New rabble.ca book club? Who's interested, and who's in?
November 17, 2011 - 6:19pm
Hello babblers!
My name is Kaitlin and I'm the rabble.ca books/blog intern, and had some thoughts about starting a more 'traditional' style book club here on rabble -- or more specifically babble.
I had my own ideas about books and logistics, but what are the thoughts out there? Would anyone be interested in participating in a book club where we read the same book and have some nice, deep and critical conversations surrounding those topics and the book itself?
I thought I would get some thoughts from the book babblers before we launch into a full blown club, so if you have any ideas/thoughts/concerns/questions, let them fly and let's see if we can get this started!
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Kaitlin
I'm in! I'm always looking for new reads and love to discuss (dismantle, dismember, over-analyse). My budget is limited, so any title that's available in my public library is a go for me. Indie titles may be more difficult, but I'm willing to grovel before my well-read friends for their copies :D
Sounds good. Could it at least begin with works of fiction...even some new Can Lit? Perhaps putting out two or three titles to decide on ? And if fiction can be combined with real history - Lacuna comes to mind - so much the better. Or biographies of famous folk.
Or both? :)
I wouldn't mind sifting through something by Deleuze, or perhaps Guattari, Derrida, or even Agamben. Maybe we could eventually get around to discussing authorship itself.
Pfft. Agamben is so 2009.
Thanks for this great idea, Kaitlin--and for taking it on! I'll participate whenever I can.
@Gaian-- I'm a big fiction reader myself, so I would definitely be in for that and in particular like reading Canadian fiction. I personally have been steering towards book I feel I should read, but am not sure why. I just finished Dave Eggers Heartbreaking and was a little underwhelmed. I have moved onto DFW Consider the Lobster, but that can be a hard one to track down! I'll through out a Can Lit suggestion that I have wanted to read: The Girls- Lori Lansens (also a suggestion for you for historical fiction is definitely the Man Game, it's historical fiction about Vancouver!)
@Slumberjack-- that sounds super interesting, but I warn you I have a years old copy of Sarte collecting dust because I find it too daunting. Would you be interested in starting with something a bit, well accessible, before we jump into philosophy?
@Rebecca West-- on the cheap is always my MO too--I have a soft spot for buy books and surrounding myself with them (just for the prestige, haha) so when things are affordable, or library loaned, that is all the better.
I'm thinking of seeing if there is some more interest, but we can definitely start generating a list of books, and maybe a date to be finished by (as in January or February sometime).
I'd love to join too! I'm interested in learning new skills via books...on writing, activist organizing, cooking, gardening, organizing my house...yes, it's a very domestic time of year!
I'm reading DFW's Consider the Lobster right now too, Kaitlin. I'm not a big fan of his fiction, but his non-fiction is among the very best.
Two (humble) suggestions of new Canadian fiction: Keven Chong's Beauty Plus Pity and Claire Tacon's In the Field.
Accessible eh? I doubt we'll be introducing Lacan anytime soon. But don't mind me...I was just hoping, perhaps against hope itself, to get in ahead of Gaian's anticipated reading list.
If there's to be a list, and if at least two people take on a book between them, there should be no need to "get in ahead," Sj. :)
But there SHOULD be 2 people at least declaring an intention to read a book by a certain date. And if they are not necessarily NEW books, pairing would be expedited.
@catchfire -- I agree! I read Brief Interviews, or half read it, and put it down, I think it was because the thought 'these words are big, and sometimes this makes me feel sad' keep running through my head. This also happens with Johnathan Frazen, a lot.
@slumberjack, @ Gaian -- yes, we will have to come to an agreement at some point, but I like the idea of fleshing out what everyone would like from the club itself.
I find that I can get tunnel vision when it comes to reading and only read fiction and short stories collections. I love when book clubs expose me to different styles of reading and writing that I wouldn't necessarily read in the first place.
Ideally, we could all take turns chosing titles for others to read, so we can all be pleased, yet still exploring.
