Book Club Report: Ethan Frome

Spoiler Warning: This post is a short recap of my book club's discussion of

Ethan Frome. There will be spoilers.


I don't have a whole lot to say about this book club meeting. I honestly just don't remember very much except for one conversation. That discussion had to do with justification for having an affair. One member of our book club used to belong to another book group and they had read Ethan Frome. Her book club was similar to ours in that it was comprised of mostly conservative, religious women. When they discussed Ethan Frome she had been surprised at how many of them thought that Ethan was completely justified in having an affair with Mattie Silver (not that they really had an affair but it was the direction they were heading) because Zenobia was such an awful wife. I think we all agreed that no matter how terrible a spouse is there are other ways to lawfully and morally get out of the situation without having an affair. I can't really blame Ethan for wanting happiness with Mattie but I don't believe he was justified in his actions. What do you think?

This book is really so tragic. I wouldn't say that I admired Ethan as a person but I did like him and felt bad for him. He had so many dreams and he was on his way to fulfill them when responsibility and duty brought him back to his dismal fate. He stood by his family when his father was ill and then while his mother was dying and then tragically he proposed to a woman he didn't love because he was afraid of the loneliness. I think that is where it all went wrong. If he hadn't asked Zeena to marry him then he may have been able to sell the family farm and go be an engineer like he wanted. But in a brief moment of impulse, he tied himself to a tragic future. However, we all make mistakes and some of them are big ones like Ethan's but we just have to make the best of things sometimes. I was just talking to a friend who is going through some rough patches right now and she was telling me how she had been told by a well-meaning loved one that we can choose to be happy, no matter our circumstances. When her friend heard this advice she suggested, "Yes, we can choose to be happy but that doesn't take away the suckage." It's very true and Ethan had plenty of "suckage" in his life. Hopefully we can all learn to choose happiness and avoid the misery of the Ethan Fromes of this world.

Book Club Report: The Ladies Auxiliary

Book Club Report is a new feature I will be adding to my blog. I love book club. It is the thing that I look forward to more than anything else during the month. Since I love it so much I decided that I should make it a bigger part of Good Clean Reads. Every month after my book club meets, I will discuss the book more in depth and write about our discussion. This post will definitely contain spoilers so it's meant only for those who have read the book.

Book Club was held at Julie's house this month. As always, Julie prepared a great spread of food, with some traditional Jewish foods like latke (a pancake made of grated potatoes), bagels, and hamantaschen that Kerri brought. She had also prepared decidedly non-Kosher foods like the bacon-wrapped water chestnuts baked in a yummy sauce. We decided that Jews are really missing out.

After filling our plates, Julie, Kerri, Kristina, Christie, Sandy, and I began our discussion. I didn't take notes so I won't be able to remember everything but we did have an interesting conversation. Since we are all part of a tight-knit religious community like the characters in this book we could all identify with their experiences even though religion, traditions, and holidays are so vastly different. We are in fact a church-sponsored book club so even though we are LDS (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons) we belong to an organization called the Relief Society that could be compared to the Ladies Auxiliary. Though we agreed that these women where much more judgemental and critical than any of the ladies that we know, there are definitely similar patterns and behaviors in the women of our organization. Maybe we're kidding ourselves and there are women like Mrs. Levy or Tziporah in our midst. Even if there aren't any in our ward (the name of a congregation) I know that there are women in our religion who are similar. We decided that even though they come across as characters with serious flaws, Mirvis doesn't portray them as bad. All of the women in the book are trying to do what they think is right; their trying to live religiously in a world that is very different from their own. Some of them just have a misguided way of trying to help others be religious that comes off as offensive.

We talked about the Orthodox Jews. One of our members was a nanny in New York and saw many Orthodox Jews and actually nannied for a family in which the father was Jewish, although he wasn't Orthodox and only observed some holidays. The children she took care of went to a Hebrew preschool and they would come home on Fridays with a bag of candles and challah to use for Shabbos. Since the family didn't really do anything for Shabbos they would often eat the challah on the way home because they were hungry. It was interesting to us that they would send their children to a Hebrew school but they didn't really practice themselves--the mother wasn't even Jewish. But really, I can see how this father would want his children to know and learn about their heritage. Jews have a very long history and they are a proud people. They should be proud. They have withstood so much persecution for so long. They have kept their traditions for thousands of years, still waiting for the Messiah. That is an amazing legacy of faith. I admire them, yet feel sorry for them. Of course, I feel great sympathy for the horrific trials that they have born, but I also feel sorry that they have been waiting for so long for their Savior to come and have continued to follow what seem to me to be very antiquated laws that are often difficult to adhere to.

The characters in the book were so worried about their children and how to keep them religious. We talked about how difficult it would be to stay religious as an Orthodox Jew. They watch tv and movies and know a lot about popular culture but are required to keep a strict dress code and eat kosher which means no jeans and no cheeseburgers. Wow, it just seems so hard. Then we realized that many people probably view us (LDS) in the same way. We countered that with statements like, "We're not as restricted as they are," or "We don't feel deprived," or "Our faith makes it easier." They probably feel the same way. They may even think that we're more restricted. They may say, "The Mormons don't even drink coffee or wine. How do they do it?" It's pretty funny when you think about it.

One thing that got us laughing so hard was talking about the mikvah. The mikvah as quoted from the online dictionary is "a ritual bath to which Orthodox Jews are traditionally required to go on certain occasions, as before the Sabbath and after each menstrual period, to cleanse and purify themselves." We laughed as we pictured Batsheva going to the mikvah and how she used it like a little swimming pool, floating on her back and taking it all in. Finally Bessie, the attendant, who was thinking how inappropriate Batsheva was being said, "We don't have all night." We imagined that the mikvah was something like a baptismal font and thought about what it would be like if someone got in and acted like Batsheva. We thought it was hilarious but I know we each would have been horrified if someone did swim around in the baptismal font.

We had a great discussion but we did go off on tangents more than we normally do. I felt like there was still more to talk about when we all had to leave and that was a bit disappointing to me. I think we got off on tangents so often because this book reminded us so much of our own lives and brought to mind experiences and problems that we wanted to talk about.

Another great book club. I dearly love those women. I look forward to next month's The Alchemist.