Expression, Inclusivity, and Priorities: What Should A Book Club Discuss?
Take a deep breath, then without thinking much of it, list topics you think a book club should discuss. It seems like a straightforward easy reply at first read until you realize a book club is about books and other authored works which come in diverse forms and address various topics. So, again, what should a book club discuss? We’d get to this soon.
This piece – the content therein – would be polarizing. Somewhat. There’s no straddling the fence; not this time. You might even catch yourself changing stances at intervals like switching lanes while cruising behind the wheels of an SUV on Uyo’s multi-lane roads on a Sunday afternoon, and it doesn’t make you lack conviction – no, it doesn’t. It’s more about the arguments corroborating each standpoint being so well-presented that it would make a convert of you. Let’s get right to it, shall we?
Right on the trail of Nigeria reverting to her old national anthem, the internet and public discourses went rife with reactions, setting off other reactions like some domino. From the nested comment sections of Facebook posts to Twitter back-and-forths and on to the heated debates in WhatsApp groups, the discourses and debates raged on. WhatsApp group. Here, in the Uyo Book Club WhatsApp group, the stage is set and the dramatis personae take center stage. The topical issue that has got some of the brainiest people opinionating on it? The national anthem. Well, the new old national anthem as some put it.
Concord Newspaper’s veteran engineer-turn-editor Nsikak Essien had forwarded a post detailing the circumstances surrounding the national anthem change to the Uyo Book Club platform. If you have read previous articles on this website curating topical issues funneled through logical crucibles on the platform, you’d already know he features as a conversation starter, igniting discourses on socio-politico-economics particularly. For an issue of such national importance which would alter several routines, the responses to the forwarded post began trickling immediately not surprisingly.
Yes, the reactions are as varied as your numerous guesses, for and against the anthem change. Remember the domino effect – reactions setting off other reactions? And the reactions are just as diverse as the demographic composition of the Uyo Book Club. If you just happened upon this article without engaging with the Book Club prior, top on the list of what you should know is its members are drawn from various backgrounds and geolocations – from the academia to the corporate world and public office service, and from the scenic city of Uyo to the bustling hubs of Lagos and Abuja right on to the chilly boroughs of United Kingdom and on to the Americas. Different expertise, vast experiences, different worldviews, all connected by the love of and for written works and malleating ideas. So, yes, the reactions are just as numerous as your guesses would allow.
The exchanges get as heated as such exchanges can get, emotions stirred so much so you can almost reach through your phone screen to touch it – taste it, and it tasted… How would such tensioned emotions taste if we could taste them? Maybe world-renowned chef Gordon Ramsey would have an answer. If anything, these reactions depict how passionate Uyo Book Club members are, and how engaging and animated even textual exchanges get. Still, it’s a book club – aptly named the Uyo Book Club. It’s a specialized – a niche – platform. There have to be certain rules of engagement, and these guidelines might keep the tempers from flaring and sensitivities triggered.
So, should there be rules? Rules other than expected civil observances during interpersonal interactions, of course? Specifically, what topics shouldn’t be discussed to maintain peace? Uyo Book Club’s founder, Dr. Udeme Nana, who himself cut his teeth curating topical issues as a journalist before lurching into the bibliographic world of academia as a lecturer perhaps echoes what you might be thinking:
“Gender, religion, politics, and ethnicity are so divisive that I thought we could avoid them on this platform and use general interest platforms to ventilate our views on those testy issues. I think venting feelings is therapeutic too because bottled-up feelings can cause sickness.
My idea for this platform was to have a SPECIALIZED PLATFORM for book enthusiasts to chat about books, share reviews, discuss themes in books, and book ideas, and mentor our youths in the Book ecosystem – writing, editing, proofreading, publishing, marketing, etc.
In several instances, I have tried to push back issues about politics, religion, ethnicity, and other general interest topics. But, each time, some would resist and cross the line. This, I must emphasize, is not acceptable. Our passion for Books should show and predominate here and anything not relevant to Books should not concern us here. Almost everyone here belongs to several general interest platforms where political talk is breakfast, lunch, dinner, water, and dessert, and I won’t bother if those with political views express such views there.
May I, once again, plead that we focus on the major concern of the Uyo Book Club initiative to create awareness and promote reading, encourage writers, celebrate writers, provide a platform for operators in the book ecosystem, and work to refine the sensibilities of our people.”
Direct as ever. Succinctly stated. It pretty much summarizes what the book club is platformed and its driving ideology. Perhaps to further drive home the point, book writing and digital marketing coach Paul Uduk expatiates on Dr. Nana’s appeal:
“The Uyo Book Club platform should be reserved for book matters, and book matters only. Matters of religion, politics, and other extraneous matters should be avoided, such as plaque.
The reason is simple: religion and politics are very divisive. If we want to grow as a community focused on creating intellectual property, we should not be wasting energy on issues we have no control over. We can start an Uyo Political Club or Uyo Religious Club to discuss Politics or Religion as the case may be. Uyo Book Club should be reserved for book matters.
