Akhmatova - she says it perfectly in this...
Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—
Unless ... Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
Which leaves us with the mother that as you, Bellamarie see as an enigma
Jonathan points out she is white - white hair, white winter garden, walls of her home painted white. She is comfortable sitting with the frozen earth - just being in the freezing wind wearing only her nightgown and yet, she appears comfortable, non apologetic for her withdrawn solitary countenance. In her sitting room a fire blazes, just as her husband warms her inner nature so that we get glimmers of a beating heart.
And so, for the reader Kristin Hannah has her readers face 'why' - why is this women removed, or why is the relationship between her and her daughters fraught with silence and distance. What is it that the father sees and can tap into that the daughters are unable to penetrate.
Another for the readers, why are we seeing this woman as a curiosity - why are we we, like her daughters, not comfortable with her solitude - the story shows us what it is like meeting anything we fear, we instinctively flee, fight or freeze - Nina and Meredith flee, one physically hiding behind a camera and the other flees into her work with the same speed and daily distance as her morning run and Anya freezes, almost like the Snow Maiden - which makes me wonder Bellamarie if Evan loves her not so much in spite of her story but because of her story - reading this about the Snow Maiden gives another viewpoint rather than the viewpoint of the daughters that is easy for us, the readers to tap into.
http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/origins2648-the-snow-maiden.html
So many more questions... what is it about her children that Meredith can relax hearing their voice but cannot relax and feels a sense of duty around her husband...
Why can Meredith not imagine or see a future - her father, Evan looked at the same reports and saw the dip in the Delicious Apple sales and with that he could imagine a future in Grapes where as, Meredith simply sees it as a challenge to alternative attempts in the now to cut costs. If she worked harder or cut closer their expenses as if she and she alone must make the difference. Can one thwarted play cause a life long attitude of feeling totally responsible and to avoid creative thinking.
The explanation for Anya's inability to see color, called achromatopsia, was not acquired but congenital and a gene malfunction and so why has achromatopsia not shown up in any of her offsprings or grandchildren? Are thy not her children I wonder and is that why she is distant to her daughters.
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I don't see the daughters as being "needy," I see them as "needing" their mother to love them, and show affection, as any child would expect from their mother.
Barb, interesting link about the Snow Maiden...... so what will melt Anya's heart? I feel the answer is in the ending of the fairy tale, she refuses to reveal to her daughters.
what is it about her children that Meredith can relax hearing their voice but cannot relax and feels a sense of duty around her husband...
There is NO relationship with anyone, as intimate as that of a wife and husband. Meredith is denying herself the comfort and love she knows her husband can provide for her, I think because she so desperately wants it from her mother, since her father is no longer here to comfort her. These two girls are feeling lost and orphaned, because the mother has shut them out, not only all their lives, but now through their grieving the one man they all so loved.
I never grew up having a father in my life, I would have cherished having a father like Evan, although he has been trying all these years to give to his two daughters, what their mother refuses to, or is incapable of giving to them. Now that he is gone, how will the mother and two daughters manage life without the one person, who managed to keep this family together?
When my mother died, who was the glue that held our family together, all seven of us siblings ended up distancing ourselves for years. As experts point, and Barb reminded us, when we are faced with fear we instinctively tend to freeze, fight or flee. Anya for what ever reasons in her past, has chosen to "freeze", the two daughters because of being rejected so many times over and over by their mother have chosen fight & flee. Nina flees off to far away countries. Meredith chooses to fight, staying with her mother and insisting on handling everything, causing a rift in her marriage. I see the mother's salvation is in the freezing winter garden, Meredith's is her two loving daughters, and Nina's is her camera. What happens if, or when, either of these are taken from them?
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I would think, on the surface, that since it was the Mother who was cold and unloving, and the Father who was the caring one, that the girls would have learned to shun the caring nature of other women and idealize the man as caring individuals. However, there is an undercurrent where the girls suspect that Dad is making excuses and overcompensating for Mom. So, they have learned not to trust men as well, believing that their care and love is not genuine? This is more complex than my undergrad Psychology got into.
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Frybabe that is interesting...... From all I have learned through experts, the child always thrives for the parent who is less loving and attentive to them. It's as if they need that parent's approval and love to validate their self worth. I've been thinking about the fact the father has always over compensated for the love the mother refused to give to the daughters. He would tell them everything would be okay, when in fact it never was. As much as they loved their father, as you point out, they could not trust in his words.
pg. 9 Meredith tried to feel as mature as she had this morning, but her confidence was gone. She knew what would happen; Dad would calm Mom down and then he'd come up to their room and make them laugh and hold them in his big, strong arms and tell them that Mom really loved them. By the time he was done with the jokes and the stories, Meredith would want desperately to believe it. Again.
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Is Anya experiencing early on set of Alzheimer's?
pg. 84 "Hey, Mom, Meredith said, coming up to her. "What are you doing?" "We have these jewels. And the butterfly is somewhere." "Are you getting dressed up for something?" Her mother looked up sharply. Only then, when their gazes really met, did Meredith see the confusion in those electric-blue eyes. "We can sell them." "We don't need to sell your jewelry, Mom." "They'll stop handing out money soon. You'll see." Meredith leaned over and gently scooped up the costume jewelry. There was nothing of real value here: Dad's gifts had always been more heartfelt than expensive. "Don't worry about the bills, Mom. I'll be paying them for you." "You?" Meredith nodded and helped her mother to her feet, surprised at the easy acquiescence. Mom let herself be led up tot he stairs easily. "Is the butterfly safe?" Meredith nodded. "Everything is safe, Mom," she said, helping her mother into bed. "Thank God," Mom said with a sigh. She closed her eyes.
The doctor says not to worry, grief can do that to a person her age. I'm thinking it is not grief. As much as I have learned about Alzheimer's, you are more able to recollect your long term memories, on the onset of dementia. If this is so, then the daughters just may find answers to Anya's past that will help them understand her inability to love her daughters. As much as Anya has kept these memories hidden from them, she will have no control of them surfacing if she indeed has Alzheimer's.
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Anya is certainly in an abnormal state, but I have a different theory about it. The shock and strain of her grief has thrown her back into the mindset of whatever episode her earlier life turned her into the cold woman who could only love her husband, not her children. We don't know yet what that is, but there is mention that part of the book harks back to wartime Leningrad. Leningrad had an awful time in WWII. It was fought over, and the Germans besieged it at length, deliberately bottling it up to starve the inhabitants. Huge numbers starved to death, and many survivors suffered malnutrition damage.
Her behavior fits. She's relieved to see potatoes in the garden, she hides pirogi in her pockets for later, doesn't feel she should eat every day, gathers up her jewelry because it can be sold. Whatever it was, the new pain has thrown her back to it, or she can't bear the new grief, so she reverts to the old to hide from the new.
Poor woman, I hope she can come to some sort of peace.
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Hmm OK - well y'all are agreeing with my sisters - and that floors me - I just never got into it with them but all I have ever heard is they going on and on about their problems because of Mom - I thought they were, I do not know what but certainly selfish - I would just back off and let them go on and on and inside my thoughts I was shaking my head wondering why, as well as, shaking my head in annoyance - sure it would have been nice if.... but the reality was not what we wish... life is not a fairytale... having a mother who cooked well, kept us clothed, saw to it that we went to school, made our beds when we were little, birthed us for heaven's sake that is far more than many in this world experience plus this mother, as our mother were not drunks or addicted to drugs -
Our mother's are human beings - no different than we are - things happen - they, like we, do the best we can - to look at our mothers and find what was admirable makes more sense to me than gnashing over the lack of warmth we would have preferred.
I just do not see the sense in determining a black hat versus white hat - if so, there are no dynamics in life and nothing to learn. Obviously the Dad with all his support and kindness could not teach his daughters to appreciate their mother - so this mother embarrassed them and made a scene when they were young - sure it is a bad memory - but these girls are adults now and Meredith especially is still holding a grudge - she was the one who decided to retaliate by no longer listening to her mother tell the stories. How long does the mother have to be punished for acting out - her emotional button was hit and she exploded in anger - big deal - people do that and just because you are a Mom does not mean you only act in ways that benefit your children at the expense of bottling up your own rage - This women did not beat her children or punish them - she is simply distant and that is interpreted as being cold. Telling a story that describes anyone with a cold nature yes, the description would compare to what we see and have felt that as cold - but then is cold a black hat situation - there is hot and cold.
My explanation for wanting more from another just because she is a mother and we have expectations of life being as close and warm and secure as when we were in the womb is being needy. Especially in this situation where both girls had all the warmth they wanted from their father and so they were not adrift in life with none of their need for the expression of love shown to them - if they stopped long enough and got off their selfish stand they could acknowledge their Mom loved them only they wanted it shown in a different way - shoot that is not living in a real world.
In fact according to books I have read, expecting your children to fill a gap is just as much taking care of yourself at their expense - there is a word for it and I have forgotten but Meredith feels what she wants to feel when she talks to her girls - in a perfect world she should be calling her husband to feel settled but Meredith calls her girls. Where as her mother did not burden Meredith by calling her everytime she needed a boost - she sat in the garden instead.
OK my rant for the day ;)
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Well it appears that we have two viewpoints - one from the daughter's viewpoints and the other seeing the mother from a different light - I'm wondering since this is the crux of the story without much else to really get into - if our typical plan for a few chapters a week will work for Winter Garden - so much seems tied into know the backstory on the mother maybe we need to push on and this discussion will take on a different plan - I'm thinking many of us are drawn into the story and are reading ahead anyhow - so what do you think - should we go for the next group of chapters and see if that helps to get our arms around this story?
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It's interesting to contrast the way the two daughters cope with their emotional deprivation. Meredith seems to have been able to love Jeff, be close to him in their marriage, not just have sex, but be intimate in important ways, cuddle for warmth, share feelings. UNTIL their daughters leave home. Then she seems to withdraw, wrap herself up in her work, and avoid emotional closeness with her husband. Why is this?
Nina, on the other hand, seems to have never had any emotional intimacy with Danny, plenty of companionship, professional collaboration, and sex, but no emotional support of each other.
Both of them, when faced with the need to comfort the men, or the desire of the men to comfort them, be part of what is going on, freeze the men out. They see they are hurting the men, but neither of them can make even small gestures towards doing anything about it.
Neither of them seems to see that she is repearting the same behavior that hurt her so much.
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Barb is recovering from dental work, might not be around for a day or so.
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Nina, on the other hand, seems to have never had any emotional intimacy with Danny, plenty of companionship, professional collaboration, and sex, but no emotional support of each other.
Now you've hit on just the thing that made me sit back and go Whoa, when I read this.
She knew about unequal love, how you could be crushed from the inside if one person was more in love than the other.
Nina on page 94
The levels of emotional deprivation and dare I say, abuse (wittingly or not), run deep in this story. It is a wonder that Meredith's two girls seem to have escaped the cycle set by their Mom and Grandmom.
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I am reading another book, called The Metronome by D. R. Bell, which is a murder mystery. I mention this, because it is set in Russia, modern day, but the narrator is just now reading his Dad's diary which he just found. In it is a description of life during the war in Leningrad. It tells of starvation where people are stripping their wallpaper to get at the paste which is edible and boiling leather. No running water, so they go to the river and bring back buckets to boil. Heat is down to stoves stoked with furniture and books. He mentions the books twice. Wince. People who steal ration cards and are caught are shot on the spot. People freezing or starving to death. Anna Akhmatova gets a cameo. She reads her poetry over the radio.
The Siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days with 642,000 civilians dead. According to Wikipedia, total casualties for combatants were almost 580,000 for the Germans and their allies and more than 3.4 million casualties (over 1 million of those dead) on the Soviet side.
I wonder if we will find out where Anya was during the war, what horrors she saw. We can see the effects.
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Brr, Frybabe, if we do go to Leningrad, I hope she doesn't go into too much detail.
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This women did not beat her children or punish them - she is simply distant and that is interpreted as being cold.
I do believe the author is showing us the outcome of how a mother/daughter relationship suffers when the mother lives in her own solitude. A mother does not have to beat her child, to be abusive. Withholding love and affection can be just as harmful to a child's self worth, as beating them. One parent can never provide for their child, what the other parent refuses, or is incapable of providing. I never knew my biological father because he was killed in a train wreck when I was just 3 yrs old. As much as my mother and step father provided clothes, food, etc., neither of them could possibly give me the love I so desperately needed, and wanted from my real father. These two girls have their mother right there, and has to suffer every day, knowing she would rather sit in her winter garden and freeze, rather than reach out and comfort herself and her daughters. It's not just since the father died, it has been years and years before. Yes, the girls are grown, but how you are treated throughout your life has a huge impact on who you are as an adult. A child no matter what age, always will want and need their parent's love, affection and approval.
Meredith and Nina have been neglected by their mother for years, not just one story that causes her to react badly. The father has tried to compensate for the mother's cruelness, coldness and solitude throughout these two girls lives.
PatH and Frybabe, thank you for the info on the state of the living conditions in Leningrad during war time. It certainly does help knowing this, because it shows Anya is reverting back to those conditions now. I'm still thinking onset of dementia, but only time will tell.
Barb, I am ready to move on to the next chapters if everyone else is. I don't want to rush the book due to wanting to find out what is causing the mother to act like this, but if you feel we have covered discussing these six chapters, I am okay with moving on. I have not, and do not read ahead when we discuss books. I hope you feel better after having your dental work done.
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I agree, where the two girls are concerned, they are setting themselves up for a lot of pain and heartache with their men relationships, if they continue on this course.
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I was able to see the "sub-text" in some of the things Anya said, about food, selling jewelry, etc. as I have read several books dealing with the Siege of Leningrad. I cannot however equate Anya's coldness to her daughters with the horror and hardships of that time. And, how awful that these memories would present themselves in the onset of dementia/Alzheimers rather than memories of happier times. But I guess something that horrible would tend to erase happier time memories.
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So, are people ready to move on? We can take chapters 7-13 next, start talking tomorrow as we finish up the later chapters.
Jonathan, are you still around, or did you freeze to death in the garden?
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Tomereader, that's a depressing thought, left with your bad memories and not the good.
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Oh Tom, that would be sad to think dementia would have the worst of your memories stay with you, and the best ones leave. But then with Anya, what would be her best memories, other than time spent with her husband? She surely doesn't seem to want or care about time with her two daughters.
Yes, PatH., I will go ahead and begin reading the next set of chapters.
Jonathan, Spring has sprung here in Ohio, so like my beautiful three yellow finches I captured in my Rose of Sharon this morning, you too need to show yourself.
Since I love my garden as much as Anya does hers I must share this beautiful picture I took this morning while eating breakfast. Look closely and see the three beautiful yellow finches.
(https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/31711074_10216528747474566_3024886857449078784_o.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=a24cdf80aed5196e9ce9416a5a247dc4&oe=5B5C1375)
Feel free to resize if you want to.
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Nice. I love finches, so cheering.
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Birds in the bush are a delight - still nursing the infection - being allergic to most mycins and penicillin is making this a challenge - at least I am no longer groggy from the deadening shots and the pain pill - and thank goodness for a good neighbor who picked up my meds and left them in my garage so as not to disturb me - what a blessing he is and then my son who arranged everything when I called him, mumbling - I was so out of it...
Haven't started to read the next section but I will today - looks like these characters are touching our various views on life - ah so and that is what we have learned over and over reading a book together on Senior Learn... I love it - true to form and we keep it going...
I sure wish I had some of those apples here now cooking into a sauce - that would be such a perfect taste and ease of eating - hopefully by tomorrow I will be feeling better - at least better enough to scoot down the the store and pickup a few things - like applesauce and juices. I need to look into some of the recipe's for the foods mentioned in the story - never did much eating or cooking of Russian foods and that would be a new adventure - OK - I wish I could say off to read but frankly it is back to bed... till later...
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Oh Barb, I am so sorry you are having such a hard time after your dental work. Have you ever tried any of the online shopping for groceries? Good to know you have a neighbor who is able to help you out, when family does not live nearby.
I have begun the next chapters and let me tell you, that storm I felt brewing has burst through the clouds....Meredith has finally found her breaking point, and Nina has finally returned to help with the mother. But can these two daughters come to a common decision, on what is best, for the care of their mother? We shall see..... both girls are very strong minded, so it will be interesting to see if they can come together and work with each other, rather than butt heads.
Tom, seems your info on the desperate measures back in the Leningrad war time has come to light in our story. Scraping wallpaper off the walls, and boiling it for the paste for nourishment.....oh this is so sad.
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In this section the sisters face a new set of problems with their mother, and they handle them in very different ways, focusing on different things and going for completely different solutions. Why is this? Were you surprised?
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Barb, I sure hope your infection clears up soon.
I forget where exactly the paragraph is, but there was a bit about how Anya always cooked enough for an army and kept the freezer full. That was my MIL; she had two freezers she kept full. She grew up poor and, like many, lived through the depression. Having enough food stored away was important to her She always encouraged us to eat more when we stayed for dinner. For my Dad, who also lived through the depression when he was young, having enough to feed the family was also very important.
I think Anya may suffer from PTSD. Is there something worse during a war? A psychotic break? Here we see some of the triggers that set her off. Nina should have been acquainted with this when she became involved in covering war and its devastating emotional effects. But then, perhaps she was never home long enough to recognize it in her mother. She may have seen it a lot sooner had she been told her Mom's history. All Dad ever said was that she was broken. The ending of one particular fairy tale, about the girl and the prince, seems to be an important clue.
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Pat, I'm following the discussion with keen interest. The book fascinates me. They all care about each other. So how could it come to this. At the Christmas play, in 1972. The girls are 12 and 9.
Meredith turned, saw her mother standing in the center of the crowd, motionless, her face pale, her blue eyes blazing. Blood dripped from her hand. She'd broken her cocktail glass, and even from here Meredith could see a shard sticking out of her mother's palm.'...'She's such a bitch'...said Meredith, wiping her eyes.
In 2000, the girls are persuing successful careers, still caring about each other, but desperatly unhappy about their mother, who is showing signs of serious cognitive impairment. I can't help wondering why Dad never told the girls about their mothers early life. Text and sub-text have me baffled. And I'm hoping the rest of you will explain it all to me.
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Bellamarie, your garden is a delight. I could happily spend an hour there with pleasure. The yellow finches know a nice thing when they see it. I have a bird's nest under the eave of my house, occupied by robins the last two summers. I'm hoping they'll be back.
Barb, a jar of my applesauce is on its way to you.
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Well, I finished the next chapters, and am a bit disappointed. I was looking for some big revelation, hmm....unless I missed it, there was no huge epiphany. If anything, it all went as I suspected. I was not surprised these two girls would not agree on what was the best way to care for their mother. Meredith has been the more responsible daughter, staying with the family business, close to the family home, marrying, having children, where Nina is the adventurous type, non committing to any one place to live, refusing to fall in love. Coming back to help with the mother, since her photographs are not acceptable quality any more, is not the best reason to return, but now that she is here, it seems she and the mother are able to connect and communicate, much better than Meredith is able to. The obvious has also happened, Meredith's husband has left her. Now it is the three of them, and lo and behold, they seem to be making progress!
The fairy tale fell flat for me. Such a huge build up, for nothing too revealing. I'm expecting there is much more to the mother's hateful ways, and solitude, even though she does seem to be opening up to Nina.
Jonathan, its good to hear from you. I can't help wondering why Dad never told the girls about their mothers early life.
I agree, why on earth would the father not prepare these two girls before he died?
Barb, my hubby went to the dentist today and had three extractions. Every year a group of dentists offer free dental care to Veterans. We do not have any dental insurance, so it was great he could have this work done for free. He too has an infection. He surprisingly came home and took it easy today, and is doing pretty good this evening. He actually ate dinner, which I did not expect he would do. I hope you are feeling better. Applesauce sounds like the perfect thing to have with a sore mouth.
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I've had the suspicion for a while now that the "fairy tale" is autobiographical in nature, done up as fairy tale to distance Anya from the a reality she cannot - endure? accept? reconcile?.
It wonders me that I chose a another book to read, just before starting to read this one, that touches on some of the same subjects - the Russian love of poetry, Leningrad, missing family history, as well as the family secrets, estrangements and revelations.
For those interested in further info, Wikipedia has an extensive list of notes and bibliography on the subject of the Siege of Leningrad. Here is You Tubes page of programs relating to the Siege. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=The+Siege+of+Leningrad
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Yes, Frybabe, it certainly seemed the "fairy tale" was Anya's story, and their father wanted her to be the one to tell it to the daughters. Interestingly, while Meredith is packing up her father's study she comes across a file....
pg. 177 Meredith grabbed a file and pulled it out, seeing that the label had been partially ripped. The part she could make out read: BepaIIeTpoBHa. She was pretty sure that the letters were Russian. Inside she found a single letter, postmarked twenty years ago from Anchorage, Alaska, and addressed to Mrs. Evan Whitson.
Dear Mrs. Whitson,
Thank you for your recent reply to my query. While I am certain that you could provide invaluable insight into my Leningrad study, I certainly understand your decision. If, however, you ever change your mind, I would welcome your participation.
Sincerely,
Vasily Adamovich
Professor of Russian Studies
University of Alaska
.....she folded the strange letter, put it back in its envelope, and dropped it onto the Keep file.
So, twenty years prior, it seems Anya was contacted by this Russian Study Professor, who seemed to want Anya to help her with something, and Anya declined. Maybe, if Anya could write her fairy tale/story into a book, it would be therapeutic, not only for her, but for her daughters, and others who survived this horrible time in Leningrad. Nina has so many resources from her travels and photography, and Meredith certainly is perfect for organizational skills, if the two of them wanted to help Anya, put her words to writing. What a perfect way for all three of them to get to really spend quality time together, and get to really know each other at this late stage of Anya's life. If dementia is setting in, this is the time to do it.
How many family members wish they would have spent more time with their parents and grandparents, learning the story of their lives? My Italian grandparents migrated from Italy. When they arrived in the United States their name was spelled, "Petrofritzi" today my last name is "Patterfritz." I have seen birth certificates of relatives, with various spellings throughout the years, searching my family tree, and it amazes me how one name could be spelled wrong so many times. I have been told that it probably was typed the way it sounded, or it could have been a typo error, but wouldn't my grandparents have papers from their place of birth, that they would have brought with them? I would love to know the true spelling of my last name. Most of my aunts and uncles along with my Italian grandparents have passed on, and the only cousin who seems to have any info on our heritage has been doing her best to find out the correct spelling of our family name.
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Barb, I hope you are feeling better this Saturday morning. I think I have found the reason for the butterfly picture on the front cover of the book:
pg 190 She puts her hand into the big pocket of her wool coat and pulls out a cloissone' butterfly. Vera has never seen anything so beautiful. This in not the kind of piece their family can own__it is something from the kings or the wizards at least. "Petyr's father made this, "her mother says, revealing a family history they knew nothing about. "It was to be for the little princess, but the king thought it shoddy work, so your grandfather was fired and learned to make bricks of clay instead of pieces of art. He gave it to your father on our wedding day. And now it is what we have to remember someone in our family who is lost to us. Sometimes, if I close my eyes when I hold it, I can hear our Petya's laugh. "It's just a butterfly," Vera says, thinking it is not so lovely as she'd thought; certainly it is not a substitute for her papa's laughter, "It is all we have," her mother says gently.
I remember after my maternal grandmother had passed away, I had gone to visit my Grandpa. He pulled out this strange looking one eyed owl pin that you could tell was very old, and placed it in my hand. He squeezed my hand, and told me he had given this to my grandmother when they were very young, and he wanted me to have it now. I still have this pin, and like Vera, at the time, I thought it not so lovely, but now, when I see that strange looking owl pin, it gives me so much peace, love and joy, imagining the day (my grandpa,) a young man, giving that not so expensive pin to this young beautiful girl, (my grandma) and how much love that gesture was meant for her. She had the cutest giggle, not laughter, but a giggle and she would always nudge me with her elbow when she giggled. Funny how this cloissone' butterfly brought back all this to me.......
After reading about "cloissone'" I wonder if my Grandma's piece would be cloissone'?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloisonn%C3%A9
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| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/wintergarden/cover.jpg) | WELCOME
EVERYONE!
Please, join our
Discussion of
Winter Garden
by Kristin Hannah
The story of a Family
learning and connecting
to its history and
to each other. |
Discussion Dates
Prologue 1972 - Chapter 6...April 30-May 3
Chapter 7 - Chapter 13...May 4-May6
Chapter 14 - Chapter 20...May 7-May10
Chapter 21 - Epilogue 2010...May 11-May |
Discussion Leader: Barb (augere@ix.netcom.com)
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Yes, Frybabe and Bellamarie, the fairy story turns out to be Anya's story. The children only got the tip of the iceberg, and we still aren't done. I'm sure the crucial part is still ahead.
