CAPE COD MINUTES

 

JUNE 2008

 Meeting was held at lunch time at Sally Rossetti’s home.   Margaret, Paul, Enid, Art, Joan, Ted and Peter attended the meeting.  We had agreed to read Pastoral.    Our discussion of the book was not very lengthy, partly I think as some folks had not read it so recently and partly we thought it is not as complex a book as many of the other Shute stories.   We had all liked the reading and had little to question or criticize, finding it a really enjoyable love story. It is also a war story.   One of the reviews from the foundation site states “wars are made by the old, but fought by the young, and Pastoral reminds us that the worst of times is also, for some, the best of times.”

 

  Ted, our newest member, told us about reading Shute stories to his children when they were in their early teen years,   We were all interested to hear of that.  He reported that his first choice for them had been On the Beach.  

 

Art also spoke about his recent reading of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln; his enthusiasm for that might have interfered with his focus on the Shute book.

 

We will meet again at the end of the summer date not yet determined.   The next book to be read will be In The Wet.

 

Sally Rossetti, secretary

 

February 2008

 The Cape Cod Chapter of the Nevil Shute Society met on February 24 at Margaret Ostro's home in Orleans.  The meeting was held primarily to meet two new chapter members.  They are Peter Doegler and Ted Woods both of Orleans.   Unfortunately only Peter was able to attend.   Margaret, Sally, Enid and Paul also were at the afternoon tea.  Peter reported that he owned eight Shute books and when we told him a little about Art's desire to create a series of imaginary dialogues with Shute and some of his characters, Peter mentioned that Marazan might be a good book to consider as there are only 2 major characters in the story.   None of us had read it recently but his idea interested us and we  will consider his idea.  Peter's first Shute book was Trustee as was Art's. Peter also told us that reading P. G. Wodehouse had probably initially brought him to Shute.   That thought prompted Margaret to mention another English author, Arthur Opfield, and told us that she thought he shared some similar styles of writing with Shute

 

Margaret had researched a new recipe for Cherry cake taken from an old booklet of her sister's that had been published long ago as a fund raiser for the Life Boat Association  (England).   She had the booklet available for us to see and was of interest to all.    We are becoming quite well educated in the field of cherry cake!  She had prepared other treats for us also, Paul and Enid came with homemade cookies!!

 

We will meet on Sunday, June 8, 2008 (3 o’clock) at Sally's house. Please email Sally if you would like to attend. The book to read is Pastoral.

 

Sally Rossetti, secretary

 

June 2007

MINUTES OF THE CAPE COD NEVIL SHUTE MEETING JUNE 10, 2007

 

     Art and Joan Cornell hosted the June 10th meeting at their home in Osterville. MA. Five of us attended the meeting. We had decided earlier to read and discuss Beyond The Black Stump. We all agreed that we had enjoyed the most descriptive tale. One of our members raised the idea that after her reading she decided that Shute did not care much for Americans. This thought created quite a lot of interesting discussion. In the end I think we agreed that rather than disliking Americans Shute may not have really understood them. (Who does!!) When I reread some of this book before I sat down to write this, I noticed that he had his hero addressing his sweetheart as Honey, many times, once they were officially connected. It occurred to me that this would be his perception of the way an American would address his girl friend, as opposed to the way an Australian or an Englishman would show his affection. Art wondered why Stanton Laird did not reveal his discovery of water on David Cope’s land until the final pages. He proposed the idea that it was a rather contrived strategy to finish the book. All of us women disagreed with him (although he may well have been right!) We had wonderful food. Joan had created a min dish using tinned corned beef as it was mentioned in the story. The Cornell’s had baked Sally Lund bread in Art’s newly created backyard beehive oven.   This was a huge hit.

     Art reminded us that Joe Accrocco had proposed an idea for a future Shute Gathering. His idea is this. An actor (one of the members) could portray Shute, and other members could speak as if they were characters from various books. Then perhaps such characters as Joe Harmon, Johnny Pascoe, Stanton Laird and others could ask Shute why he had made certain decisions!! “Why didn’t Laird reveal the presence of water at the time the drillings proved it?” was a question that occurred to all of us as a possible example. Art challenged us to think of others; perhaps a homework assignment. 

     Next meeting of the Cape group will be at 4:00 on Wednesday, August 29th at Margaret Ostro’s home in Orleans.  The book we will read is Trustee from The Toolroom.

                                   Sally Rossetti

August 2007

Minutes of the Nevil Shute August 2007 Meeting (Cape Cod Chapter)

 

     Seven members attended the August meeting hosted by Margaret Ostro in Orleans.  We had one new attendee, Paul Bodensick, son of Enid!   The book we had read for this meeting was the last one written by Shute, Trustee From The Toolroom.   Our discussion was lively and showed that the members had thoroughly enjoyed reading or rereading this book. .Art remembered that it was the first Shute book he had ever read other than On The Beach, and Joan recalled him urging  her to read it and being resistant and then coming to thoroughly enjoy it!   Sally remembered that she had not cared for this book many years ago, therefore had never reread it, so was delighted to find it such an entertaining story now. Once again we questioned and discussed whether Shute did not care for Americans or just did not understand them.  Paul shared some info regarding model building which was of interest to us all. Arne commented that he had enjoyed the book more the first time around.  Quoting from a review taken from the website, “In this novel, as with any good work of engineering, the interesting thing isn’t so much that it works but how it works.”

      We chose No Highway (partly as we wanted to compare the leading character in that book with Keith Stewart, the major character in Trustee) for our next meeting, which is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 18 at 1:00 pm at the Cornell’s house in Osterville.

      We had some wine, Margaret’s delicious supper, and lots of desserts.   No cherry cake though.

      Art proposed that we put some thought into choosing a character from any one of Shute’s books that we would like to know more about and perhaps why he or she was depicted by Shute the way he was. Art is suggesting that other chapters may want to undertake this task also, then organize and deliver some kind of program with Shute answering some of the questions raised, at the 2009 Gathering in England.

              Sally Rossetti, secretary

 

 November 2007

MINUTES OF THE NEVIL SHUTE NOVEMBER 2007 MEETING

 

The Cape Cod chapter of the Nevil Shute society met on November 18 at Art Cornell's house in Osterville, 6 people attending—Art and Joan Cornell, Diane Lachance, Enid Bodensiek, Paul Bodensiek and Sally Rossetti. Diane Lachance, a new member, had traveled from another state so that she could attend the meeting!  Our current book was No Highway.  I think we spent more time talking about the characters and story development of this tale than any others that we have read as a group so far.  Paul B presented each of us a really special memento he had designed and printed. He had copied one of the No Highway early covers depicting a rather grim looking man (Mr. Honey no doubt) and a glamorous lady peeking over his shoulder, assume this was Marjorie Corder, the stewardess.  (There were two beautiful women in this story so possibly could have been either one of them or even a composite of both! ) Paul had included pictorial maps and had located places mentioned in the book both in Canada and in England.  We were all impressed and delighted to receive this gift.   

Art is continuing with his plan to write some imaginary conversations with Shute and some of his characters.  He read us his latest effort which as you might expect was delightful. Also he read a dialog written by Paul Shein. Paul’s dialog was between Shute and his Alter Ego. We were all impressed. Art exhorted us to all attempt writing similar pieces.

 

Our next meeting will be in June 2008.  The book will be Pastoral.  To date we have read, The Checker Board, Slide Rule, An Old Captivity, The Rainbow and the Rose, Pied Piper, Beyond the Black stump, Trustee From the Toolroom and finally for this past meeting No Highway.  My memory tells me that we have been enthusiastic about all of them, sometimes insisting that the current book is now our favorite only to update that statement at the next reading!

 

Food, as always, was terrific, and Margaret is promising Cherry cake for our next meeting.

 

Sally Rossetti, secretary, Novermber 21, 2007.