Also, since the holiday season is upon us, I think we should push a 'book read-by date' until January at least. Then we have time to read and relax!
I think I might still stick with 'The Girls' as one of my suggestions, but I have a few more -- I want to think about this though.
There was a slightly higher profile afforded to him in and around 2009, for better or worse being a matter of interpretation and source, to do with an ongoing commotion in France at that time over the use of extrajudicial proceedings against a group of socially and economically privileged terrorism suspects, where he described the entire affair as a botched operation to see if the everyday repressive measures normally reserved for non-citizens and legalized immigrants, could be successfully applied against white people. In the preceding years there was the 'whatever singularity,' 'Homo Sacer' and the State of Exception with its elaboration on biopower.
Hee. I was being an ass. As you know.
I know. But that's ok. I'm battling with a wonderful addiction as we speak. :)
I'm not much of one for fiction, would be more engaged by a menu of non-fiction (well-written, of course) on a broad spectrum of topics, ancient and modern, political and topical or analytic, solemn or uppity, left or right (I read the other side to Know Thine Enemy), historical memoirs, letters, biographies, essays.....
But I did read one work of Canadian fiction last summer that I found mesmerizing and absolutely stunningly original, skillfully blending the absurd, the mundane, the insightful with a tightly crafted plot and memorable characters, sketched with empathy and the exquisitely precise detail of a Vermeer miniature..
What masterpiece (I hear you cry) -- Jessica Grant's Newfoundland novel, Come, Thou Tortoise. Don't miss it.
And yes, there is a tortoise in it. Animal people unite!
People still read books?
People still read books?
nah just magazines, sometimes menus...sometimes.
@infracaninophile I think we can definitely incorporate those interests! It seems like everyone so far is going to have a range of genres they like to read. ideally everyone will try to participate in every choice and not just ones that suit there needs--i think that is more of a reminder for myself, thought.
Do you have any suggestions in mind about books you have wanted to read or want to revisit from those genres? I haven't read Come, Thou Tortise, but would be willing!
Turtles and tortoises are my sentimental Achille's heel. The tortoise must live, not wind up like Farley Mowat's whale.
I'd like to read Catch-22 again....
Hey KM, on something like this :"a Can Lit suggestion that I have wanted to read: The Girls- Lori Lansens (also a suggestion for you for historical fiction is definitely the Man Game, it's historical fiction about Vancouver!)"...Since we are feeling our way into thas - about how to structure it - may I suggest that someone (?) do the work of making sure it is (was) popular enough to rate library attention, and then take the lead in reading it, so that (in your words) we won't all be "underwhelmed." In the vernacular of the 60s, that would be a bummer.
Hello?
I would be very interested in a virtual book club.
Gaian, Kaitlin is very busy and can't check the site every day. I'm sure she'll get back to us soon enough. The first deadline isn't til January, so we gots lots o' time.
Enough time to put our lazy minds to the task of determining if an inference is being made here?
Ha! Unless I include myself in that inference, consider it accidental. I meant Kaitlin is busy with her other intern duties on the rest of rabble.ca, and can't check babble every day.
And don't work that lazy mind too hard, SJ. We'll need it for the book club.
Hi! Yes, sorry sorry! I'm here!
I'm trying not to be too overzealous (re: controlling) in the conversation as I want everyone to be happy!
Although, it has quickly come to my attention that I might just need to 'pull rank' (again, kidding) and pick a book -- although, sometimes I have a hard time with finitie decisions and dicisiveness in general. I will state some choices from me this time around and next time someone else will pick a few choices and onwards:
(1) I just started reading DFW 'Consider the Lobster" -- a collection on nonfiction essays. And while somewhat cult in status, I know that it is available at bookstores and libraries. It is kind of an inbetween of most things fiction/non fiction/humour/darkness etc. And has the potential to insite a lot of discussion as DFW was/is a very prominent and respected author, as well as very creative and unique in his style and topics.