Nice coincidence, Frybabe, that you started that book when you did. And Tomereader knows a lot about the subject. Another coincidence: that we just finished A Gentleman in Moscow, which reminds us of the mindset in the Soviet Union during that time.
PTSD: yes, surely that is a factor. Look at how little things seem to set off flashbacks.
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Jonathan:
Text and sub-text have me baffled. And I'm hoping the rest of you will explain it all to me.
Of course we will, Jonathan, assuming we figure it out ourselves. ;)
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Thanks Pat for remembering to leave the first post for the heading - makes it so much better when we can have the heading separate from someone's remarks... the remarks never have the same impact do they, when the are on the bottom of the heading...
Frybabe what are you reading that coincides so well with this story?
And Bellamarie it appears the author has arranged this story so as you say, there is no epiphany till I bet the very last few chapters - Kristin Hannah sure keeps us turning the pages doesn't she.
A haunting thought Tomereader, "that horrible would tend to erase happier time memories." they say it takes 10 good memories to out weight the affect of one bad memory.
So glad we are getting into the fairytale - like so many fairytales there is enchanting moments - frightening moments, glimpses of a love story and always the devotion between some of the characters.
I still have the reminder of the story to read in Chapter 13 the second night of the story telling. Interesting to me was the realization that few children today or for the past maybe 20 years do not have the fairytales as they were years ago - everything that was frightening was made more beguine and the Disney retelling added to this light touch - I do not know of a more modern Disney movie that had the chilling and terrifying moments included in for instance Snow White or even Pinocchio. The fairytales on screen were often tame as compared to some of the stories we read and had been read to us. I think the closest I am remembering and that is not recent either is, the Child Catcher and his black cage in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Times have changed and I will leave it to others to decide which prepares kids for the reality of evil in the world which I do not think we are ever prepared for even when we trip over it.
The opposite - this morning had a fawn born in the backyard within 6 feet of the backdoor to the laundry room. From the way she is acting I wouldn't be surprised if she has another to deliver and sometimes they birth twins hours and hours later - so we shall see what we shall see but her utter is very full and she has several tits ready - she may be the one who takes on the care of other fawns born within the next 2 weeks because there were defiantly 4 pregnant does in this herd.
I wish I could say all is well and I'm on the mend - but getting a bit scared - mouth is swollen more than yesterday and of course the weekend when you cannot get anyone - hopefully I can get this under control over the weekend and if not we may have to risk a mycin of some kind - my fear is re-activating the Temporal Arteritis which is so painful and deadens more of my head so more hair falls out and it affects that one eye - grrr - the fear of activating it from my inability to tolerate mycins is as worrisome as not getting this infection under control.
I wonder - did any of you have a room to call your own - sounds like Virginia Woolf - about the only thing I can recall is the kitchen was sorta my domain and the garage and tool room was my husband's - but then none of us were a sitting family - we enjoyed making things or ball games or night walks when it was cooler or tending the gardens - and not being self-employed till I went on my own about 10 or 12 years ago there was no need for an office - cannot say there is a corner of the house that I had an attachment.
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Interesting - arrived today the kindle free books for May which included, The Matchmaker and the description included this sentence that seems to fit our story very well... love is hard to recognize, and the ones who push love away often are the ones who need it most.
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Barb, your condition really worries me. I don't think you should wait two days until Monday. If none of your doctors are available, is there some sort of urgent care facility you can go to? Or even an emergency room? Aren't there some non-mycin antibiotics they could try? I'm sorry to add to your fear, but from here it seems like delay would be bad.
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PatH., you took the words right out of my thoughts, I too think Barb should possibly go to an urgent care or er to have this infection checked out. Like I said, my hubby had his three extractions yesterday around 9:00 a.m., he didn't have any pain by bedtime, and no swolleness after using an ice pack throughout the day. He also has an infection, and began his antibiotic. Your pain level does worry me, especially with an infection that has not been treated for days. Better to err on the safe side.
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Barb, it is called The Metronome by D. R. Bell. Both are set in modern day with the main characters looking back into the family's past in the same city and in about the same timeline, Stalin's purges and the Siege of Leningrad. The Metronome, however, is a murder/crime mystery.
The Metronome (the signal, not the novel) is mentioned in Winter Garden, briefly, and in the book of the same title more extensively. One of the YouTube videos explained the significance of the Metronome more fully. I assume it was a radio signal which was a place holder when the frequency was not in use. It let people know when the were tuned into the correct frequency and it helped to discourage pirate radio stations from using that frequency. According to the YouTube clip I saw about the Siege of Leningrad, the speed at which the Metronome ticked had significance. Slow speed ticking for normal and a faster speed denoting an air raid attack. Early radio and TV both had their frequency holders when not on air, but the only ones I remember here in the US were all solid tones.
Oops, Bellamarie, you are right. I wasn't paying attention to where I was and am not almost through with the next section. I have the book until the 14th now, but it is, at this point, hard to put down.
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I almost hate to pick up the book now - like y'all I cannot stop - Chapter 13 the fairy tale became lost - it quickly felt more like a sharing of an old memory with certain people with various jobs turned into characters that express the feelings and fears they presented. I'm betting most of us have life experiences remembered but not talked about - oh and yes, the gut wrenching that comes with a large loss when you doubt yourself and are no longer sure of who you are - beyond ouch - a deep dark place of futility.
I sure like the mother's urging that education is not dependent on classes at a University - My father was a firm believer that only boys should be educated - ah so, however, I remember the disappointment, even found an inexpensive way that I could have paid for myself - but it was not to be - and so I did not attend collage till my children were 6, 11 and 12 - in the meantime I remember reading and reading and learning about artists, listening to music, attending the symphony, studying piano when my children started their piano lessons, even sat in a couple of evening lectures with a neighbor. As I attempted to broaden my children's learning experiences I was learning myself so that when I finally enrolled in collage, I tested out of so many classes I had the equivalent of 38 hours completed. And so the mother shared my own belief about education.
Not sure I remember what happened to Sasha - I think he just left and Vera was caught in the world of self-preservation with her mother and sister. Surprise that even the grandmother worked and that they both smoked.
Reading just this much made me realize how fortunate our lives are more than the harshness of a state controlled society, living in poverty, crammed into a small space with the only real break from the stale air, cold and earning in a system of workers is a brief summer of gardening. Granted the garden was for food supply but it was in the fresh air and you were in control of what you planted as well as, enjoying the harvest dependent on no one but 'mother-nature'.
Finally, the colloidal silver has made a large dent in my infections - no pain and swelling about gone - the problem was the new bottle of colloidal silver was a brand I never used - only after feeling so bad, for some reason I looked at the label and low and behold they were using a protein based colloidal mixture and the protein was floated in casein, which is another one of my allergies (never could drink milk) - no wonder no improvement - I was actually building a secondary infection. Found a bottle of the brand I've used for years and taking a couple of doses yesterday evening and last night and again this morning, along with other herbal combinations I successfully use for infections I am on the mend and I have a large bottle of pure nano size particle colloidal silver arriving tomorrow.
Bellamarie glad your husband is doing well and can tolerate the antibiotics prescribed. And thanks for your concern Pat - the issue for me is, not being able to tolerate any from the penicillin family, and starting about 12 or so years ago, probably because of multiple and different antibiotics within two months I ended up with the Temporal Arteritis, now I can not tolerate the Cephalosporins, the Quinolones, or the Tetracyclines families leaving me with the Macrolides that includes Erythromycin. And now, that family line is slowly being shelved and Erythromycin is no longer in mass production - it has to be special ordered at a great cost and even the few capsules the pharmacy could get from anther location, that I took the first day, I was already experiencing the severe pain in the veins in my head that is the Temporal Arteritis - there is no cure for the Arteritis and the pain is so severe, almost, if not as bad as the pain of the abscess.
And so, my daughter-in-law, who for a time worked in her uncle's surgical office chatted then Dr. Widner, who then called me and told me the best was for me to use the colloidal silver - I could not understand why it was not having a positive outcome till I finally looked more closely at the information and there it was.
All I keep thinking is thank goodness I am not experiencing the ill health that many go through at my age because the medicines would have killed me by now. After finding the protein base for the silver I am now wondering if that is maybe at the bottom of many meds I have trouble with - they usually have some sort of filler and now I'm wondering what those fillers are and if that is what I am reacting to rather than the chemical combination.
OK enough with health - I'm on my way and that is all that matters -
Frybabe ;) been having my own mystery to solve never mind reading one for entertainment - but thanks for sharing the title and author - I think I may download that on my kindle - sounds like a good follow up - the cover looks like it is depicting this Fairy-tale told by Anya - So far this year we sure have been reading Russia Russia Russia... I have a feeling we are going to simply read this story till we have a stopping point that we can then talk and talk about what happened and why and how and fill each other in on what we know that would make the story even richer as we better understand.
Oh yes, agree PTSD for sure...
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It has been a rainy day. I just sat and finished both books. Surprising endings for both of them.
I was surprised to find that Finland had sided with the Germans in the War. I thought they were an occupied country, kind of like Poland. It seems they were looking to get land back that Russia had previously taken from them.
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Barb, so glad to hear you have figured out your meds and are on the mend. You had us worried, especially living alone.
I have to say I wish I would have had the urge for education beyond my high school years, like you. Both my mother and step father did not complete high school, so there was no mention or motivation for achieving a higher education in my family. I am the second to the youngest of seven children, and my sister and I were the only ones to stay in school and graduate. My parents were going through a very nasty divorce at the time of my graduation, so I would not have been able to go to college even if my counselor or parents had prepared me to advance my education beyond high school, which they had not done. After I got married at the age of eighteen, I found a thirst for reading and wanting more education. I did not attend college, but I did become interested and purchased, the first affordable computer, Radio Shack's Tandy Coco model, which opened up a whole new world of learning for me, and landed me my job, teaching computers in the Catholic elementary school my children attended. I, along with my mentor/principal, began the first computer lab in the school. I attended many diocesan computer and educational workshops throughout the years earning C.E.Us, that earned me a certified teacher aide certification. This certification, along with my sixteen years experience teaching computers and CCD classes, were my stepping stones into opening my in home day care, allowing me to have the best of both worlds. I got to day care all of my grandchildren free of charge for my kids, yet have my own business, being paid by other families who would be willing to be placed on a waiting list for me to have an opening for their child/children. I was the ONE everyone wanted, through word of mouth, and connections to my teaching at our school and church, I never lacked for families/children. And now...... I enjoy the peace and quiet of retirement, listening to the birds wake me up in the morning, instead of an alarm clock.
Where is everyone with their reading? I completed chapter 13, and it seems so have the rest of you. We can all agree the fairy tale fell a bit flat, is autobiographical, and what we were suspecting, Anya has been traumatized through her years growing up in Leningrad. Jonathan and Frybabe have finished the book, and have given a bit of promise the ending will be interesting. Do we have more to discuss in these chapters, or is everyone who has NOT finished the book ready to go to the next set of chapters? At this speed we may finish before the end of the month.
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Yes Bellamarie, let's move along - Pat was asking the same thing -
Will you be OK Frybabe and Jonathan holding off sharing what you know from the last group of chapters till we get through this next set of chapters? Not sure Tomereader where you are in the book with your reading but I think this story is such that the usual format we use to read is just not fitting - so yes, let's move on with Chapter 14 - Chapter 20 and then we will hit the last of it after we have at least some chit chat over the Chapters 14 through 20 -
I have not read ahead but I had canceled my early week appointments on Thursday when I was not doing very well so I can read tomorrow - the reading actually goes pretty quickly - again, she knows how to pull her readers into her story and she has the ability, like a spy or crime writer, of wanting at the end of each page to know what will happen next.
Thanks again for your all's concern - yes, I live alone but take comfort, as I do knowing my son is a phone call away and would drive up in just under 3 hours - the folks next door are wonderful - all I have to do is call and they know Paul and Sally so they are almost like extended family. And if I am in a real pickle I do have a friend whose son lives a few streets away and she only lives up in Georgetown plus, I tend towards Doctors etc. that are old Austin so that there is a more personal nature to those connections when made as a result of the most important thing meeting someone in Austin. Checking for connections with questions like, where you or your children went to school that is the same as in their family or where you went to church where you may have seen each other or knew the pastor or what community committee you served on, that you were part of some change that took place in Austin and best, that I never could use as a connection was, who your parents were related to or who were their neighbors - back when Austin was a typical small town in the south and west with aspects of both the south and the west, our everyday living was making contact through establishing a common knowledge of someone or something which opened the doors of communication. And so it was easy - I did not know Dr. Widner but as things unfolded he knew Sally's uncle and knew of her father and so that gave us the connection that I was not just a stranger patient - I was Tom Gardner's daughter's mother-in-law and that is how he talked to me.
All that to say thanks but rest easy - I am alone but living in a big sanctuary of caring folks. :-*
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| (https://resizing.flixster.com/cFnvmvGa3uV7Yho-pA71e1OGnQQ=/fit-in/1152x864/v1.bjs4NzA5ODE7ajsxNzY5NTsxMjAwOzIyNjA7MTY5NQ) |
Monday May, 7
We Continue our story of
Winter Garden
Chapters 14 through 20
That is focused
more and more on
the story of
Anya and Olga's
young life
in Russia.
|
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A few quotes from Anna Akhmatova that say so perfectly what we are reading so far... *I go forth to seek —
To seek and claim the lovely magic garden
Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.
*I don't know if you're alive or dead.
Can you on earth be sought,
Or only when the sunsets fade
Be mourned serenely in my thought? | *But here, in the murk of conflagration,
where scarcely a friend is left to know
we, the survivors, do not flinch
from anything, not from a single blow.
Surely the reckoning will be made
after the passing of this cloud.
We are the people without tears,
straighter than you … more proud... |
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Wow, Barb, those quotes are right on.
I don't think we can say the fairy tale is disappointing when we're less than halfway through it. We'll see.
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Barb, good to know you have so many connections close by, and that you are doing so much better. Anna Akhmatova's quote are so sad, yet so real for those who lived through these times.
Yes, this book does seem to be unlike others we have read, where we tend to be going at a much quicker pace. I mean, you can only talk so much about the relationship of these three women, and the fairy tale has not yet revealed anything monumental to discuss, since I think we all anticipated what it would be. Yet, PatH., does point out we are only half way through it. So.... I shall read on.
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Read on, Bellamarie. The ending is out of this world. As fairy tales should be. There should be a fairy tale in every life.
Barb we're all so happy to hear that you're convalescing so well. Permit me to quote you:
'...thank goodness I am not experiencing the ill health that many go through at my age because the medicines would have killed me by now.'
and
'rest easy. I am alone but living in a big sanctuary of caring folks.'
Your sentiments are so relevant to the subject of the book we are reading. The girls are doing the best they can for their mother, while living such busy lives themselves. And Mom is not exactly helpless. She has her garden and her Holy Corner. And of course her memories. How much do they mean to her? Could it have been a more pleasant family liife if she had known how to share. It must be their nature. The girls aren't exactly into sharing either.
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I think I read somewhere that Anna Akhmatova was in Leningrad for at least part of the siege.
I had to look up oil cakes. The best of what I found quickly, if for not other reason than that it includes pictures, is from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_cake
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From the survivors came this generation of children who have interpreted music with the honor given its place in Russia.
https://grandpianocompetition.com/ru/video/
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Just checking in..... I have not had time to begin chapters 14-20, so can we wait a few days before we begin discussing them? I don't want to fall behind, but yard work has had me so busy I have been falling asleep while watching TV at night. I am going to try to get a few hours this afternoon to settle in and begin reading.
Frybabe, those oil cakes do not look so delectable. I wonder if they filled them with anything?
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Me too, Bellamarie. So busy with yard work. A week of glorious weather has brought on a burst of spring. Almost summer. But it doesn't touch the sadness in AAA's poetry. And I'm sure you have also noticed the proud and defiant verses.
You're right, Frybabe. Anna Akhmatova must have lived all her life in Leningrad. What luck. I found a biography of her among the books my wife left me. She was keen on Russian history and how it affected our people who had migrated there from Western Europe (German heritage) at Catharine's invitation. Barb's 'ah, so' has a marvellous echo for me, and I find myself saying 'ach, Matova! The book has numerous references to Leningrad, with a half dozen pages on the Siege of Leningrad. Can there be any doubt that our author got a lot of inspiration from AA? Anya, KH says, haunted her. Doesn't she haunt us all? Even her daughters?
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I'm on no hurry to start talking. I've read the chapters, and they get very intense, and a lot happens, but I'm now packing up to fly to Portland tomorrow, and don't have much time for anything else. I'll have internet access there.
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Looks like we are all taking a seventh inning stretch - part of it I think is Hannah packs so much into her story it takes a bit of time to let it settle - she explains so well the exchanges between her characters and now their backstory that also tells us about the emotions and conversations of the characters in her fairytale backstory.
So glad you included in your Post Jonathan the bit about Catherine inviting the Germans to live in Russia - did not know this and here is a nice article about how that took place including the subsequent history of German Russians.
http://www.dw.com/en/catherine-the-great-and-the-russian-germans/a-16965100
Not sure about those oil cakes either Bellamarie that Frybabe shared photos in her post - look an awful lot like dry cow patties don't they.
Safe trip Pat - that is a long flight or do you break it up with a stopover along the way - I remember the flight from Austin to Portland years ago when Paul's boys were just starting school and they lived for a couple of years in Beaverton - I used knit a pair a mittens on that flight that I think was over 5 hours. But then coming back I was in seventh heaven because the Portland airport had the best book store that was one of Powell's extensions - I always found something I could not be without and always picked up 3 or 4 books. Is there anything special you pickup in Seattle that you bring back with you even though I think you said you are emptying your house on the east coast.
I wonder if it is Spring in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) the temp today shows it is 50 degrees - here in Austin that would be a cold day in winter but then that may be Spring time temps for Leningrad. I wonder when they start their gardens - many recipes use beets and that is an underground veggie so maybe they start now to plant things like beets, carrots and potatoes.
Have any of you ever made coffee or tea in a Samovar? I cannot figure out from photos how they work - beautiful though...
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Golly it is difficult to put this book down once you get into it - but it got so late last night and I stopped at chapter 18 - so 18, 19, and 20 to go. She writes this story like a detective novel - thank goodness the snarky drama between the girls is over and they are no longer wrangling with each other and Jeff appears to understand - it is true - how do you love another when you do not even know who you are, nor taken time to love yourself which must come first - Heck according to the commandments - 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
Years ago, I remember hearing the story of a mother and daughter from Viet Nam who were boat people and she gave all the credit to her mother for taking care of herself first because she was then there for her, the daughter while those moms who took care of the children first either died or fell overboard or were so useless the kids were trying to take care of their mom. We are taught to take care of others first and that drains women so that by the time the children are grown often there is little left to rebuild a relationship as a couple again.
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Well, I finally finished Ch 20, phew...... this was a lot to take in, and I am still processing everything. I kept thinking Anya the mother, was the little girl Anya, in the fairy tale/story. Then when she revealed she is in fact Vera, and the photo is of Anya and Leo her two children I was so shocked. So when and why did Vera decide to change her name to Anya? Guess that's yet to come.
Gosh these chapters left me drained. I went to prepare a light dinner for myself since hubby is at an usher's dinner, at the church, and I found myself so sad, and tears coming down my cheeks. Jonathan, you said it would give us shivers, I have to tell you that these chapters have just hit me so emotionally, as a mother, who could never imagine letting go of my precious children, let alone at their young ages. It's more than shivers, I think I felt the entire earth quake!
Funny how we just finished A Gentleman In Moscow where Nina leaves her small daughter Sofia with the Count, Vera leaves her children with her mother, and I just finished reading the book Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate and the parents leave their children on a river boat, because the mother is in early labor, and must get to hospital. I realize circumstances call for drastic measures, but really?
Yes, Barb, it is nice to see the mother and two daughters finally spending quality time together, laughing, talking, drinking and sharing the fairy tale/story getting to know their mother. Anya is getting more and more relaxed as she tells her life story. Keeping it bottled up inside for all these years gives reason to become secluded and unaffectionant. The winter garden she sits at constantly at home could be her way of visiting with Anya and Leo, reminding her of the summer garden she took Anya and Leo to in Leningrad. We shall see.... a lot is left to be discovered, that's for sure.
Meredith and Nina are also coming to terms with their own relationships with the men in their lives, as they learn more of the story.
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I just had a crazy thought this morning, as I was still thinking about the chapters I read yesterday. What if....Dr. Vasily Adamovich could be Anya's Prince Sasha? Is it at all possible? I guess I am already trying to see a happily ever after here in this story, Meredith remains with her husband Jeff, Nina marries her boyfriend Danny, and Anya finds her Prince again.......
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Bellamarie I had the same thought - but then decided it was too obvious but then - who knows maybe... we shall see what we shall see... I'm still reading... as you say - rough going...
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It's really intense, isn't it? The only amount of happy ending I feel pretty sure of is the sisters coming to a better understanding of themselves, each other, and their mother, and Anya finding a greater measure of peace. I'm hoping for more, and may well get it.
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Barb, actually I didn't think it was the obvious at all when I was reading the chapters, it just dawned on me this morning. A happy ending knowing the daughters and mother finally connect and find a better understanding would indeed be enough, but I am hoping for more as well.
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"Happy birthday, Mom," Meredith and Nina said together. Mom stared at the candle. "I have made so many mistakes," Mom said softly. "I wanted to tell you...but I couldn't even look at you, I was so ashamed....Yes. Long ago I was Veronika Petronova Marchenko." (284-5)
M and N are her daughters who are hoeing their own long, tough row. It's touching that sorrowing over Dad has brought them all together.
Really!! Couldn't Nina be more careful with Dad's ashes? Accidentally she gets the most moving photo. A blossom covered with ashes! A blossom turned grey. How symbolic of something.
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I could not believe when Nina spilled the ashes. Was there a significance in the ashes being flung willy nilly? It certainly got all three of them to laugh together.
pg. 200 They stood there, the three of them, laughing together in the middle of the winter garden, with the apple trees all around them, and it was the best tribute to him they could have made. And later, when Mom and Meredith had gone inside, Nina stood there alone, in the quiet, staring down at the velvety white magnolia blossom dressed in gray ash. "Did you hear us laughing? We've never done that before, not the three of us, not together. We laughed for you Dad..."
This seems to be the turning point of letting go of their Dad, and the beginning of the three of them uniting together.
They hear more of the fairy tale and realize this is a story inside a story.....
pg. 226 "Black vans," Meredith said, leaning over Nina's shoulder to read the rest. "The secret police came to get people in black vans." "The Black Knight is Stalin," Nina said. "It's a story within a story." "Some of it is real," Nina said quietly, feeling a shiver move through her.
There's Jonathan's word, "shiver."
So much to be discovered, or uncovered, or revealed ......
pg. 251 But the woman who'd just smiled was someone else entirely. Secrets within secrets. Was that what they'd discover on this trip? That their mother was like one of her precious Russian nesting dolls, and if that were true, would they ever really see the one hidden deep inside?
I feel like I am in Alice In Wonderland and I have fallen down the rabbit's hole, or jumped on Agatha Christie's Orient Express, so much seems fantasy, yet so much is real.
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Wonderland? Orient Express? Or Russian Gothic? Bellamarie, I'll be disappointed if finding themselves means letting go of their Dad. Dad would be turning over in his grave at these happenings, if he had a grave. What a process this finding oneself can be. For all of them. With such intensity. Guilt trips and martyrdom. Mid-life crises and motherhood.
What a wonderful story. Such intensity. Poor Meredith. Must choose between losing Jeff or losing herself. And it's no easier for the others. From her sister, Nina, she gets: 'but you still think you don't know what you want.' (250) And from Jeff she gets: 'Safe travels, Mere. I hope you find what you're looking for.' (247)
Would this be a book to give Mother on her day? Or a book every daughter should read?
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Jonathan:
Would this be a book to give Mother on her day?
You made me laugh with that one. Not a cheerful look at motherhood.
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Parents faced some awful choices in WW II. Keep your children with you, or send them somewhere safer? When you know what happened to the civilians who stayed in Leningrad, you think sending children away would be the better choice, but the evacuees weren't very safe either. I don't know which way casualties were higher.
British parents faced a similar choice. Many children were sent to Canada to get them away from the air raids. The sea voyage was dangerous, but at least once they arrived they were safe. Jonathan, do you have any knowledge of how these children fared?
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Ashes - maybe that is the trick - just trip over something and let the gods take care of it - worse than a burial - at least at the cemetery it is out of your hands - yep, still have in a white, paper mâché box my son's ashes and no closer to getting back to New Mexico than 10 years ago when he died... me or my
Yes, you hit it Bellamarie - I feel like I am in Alice In Wonderland and I have fallen down the rabbit's hole all that is missing is one of the goblins or driver of the black van to go through the streets shouting 'off with their heads' - everyone knows that is what is happening only it is never said aloud.
