January 19th Meeting at Edna's

A very happy new years to everyone as we gather around Edna's table for a joyous reunion.  It's been a very busy two months and it sounds like everyone had a wonderful holiday. Edna with the help of Glennie prepared a wonderful meal with recipes from Angelique, Myrtle Beach and of course a fish dish -  in keeping with the title of the book.

Rosemary  opened up discussion on changing the February Meeting to the 4th Thursday, February 23 since several people will be out of town the previous week.  All agreed.  Louisa announced that North Middle participated in WV Physical Activity Day by everyone in the school dancing the "Cupid Shuffle".  This will be  televised on the 11 o'clock news.  Several sad news were announced and we tried to get back to discussing the book, which is sorta the reason we are here.

I decided to tape the meeting to help me write this blog.  I think it gave me too much info but it was  amusing reliving the evening. Amy Tan takes a good hard look on global economics, tourism, Burmese politics and Western influence on other cultures in this book "Saving Fish from Drowning".  She has a way of creating fiction so that the reader perceives it as true.  I actually Googled to see if tourist went missing after I read the first chapter.   Ellen found Amy Tan to have a great imagination and Edna found it clever to tell the story through the ghost narrator Bibi.  We thought the tourist were ignorant about the land they were entering and hardly prepared to go into such a hostile area.  We had an active discussion about travel in remote areas outside the US with killings, kidnappings,  bugs, unsanitary conditions and wild animals.  Louisa and others commented that the book could have been shorter and Tan could have left out a lot of the details but then that is exactly what drew Edna to the book.  I was surprised to find the tourist survive their ordeal,  we were sure they were being lured into to jungle to meet their demise.  All in all a good story.

As I said before we will meet next month at Rosemary's on February 23. She has chosen "Wildflower Hill" by Kimberley Freeman for us to read.  Enjoy and stay warm.

'missed you Linda, Sharon and Pat.

Don't mess with the Nats,
KAthy G