Sniging Lessons for the Stylish Canary Discussion!

[moosishun]

Hey!

I had a week of recitals and loads of work, but I am forging ahead and almost finished!


First day discussion - This is such a quirky amusing book from the very start!   What were some of the quirks that were very amusing to you?  Which were sad and/or disappointing to you?  

Did you like this book - why or why not?

[moosishun]

And of course, I mis-spelled the Book's name...

Help!

[honeybzzzs]

I did get to read this book afterall.

I wish the author had gone into the canary fad a bit more. DH and I raised and showed canaries for a short time. The shows that we attended did not have competition for singing. The birds were judged on their confirmation instead.

There are still song competitions but they aren’t as popular. They require more training. Birds are judged on various song and sound. There are even competitions with four birds used to create one song.

As a hobby, the breeding and showing of small song birds seems to be on the downside.
We had American Singers, Fifes and Red Factors.

The music box for teaching the birds was interesting to me. I hadn’t heard of that. I looked it up on YouTube and the visual, with the bellows, and the sound they made was very intriguing. And they do sound like canaries!

Enjoyed the rest of the book also. Quick read. Predictable ending.

[bumblebuzz21]

I didn't really love the book, but I was able to cruise through it pretty quickly so there is that. I didn't love her random use of French (like violin and penis). I thought it was weird.

[juliajones54]

I viewed the book as a fairy tale which made some of the more far-out happenings readable. I didn't know anything at all about teaching canaries to sing specific tunes and enjoyed learning about that as well as the music boxes. This is not a book I would have chosen on my own but I'm glad I read it.

[moosishun]

For me, this book has been cathartic in a way because I haven't read a fiction book for a bit. Some of my favorite moments have been the letters to needle Georges. And Genevieve's lover. However, I hated the 3 bad episodes chapter and was so sorry for Genevieve in particular. How wonderful to have all your senses turned on when they have been off for so long.

It is sort of fairy-tale-ish, isn't it? Kind of Grimm-y in a way. Life goes on pretty well and all fun and then ZAP, an innocuous little something and the whole house of cards falls in.

[moosishun]

Day Two:

Do you have a favorite character or event that happens in SLFTSC?

[moosishun]

Amazing that Henri found Aimee, huh! And oh, the meeting of Roh-bair, Henri and Delia!!!

[moosishun]

Okay, so I am done and I liked it. Might have loved it. The sly humor was very fun and I really appreciated that Laura S. made me really feel like I could look at things from an immigrant perspective. And really, what's not to love about Robert's profession? (slightly biased opinion)


It was definitely an okay ending - I like open-ended things that could provoke discussion. Not everything was tied up in a nice little bow. Wish Guillaime had suffered a similar end to that poor fellow in France. Felt sorry for the 6 sisters and wish they could have come away from Tante's Little Shop of Horrors.

My favorite character in this book? Kind of hard to say - I was so happy with Henri's growth and that Aimee came to her senses and got the heck out of Dodge.

There are so many loose ends that it might be great fun to have a SEQUEL.

[sal]

I'm a bad book group person. I read this so long ago that I scarcely remember anything about it, except that I liked it more than I didn't. Apparently, it was NOT memorable.

[bumblebuzz21]

My favorite was grandmaman Cerine. I liked her yelling at the baby to get him to cry.

[honeybzzzs]

I liked when Henri stepped out into The Battery of New York. I could picture that so vividly. I’ve been there a number of times, so it was fun to follow him in my minds eye, through the Battery and into the Garment District. Such a different World he had entered in comparison to his small village in France.

[moosishun]

Day Three: Since there are so many loose ends at the end of the book, how would you envision things happening to any of the characters in the future? I LOVE LOOSE ENDS.

Also, do these little nips and tucks with character growth and/or UNgrowth bother you or make the characters a little more real to you? Any character you are sad about?

[moosishun]

I hope that the sisters make their move and leave their mother who values that murderish brother over them. Delia would find out and offer them the space she already has. I foresee that this stupid business of Georges to bring out his fake eye and put it back in with his dirty saliva causes an incurable brain infection, the dope. He dies and Genevieve comes to the U.S., becomes fast friends with Delia and goes in with the 6 sisters to form a formidable business that is loud and clangy and full of life.

Roh-bair becomes a successful composer known for his symphonies but takes on another moniker and becomes famous throughout the world and is played often by the National Symphony today. He finds his true love in the flute section, when the flautist is heard making bird-type sounds and he is transported back to his canary upbringing.

