Val and I are members of a reading circle in St-Rémy. This is kind of like a book club and kind of not. And the first meeting we attended was rather tense.
In a reading circle, instead of everyone reading the same book, you read what you want. At the meetings, you go around the table and each person talks about a book or two that they have read—what they liked, what they didn’t like, that sort of thing.
Sometimes this leads to a discussion if someone else has read the same book, or maybe something else by that author.
But what happens when you disagree with someone’s assessment of a book? As in, they are totally wrong and you (as in, me) feel compelled to point that out?
Like I said, our first meeting was rather tense…
Read all about it at MyFrenchLife!
That’s such a funny story. I’m in a French reading circle in the States and the woman who runs it is French. She absolutely has a much greater comfort level with differing opinions than the Americans in the group. “My Contradictor” is a precious example of this. Still, in my reading circle, where attendance varies, I try to tread softly when presenting contradictory ideas. I’m sure I’d be even more reserved in a reading circle taking place in France where I knew no one. Bravo!
(I’m also in an English-language book club where all the members are Americans and also good friends. There, I’m less careful about how I express myself. I’m relying on decades of friendship to help them tolerate my sometimes overly-wraught convictions. At least I’m an equal-opportunity Evangelizer. I’m just as likely to condemn one of my own book picks as I am another member’s selection.)
It helped that I was praising a book someone else had denigrated. Had I been dissing a book someone else had loved, the dynamic would have been a bit trickier to manage. BTW, I’ve sense learned that the My Contradictor lady is quite a character and my wife and I have had her over for an apéro.