Winter Garden ~ Kristin Hannah ~ Prediscussion is open!

[bellamarie]

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.

[BarbStAubrey]

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

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes we close this discussion to archive it tomorrow - so any last minute thoughts can still be posted today...

[BarbStAubrey]

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.

[bellamarie]

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:
   

[BarbStAubrey]

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.

[BarbStAubrey]

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.

[PatH]

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.

[Jonathan]

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.