Naw Jonathan prefer a more up-beat story or one with more elan as a gift to or from... The kind of pain that does not leave and pops up at the oddest circumstances is not fun to read about or live with and so, maybe it is playing make believe to not want to read how others handle it - Vonnegut writes of his brush with barbarity as a new mod interpretation of the Bible and Heller handles the aftermath of the incomprehensible so that the inconceivable seems as if standing in front of a distorting fun house mirror but neither attempt to include the impenetrable pain and confusion into a what is supposed to be a coherent life, as if normalizing PTSD and the original abominations.
Reading this I take more showers to warm me and wash away the shivers. Maybe that is it - just turn into an icicle till it is over... I do not read anything that allows me to get my head around and explore a new premise because of any characters' circumstance. At least with Vonnegut I could smile at his interpretations of God and Jesus versus those who disrupted the conceivable nature of (wo)man.
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Ah yes, Pat - not cheerful is it... does macabre fit do you think?
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No, Jonathan, at this point in the book I would not recommend it for a Mother's Day gift. Just give me a Barnes and Noble gift card and let me go pick a book out by myself. I remember one year my son picked a book out for me and I thoroughly loved it! It took place in Nantucket in the summer. This book is a tough read, emotionally. I find myself feeling so sad, thinking how this family spent so many years living in the same house, yet so very far apart. Yes, they will all have to let go of Evan at some point, I think the spilled ashes are indeed a first step of it beginning, going on the trip to Alaska is yet another step of letting go of their grief. By the time they return home, I feel they will have all worked through many issues, and face their future......Kay Sera Sera.
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Barb, yes. Macabre is perfect.
Bellamarie, you speak of them having to let go of Evan. I wonder if instead they are finally going to understand him completely. So far, we know a lot about the motives of most of the characters. We' listen to a lot of the thoughts of Meredith and Nina. We're given a good idea of Jeff and Danny. We're beginning to get a notion of the hugely damaged Anya/Vera. But what about Evan? We know he loves his children dearly, and his wife fiercely and protectively, but what is he thinking as he lets his children be emotionally stunted in spite of his efforts to fill in? I'm sure it was a thought-out decision. What is it like to live with the results?
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Ah yes, Evan hasn't been "fleshed-out" as much as we would like, neither has Sasha, who is Vera's first love.
Does Anya/Vera suffer from survivor's guilt in conjunction with PTSD? She seems to, blaming herself for her children's and her mother's deaths. While she adored Evan, she couldn't let go of Sasha or the children.
PatH, here is part of an answer from a chapter abstract of the book The Disentanglement of Population by Elizabeth White. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230297685_12 More info, this is about the evacuation and tracing relatives. The author(s) of this website recommend another book, To the Tashkent Station by Rebecca Manley. Below the book recommendation is a list of resources and links which include the Siege of Leningrad.
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Good points PatH., and Frybabe, we haven't even gotten to how Evan and Anya met, nor anything other than as you mention, his relationship with the daughters, and adoration for the wife.
PatH., but what is he thinking as he lets his children be emotionally stunted in spite of his efforts to fill in?
As a child growing up with a parent being killed when I was only the age of 3, and a mother trying to keep his memory alive, so us seven children would know something about him, and the older ones to never forget him, I can tell you, she gave me comfort, but could NEVER fill that void of not having him physically to see, touch, talk to, and love. I adore the man/Daddy I have been raised to know through pictures and memories/stories from my mother and siblings, but to say I knew him personally, I could not do. Evan has indeed tried to be the substitute for Anya's emotional absence with their daughters, but as we can see, they have so much to deal with as adults from their mother being secluded in her own memories, grief, guilt, etc., etc. No parent can replace the other parent.
Frybabe, Does Anya/Vera suffer from survivor's guilt in conjunction with PTSD? She seems to, blaming herself for her children's and her mother's deaths.
I have not read ahead, so learning the mother and children die, and she is possibly blaming herself was a nugget to read. I was in some way holding out that the children survived, and this Dr. A. in the nursing home in Alaska, would give her some info in finding them. As Barb would say, Ah-so...... Survivor's guilt and PTSD makes sense for sure. I wonder how many times Anya reached into that coat pocket and pulled out the photo of Anya and Leo and stared at it, longing for them?
I do hope we get to know how Anya and Evan met, and how he became her protector, allowing her to live a life so distant from their daughters. When did Anya let go of her name Vera? How did she come to live in the United States? I wonder if Evan ends up being an American soldier and they met during war time? We finally learned Anys is eighty-one years old, and they celebrate her birthday for the first time. Ughhh..... can you imagine never knowing your mother's age or birth date? These girls need to uncover so much about their family history before their mother dies. She keeps saying, who will take care of them once she is gone, they have each other, but do they have living family they don't know about?
Barb, are we ready to move on to the next chapters? I don't want to rush anyone, but it seems there is so much on the cusp of learning in Alaska. Shall we depart from the ship and search for answers?
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| (http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/wintergarden/cover.jpg) | WELCOME
EVERYONE!
Please, join our
Discussion of
Winter Garden
by Kristin Hannah
The story of a Family
learning and connecting
to its history and
to each other. |
Discussion Dates
Prologue 1972 - Chapter 6...April 30-May 3
Chapter 7 - Chapter 13...May 4-May6
Chapter 14 - Chapter 20...May 7-May12
Chapter 21 - Epilogue 2010...May 13-May |
Discussion Leader: Barb (augere@ix.netcom.com)
Okay, the book went back to the library so you haven't gotten to the evacuation yet?
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I don't recall that the book mentions which library that Vera/Anya worked at and the museum that Olga worked at.
Here are photos and illustrations, old and new, of the National Library of Russia at St. Peterburg/Leningrad which did stay open throughout the Siege. https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x469631080d930055:0x643b5286c8a246f9!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4shttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Library_of_Russia!5sLibrary+at+Leningrad+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e1!2shttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Streets_Sankt-Peterburg_sent2011_3962.jpg/240px-Streets_Sankt-Peterburg_sent2011_3962.jpg&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBy_WxzoDbAhVFnOAKHVvlAWQQoioInwEwCw
Gosh, I hate these long urls.
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I am assuming that Olga worked at the Hermitage. The following website looks like it is conjunction with the previously mentioned novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad It has some good WWII photos of the museum. https://kingmadonnasofleningrad.weebly.com/the-hermitage.html
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Just a quicky - shortly expecting Paul and Sally up from Magnolia - tomorrow is Mother's Day - I put in the heading that we go onward with the discussion of the last section as of Tomorrow - However, if you are celebrating tomorrow it will probably be Monday for most of us before we really get into the meat of this story - or at least tie down all the loose ends - so please lets finish out today and then get into it as of tomorrow.
Hope you can manage Frybabe since you have read the entire book - the links you provide are awesome - thanks - have you or have any of you visited the Hermitage? I remember back right after Reagan's Berlin Wall speech it was 'the thing' to visit Russia - seems to me I am remembering so many church groups going to bring Bibles into the country and to help renovate churches that for 60 years had been used to store hay etc.
Both you Pat and Bellemarie are pointing out that Evan is still a dark horse in this saga - my gut says he was a soldier during WWII and found Vera/Anya in some displaced person's camp - but we shall see what we shall see - of course Frybabe you know don't you ;)
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We already know that Evan was a soldier. I can't remember where, but someone tells one of the sisters that before he enlisted, Evan was seeing (I forget the name), and when he came back from the war, he was married. So we still don't know the story of meeting Vera.
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Frybabe, those links are fantastic! I am amazed at how huge the museum and library are.
PatH., We were posting at the same time. I had forgotten it being mentioned Evan was indeed a soldier. So like you say, now we need to find out how they met. Barb thinks in a displaced person's camp. We know Vera went off to help in the war, so possibly she and Evan met while she was doing some sort of duty. We will have our answer soon, I suspect.
Today we woke up to cloudy skies, hubby and I went to our youngest granddaughter Zoey's soccer game. By the time we got to the fields it was pouring down rain. She so looks forward to us coming, so we plopped down in our chairs with umbrellas and afghans and watched the game go on. Just seconds after Zoey scores her 1st goal ever, the officials had to call the game due to thunder. YEA for Zoey!! On our way home we stopped by the library and I bought a couple of hardcover books on sale for a dollar each. Home now, and ready to snuggle in on this rainy Saturday to finish Winter Garden. I will be busy tomorrow celebrating Mother's Day with my family, so may not get a chance to check in til Monday. You all have a Happy Mother's Day!
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Frybabe, where we are, the children have been evacuated from Leningrad, and Vera has brought hers back, left them with her mother, and gone off to serve in the war effort. We're in Alaska, have just celebrated Anya's birthday, but haven't contacted the professor, assuming we do.
I had assumed Vera's children died, but we don't know how or hen.
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Hi. My name is Linda and I've been following a few book discussions for several years (heavy on "few"). We have recently retired and I plan to read along more often. I am reading Winter Garden and have been able to read all of your posts. I'm really enjoying the book.
I'm so new to this that I'm having trouble figuring out how to post. This is a test. Wish me luck. I never did figure out how to post my picture or create an online name.
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Welcome Linda - so glad you found us... yes, this time we did things a bit differently - most often we have some questions to get the discussion going and most often we look up all sorts of background information about what we are reading - this story is not lending itself to our usual discussion format.
We did follow one thing - we always break a book into sections and only discuss what we have read up to the last section for the week - example - if a book has 12 chapters we may discuss the first 3 chapters the first week and then proceed adding additional 3 chapters for each week taking 4 weeks to discuss the book.
That is about the only thing we have kept to while discussing Hannah's Winter Garden. Our timing has been off based on moving on in the story since this author left little to discuss the during the first chapters - we are nearing the end and starting tomorrow, Sunday May 13 Mother's Day we are reading and discussing the last chapters that are listed in the heading on top of the page - Chapter 21 - Epilogue 2010...May 13-May
We discuss anything we have already read and since we are on the last group of chapters that means any part of the book can be discussed without giving anything away.
So please, join us and let us hear what you know and think about the characters, the setting, the history of this time period and what you think the themes were in this story.
Since several of us only read up to that weeks group of chapters, we are busy reading these last chapters and along with Mother's Day tomorrow we may not really get into discussing the last of the book till Monday but please, do not let that stop you - please, add your thoughts - we will be anxious to include you in this discussion - we will have another book to read starting in June - the book had been decided upon a week or so ago and it will be The House of the Seven Gables by Hawthorn - hope you join us for that one as well.
Again, so glad you found us - we all started where you are starting with our first discussion and our first posts so step right in and all will smooth out as you add your written thoughts -
Welcome Lindahart
(http://kenko-seikatsu.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/birthday-cake-drink-birthday-cake-mimosa-recipe-birthday-cocktail-ideas-toping.png)
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Well I am speechless - I feel like I've attended a Requiem High Mass - This is the first book in all these over twenty-five years or reading on SeniorNet/Senior Learn that I can remember reading anything so intense.
The epilogue was to me simply tying it up for the reader's satisfaction that I did not find satisfying - nor was the added bit of their visits as a family - I was ready for it to stop when the recognition of the long lost daughter was complete. OH and yes, learning that Sasha waited his entire life - no words can describe - even suggesting tragedy is too kind a word.
The author filled in all the bits and pieces covering every bit of these characters emotions - I'm not sure I even want time for it to sink in - Some folks feel a heavy heart hearing the story of the crucifixion and for me this is the ultimate sacrifice.
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Lovely tour of Sitka, AK from the air, starting with St. Michael's Russian Orthodox Church. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEBBccZqx-0
Wikipedia's entry about Sitka which includes some photos of the original church and the fire that destroyed it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael%27s_Cathedral_(Sitka,_Alaska)
I was vaguely disappointed that there wasn't more about Sasha and how he and Anya/Stacey got to Alaska. Also, other than telling us how Evan and Anya/Vera met, we weren't given any more information about their early years together. But then, the story is about Meredith, Nina, and Anya/Vera and their journey to understanding, acceptance, and reconciliation, not extended family history the would have been interesting but not pertinent to the main focus. I wonder, Barb, if some of that is why you were less than satisfied. Considering that the book has such an emotional component throughout, I think that the ending seems a bit less so. At least for me, the scene where they discovered their long lost sister/daughter had a lot less of an impact.
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Agree Frybabe - the ending was so like one in a couple of million meetup's - it carried more fantasy than the descriptions of war and existing in Leningrad - then we read how they continue to see each other as sort of a, 'they lived happily ever after' with no real picture of how that came about which probably could be another story.
