The Memory of Love

Hi everyone,

Carole, Chris, Anna & I met to chew over The Memory of Love last night. It was probably fairly telling that we’d all finished it rather close to the start of the discussion ... Anna felt it was beautifully written and had some interesting reflections about the impact of war and trauma on the main characters. I swung between enjoying some of the writing, and finding other parts clichéd and overblown. Carole felt it was quite ‘light’ and whilst easy to read, not particularly memorable. She took off an extra .5 from her score for the dog death! Chris was even more unimpressed with it – finding it difficult to picture the setting or individuals (perhaps partly ‘kindle’ related). None of us felt particularly engaged with the characters, although we all obviously rather fancied Kai, and liked some of the minor characters e.g. Julius, Agnes, Adrian’s mum, Abass (Carole thought he was a bit precocious mind you..) We did find the commentary about Sierra Leone interesting, and would have liked more about the wider context of the civil war etc. There were some very powerful scenes e.g. the ‘sensitisation unit’, the descriptions of the coast. Most of us felt that the plot dragged a bit, and were frustrated (as well as shocked) by Nenebah’s death which seemed like a cheap way out of a tricky story line. We thought that it was a silly & unlikely coincidence that she was the connection between the men, although surprisingly Carole had predicted that Mamakay might turn out to be Nenebah! We would have liked a more dramatic/interesting resolution to Elias’ story. Although the book was clever in its description of how the war made people reserved / indifferent / self seeking / psychologically tortured, this often made the characters difficult to ’bond’ with, especially when there were so many lengthy descriptions which didn’t seem to lead anywhere ...

So, as usual I should have taken some notes because I can’t remember very
much already….

Here are Caroline & Jill’s comments:

Caroline –

Overall, I enjoyed this book but it took me a fairly hefty chunk before I got properly into it. It did make me feel that a drawback of a Kindle is when you find a book hard to engage with...you can’t turn it over in your hands, look at the cover, look at the author info...do those things that for me, can help make a connection with a book. I like the Adrian character and loved Kai [was I alone in thinking he sounded extremely fanciable? !] I loved Abass too! Was very very endeared to him and think she was very good at drawing characters. The different voices were good too. You got a very strong sense of Elias Cole making excuses for things he did and I had a strong image of a fussy little, selfish man. Details on characters were great – I loved Attilla, Adrian’s boss and his physical detail. Also the creepy small hands of Johnson! [think was called Johnson?]

Didn’t see the twist coming about Mamakay being the person who linked all the men. Was very shocked when she died. Thought the revelation about Cole’s lack of action causing death of Julius was a very good one. Some of the writing was stunning. I can’t give a page number because I’m not sure the Kindle ones coincide with actual book, but the paragraph about Westerners being on modern Crusade was just fabulous for eg.

But for all this, I was never really gripped and I think her quite cool, or slow burning style was the reason for that. I do like a strong story and for me, this could have done with a bit more of a narrative backbone maybe. Dying to know what others thought!

Jill (by text) -

Loved it. Slightly misogynistic, Elias reminds me of an Ian McEwen character – tricky at times, but persevere and it makes sense. Reminded me of Gift of Rain but not so melodramatic. Really engaging read.

Updated spreadsheet attached with all our scores

We’ve decided not to try and meet before Xmas, so our next get together is Tuesday 10th January – hope you can all make it.

Caroline’s up next, and she’ll circulate her choice in the next couple of days

Have a lovely Christmas if I don’t see you before

Annie xx