The next meeting will be held on Mon 13th November 2023 at 7:30pm in the Ferryhill Community Centre.
The book under discussion is ‘All The Broken Places’ by John Boyne.
The next meeting will be held on Mon 13th November 2023 at 7:30pm in the Ferryhill Community Centre.
The book under discussion is ‘All The Broken Places’ by John Boyne.
More (pondering) on ‘All the broken places’- Gretel murdering Alex was wrong and yet as readers we had been brought to that point to think it ‘justified’. Gretel compared her nature to that of Eleanor’s and acknowledged or realised then that she, Gretel, did not have the same empathetic, sympathetic understanding of peoples and nor have guilt for her actions. after this self -knowledge Gretel moves to the final act. Now where do we stand as readers?
and more (thinking again about the epilogue there is another interpretation to the ending )- of course it is incredulous that a 91-year-old woman is able to slit the throat of a tall, aggressive middle-aged man. And then drag his corpse to hide it away in another room. Gretel is telling the story. Gretel is delusional. She is in a care home (not prison) and the final act is a fabrication of her mind.
Colette
Thinking on our discussion tonight (13th Nov 23) I am drawn further to the idea that Gretel enjoyed the pleasure of power and her ‘final solution’ of taking a life was immoral and yet we (readers) in our minds made excuses for this, for her and do not recognise it as evil. She built her case in telling her own story and we were complicit in justifying the murder. Throughout the story there are small acts of Gretel exerting power over people- making Edgar (her husband) buy the flat; withholding money from her son Caden; living anonymously beside her daughter; &etc. Gretel was her father’s daughter.
Colette