Another aspect of the story we do not hear about is her experience as a captive and what was it that drew Evan to pick her out of the many prisoner's of war. Sure it is about her but how was she conscious of him. What was she thinking to agree to go with him and marry him. Granted she was emotionally dead but it had to have been something if only that his kindness allowed her to start to heal.
But to me the war story shared so tore me up that I was numb to even care for further details and frankly the ending that was shared annoyed me, it seemed all bits were homogenized into a feel good, you, the reader are safe, don't have nightmares, I'm leaving on the nightlight - it all turns out fine.
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Well!! Hasn't this been the strangest book on mothering. Reading the last chapters, especially Ch 23, has made this the most memorable Mother's Day for me. As well as Anya/Vera's story, it is also the story of Mere and Nina, the two motherless girls. Aren't they bright and independent. And Evan's, who tried to be both father and mother. One has to read between the lines to see what Evan saw in Anya. She was smart and very good looking. I don't think I've ever read anything so imaginative. We might have been told more about Mere's two girls. I've learned a lot with this book.
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Whew! That was so emotionally draining I didn't even want to talk about it for a day. And I can't forget that 700,000 people starved to death in the siege, and had some version of this story.
I agree with Barb and Frybabe about the flaws. She's really good at describing the hardships, the incredible things they have to do to survive, feelings--the family's intense love for each other, which gives them the strength that keeps them going.
She's also very good at describing the voyage of discovery of the three women, as Vera/Anya tells her story, and the daughters realize what their mother is really like, which teaches them who they really are, and what they want. The emotional part is totally believable, but the way it plays out is too neat and picture perfect. I believe they would feel all those things, and change as they did, but not so slickly. Not like clicking a switch.
And when we get to Alaska, the long arm of coincidence is stretched so far it's being pulled out of its socket.
More later.
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Jonathan reading between the lines I can see for Evan to admire Anya/Vera but that would not be what he saw when he met her would it - that whole scenario seems to beg a few chapters - she was supposed to be so worn she looked like an old woman when Leo was dying and she walked into the Nazi front lines and I just do not see being captured and treated as a prisoner her appearance would have improved plus she was so out of it between seeing her son die and sending her daughter off with a wish and a prayer into the unknown it is difficult to see anything but a broken women.
The question is how does a young man, a young soldier fall in love or even just want to take personal care of this broken haggard looking woman to the point of marrying her - I can see a marriage of convenience that would allow her to come to the US - and with her family gone and Leningrad destroyed, there was no returning for her - but we are given to understand Evan chose her to marry because he loved her. What would attract her to him so that he could find out enough about her that he would fall in love - did she tell her story and if so why did he not help her find her daughter - there is a story here that is not revealed by Kristin Hannah.
Pat yes, you say it so much better - the long arm of coincidence is stretched so far it's being pulled out of its socket - she did a wonderful job of writing down every minutia of human starvation and being trapped by war as well as, a political system that brutalizes people. But to tie the story together there are huge chunks passed over with a sentence or two.
Been thinking on it and to do justice to the missing step by step continuation of the story I think this could have been more than one book - maybe even enough for a trilogy - she must really be caught in the drama of PTSD since her new book is about a soldier who returns home to Alaska and dies suffer from PTSD as the main theme.
I thought of the plots she has going and at first thought it was unnecessary to have the whole arch of relationship between the two girls till I realized she needed the two girls to question and be an audience for the story. The two husbands were also needed in order for her to have the two girls - the solution I think would have been to flush out the meeting of Evan and Anya and then another story would be how Sasha and her daughter found each other and how did they get to Alaska and how their life evolved so that she owned the restaurant and how did the professor know about her to direct Anya to her long lost daughter. All that was squished into a chapter and the Epilogue with none of the day by day storytelling that went into the siege of Leningrad and the starvation and death all around them as well as, the death of the grandmother, the mother and Leo. And then sending your young child off - beyond my emotional capacity to contemplate.
If she lived than whose red coat was that Anya found and if I remember correctly she found the photo in that torn up red coat - what was that all about since we learn the daughter nor the father were blown to bits
Bottom line it will take me reading a couple of books and watching a few movies before I can rid myself of this book - not fun... had no idea and if I had, not sure I would have tackled it - enough misery in life much less, have to read about this too real death and deprivation. brah... a chill/shiver for sure...
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Barb, you're not sure you would have tackled it, but thank you for sticking with it. I'm not sorry I read it, or won't be in another day or so when it settles down.
I can figure out the answers to some of your questions. The coat: it was Anya's coat. Remember, it was only part of the coat. It had probably been ripped off her by the explosion, and people gathering up the seriously wounded wouldn't bother with parts of clothing.
I can see why Evan fell in love with Vera. She had been a prisoner for several years, had recovered from starvation. He was attracted by her courage. She probably managed to tell him at least some of her story, and everyone who knows it is overawed by her strength and bravery. And she is always beautiful, no matter how sad or haggard. Evan is a very loving, nurturing person. I can see his urge to love her and heal her.
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I don't know about recovering from starvation, PatH, considering the pix from WWII liberated POW/concentration camps. However, she would not have been there as long as others. By the time the Germans figured they were losing and their supplies were dwindling, I don't suppose they were as willing to feed prisoners. In fact, I found this interesting article about the treatment of Russian POWs by the Germans. http://www.historynet.com/soviet-prisoners-of-war-forgotten-nazi-victims-of-world-war-ii.htm
This sentence stands out in my mind. "On June 29, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge ordered, ‘Women in uniform are to be shot.' " It's a good thing Vera/Anya was not in uniform or Jewish (at least I assume she wasn't).
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Interesting Frybabe and it seems we could fight the war on the eastern front all over - the article showed the behavior of the Germans but according to a good friend whose husband was the head chef at Transylvania Collage in Lexington, Ky. they lived on the eastern edges of Germany and was so frightened of the Soviets, who evidently according to them, acted as barbarians that the German families fled on foot to Central Germany burning everything behind them and later they walked to Western Germany - they burned everything so the Soviet Troops would not have any animals or fields of wheat or thing in houses to live off, hoping it would slow down their invasion that listening to my friends was likened to the hoards of Genghis Khan with those in their path hacked to death -
Since Russia, although an ally, enacted Stalinism with Stalin our enemy before the war even ended, I'm thinking the Russian side of WWII was never explored properly to know the full story -
The story of Leningrad has been written about and that siege is about the only thing I can think of that the west gave Russia its due however, I am thinking the WWII Russian soldier was probably the child of the Bolshevik peasants who brought down the Tsar and was not nearly as educated or trained as the average German soldier who had a couple of generations out of rough living on the edge; they were not servants to the King/Emperor as the father and grandfathers of the Russian troops were to the Tsar. And so, the Russian soldier was probably frightening in their manner and not at all as we think of a soldier today. I'm thinking they would not have endured as prisoners for instance as the captured Civil War soldiers endured at Andersonville - Regardless starving, from what I heard and the little available to read, Russian soldiers found ways to continue fighting even as prisoners.
There have been a very few but, a few stories that have leaked out over the years that American Troops killed rather than keep prisoners because they needed ever soldier to fight rather than oversee or feed prisoners. I'm not excusing only saying, fighting a war is more complicated than an article written from the viewpoint of one side or the other and so where it is an atrocity to have killed that many prisoners, keeping them alive over the vast thousands of miles of barren snow fields was probably impossible. From what I hear the German prisoner soldier caught by Russian troops were left in the open to freeze to death since preserving ammunition was their priority - however, we have no records as to numbers.
Maybe that is why Kristin Hannah did not write about Anya's experience as a prisoner - there is such little written about what happened, that as a writer her research would have taken many years and probably visits to Russia to interview anyone alive who could help fill in the story of the eastern front. Trying to imagine what Anya would be like other than a rag doll is for me a challenge - and for a soldier to be kind, in awe and altruistic I can imagine but to fall in love I think as a give and take rather than simply taking care of someone and that is the part I'm having difficulty understanding. After Anya becomes healthy and they are married for awhile with children coming I can understand - it is just the initial attraction I'm having a difficult time understanding - of all the prisoners why Anya... and where was she when he found her... on and on the questions in my head but then OK I said it didn't I that the author probably had little information to flush out that part of the story.
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Oh dear I feel the last person who has shown up at the party, and all the festivities have been completed. All your thoughts are so interesting to read.
I finished the book after I came home from celebrating a very festive Mexican Mother's Day dinner with my family. I was feeling so excited from the beautiful thought-out gift my children gave to me, and the sweet home made cards my two youngest grandchildren made for me, not to mention the beautiful sentimental card my one son picked out that just tore at my heartstrings. because he has never been a boy/man of many words, especially when it comes to expressing his feelings, but he always gives me a card, that allows me to see into his soul, his love for me. So about the gift.... I had saw this special painting on Facebook at a friend's reuse shop called Encore. I fell in love with this painting as soon as I saw it, and posted a comment under it asking if it was still for sale. The owner Birdie, my friend who I came to know through my daughter in law some twenty years ago, responded after awhile and said, "I am sorry Marie, that painting just sold." Feeling a bit sad and disappointed, I told my hubby, "Drat, I was sure that painting was meant for me!" Lo and behold.... after we ate our dinner at the restaurant, the kids say, "We have one more gift for you, we have to give it to you outside, and you have to close your eyes." We walk out to their car, my eyes closed, my hubby guiding me. We stop and they all say, "Okay, open your eyes." I thought I was going to faint..... there was the beautiful painting in front of me. My daughter in law had seen my post online, and had contacted Birdie, and secretly purchased the painting, to give it to me, from all of them. Oh how my heart was filled with love and joy!
So.... I come home, snuggled in on the couch, and decide to finish reading Winter Garden. I closed the book after reading the last page, and tears were rolling down my face. My hubby happened to come walking into the room at that very moment, and asked what was wrong. I could barely speak, this book and all the happenings on Mother's Day, just did me in emotionally. I read him the last chapter of the book, and he teared up and said, "It's touching the family found the daughter/sister, and that the husband waited for her all those years."
I've read all your comments and without being influenced by what I have read, I will try to express my thoughts..... I all along thought Dr. A., would be a link to Anya/Vera finding out what happened to Sasha and her daughter Anya, even though we were told she saw them blown up in front of her eyes. Something inside me, felt they survived, hence my thinking Dr. A., would bring them together. Wishful thinking, insight, a writer's intuition to a happy ending..... call it what you like.
Stacey meeting Anya, Meredith and Nina in her diner, and served them like they were royal made me question, what the heck, why would she react so strongly to total strangers, only because Anya had a Russian accent, which was never mentioned prior to this time, considering her voice was described many times, when telling the fairy tale and not. So, why didn't Anya, and Stacey see the resemblance in each other at that very moment? Yet, on pg. 180 we are told:
Meredith saw what had gotten her mother's attention. There were two framed photographs on the corner table. One was a black and white picture of a young couple. In it, the woman was tall and slim, with jet-black hair and an oversized smile. The man was blond and gorgeous. There were pale white lines that quartered the picture, as if it had been folded for many years. "Those are my parents," Stacey said slowly. "On their wedding day. My mother was a beautiful woman. Her hair was so soft and black, and her eyes. . . I still remember her eyes. Isn't that funny? They were so blue, with gold . . ." Mom turned slowly. Stacey looked into Mom's eyes and the teacup she was holding fell to the hardwood floor, spilling liquid and breaking into pieces. Stacey's plump hand was shaking as she reached for something on the table, but not once did she look away. And then she was holding something out to Mom: a small jeweled butterfly. Mom dropped to her knees on the floor saying, "Oh my God . . ." Meredith wanted to reach out and help her, but she and Nina both stood back. It was Stacey who knelt in front of her. "I am Anastasia Aleksovna Marchenko Koontz, from Lenningrad. Mama? Is it really you?" Mom drew in a deep breath and started to cry. "My Anya . . ."
While it is all good and sentimental the two of them have found each other, my mind could not grasp how they could spend time with each other in the diner, and not see or feel anything to connect them, especially the "blue eyes with gold" she never forgot?
The replica of Sash's summer garden being the same and Anya's winter garden was a sweet touch to add to the story, since the name of the book is Winter Garden, and it had to eventually tie into something meaningful, as did the butterfly which is on the front of the book cover. To hear Sasha had waited for Anya all these years, and had recently died months prior, was so romantic and heart wrenching. The first thought that came to my mind was to ask, what if Anya would have found out Sasha and Anya had survived the explosion, after her marrying Evan and having Meredith and Nina, when Dr. A. had contacted her some twenty years prior to this?
Think on that for a bit while I take a short break......
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Drat, I just can't let this go, all your comments and my thoughts are rumbling around in my head and I need to get them out.
http://seniorlearn.org/forum/Themes/default/images/bbc/quote.gif
Jonathan, One has to read between the lines to see what Evan saw in Anya.
Barb, Trying to imagine what Anya would be like other than a rag doll is for me a challenge - and for a soldier to be kind, in awe and altruistic I can imagine but to fall in love I think as a give and take rather than simply taking care of someone and that is the part I'm having difficulty understanding.
PatH., I can see why Evan fell in love with Vera. She had been a prisoner for several years, had recovered from starvation. He was attracted by her courage.
Frybabe, I don't know about recovering from starvation, PatH, considering the pix from WWII liberated POW/concentration camps. However, she would not have been there as long as others. By the time the Germans figured they were losing and their supplies were dwindling, I don't suppose they were as willing to feed prisoners.
page 369 "They take me prisoner instead," Mom said, still staring out the window. "Prisoner," Mom muttered, shaking her head. "I try to die. Try. . . Always I am too week to kill myself. . . " She turned away from the window at last, looked at them. "Your father was one of the American soldiers who liberated the work camp. We were in Germany by then. It was the end of the war. Years later. The first time he spoke to me, I was not even paying attention; I was thinking that if I'd been stronger, my children would have been with me on this day when the camp gates opened, so when Evan asked me my name, I whispered Anya. I could have taken it back later, but I liked hearing her name every time someone spoke to me. It hurt me, and I welcomed the pain. It was the least of what I deserved. I went with your father__married him__because I wanted to be gone, and he was the only way I had to leave. I never really expected to start over__ I was so sick. I expected, hoped, to die. But I did not. And, well . . . how can you not love Evan? There. That is it. Now you know."
I felt so cheated when this is all we got to learn about Evan and Anya's relationship. Did I want more? Yes, of course I did, but what difference would it have made in the story? Sasha was Vera's first and great love. Sasha was who she mourned for, longed for, missed all these years, and thought was dead, seen with her own eyes blown up. Sasha was her Prince Charming, no man no matter who he would have been could have ever replaced Sasha, could have given Vera those first girlhood feelings when you first see that one boy/young man and feel your heart leap, wanting to be in his presence knowing it's a peasant girl who could be arrested at any time, dating a Prince who is a poet, who also could be arrested at any time. There is no need to learn any more about Anya and Evan for me. Evan saved Vera, and she became Anya. Anya loved Evan for taking her from the hell she was in, for loving her when she felt she was unworthy of any love, after what she felt she had done to her children. She would have gone with anyone who made the offer to get her out of there. Evan was a man of character, he saw a wounded, war torn, ragged, dirty, starving, haggard old woman, and his sense of character saw beyond what his eyes showed him. That is what we can take from Evan. A man who was able to protect this woman, love her, have children with her and protect those two daughters, just as he protected their mother. As our author says.....
But now the story was over, or mostly told, and from here on, it would be a different story anyway. From now on, it would be their story.
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Oh, Bellamarie, what a gorgeous Mothers Day. I'm chuckling and choked up at the same time. You're blessed, and you've certainly earned it.
I had a less spectacular, but very love-filled three generational brunch, with popovers made by the youngest generation for the mothers.
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The Germans did well to be afraid of Russian troops. At the beginning of WWI, Russia was the first to declare war on Germany after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. During that war, the Russian government put out propaganda about how badly Russian soldiers were treated in German POW camps as well as German orders (fake?) to shoot rather than take prisoners. You are right, Barb, that many of the Russian soldiers were simple, uneducated peasants while the German armies were populated with much better educated men. I'm guessing that the Russian government put out that propaganda to discourage their soldiers from surrendering or deserting. Who knows!
The whole history of conflicts in the European area is long and tangled from very early on. I never did have a real grasp of the events, alliances and conflicts immediately leading up to WWI.
While I was nosing around the internet while writing this post I see I missed some new posts. Reading now.
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Bellamarie, I definitely got the impression that Vera/Anya didn't love Evan at first. I expect she would have been dependent, needy and depressed at the time of her rescue. Once she discovered she wasn't going to die, her feelings for Evan became something more over time. Too bad we weren't given any kind of time line from meeting Evan to their marriage.
I am still not sure just how much she really loved him. She certainly was still dependent upon him and learned to adore him for his kindness and patience with her. I am not at all clear on what she gave to the relationship to keep them together so long, excepting for the two girls. Faith perhaps?
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Frybabe, I agree, I don't think for either Vera, or Evan, it was about " being in love," it was about survival, and protection. Some time later, I think Evan fell in love with Anya, and she felt love for him, as much as she possibly was capable of, and allowing herself to love. She loved her two daughters as well, just did not allow herself to feel those deep feelings again. She felt unworthy of any love. The ending shows she was finally able to allow herself those feelings from all three of her daughters. I wonder... had Stacey/Anya never survived and reconnected, would Anya have allowed herself to become close and feel love from Meredith and Nina? I think the author wants the reader to think it was happening before Stacey came into the story, which seemed possible.
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PatH., Family is what Mother's day is all about, and three generational with popovers sound just perfect!
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Well at this point I just want to shuck this story - too many ghosts in this book - the butterfly on the cover to me is now deceptive - there is no fixing the situation, if they just did this or that - it is what it is and all I get out of it is when you are responsible for life in the midst of evil there are no good choices so that no matter your choice there is nothing except bone numbing pain and no one, absolutely no one, can fix it. This was a Sophie's Choice problem and with the best intentions there is no fixing bone numbing pain.
Even if it is all tied together years and years later with understanding and learning of a different outcome, that pain is more than a scar - everytime there is an inkling of a reminder, that pain can paralyze your ability to move. What the life lesson in that is, I do not know - it all feels futile and a waste - cannot even pinpoint the evil to one thing that could be changed - it comes down to protective love or life - because in the face of evil, life is often an act of love and that life is than crippled no matter what future face you adapt for yourself and for others. The story is about the second family Anya/Vera created but, the remains of the first family found in Alaska does not tell us about the pain of loss and the wide hole of unknowing that her first family lived with - at least Leo died with his mother - Sasha dies having lived in limbo and never knowing.
And bottom line Vera and Evan were never married which begs the discussion what is marriage - a man-made legal devise for responsibility and property rights? Love has nothing to do with 'marriage' - to care for another out of love is not necessarily a legal matter. The question of life in the face of evil exploits the normal or at least easy expressions of love.
Did not like Sophie's Choice and do not like Winter Garden - both leave too many unanswerable questions of bone numbing pain - the best thing that can be said is, too bad we have to have these explanation to make acceptable these aspects of humanity that show up in our families - I have liked how the morning show personality Robin Roberts says, 'everyone has something'. I'm not comfortable thinking to be acceptable that 'something' has to be shared. Ah so... and we each have our opinions.
So now I need to read and read some books to repair my heart so I can look at the questions of guilt, retribution, and atonement that are the theme's in The House of Seven Gables - I'll take retribution and atonement any day of the week over concluding a story that like a winter's snow only covers for a season unforgiving pain, and survivor's guilt.
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Barb, I feel some of your same frustrations. The author did a shoddy job with trying to tie all this up in a nice big pretty ribbon in the end, although she left the wrapping paper all wrinkled and torn. The best analogy I can come up with. Did she cheat her readers? Kristin Hannah has a knack for drawing you into the emotional human suffering of her characters, only to leave you feeling exhausted at the end of the book. Firefly Lane and The Nightingale left me feeling this same way. I may take a break from not only war stories, but also from Hannah for awhile. I myself am ready for a fictitious, romantic novel, that takes place in Nantucket, that requires no real thinking.
My sister is losing her husband to cancer, hospice has come today, and my niece their married daughter is not accepting this is their reality. Their son was arrested for DUI and is in jail, after being there for his mother and father non stop for the past ten months, driving her to the hospital, which was thirty minutes away. I know God has His plan all laid out for my brother in law, a Vietnam war hero, with silver stars, purple hearts and other medals. He was at one point declared dead while in the Viet Cong as a sniper, led his entire platoon and ended up in a tree for four days, while the Vietnamese soldiers were searching right below him. God surely saved him back then, but there is to be no saving him now, the cancer has spread throughout his entire body, thankfully he still is very aware and conscious and is still managing to sit up and watch TV. My daughter in law's mother who is sixty-years old, just had a heart attack the day after Mother's Day. So, needless to say, I am done with Winter Garden. Vera and her entire family suffered at the hands of war, she survived and dealt with her survivors guilt the best she knew how. Evan was her saving grace, and her daughters being the adults they are as the ending says, will live on knowing the truth finally, as to why their mother was the way she was. Hopefully lessons learned, and will not be repeated.
Reading Winter Garden and living in my reality, there is one important thing I will take away from all of this...... life is a gift, it is precious, life can not be taken for granted, and to take advantage of every opportunity you can. I believe in marriage and love. Maybe Evan and Vera/Anya did not start out that way, but over the years it was obvious to me they did love each other. This story does not take away anything of my beliefs, values, and faith. Life happens, wars happen, death happens, but in the middle.... there is a lot of joy, happiness, fun, love, and goodness, to outweigh the bad. I don't need all of my movies or stories to answer all my questions, to be satisfied with the endings. I'm okay with not knowing the what about this or that. Sophie's Choice did leave me with feeling of wanting to know more, but so has many other movies and books, and all I do is say, okay, it is what it is. While working in my yard today thinking about my sister in the throws of losing her husband, and I think of him and what he must be thinking right now, and how such a war hero could kick the crap out of the Vietnamese, but can't kick cancer, I realize like Winter Garden, some things don't make sense, some answers I will never have, and life goes on........I remember going to the movies with some friend's and the ending left me frustrated and asking, "But what about...?" My male friend looked at me and said, "It's over Marie, that's THE END."
I laughed so hard I cried, and we still joke about it today when we go to the movies together.
My other online book club has decided to read The Lake House by Kate Morton for our June discussion. I sure hope it's a lighter read than this.
https://www.amazon.com/Lake-House-Novel-Kate-Morton/dp/1451649355/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526501140&sr=8-1&keywords=the+lake+house+kate
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Thanks Bellamarie for the tip on Kristin Hannah's other books - I do not necessarily look for cotton candy writers but for instance could cope with the likes of Dr. Zhivago or even Crime and Punishment, that I got stalled reading, better than this kind of sacrifice.
My thoughts and prayers for your Sister's husband and family
Looked up The Lake House and it does not sound like a walk in the park either - I've a couple of book started from our original list and think I will get back to The Hideaway and I think I will download a copy of The Tour - both sound like I can come away with something worth thinking about.
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Barb and Bellamarie, I totally agree with your reaction to and assessment of the book, don't think I could have coped with it if there were anything bad going on in my life just now.
The House of the Seven Gables: it's been at least 60 years since I read it, but "guilt, retribution and atonement" makes it sound much more serious than I remember, and so far in my rereading, my memory of it as a gentle, mildly humorous tale of a supposed family curse seems to fit. Now I have time to continue reading, I'll go through it quickly, and if I'm mistaken, I'll look for another book. We don't need any more suffering. But I think our main problem is going to be how wordy Hawthorne can be, even in a short book.
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Bellamarie, I'll add my prayers to the many for your brother in law. Although he couldn't fight his way out of the cancer, it's obvious that the courage and spirit he had in Vietnam are helping him now, to deal with his illness and make the most of the time left to him. All honor to him, and to your sister in such a painful time.
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Bellamarie, I also add my thoughts and prayers for your BIL and the family.
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Thank you all for your kind thoughts, words and prayers.
PatH., I do agree, we need a lighter type of read after Winter Garden, and our last couple of books. Time to get out of the Russian war times, suffering, and PTSD, etc. It probably did not help reading Before We Were Yours at the same time, yet another sad book about kidnapping children, taking them from their birth mothers and telling her that her baby died during birth, molestation in the orphanage etc. Someone suggested a while back to read Lilac Girls, no thank you, no more suffering for me for awhile.
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Coincidence saved the book. Bringing all this woe to a happy conclusion was a literary feat. Actually, Stacey was the icing on the cake. Bellamarie was right, I believe, when she posted:
'would Anya have allowed herself to become close and feel love from Meredith and Nina? I think the author wants the reader to think it was happening before Stacey came into the story, which seemed possible.'
A happy ending had come about with Anya telling it like it happened rather than go on with the fairy tale. But all those lost years...how sad.
