Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Whitney wrote: "I hadn't read F451 in probably 30 years now before this reread. So much I didn't remember. The fact that there was a war going on, and all the suicides and death-wish behavior. I recalled Mildred's..."

Agreed with all that, but, in spite of apparently being partly inspired by Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, I read more than just warnings against totalitarianism in the book, about which I will say more soon.

In the meantime, before I forget, I wanted to say something about Darkness at Noon that I have found: In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Darkness at Noon number eight on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Besides that, it is a book I have been wanting to read for the longest time, so I do hope folks around here would be up for a discussion of that!

Back in a mo...

Whitney wrote: "I wasn't intending to get into any kind of discussion of sexism in F451, social dissection of SF from the 50's is a much larger discussion that has taken place and should take place in many other f..."

Ah, yes, looking now at the definition you had linked to, I can see that I had previously formed a skewed notion of the trope because of the context it was used in in a review of 1984 that I had read and which had greatly irritated me at the time.

Thanks for pointing out the origins of the term, and for throwing light on the fact that it tends to be a bit mis/overused these days. :)

Hm! Well, I have now looked up "Buck Rodgers" to try and figure out any possible relevance, and this is actually quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armaged....

I knew of Buck Rogers of course, but only as a comic book (and TV) hero synonymous with space travel; I had actually not really known about the book and that it managed to predict quite a few things accurately.

Yolande wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Oh boy, I really want to finish that book - got about a third of the way in.... are you prepared to wait a month or two? (Or 3?) "
I can wait, I'm not in a hurry to get to it. I'm..."

Okay, then if the other members don't mind, we'll make W-U Bird our Murakami read for April, since when I asked, nobody came up with a definite choice, so I had put a Murakami placeholder in for April 28 just for the time being. I do hope everybody is okay then, with us reading Wind-up Bird Chronicle in May.

Magdelanye wrote: "hey traveler? the first thing I did this morning was visit the mevillians and just posted a little message for your well being, missing you and wondering how things are with you. well, you may have..."

Thanks, Magedlanye, I'm heading off to Mievilians ASAP...

Oh my! Trust this thread to get 'busy' just when I go away for a while!
Indeed, as some of our esteemed members and our esteemed fellow mod have noted, the tag "literary" has nothing to do with "realism", but rather, with how deeply the work in question engages with issues such as the following: (To quote Wikipedia)

Literary fiction, also known as serious fiction, is a term principally used for fictional works that hold literary merit, that is to say, they are works that offer deliberate social commentary, political criticism, or focus on the individual to explore some part of the human condition. Literary fiction is deliberately written in dialogue with existing works, created with the above aims in mind. Literary fiction is focused more on themes than on plot.

Regarding our group: we clearly say in our mission statement that we are not bound to genre, and that we are interested in any work that deals with social, political and cultural issues as well as with issues around new technology; clearly speculative fiction, satire and works delivering social commentary would feature quite strongly in our reading list; and note that many works of speculative fiction fall within the frame of literary fiction.

As mentioned, we don't eschew the classics either, hence our intended reading of Shakespeare and Dickens, for example.

The kind of books that probably would not make it to our shelves can often be found in high proliferation on many other groups around Goodreads: bodice-rippers and stock fantasy novels, for example.

I am quite curious, btw, as to how Ayn Rand came up - we certainly do not have any Ayn Rand on our shelves, nor is she even on our most distant horizon.

Oh, and er... Buck Rodgers? Have I missed something somewhere? I don't recall ever seeing anything remotely associated around here - but granted, I have been away and am still trying to catch up on the last week or 2's posts.

Allen wrote: "No. I started City of Saints and Madmen, didn't like it well enough to buy the whole thing (although probably will some day anyway) then switched over to the Southern Reach trilogy - read Annihilat..."
Hope to see you on the discussion for that then, Allen.!

Yolande wrote: "Damn, I want to start Haruki Murakami with "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" because a friend recommended it as a good one to start with. I saw it was mentioned in another thread but seems like it didn'..."

Oh boy, I really want to finish that book - got about a third of the way in.... are you prepared to wait a month or two? (Or 3?)

Okay, I've fixed it now so that some of the books do show up. However:
1) It seems that one can not have more than 2 books show in that view, and we usually have 4; - no matter, I will diddle it so that our two most recent books always show there.

2) It is a rule of On Paths that our discussions never officially end; but the only way to make the books show up there, is to type in an "end date" for the discussion.

I will get around that one by temporarily putting in an end date quite far into the future, and removing the "end date" once we have made space for the next book on the "currently reading" space.

For now Fahrenheit and Annihilation are still showing; however, I will soon (in about a day's time) remove Fahrenheit and replace it with The Castle of Crossed Destinies. :)

Thanks, Ruth. :)

Amy, "Currently reading" seems fine as far as the group home page and bookshelves are concerned. Don't worry, I'm back and will do my best to catch up with everything; admin stuff first, and reading/discussions after that, as fast as I can. :)

Thanks for holding the fort so well, Amy, you're doing an admirable job, especially for someone who was just thrown into the deep end!

Ah sorry, you are right. He does mention "currently reading". I'm trying to ease myself back into GR after an absence and there's so much to try and catch up on...

Well, if I go to that page, it does show for me. It might be something to do with your settings, in how you receive notifications from our group, Phil, I'm not sure.

Here is a a screenshot of what it looks like for me:



You can view a larger version of that image here: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Qi...

Phil wrote: "Traveller,

Thanks for putting this group together. You're reading a lot of the stuff that interests me but doesn't fit into any other genre. I have a petty complaint:

When I go to the "Groups" pa..."

Thanks, Phil. :)

That's strange, it used to do it for me. Will investigate.

Cecily wrote: "In terms of the content of the book itself (rather than Bradbury's personal views), I was more put off by what I saw as explicit misogyny in 1984 than Montag's archaic and casual masculinisation (o..."

The difference was that in 1984, it was the character being misogynistic which appeared to me, to be a necessary part of the story, without it being obvious that the author himself is sexist. In Fahrenheit, the author seems to see everything from the male viewpoint as if males are the only real flesh and blood beings of substance, whereas the females (so far, anyway) appear to me like paper-thin devices.

To me sexism via exclusion is a big deal, maybe because it had heavily impacted me in my own life. But as you say, each to his/her own.

Looking forward, Amy, though I must offer my apologies: I'll only be able to join in on around Friday. But, looking forward!

Whitney wrote: "It is easy to picture him waving a cane and yelling "why don't you damn kids get off my lawn and go home and read a book?!""

Okay, that really made me actually laugh out loud! XD Yes, exactly! "You gawd-darn kids with yo'rn loud boom-boom noise that you call music and your mindless sports!"

I don't want to know what he thought later of kids walking around playing games with their phones and the earphones in - okay, but one does have to admit that it's not very social. Still, the way it is expressed in the book makes me think of a crusty old grump. :)

Thanks for that input, Whitney!
Much as I agree with many of Bradbury's sentiments, Montag and Beatty come across as two real "grumpy old men" (and they happen to remind me of a real old grumpy grandpa in our family who complains about all these "new-fangled" goodies that just "go right over his head". ::P

Ironically, a I see a lot of right-wing rhetoric backstage to Beatty's speech.

And.. he doesn't like sport because it doesn't make you think? I suppose chess doesn't make you think either - I suppose that kind of thinking is too mechanical; not philosophical enough. But why does doing sport have to preclude critical thinking? Surely one can be a balanced person, and do sport, leisure, work AND philosophizing? Maybe he feels that all the blood has to go to the brain at all times. ;)

Isn't Mildred just the most irritating person that you have ever come across, in literature or in real life? She feels like too much of a caricature to me, actually.... she is just everything that can possibly be annoying.

A lot of what he says is true, but he seems to me to be one of those typical prophets of doom of the school to which Adorno also belongs. Maybe it's that you guys were "taught" this book, and I'm seeing it now , in 2015, for the first time, with fresh eyes? :P Just a thought.

I must agree with him that yes, a lot of the postmodern is indeed just empty surface, and (mass) consumerism, capitalism, globalism and greed is all intermingled with it.

..and believe you me; if I could somehow engineer a more sparsely populated globe without having to hurt anybody, I would do it in a flash....

Cecily wrote: "I highlighted both those passages in my notes - but I didn't include them in my review. I guess I was enjoying the book so much, I made more allowance for the fact it was written in the very early ..."

Hold on, he was not saying "man" as in "humans" he clearly said A man...

I was also going to say that Montag/Beatty/Bradbury reminds me of Theodor W. Adorno who did a great deal of whinging about mass media and about modern music. :P