Breaking the rules

I'm about to break the first two rules of book club, which are 1) you do not talk about book club and 2) you DO NOT talk about book club.

While book club isn't quite as, ummm, violent as fight club it does bring together folk of the same ilk. The ilk just happens to be reading instead of fighting. 

The Bibliobelles are a group of ladies (or should I say women?) that get together every few months to talk about, well, a book. The original group was formed in Toronto many years ago but when I first moved back to Montreal (before I left again and moved back a second time) I ran the idea of forming a book club by "the mamita," aka my mom, and we made it happen.

Over the years members have come and gone (with some going before they even ever came) but one thing has remained the same; the gender of book club members. We are all wo-men!

i think she's saying she's a woman

Since its inception, the Montreal chapter of the Bibliobelles has read, ummm, countless books including The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud, among many others. Most recently we read The Post-Office Girl, by Stefan Zweig (and translated by Joel Rotenberg) and met up at Alpenhaus to do what we do best; talk and eat.

A word to the wise. 

Should you want to try Alpenhaus (and you really should, because it's delicious) head to Groupon first. From the moment we walked in to the Swiss restaurant we were barraged with coupon-related questions... had we known (or been told) that Groupon coupons would have saved us mucho dinero, or das große Geld, we would have been sehr glücklich.

Seinfeld on reservations

But back to the book.

Zweig was widely considered one of the most popular writers during the years in between the two world wars and his works were translated accordingly. Despite this, I only stumbled upon him via Wes Anderson, director of The Grand Budapest Hotel, who credits the author with inspiring him for the movie.   

Gustave H, by the way, is Stefan Z

Because the hotel is so intrinsic to the book, and the movie, have a look at this featurette on its creation.

Exact and particular are two words that can describe both Zweig and Anderson. Zweig in his writing and Anderson in his visual aesthetic. 

The Post-Office Girl is divided into two very distinct parts and tells the story of Christine Hoflehner, a forlorn postal clerk in a small Austrian village who manages to escape her dreary life, for a short time, in an Alpine hotel (hence our visit to the Alpenhaus). The ending, which is very abrupt, suggests the book was never completed. Zweig, in fact, committed suicide along with his wife as part of a pact in 1942 and as such, probably never finished it.

In its final pages, The Post-Office Girl's Christine is torn between the past, the present and the meaninglessness of life as she is forced to decide on a plan that could end in her ultimate demise.