(2) With The Girls (see above)--which definitely has availibility in libraries--a professor of mine once said that this is a book he would never edited a single word of it is written so beautifully. Intrigue!
(3) Murakami-- wind-up bird chronicles or a wild sheep chase. I just bought them both from the lovely Mcleod's in Vancouver and love me some Murakami. Potenially obvious choice, but he is an amazing author. His books are widespread in libraries and used bookshops and independents -- easy to find.
So how about this -- we need to pick a book and set a date.
I say middle of January (second week) so we all have a an enjoyable stress-free read and can cultivate questions and answers. I am going to pick January 15th as the deadline--its a sunday the middle of the month, should work.
Also, I plan on having questions intermittedly throughout the course of reading to continue our discussions so we don't just sit in silence for a month and a half and then all have to meet at the same time which might be a nightmare. We can use the 15th as a time to fully discuss the book, and those who haven't finished it might just have to deal with things being revealed.
Books: I am leaning towards Consider the Lobster (although I have laready started) but how about Wind-up bird CHronicles. It's a good hearty read, and I am sure won't disappoint. My only fear is people have already read it.
Thoughts?
okay longest post ever above and my typing is terrible -- please forgive me.
I just spent two hours editing my partner's website about medical libraries so my brain is slightly dead and starting to hate the computer.
Good luck-to-ye.
I'm in.
I've read both the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles and Consider The Lobster and would love to participate...you've got great taste in books! :)
(I also really enjoy CanLit and have been wanting to read Come, Thou Tortoise -- maybe for a future book club?)
yes definitely, i love me some can lit (heather o'neil write another book!).
well maybe to reach a consensus I'll say my pick is:
Wind-up Bird Chronicales by Haruki Murakami and the finished reading date is January 15th; although, alex, this leaves you as either rereading or waiting for conversation, but I gather that might be all right?
I'll start a new thread specifically geared towards this book questions etc. and we can get rolling!
is there any last moments of questions/comments/outcries ?
after this one, I'll pass the torch to someone else for a choice -- but for now, does this work for all involved?
"Wind-up Bird Chronicales by Haruki Murakami and the finished reading date is January 15th;"
Local library does not have it in but it's probably get- attable through interlibrary over the Christmas break.
Great! My partner has a copy (although I've never read it). I'll see if I can rip through 'er by 15 Jan!
yes, it is definitely a big one, but I am looking forward to getting into a large story over the holidays. really get submerged.
yes-- the libraries usually do have lots of him, here in Vancouver, they are pretty good about either getting a copy from another library or bringing one in.
also, since it was such a popular book, it is available in independent and second hand bookstores on the cheap! that is where I grabbed mine!
A friend advises that I'm in for heavy lifting. But the favourite author of a people who fell in love with Anne of Green Gables might provide just the door needed to enter their literary world for the first time.
haha, I hope by 'heavy lifting' you only mean the sheer weight, therefore, length of the book and nothing else!
Looks like I'll have to track down anther copy! I can't find mine. But there should be plenty of cheap copies here in Vancouver (as Kaitlin has already found, it appears). If anyone wants to partcipate but can't find the book, I can snail mail it to you. PM me with your address if you like!
I know we're not doing this book, but I just came across this quote from Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, which has been mentioned above. In "Up, Simba," an article DFW wrote for Rolling Stone about John McCain's Republican presedential nominee bid, I came across this gem; which is not also beautifully written, but aligns with my personal research:
It reminded me of this refrain from the Chicago Feel Tank (as opposed to think tank), an activist group of artists and critical thinkers who were trying to show connections between the malaise of the Western political scene and our collective psychological conditions:
I have an apolitical partner for whom this is largely true, but who votes NDP because of family tradition.
