Humor, Comedy and Satire: Program 2020-2021

"...a fear of being trapped by domesticity and baby carriages..."

This year's booklet cover is an illustration by James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960), from Pelham, New York. He was a contemporary of the Literature Club's founders, who first met more than a century ago and who might have agree with the sentiments expressed in his cartoon.

We chose this year's topic knowing well what a difficult year this was going to be.

This winter, we are foregoing the usual rounds of parties and family get-togethers in the interest of not being COVID spreaders. The days are short, it's cold and we're lonely. We are meeting on Zoom (see photo in post Dec 14 2020: Social Distancing, Masks, Quarantines). We are being consoled by writers of comedy, humor and satire, and by hearing each others' presentations. 

Here's who's doing what, in the program year 2020-2021:

                    Laura: Betty MacDonald, Shirley Jackson, Tina Fey: Laughing While Living (Sept 16)

Frances: E.M. Delafield: Motherhood, Work, Laughter (Sept 30)

Louisa: The Writing Behind Screwball Comedies (Oct 21)

Christine: Samuel Becket plays (Oct 28)

Lori: Political Satire: Catch 22, Brave New World and Slaughterhouse 5 (Nov 18)

Diana: Bailey White (Dec 9)

Barbara: Shakespeare's Fools (Jan 6)

Joanna: Uncommon Writer: Alan Bennett (Jan 20)

Carol: James Thurber (Feb 3) 

Jacqueline: Neil Simon (Feb 24)

Annual Meeting (Mar 10)

Constance: Dawn Powell (Mar 24)

Linda: Roz Chast: Existential Angst (Apr 14)

Gita: Peter Mayle (Apr 28)

Carla: Calvin Trillin (May 12)

 

 

 

 

 

Reading List from 2020 Annual Picnic

We met on July 29, under a large black walnut tree in the field behind Christine's house. Christine warned us that direct hits by falling walnuts was possible. Nothing fell, there were no injuries. The day was hot, the view of the Palisades was spectacular. Christine sent us home with flowers from her garden.

Our tradition at the picnic is to talk about the book we're reading. The upside of the pandemic’s social distancing requirement may be that we have more time to read.  Following, a list of books read and recommended:

 

Connie:

Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck

House: A Graphic Novel by Josh Simmons

 

Laura

The Visitation by Frank Peretti

March A Graphic Novel by John Lewis

 

Linda

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld

Trace Elements by Donna Leon

…and too many short stories to list

 

Laura

Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck

Mysteries by Jane Langton, Patricia Cornwall and Deborah Crombie (particularly Crombie’s Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James series)

Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow

 

Fran

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Assistant by Robert Walser

The Provincial Lady Goes to America by E. M. Delafield

How Fiction Works by James Webb

 

Carol

mysteries by Donna Leon

Half the Way Home by Adam Hochschild

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

 

Joanna

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

I Married a Communist by Philip Roth

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, audiobook read by Colin Farrell

My Favorite Things Are Monsters, A Graphic Novel by Emil Ferris

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Hastings Library’s webinar, Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury led by Sharon DeLevie

 

Jacquie

An American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld

You Think It, I’ll Say It stories by Curtis Sittenfeld

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

How Much of the Hills Are Gold by C Pam Zhang

Music for Wartime by Rebecca Makkai

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

Apeirogon by Colin McCann

 

Lori

The Plague by Albert Camus

Nancy Mitford’s books (all)

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

 

Carla

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump, PhD

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

 

Connie

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Girl Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo

 

Christine

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

The Graduate by Charles Webb

Shirley Jackson’s short stories

A Children’s Bible: A Novel by Lydia Mollett

The Forty Days Of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel

Diana (who missed the meeting but let us know what she’s been reading)

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

The Overstory by Richard Powers

One Fine Day and Good Evening, Mrs. Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes

Quite a Year for Plums by Bailey White 

Our Lending Library

Carol had a great idea for getting new books while the Hastings Public Library is closed during coronavirus lockdown. Or even after the library re-opens. 

We know we can always buy a book, and hopefully not from an unnamed source because it has taken control of our buying. A political aside: the source's owner is insanely rich and doesn't pay his warehouse employees well nor give them benefits.

Even when we can find the rare independent book store, many of us don't want to buy yet one more book. The love we have for books has resulted in overstuffed bookshelves. Not a serious condition, but we must have limits to our indulgences.

We are forming our own lending library. Like good book sellers, we will recommend books to each other, ones that we have in our homes. If you want a book, get in touch with the member who's recommending it; you two will figure out time and place to get it. 

The library is in the form of a Google Document. Please add your recommendations.

We meet on Zoom

This is Jacquie's photo of our second Zoom meeting. 

Louisa had sent out an invitation for an informal gathering by Zoom in early May. At that time, we were still hoping that rules of social distancing would be lifted  and we could resume person-to-person meetings in mid-May. That likelihood was quickly disappearing.

The first Zoom meeting was a success - we loved being able to talk to each other again. We know Zoom is  a substitute for what we really want - to see each other in our full dimensionality -  but that's just not possible right now because of NY State coronavirus restrictions on social gatherings.

We have decided to proceed with Zoom. Connie led the way; she made her presentation on Mollie Panter-Downes on May 13, 2020. She had been circulating Panter-Downes' stories by email as her presentation got postponed from her original date of March 25 several times - all in the hopes that we could be together at hostess Christine's house. Panter-Downes' stories and "Letters from London" (in the New Yorker magazine) during World War II reminded us that there were worse times than a coronavirus lockdown. But the parallels were there - living through a time of fear, of restrictions, of shared experience. The comradery of being all in this together. The courage of Londoners during the first grim years of the war, when they alone were fighting the Axis powers, was inspiring. The good-will of Britain, accepting Jewish children through the Kinder Transport and the depressing refusal of the US to do the same, was a bitter reminder of the ways our government has failed. 

Why do we have this blog?

The blog started as a way to preserve our emails as we reacted and adjusted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, we're using it as our archive, for minutes and email notices, starting in March 2020. We have continued many of our meetings on Zoom, and several, in person. We met outdoors when the weather permitted. After we were all vaccinated, and before the Omicron variant spiked in Hastings late December 2021, we met indoors, masked. We suspended our tradition of the meeting's hostess serving lunch. It's an inconvenience caused by the pandemic, we acknowledge it, but it's another of the small deprivations we've endured during this difficult time.

Librarian Responds to COVID-19 Pandemic

Below, shared by Jacquie Weitzman, how one librarian used her ability to sort books to respond to our current pandemic

Minutes March 11, 2020

Was it prudence or hysterical overreaction that closed her granddaughter’s nursery school in Brooklyn and prevented Fran Greenberg, nominee for President of the Literature Club, from attending our Annual Meeting on March 11? This was a question that could still be asked, on that March afternoon, as thirteen members of the Club met and shared coronavirus stories. We were going to the movies, eating in restaurants, talking about our theater and opera tickets. Yes, there were some trips we were not going to take, some colleges that might not reopen after spring break. But I think few of us imagined that the Hastings Library would close at the end of the week, or that the following week the Met would cancel the rest of its season and Broadway go dark. Illness was still a metaphor.

President Carol Barkin conducted the business meeting, at which the minutes were accepted as corrected and the treasury reported at $10.67. The slate of candidates was presented and unanimously elected, with Fran Greenberg as President, Connie Stewart as Vice President, and Lori Walsh as Treasurer, filling out the remaining year of Connie’s term. Congratulations and thanks were given to all. They will assume their duties at the next meeting of the Club, when Carol will pass the President’s bell on to Fran, and Lori will collect $15 annual dues.

A discussion followed of the list of Literature Club topics, which seems to grow longer every year, despite our efforts at pruning. Children’s Literature was added to the list, and several members voiced their support for Humor. The Literature of Illness was suggested, but seemed too dark for a full program year.

Finally, members recommended books they have read recently, from classic novels and prize-winning new fiction to memoirs and mysteries. A list of these books was sent to members separately.

Respectfully submitted,
Barbara Morrow
Recording Secretary

Addendum: Shortly after this Literature Club meeting, “stay at home” guidelines were issued at the state and local levels to limit the spread of Covid-19 cases. President Fran Greenberg canceled April meetings and added meetings in May and June. Elections for our topic for next program year will be held by email. Lori Walsh asked members to mail her their dues checks or send dues electronically. Fran started a Literature Club blog and included many of the emails members sent to one another during the first weeks of the “lockdown.”