All loved the novel. Someone said "If I can see it as a movie, it must be well written." We had also read, as a book club, Someone Knows My Name, which we felt shared a different aspect of the slavery issue, maybe more actual accounts?
We talked about the healing, healing out of slavery, which was more then just papers. We thought there would be confusion about what freedom really was. We agreed there were isolation aspects because slaves didn't move in and out of this plantation, like other plantations in the south. Polly Shine, as a healer was $5,000 back in those days. This was a big plantation back in 1847. Polly treat causes, not just the symptoms. Polly would whisper hope in the ear of the one she worked on healing. We felt Polly worked with body, mind and soul. We were reminded that the white doctors back then wouldn't treat the southern black. Polly recognized in Granada the same gifts.
Granada was taken under Polly's wing, finally found the respect for Polly. When Granada spoke to Violet, she questioned whether she had made the right choice, not leaving with Polly. She said some of us picked wrong.
We talked about the characters, the monkey Daniel Webster, the snack, the part Silas played in the plantation and with Polly, and Charity's granddaughter Violet helping to finish the journey.
We acknowledged in the book the "tangled web" that was spoken and weaved through out the book. In Chapter 43, Polly says: "She say, the difference in weavers is, some see the tangle and others see the weave. The ones that can't take their eyes off the tangle, they never rise above it." "It's the weave you got to remember, Granada. It's bigger than you and me leave this place and go to wherever it is Rubina is waiting. Just a tangle, Granada. The next chapter talks about Granada thinking "about the threads that stitch folks together. About daughters and mothers and mother's mothers touching through time."
There is so much more to discuss in this book, many aspects that we did touch on. I hope that anyone that was involved in the discussion or if you have further discussion, please share your thoughts.
I will add that we would agree on one thing. "If I can see it as a movie, it must be well written." It was.
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Personally, I will add that I loved this book. I would consider it one of my favorite and would highly recommend it. I would have liked to hear more of the story. I loved that the clay masks were a part of the story. Polly had the "gift," a creative sensitive aspect to others lives that she used to help with healing. I think by using the masks, it showed a great way to remember the people that were in Granada's life. Granada was very creative not only with souls but with her own spirit and hands. These people, her "tangled web" were woven together, among each other, and this left a part of them behind, as long as the masks survived, a "weave" of the people.
ReplyDeleteAlso, another thought. When Polly first saw Granada, she knew she had the gift, but did she also see that she needed to heal as part of that gift? That losing her mother at a young age, with a "replacement mother" left her vulnerable and sensitive one open to the gift? Although she fought Polly's grasp, she wanted to go back to the house, but I think Polly knew she needed more.
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