I belong to several platforms where rules are enforced and defaulters are penalized. I would advise the Admins to be extra vigilant and bring down posts outside the ambit of books and intellectual property creation.”
Sure, a good argument is logical regardless of what prism it is analyzed with. And that’s it? Or is it? Remember when I mentioned this piece would have you switching lanes like a race car at the Grand Prix? Take Sonni Anyang’s debate highlight counter, for example, to the insistence of book club topics discussed within the ambits of books:
“But many books are directly or indirectly about all the items listed as ‘divisive’. How can we discuss books without their contents? What will we discuss about them; their cover designs and fonts? Besides, existing and would-be writers need to know and understand the varied perspectives on the subjects their books are about. If a book club can’t ventilate these issues, provide clarity, and explore their many dimensions, what use can it be to its members?
Members of a book club are well-read people or they ought to be. And even if some are not already, their interest in books means that they are well on their way to so becoming. It is my firm belief that a major attribute of the well-read (read well-educated) person is the ability to discuss or debate so-called ‘divisive subjects’ without becoming unnecessarily emotional; to criticize, even trenchantly without being disrespectful, and to take criticism with philosophical calmness. (Apologies Ray Ekpu.)
No subject should be verboten on a platform like this. Sure, we should have guardrails but none should bar discourse on certain subjects. Guardrails should be about how debate is conducted, not the subjects of debate. And even when in the heat of discussion, boundaries are crossed, there’s always the time-honored remedy of apology sincerely given and gracefully accepted.
How can an honest, not to say intelligent, discussion of Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ ignore religion and politics/colonization; the conflict between the white man’s religion and traditional Igbo belief systems and culture, and the new political order that all of that entails? What is a book club that can’t discuss the issues that concern books and those who write and read them?”
In quick succession came corroborating and countering anecdotes, comments, and analyses from elder statesman Abom Tony Esu, distinguished person of the cloak Rev. Paul Udokang, erudite Prof. Hilary Inyang, large-scale farmer and pro-agriculture campaigner Aniefiok Udoh… On and on the reactions went on.
The last paragraph (and question) by Mr. Anyang, regardless of what lane of the road you’re driving on, is an important one to address. It’s like a moon-sized asteroid hurled at the earth by some super powerful extraterrestrial being: no matter where it crashes into – even into the ocean, it has to be addressed because humanity would have to deal with it, ignore or tackle it.
So, what should a book club discuss? As always, as in any society, organization, or platform where the opinions of the many are just as weighty as the opinions of the seemingly select few, a quick in-group online poll was conducted. Score one for democracy, right? Well, you’ll find the polling result attached.
Four options: Discourses on 1. Books and the literary scene; 2. Politics and the economy; 3. Arts and other fields of human interest, and; 4. A mix of everything or all of the above. The result, for full disclosure, was in favor of discussing a mix of all of the areas aforelisted. So what now?
Dr. Ntiense Ntuk with the most heartstrings-pulling of appeals and worded poetically causes one to introspect like a master mediator:
“Let’s be empathetic for a moment. Imagine you have a strong passion for knowledge and you are visionary enough to start a book club. You bring together a collection of seminal minds from all walks of life – engineers, journalists, lawyers, accountants, literary critics, architects, political scientists, doctors; people whose thirst for knowledge is insatiable, the type of men and women – and others not so strictly binary – who will quibble for hours on end over the placement of a comma in a sentence. Your vision is almost complete. All augers well.. or, does it?
An existential argument innocuously arises. Should fetters be put on anybody’s freedom to express his-, her-, it-, self? Especially, in a book club? You thread cautiously. You do this because you are afraid of alienating many members, whose red line may be religious or political, or moral. You are rightly afraid of a situation where arguments can become internecine, to the point of death of an idea you brought to fruition with nothing but the best of intentions.
What do you do? Concentrate on books, the primary aim. But, then, what can you NOT find in books?
Hero worship?
Heresy?
Bigotry?
Hagiography?
Ignorance?
Should there, then, be orthodoxy in a marketplace of ideas? What do you do? What do you do? I am just thinking aloud to myself this rainy morning. But, Blaise Pascal once said:” All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
So, you have the vote/survey results, you’ve read the arguments for each stance, and the whole of this has been marinating consciously as you read this line after line. What do you think a book club should discuss? It probably takes us full circle to where all of this began, and more than twenty-four hours of textual journeying: As with any public interaction with people of diverse experiences, worldviews, and backgrounds, the exchanges have to be done with compromises in mind.
Compromises to keep emotions in check, to not unnecessarily ripple still waters, to constantly read the room and sense when the discourse borders on offensiveness, to ratio engagements and issues, debated proportionally to mostly favor exegesis of ideas and issues crystalized into authored literary pieces and book. Compromises to understand the cohesiveness and continued survival of any society (or group in this case) outweigh one-upping another debator.
Compromises to understand the interests of everyone weigh just as much as the opinions of some. And when civil exchanges can’t be guaranteed, the alternative isn’t any better. Now you know what a book club should discuss.
