The Book Club Pune met on Sunday August 23rd to discuss A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende. The book was presented by Sunita Shetty.
Our regular patron Kusum Gokarn reviews the discussion:
Sunita Shetty’s dramatic narration was excellent. She presented the emotional involvement of the the characters and made the dramatic scenes of the horrifying scenes come alive.
Questions from the listeners and Sunita’s answers added to the absorbing involvement of us listeners in this story of the horrible plight of the refugees in the concentration camp, their escape to Chile and their nostalgic longing for their homeland in Spain.
Satish offered two quotations from the novel “Friends are fighting, families are split down the middle, its impossible to talk to anyone who does not think like you do.” Also “people lived in the middle of lies, omissions and euphemisms, in grotesque exaltation of the blessed fatherland, brave soldiers and traditional morality.” He commented that Isabel Allende put us square in the middle of what’s happening all over the world?
As Latika rightly said credit should also be given to the translator of this novel. Mohini summed it up well by appreciating the author Isabelle Allende’s lyricism in her style of writing, the fine unfoldment of the story , her emotional involvement in the characters and depiction of the atmosphere of the war background and the horrifying scenes of the concentration camps.The title of the book Long Petal Of The Sea is itself so poetic and intriguing.
