London Book Club: October

Posted on November 30, 2010 in Uncategorized

After reading this year’s Man Booker-longlisted The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, it resulted in the October discussion having two main focuses; there was the obvious theme of childrearing (child disciplining in particular), but an underlying theme of stereotyped characters also was present at various stages of the discussion. Quite a few people disliked the book and felt that the oft-used sarcastic and blasé tone to the narrations meant that at many parts the book appeared to lack substance, and this meant that reading the book became quite a challenge.

Naturally, we all gave our thoughts on what we would have done in Harry’s situation (Harry being the perpetrator of ‘the slap’) and also whether we thought the whole situation could have in any way been prevented from occurring in the first place. We felt that book provided no answers to what the author’s take was on the child getting slapped (and in particular by someone who wasn’t the child’s parent). The characters in the book appeared to have divided themselves almost equally on both sides of the argument, leaving only the judge in the court hearing to be the one who decides what is and isn’t right.

We did feel that when selecting characters to use in the novel, the author seemed to have gone out of his way to select stereotyped characters and extreme cases – the group of main characters included Black Aborigines, Muslim converts and Greeks but yet very few White native Australians. We felt that this extremely varied mix of people whose lives were all intertwined seemed rather unrealistic, and we even found it a little distracting at times during the book. We noted that the novel featured very few South-east Asians, despite the fact that the South-east Asian population in Melbourne (where the novel takes its setting) is quite high.

There were some other topics that reoccurred throughout our discussion, such as what (if any) is the normal age for a child to stop being breastfed, and what are the consequences of breastfeeding a child for too many years? In Harry’s case and also for three-year old Hugo’s mother Rosie, the book describes the relationships that each had with their parents. Our opinion was that these had affected the way the adults then went on to raise their own children.

Rosie and Hugo appear to be mutually dependent on one another. It’s almost as if she needs him just as much as he needs her (or perhaps even more!), and there is an extremely intense relationship between the two. One example in the story where this becomes apparent is when we are told that she strictly monitors what Hugo watches on tv and only allowing her son to watch videos and DVDs. Is she concerned that the world of tv will change him in any way? Perhaps she is afraid that it could take her away from him? Rosie has a bad relationship with her own mother who lives in Perth; the relationship is so bad that Rosie is made to feel that she is a bad daughter. However, becoming a mother herself has allowed Rosie to feel complete. She seems to have gained a sense of peace and contentment from motherhood, and so of course she wants to hold onto this sense of contentment for as long as she can. One is even left wondering if she in fact sees this as her calling in life?

There were many passages in the book which described three-year old Hugo’s feelings and behaviour. It seemed that something which frustrated him a lot was when he played with older children and found that they were so much more skilled than him. He got very angry when playing the Sony Playstation game and found that the older boys were a lot better than him. Hugo was also very frustrated when he tried to join in a game of football with older children and again found that he was struggling to keep up with the pace.

I suppose the main ‘take home message’ from our discussion was that everyone has the right to discipline their child in the manner that they see fit (within reason of course!), and basically, that there aren’t any hard and fast rules with regards to raising children. Even though there is a vast amount of literature about how to look after and raise children, sometimes you do just have to do what you as parents or guardians think is best.