You're right, Barb. It's going to take several books to get this one out of one's mind.
Pat, how about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? By Roald Dahl.
Frybabe, thanks for all those informative links.
But it was a fascinating read. Should we start over? Was it ever explained why they didn't go to Alaska twenty years earlier, in response to the invitation?
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Jonathan, Indeed it was a fascinating read..... had real life issues not plagued me at this time, I may have dealt with all this sadness differently. It brings to mind.....
Ecclesiastes 3 New International Version (NIV)
A Time for Everything
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Anya, Meredith, Nina and Stacey's time was to finally become a family, before their mother died.
Bittersweet...... now for our book club, it's a time for a light fun read, to get us out of Russia, war and sadness.
I bought a few used books at the library last week:
Family Album by Penelope Lively "A flawlessly constructed mini-epic." __The Telegraph
One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell "Bushnell is. . . the philosopher-queen of the social scene." __New York Times Book Review
Even This I Get To Experience by Norman Lear "Norman Lear could never write a more dramatic, touching, or funnier tale of his life than he's done in Even This I Get To Experience." __Carl Reiner
PatH., Let us know what you decide for our next read. Take your time, it seems we all need to thaw a bit, from Winter Garden.
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Jonathan,
Was it ever explained why they didn't go to Alaska twenty years earlier, in response to the invitation?
Nope, it was just passed over, like many other things that leave you wondering, why the author didn't give more clarity. It would have been a perfect time for Anya to explain to them about the letter, and why she chose not to go, when they decided to take the trip. The daughters never asked, and she never offered.
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With so many dangling issues I really think this could easily have been a trilogy - and yet, frankly with the subject matter, I'm not sure I would read it - one book was enough even if there are dangling unanswered questions.
Looks like we have another school shooting south of Houston - my gut says these kids are copycatting along with their answer to the confused life they may be living - sorry, I know, judgemental on my part but anyone living in a mobile home park is more than likely living with a lot going on in their life - and now is not like years ago when cities were smaller and folks knew each other and took kids under their wing - today kids get lost in the shuffle and everyone is buried in the smart phone even the kids who could use the caring arm of an adult in their neighborhood who could have been a support.
My pet peeve is so many now are judgemental and are quick to find fault and share a viewpoint that is hopeless - we have lost our knee jerk ability to both, lean on faith and to put a positive face on everything so that new ideas can take hold and everyone can move forward as a caring community. I think another is the disappointment and feeling of loss that we struggle with over learning how many of the institutions we looked to for direction and comfort are riddled with deviant behavior and so we often feel like lost orphaned children. Its like neighbors that made up our close knit communities have lost their way and do not know how to cope with today's reality.
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These school shootings are out of control, and I personally think the news media gives way too much coverage to the shooter, wondering if it gives others the thoughts of five minutes of fame, causing copy cats, of these horrible tragedies. We have to consider more security in our schools, and possible have only one entry into the schools with metal detectors. Don't know if I have any answers to help prevent these shootings.
Well, today is the big day, the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who will have the title of Duke and Duchess of Sussex. I have been following the Royal family since Princess Diana's wedding day. I've read tons of books on her and the royals, and have the entire Ashton Drake Princess Diana doll collection, a beautiful plate that plays the music of Elton John's The Rose, and my hubby actually gave me a replica of Princess Diana's beautiful blue sapphire diamond ring from Danbury Mint, for an anniversary gift a few years back, and the replica of HRH Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton's diamond bracelet from Danbury Mint. So, needless to say I have set my DVR for the entire event at St. George's Chaple in Windor today. Anyone else watching?
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Yes, was up in time for the very beginning - do not remember Prince William and Kate's wedding being that long but it was just a wonderful warm celebration - he looks at her with such love and kindness and awe and the message of the sermon was spot on for today.
Yes I too think metal detectors However, when I mention that solution I get push back from teachers saying it is like a prison but thinking on it - do not want to argue but is flying going into a prison and is going into the larger public libraries or the UT library or most art museums walking into a prison environment, all requiring a walk through a metal detector plus a backpack exam and no backpacks carried in some of these public spaces.
I cannot think of another answer - even arming a teacher the gunmen would shoot to kill the teachers first and we are certainly not training every child and supplying them with a weapon - there is no getting rid of guns - after all this talk on automatic weapons this was a simple shot gun no automatic anything. The problem it is like gorilla warfare where the assailant can walk in as any other student and no one is the wiser.
As much as teachers are rebelling against a closed campus with metal detectors after Sutherland you have to think of places of public worship as well. Because like you Bellamarie I do think it is copycat behavior for their 10 minutes of national attention that I think is to say - so there - to all those who they feel slighted them. Over a hundred years ago these kind of kids would have become gun slingers like Billy the Kid in order to carve out their attention getting behavior.
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I had found a line (in the Winter Garden) which, to me, perfectly explained the lack of communication between Nina, Meredith and Vera. I turned the corner down on the page, ( I know, my bad), but when I went back for it, it wasn't there. I don't think I could handle re-reading this just to find the quote. I liked the book regardless of all the "missing links" (explanations) in the story.
My current reading includes "Brunelleschi's Dome", a mystery by Ruth Ware, and just beginning for f2f book club, "Dictator" by Robert Harris-a novel about Cicero. Is that an eclectic list or what? LOL
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TomeReader, I could have sworn I have Dictator in my TBR pile somewhere, but I can't find it. I did read Robert Harris's novel, Imperium, which is a fictionalized account of Cicero's life as seen through the eyes of his slave Tiro. I also read Anthony Everitt's biography, Cicero, the Life and Times of Romes Greatest Politician. After reading that, I wasn't sure I liked the guy much. However, I did like reading his letters which we were translating in Latin class last year. Let me know how you like Dictator.
Bellamarie, I can see a reluctance to use metal detectors in schools. Just think of the thing going off every time a student walks through with all their jewelry, piercings, keys, cell phones and tablets, etc. The students would have to do like in the airports, put everything into a basket and pass through before picking up their stuff again. In large schools, that could take a considerable amount of time.
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We may have to be a little inconvenienced, to save lives in schools. I have passed through detectors and none of the items you mentioned above has ever set them off. Barb you are correct, there are many other places we pass through detectors, and do not feel as if it were a prison. I had to show up for jury duty, and had to pass through a detector. I am not for arming teachers, but I am for placing undercover, retired military or police officers in schools to protect. Students today are not at all afraid to plan and pull off these heinous acts. We are ignoring all the warning signs, and then after the shootings we hear time and time again how the signs were there.
Are we finished with discussing Winter Garden? It seems there is not much left to say about the final chapters.
Thank you Barb and PatH., for moderating the discussion. I think the next book we read, we may try going back to questions in the header for our assigned chapters, to spur on more thought and interaction. This discussion seemed a bit off from the very beginning, a few had completed the entire book ahead of the discussion, so it made it difficult for them to jump in, without giving away spoilers. I so wished we could have gotten more participation. I'm glad I read the book, although I would not recommend it to anyone. Kristin Hannah missed some very important parts of this story, that I feel needed attention to, and clarified. It's like she tried to pack way too much into the final chapters. A trilogy, I think not, all she had to have done was simply add a few more chapters, and not even sure if that would have saved this chopped up story.
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I laugh at the paradox - now that some of the unimaginable and painful circumstance has time to settle I can see a few bits and pieces that would have made our discussion less about the horror and more as you say Bellamarie that spurred interaction - thought - well - I'm still not sure I want to go there...
In fact yesterday I was with my Tao group that was talking about letting go and possessions and possessiveness - so I capsulize this story - not only could they not connect and as I saw it, not wanting to go there and make the connection but, immediately decided 'letting go' was about things and not attachments to the children we birth and the responsibility and love we muster to raise a child so that, as a young child they are our dearest possession - the concept of letting go out of love when that is the only thing you have left, which is stripping us to our core, that is to give a child life which is our love - they just did not want to go there...
Now the guys I understand and even the one gal who never married but there were 4 of us who are mature moms and I could see the terror cross their eyes for a mere second and then we were defining possessions as things - wow hmm - I'm thinking now of the women who die during childbirth and all the love they had to give their infant was life. Sorry but this story is hard to shake...
Found this about the Russian nesting dolls that was mentioned someplace in the book - I like Tomereader cannot even pick back up the book to check on something read, it is so filled with this draining gut wrenching pain.
Here is a nice video about the nesting dolls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4O3F7018c
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Yes we close this discussion to archive it tomorrow - so any last minute thoughts can still be posted today...
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To me the story is mirrored in this poem by Robert Desnos
No, Love Is Not Dead
No, love is not dead in this heart these eyes and this mouth
that announced the start of its own funeral.
Listen, I’ve had enough of the picturesque, the colorful
and the charming.
I love love, its tenderness and cruelty.
My love has only one name, one form.
Everything disappears. All mouths cling to that one.
My love has just one name, one form.
And if someday you remember
O you, form and name of my love,
One day on the ocean between America and Europe,
At the hour when the last ray of light sparkles
on the undulating surface of the waves, or else a stormy night
beneath a tree in the countryside or in a speeding car,
A spring morning on the boulevard Malesherbes,
A rainy day,
Just before going to bed at dawn,
Tell yourself-I order your familiar spirit-that
I alone loved you more and it’s a shame
you didn’t know it.
Tell yourself there’s no need to regret: Ronsard
and Baudelaire before me sang the sorrows
of women old or dead who scorned the purest love.
When you are dead
You will still be lovely and desirable.
I’ll be dead already, completely enclosed in your immortal body,
in your astounding image forever there among the endless marvels
of life and eternity, but if I’m alive,
The sound of your voice, your radiant looks,
Your smell the smell of your hair and many other things
will live on inside me.
In me and I’m not Ronsard or Baudelaire
I’m Robert Desnos who, because I knew
and loved you,
Is as good as they are. |
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Barb, I love the video about the nesting dolls. I never realized sets are made to represent families. How neat.
I can take peace with this book by knowing there is a time for everything..... in the end the mother and her daughters found their peace and happiness. Meredith became a more liberated woman, in the sense she decided to do more things that "she" wanted to do, rather doing the things her husband and daughters always wanted to do. I think I am at that point in my life now. I did relate most with Meredith, a mother who wants to please everyone forgetting herself matters too. Nina, seemed to be happy to settle down with her boyfriend, but not yet commit to marriage. Stacey, finally got closure, finding her mother and two sisters becoming a part of their family. And for Anya, I felt a peace finally came to her that she lost the day she saw Sasha and Anya be blown up by that bomb. I can imagine her sitting at her Winter Garden with a new sense of peace, her fairy-tale has been told, her life has been exposed, her closure is in knowing Sasha survived and waited for her all those years. The love she held onto and could never let go of for him was a true love, a first love, a love that transcends all spheres. And Anya could have peace in knowing she loved Evan in spite of her longing for Sasha. Evan was a happy man, husband and father. He chose his life with Anya/Vera, he loved his two daughters, and before he died, he made sure to let them all know to connect by finishing the fairy-tale. He knew it would heal their torn relationships. Isn't that all we can do in life before we die, mend the relationships we can to give our loved ones the peace, love and joy they so deserve to go on without you?
I know my brother in law's life is drawing to an end. His family is torn apart in these last days. My sister and her only daughter are barely speaking, they have always had a love/hate relationship. My nephew, their only son may in fact spend his father's last days in jail, instead of by his side. What this has taught me, along with this book, is that life isn't perfect. As much as we strive for perfection, we can't attain it. We can only do our own, part in making life the best possible. When the end of a life is here, we can only hope we are surrounded by those we love, and can have serenity and peace within. My sister and brother in law have been substance free for over thirty years, after spending time in prison for drugs. They live by the AA prayer:
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Thank goodness Bellamarie you have a loving husband and children along with your faith and devotion surrounding you during this difficult time - it is so difficult to see our precious sisters or brothers experiencing a deep pain of both body and spirit - thank goodness they do have Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith's prayer as their guiding force.
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Thanks everyone - our story ends with growth and renewal among our characters - like a Russian Easter which was and is the biggest holy day in Russia - and so early blossoms in a Winter Garden seems appropriate for our ending.
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Thank you, Barb, for leading U.S. On this perilous journey. It can't have been an easy job, but you got us to the end, and a certain measure of peace.
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Yes, thanks Barb. Thanks everybody. A difficult book to read, and, by her own account, the author found difficult to write. She mentions numerous rewrites. Unforgettable. Seeking the cold in her Winter Garden that took her back to Leningrad, where she had left her life.