@catchfire -- yes! oh man, I am just loving this book right now.
this part made me laugh out loud in the restaurant where I was reading:
It’s that he persists in the bizarre, adolescent belief that getting to have sex with whomever one wants whenever one wants to is a cure for human despair. And ‘Toward the End of Time’s’ author, so far as I can figure out, believe it too. Updike makes it plain that he views the narrator’s final impotence as catastrophic, as the ultimate symbol of death itself, and he clearly wants us to mourn it as much as Turnbull does. I am not shocked or offended by this attitude; I mostly just don’t get it. Rampant or flaccid, Ben Turnbull’s unhappiness is obvious right from the novel’s first page. It never once occurs to him, though, that the reason he’s so unhappy is that he’s an asshole.”
It completely makes me think of Vancouver.
Ha!
It's a bit muddy (for me) as to which book/article Kaitlin is referring to.
She's referring to an essay by David Foster Wallace in Consider the Lobster about John Updike. We, however, are reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. You can follow that discussion here.
I see that in contrast to Wallace, Margaret Atwood wrote a "very positive" review (Wikipedia) of Updike's novel.
Gosh. Another Updike novel I WON'T be reading. lol.
@ikosmos: I've never read any Updike actuallu -- or none that I recall.
The DFW essay about Updike is just hilarious though, and I agree, makes me want to steer clear of at least that book anyway.
The joys of a reading a good reviewer include never having to read some of the shite that they did. Life is short. Read good stuff only.
But didn't Updike allow you to grasp the essence of middle-class suburban American life? How else could we have understood the depth of post-war American culture, the breadth of intellectual interest...?
All of that generation of American writers, Phillip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike and to some extent Saul Bellow (not to mention lesser authors like Richard Yates, , certainly performed a productive function, but they havent aged well--DFW coined the delightful moniker "Great Male Narcissists" (GFN) for them, but he could have added white and heterosexual, so much of a caricature they've come to form of the virtuoso, dominating authorial voice telling people how to liberate themselves (particularly women via sex with men). They are the voice of American liberalism, and so carry with it all the failures of that ideology the last few decades have exposed. The whole suburban malaise is part and parcel with the liberal project, and its mandatory depression was actually essential to its success. The GFNs celebrated one part of "the American Dream" (USian exceptionalism, consumerism, white supremacy, etc.) but didn't want to saddle its attendant malaise and lacked the political vision to do so.
What I do delight in Updike, especially (and certainly Bellow--not so much with Mailer and Roth) is the incredible craftsmanship of his prose. Doesn't DFW comment on this as well? It's not my preferred style, but god! Does he ever do it perfectly. This is how you write a sentence, he says. And this is how you do it again. Most of the novel prose from that era I find unbearable now (as a matter of taste) but I am still in awe of Updike in his prime (expect when he writes about sex. Ew.)
Exactly.(I should have placed a smiley after my post). But wasn't Bellow the only one (along with Mailer, of course) to venture into an examination of politics in America? He certainly understood the whole range of American politics from experience by the end of his life.And wound up defending the ideas of a conservative friend at University of Chicage whom you once commented on. Something to do with university teaching/student thought today, bereft of classical Greek thought... :)
Roth's Portnoy's Complaint shattered a late brother of mine. But then he always took whatever he read too "literally." Didn't try to make an object of it (and himself). Really vulnerable as a result.
Ha! Your satire runneth too deep, Gaian. :)
Whoops, I thought we were doing Consider the Lobster (or considering it). I just picked it up from the library yesterday. That's what I get for checking out for a few days.
Back to the online reservatio system. The bird one is fiction, correct? i will give it a try, I usually don't give up until 50-100 pages have passed. Some fiction I find really engrossing, maybe this will be one such.
Meanwhile, since I have Consider the Lobster here, I think I'll read it anyway.
@infrancaninophile -- whoops! my indecisions always harm someone!
Yes, the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is fiction -- it is by a Japanese author (sometimes that affects categories). and definitely give it a go, apparently it is a bit different from his usual style, but I am already enjoying it so I hope you will be able to hang on for all 600 pages!
Also definitely read Consider the Lobster -- it is great! I have had to sideline it in favour of getting going on the wind-up bird, but other than feeling a bit strange about the first story, i was thouroughly enjoying it, laughing out loud even.