Priscilla successfully shared photos of clothing styles from New York in the 1940s and 1950s, when much of the story took place. Marcia said she liked the way Vivian described her method of designing costumes as “building” them.
We talked
about the likelihood of a City of Girls movie. Priscilla suggested actress
Jennifer Lawrence as a possible Vivian. Dennis said there could be 2 actresses
playing Vivian; one during her youth and one during her old age. Marcia
suggested Scarlet Johansson. None of us attempted to choose an older actress
for the old age.
Some of us
who grew up in the northeast talked about going to New York City when we were
young. Reading the book, I felt a deep connection between City of Girls
and my youth memories of the city. Joanne said she always thought of New York
as a place to go when you were a young adult, where you would “lose yourself
and grow up.” Seems appropriate for Vivian! We shared some past experiences of
going to various shows when we were young.
Priscilla
started the written questions. Dennis chose to tell us that he was pleasantly
surprised that he loved the book, mentioning the characters, the writing style,
and the theater descriptions; even though he had originally figured it would be
a “women’s book.”
Joyce M.
said that she didn’t care about the characters at all for the first 380 pages
but that the character Vivian redeemed herself toward the end of
the book so much that Joyce’s whole opinion about her changed. Pam had a
critique about the writing. She noticed that, in the acknowledgements, author Elizabeth Gilbert thanked an editor who had removed 5,000 commas from the book. When Pam
saw this, she realized that some problems she had noticed while reading the
book stemmed from sentences that really needed more commas! Joyce quickly
chimed in, stating with a serious expression that authors get paid extra for
commas! Good Zoom humor!
Marcia liked
the way Vivian claimed that she had never had any interesting thoughts before
she went to New York to stay with her aunt but that she really woke up after
living in New York. Marcia noticed that Vivian grew up in many ways during the
book, particularly in learning how to know when something worked for her. “Know
thyself.”
Through the
first 396 pages, Shirley was wondering what the connection with Angela was in
the story. Shirley didn’t like the way Vivian’s long and detailed narrative
about her life, as written to Angela, didn’t connect with Angela for all those
pages. Joyce M. agreed, saying the “letter to Angela” was a “…very weak
literary device.” Ken questioned how a letter that long might have been delivered to
Angela, joking that maybe it was sent as an Amazon package!
Lydia enjoyed
the end of the book, when Vivian showed some maturity and some depth of
character. Lydia said that Vivian was a twit through the first three quarters
of the book, but that Vivian knew she was a twit.
Joanne told
us some details about her uncle, who had post-traumatic stress disorder from Navy
experiences during World War II. His PTSD was manifest in a way similar to Frank’s
in City of Girls. Joanne’s cousin wrote a book to publish her and Joanne’s uncle’s diary
that he kept during the war and to tell more about his life after the war. The
book: Yesterday, Today, and Forever: The World War II Journal of Joseph B.
Chicco: The USS Mobile, Okinawa, Nagasaki and a Lifetime of PTSD, by E.A.
Santangelo.
Our
discussion covered a lot of aspects of the long City of Girls novel.
The characters went through some changes, especially the main character,
Vivian. A number of us noticed that the ending of the book added unexpected depth
to the whole story. This discussion flowed naturally among the written
questions. We’re good at discussing books! Thanks to our witty members, we had
some laughs!
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