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Last Saturday our Reading Group had its monthly meeting at Tin-Aw Art Gallery over wine and popcorn. For a host of reasons ranging from being in Shanghai to vertigo to garage sales, only six of us were able to appear for the discussion, but this gave us more time for digression, speculation, and chismis. As our September selection was Ian McEwan’s first book First Love, Last Rites, whose themes are Sex and Death, our conversation included these questions:

1. Are you supposed to like the characters in stories, and approve of their behavior? If so, why bother reading? McEwan’s stories allow us into the minds of his fictional people, whom we would not want to know in real life (pedophiles, murderers, assorted sociopaths), and lets us wonder at the complexity of human beings.

2. The shortest story in the book, Cocker At The Theatre, led to speculation on what happens during the filming of sex scenes. Actors are supposed to feel something, but when they do, yucch. But if they obviously don’t, won’t the other actor in the scene be offended? (Is this why Filipino notions of sexual harassment are what they are, because we all think we are artista?)

3. If First Love, Last Rites were published for the first time this year, would critics blast it to smithereens?

We all liked First Love, Last Rites because for starters, it assumes that the readers are highly intelligent and do not need to have everything explained to them. Yes, please, flatter the readers.

McEwan’s first book led to talking about one of McEwan’s succeeding books, The Comfort of Strangers, which is set in Venice. Many of McEwan’s novels have been adapted for the screen, but this may be the best of the lot: The Comfort of Strangers, adapted by Paul Schrader and starring Rupert Everett, Natasha Richardson, Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren.

Tip: If you meet Christopher Walken in a dark alley and he invites you to his palazzo, don’t.

We decided that our next selection should be set in Venice. Hence, Don’t Look Now and other stories by Daphne du Maurier. Du Maurier also wrote Rebecca, The Birds, and Jamaica Inn, which were filmed by Alfred Hitchcock.

And then we decided that we should all go to Venice for the Biennale next year.

I love Venice.

Get a copy of Don’t Look Now and join us. (You could also look up Nicolas Roeg’s stunning film adaptation.) The date of the next discussion will be announced later.