Guilliame is out and about and not thinking about anything in particular and a bolt of lightning comes down and electrocutes him. Witnesses swear that it looks like someone from the heavens chucked it on him because he was in a big crowd and only he got plunked.

[moosishun]

Day 4:

Gender roles in this book (I have taken this from another website). How do you see the women in this book and how they interact with the society they are in?

[moosishun]

I think a lot of the gender things were pretty realistic, especially the sadness of Aimee's mother to prioritize the men in the family instead of the daughters. I imagine that there were some wild hairs like Aimee and Delia. Delia was so fortunate because her husband was such a wonder. Delia also was a different type because she saw a way to make $$ and ran with it and even had enough left over to buy all those devices from Georges. The two of them were probably a bit more outside the realism scale than everybody else.

Henri was very fortunate to escape his "fate", which would have been to be the head of a situation that was rapidly becoming obsolete. Even though Henri wrote to his father about the reality of the business, Georges seems to be such a stick in the mud that this warning letter might have been ignored because you know Father Knows Best.

I was going to also say, I bet the weather ENDED being nice in that little French village. And I do believe Henri had a gift, probably to revive someone who had a breath of air left, because that was how it looked to be with Aimee's grandmaman.

[moosishun]

Day 5: I don't mind having a little conversation with myself, ha!

I will bookmark this thread so that if anybody reads this book later, they can come on in and chat. Also, gemster, would you be so kind as to correct my spelling mistake in the title? Thanks!

Why do you think some people seem to blossom and become far more than they start out with (Cerine and Henri) and others go back to what is expected of them (Georges)? Do you think the etchings of the blossoming are there from the very beginning and why doesn't every body have that ability to "keep the sun shining' because surely everybody would want to blossom into something more wonderful?

[juliajones54]

moosishun, I think there is so much to say about this book - speaking for myself, I'm a little overwhelmed because the discussion could go in so many directions. You have posed some great questions and things to ponder!

My whole career was spent in trying to figure out what motivated learning and success and how to support those who struggled. I saw kids succeed against all odds and others who seemingly having had so many advantages, dropped out of school, just could not find their way. And those who we pulled in every support we could find who had the potential and sunshine, but still failed. I know a couple of them as adults and they are still struggling. Nature-nurture - the age old question? Are there things that just cannot be overcome? I don't know.

I love an orchestra and a symphonic band. So beautiful. All of those instrumental voices coming together as one. However, when they are first tuning up before the concert - it can be a dissonant cacophony. In a way, Singing Lessons seemed like this to me. The music was there, the beauty, the magic, but I had a lot of trouble fitting in the dissonant parts. This is the way of fairy tales - as I said in my first comment, this is the way I perceived Singing Lessons. In the original Grimms fairy tales before they were homogenized, things were messy and dark and often didn't work out.

Maybe there will be a sequel?

[moosishun]

I think the two I have in mind mostly is Georges and Henri. They both were under duress to go to the states. They both had wonderful adventures there. And then Georges went home and become his father and worse, thought more of his son he never met than the one standing right before him.

They both heard the canaries and heard a different kind of beauty.

[honeybzzzs]

I think juliajones54 nailed it with the orchestra analogy. And also the Fairy Tale comparison.

The story often seemed to me to be a jumble of characters. (Who is that again?) And then the characters that I cared about would shine through, and I’d pick out the song from the jumble of the tuning instruments.

Gender Roles…I didn’t even question that. Men were valued much more at that time, so, of course, the mother would choose her son over her daughters.
And, the children would follow in their parents professions. I thought it was interesting when Henri saw all the different ways of making a living once he got to New York. He just didn’t know you could break away and invent your own livelihood.

I’m old enough to know about gender roles. I grew up in a time when women couldn’t be certain professions, and wives had to have their husband’s permission for monetary gain.

Why do some break out of that role?
I’ve often wondered that too. The women that fought to make it possible for us to vote. The Women’s Libbers of the 1960’s, 1970’s. What makes them different then the people that just accept that ‘that’s the way it is’.

I couldn’t be a veterinarian because women weren’t allowed to take those classes. But Jane Goodall became a renowned researcher….and she is 20 years older than me. Was it because her Mom didn’t object to her taking earthworms to bed with her and my Mom wouldn’t have allowed that? Or was she just of a different mind set then me and was able to forge ahead while I was content to take an easier path.

All in all, an interesting little Fairy Tale of a book.