Commentary on the Futilitarians.

I have always wanted to join a book club. 

A voracious reader, the idea of  meeting with a group of people over coffee or wine to share words - stories, thoughts, has always seemed like one of those luxury events people schedule or put on their calendar like going to the spa.

Being a lover of words and language - spoken out loud, silently read, scribbled in a notebook,  wordle played - being enveloped in words and wordsmithing is more attractive to me than a trip to the spa. 

Back to the book club - is that what one does?  You join a book club?  Since I have always traveled for work and been away from home for long periods of time or every week - actually getting together with a group of friends or possible new friends just was not part of my life experience.

I have friends who have been in long lasting book clubs - I have always been invited, but never able to attend. 

When I came across Anne Gisleson's  "The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving and Reading" about a monthly book club meeting,  I was instantly hooked.  I felt like I was about to participate in or at least eavesdrop while these friends, over wine (sometimes much wine and spirits) and coffee communed over musings, thoughts, and introspection introduced with a book. 

"The Futilitarians" is really a book, but each chapter is an essay in itself  about thinking, drinking, and grieving, in this case in post Katrina New Orleans.

There is a certain amount of sad mystique about New Orleans, Katrina and everything that went on during that time.  Having been to New Orleans many times before, including attending a tradeshow at the infamous Superdome (how did they get this place cleaned up? It was not that long ago...) just a few months after Katrina, also drew me to the essays and stories prompted by a selection for a book club.             

Of course, we all have our own version of Katrina.  Some singular event that impacts us profoundly and can even change our common experience.

A category 5 hurricane, storm surge over a dike engulfing Louisiana and causing floods of misery inland that later spawns a book club and a post storm trauma memoir.   In my quest to create time  and space to engage - I become a voyeur, immersed in the Futilitarians year of books and memory.

The sense of place is so vivid to me I feel smothered by the heat and humidity, the sweltering slowness of trying to move through the evening discussion as in a dream.  Some of the book selections are heavy and foreboding, existential.  I read, listen and imagine. 

I am caught up, as I follow the club through meetings and books but come to understand that the "idea" of being in a book club is more powerful to me than the actual experience might be.

I would listen, but would not share - there is always the ego to deal with in these situations, brash, controlling, arrogant, better than (or less than).  Better to relish a good story quietly, apart from others.