Our March Ink & Drink book club choice was The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra. The novel has been described as "one of the greatest literary events of recent years" and "a fleeting story translated with care – worth savouring".
Veronica is late, and Julian is increasingly convinced she won't ever come home. To pass the time, he improvises a story about trees to coax his stepdaughter, Daniela, to sleep. He has made a life as a literature professor, developing a novel about a man tending to a bonsai tree on the weekends.
He is a narrator, an architect, a chronicler of other people's stories. But as the night stretches on before him, and the hours pass with no sign of Veronica, Julian finds himself caught up in the slipstream of the story of his life - of their lives together. What combination of desire and coincidence led them here, to this very night? What will the future - and possibly motherless - Daniela think of him and his stories? Why tell stories at all?
Let us help you discover the novel with our Ink & Drink questions:
Zambra repeats the phrase 'the book will end when Veronica comes home or when Julian is sure she will not return'. How did you find this fly on the wall, fourth-wall breaking style of writing?
We never truly know where we stand in the novel. Is Julian constructing his own reality, is this autofiction on the act of creating worlds as an author, or simply the story of a self-conscious man truly anxious of his future tender relationship with his step-daughter?
Zambra describes himself as a very Chilean novelist and writes in what he describes as the shadow of a country that teaches literature only to show its pointlessness and that the very act of writing there is considered suspicious. How does this context affect your reading of the book?
In all his books Zambra talks about how he weaves fiction and nonfiction in a way that is indetectable and in fact is meant to be, at one point in the book he writes ' there would surely be more life in those pages than in the book he was writing' when describing his wish to simply write down the voices he hears of neighbours in his flat. What are your thoughts of truth in fiction?
A lot of the reviews of this book describe it in relation to how the reviewer reads the book, such as 'swallowed in a gulp, 'worth savouring', 'over a long night' 'on a train surrounded by swirling trees'. Do you think how and when you read a book effects your opinion on it? When did you read this book? How did that effect your experience?
What do you think of how Julien spends the evening? Ruminating on past relationships, his ex, the family he has but doesn't seem to want and if his step daughter will read his books in the future makes his response to the seriousness of the situation seem selfish, but can we judge how people respond to trauma?
While the book is divided into many fragments it only has two marked chapters. Consider the titles of these chapters 1. Greenhouse and 2. Winter. What do they tell us each section?
The book has a lingering quality to it. Are there any lingering questions that you have after reading it? If you could ask Zambra one question, what would it be?
How does the book's title strike you in comparison to the novel's contents? What do you think it is trying to say?
Did your opinion of Julian, or indeed any of the other characters, change as the novel progressed? If so, why?
For our next Ink & Drink book club, held on Wednesday April 29 at 6.30pm, we will be reading Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. We hope to see you there and if not look forward to sharing our questions with you soon!
About the book:
When Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. As Miri searches for answers to her wife's altered state, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp...