Amnesty International's second book club selection in Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues.
Half-Blood
Blues is about a group of
jazz musicians, the Hot-Time Swingers, trying to survive in Europe
just before and in the early months of the Second World War.
The
novel is about moral complexity and ambiguity, and about the individual's
need to come to terms with himself.
The novel seems to ask the question What does it mean to be fully human? It is about integrating the positive and the negative which
create every whole. About becoming emotionally mature.
A second
theme seems to be The role of art in elevating humanity. Feelings > commonality > empathy.
We read Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues a few years ago in our local book club. Although I enjoyed it, I realized that I had missed a lot. This time I read it slowly, and made notes.
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