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

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Sadly the sexism inherent in paragraphs like these, made me squirm:

"“It’s not just the woman that died,” said Montag. “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I’ve used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I’d never even thought that thought before.” He got out of bed.

“It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I came along in two minutes and boom! It’s all over.”

You know, reading this chapter, I kept thinking what a conservative, stuffy old stick in the mud Montag sounds like... :P

If he is a mouthpiece for Bradbury, our modern age must have driven poor old Bradbury completely nutty!

Ewa was(is) a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable member of the "Reading Women" group, which I openly admit that I neglected during the most part of last year. :P

Whitney wrote: "Nah, I just meant because the term was originally coined in 2007 to refer to a certain kind of women who was common in some movies.

Catch you on the flip-side, then!"

Yes, Julia from 1984 has also been accused of belonging to this stereotype, but I don't think the women in these books have quite the same function. ...but hold that thought - let's discuss that a bit later on. :)

Yolande wrote: "
My one for India is: The God of Small Things
Japan: Masks
Italy: My Brilliant Friend
Russia: The Slynx
And I now have chosen one for China: Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth..."

Interesting selection! Btw, are you going to do Smilla's Sense of Snow with us? I'm looking forward to that one!

Yolande wrote: "My goal for this year is to read more diversely so I aim to look for a few more books from different cultures than I have been reading so far. So far I have one book for each of India, Nigeria, Jap..."

Then our mash-up challenge will be perfect for you, Yolande!
https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

Jennifer wrote: "I just finished Let the Right One In."

Yeah, I've also been wanting to do Let the Right One In. Maybe we can put it on the discussion list for July-ish. Or better yet, October!

Whitney wrote: "That was my impression from the first section, I haven't started part 2 yet. "

Oh, I see! I wasn't too sure what you'd meant by "early example".
My reply is maybe more with reference to the story as a whole, though . Okay, well, that post will actually be good to discuss once we get to the end, because then we can discuss whether our perceptions had changed after reading all of the novel.

Whitney wrote: "Cecily wrote: " I see what you mean: in both cases, the woman opens the eyes of the man to other possibilities. However, the two women themselves could hardly be more different. ..."

Clarisse stri..."

Dear friends, why don't we move the discussion of the overarching roles of the characters to the final thread rather, where we don't have to worry about tiptoeing around spoilers?

I have replied to Whitney's post here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I am going to copy and paste an issue addressed in an earlier thread here, where we don't have to worry about potential spoilers:
Whitney wrote: "Cecily wrote: " I see what you mean: in both cases, the woman opens the eyes of the man to other possibilities. However, the two women themselves could hardly be more different. ..."

Clarisse strikes me as an early example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Apparently the term has made it into the Oxford Dictionaries: "a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist"

========
Yeah, I saw that accusation being made against Julia in 1984 as well, but tbh, I think that it is missing the point.

The pixie girl is a feminist creation to identify women who exist mainly for the benefit of the male protagonist, but I think that in We, 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, the gender of each protagonist doesn't really matter, because it's not really pertinent to the main point of the story. The protagonist could just as well, have been female, and the love interest could have been a male or another female.

The main point is that in all three of these stories, the protagonist represents the naif, a person who gullibly believes the lies spread by the ruling regime, and he is, in every instance, a product of the policies of that regime. In every instance, the female character represents a rebel against the system, and honestly, the genders could just as well have been reversed - but if they had been, I suspect there would have had even worse accusations of sexism leveled against these stories.

One way the author could have overcome this, would have been to make the characters gay, but them it would have drawn focus to the gay aspect away from the point that the authors of each of these stories were trying to make - being a focus on the sheep mentality of populations who tend to be controlled by authoritarian regimes.

Thread for discussion of part 3 of Fahrenheit 451 : Burning Bright.

Yeah, well, just switch around their geek and nerd and that's how i have it. Sadly i will never like the word geek, - it's absolutely intertwined with social ineptitude for me... I totally agree with their 'dork' though! XD

Well, our other challenges are timeless, if you want to have a peek at them, and if you have time to chat, there's also the chit-chat thread and the Book Brag thread etc in this folder: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group..., where we do some general sharing as well.

Oh boy, the geek/nerd terminology thing again... ;)

I think that the meaning of nerd has changed quite a lot - to me it's a positive thing, meaning not a jock, but instead a more intellectually inclined person. :) Not sure what the term means to you, but we could call it a geek-fight if you like. ...just that.. when I see a geek, I see a fat, round-shouldered person with glasses and braces.... :P

Bloodorange wrote: "Hi, my name's Ewa, and I would love to join any discussions here that concern my to-read books:)"

Ewa! Hurrah! So glad to see you here! Members give ongoing input on what the group should read, so if you'd like to give some suggestions or share your personal reading goals, it would be awesome to see you doing so in this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

It's wonderful to see you here, and I really look forward to you sharing your enthusiasm and expertise with us. :)))

Hey, I want it too! Catnerdfight!

Indeed, Amy is an asset. :)

Happy New Year, everyone!

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Cecily wrote: " I see what you mean: in both cases, the woman opens the eyes of the man to other possibilities. However, the two women themselves could hardly be more different: "

Yes, the women a..."

Oh crap, I think you've just summarized the book! :O XD

Cecily wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Re Winston's misogyny, note that it manifests itself before he admits to himself that he is in love with Julia

Well yes, but he tells Julia he'd wanted to rape and kill her as he..."

As I mentioned elsewhere in this regard: one should be careful of conflating the author of a book with any of his characters. Just as Nabokov is not Humbert, and Faulkner is not Bertie, so is Orwell not Winston, of course. (Not sure if you are saying that Orwell is misogynistic just because Winston is, and I apologize if that was not what you were implying, but it almost feels as if you are. )

As for Winston's misogyny being "unchallenged", I think you might find this point of view interesting:
https://slutocracy.wordpress.com/2013...
- I had pretty similar thoughts about the love-interest in We, although to me the female character in We does come across as a lot stronger - once again that might depend on POV.

To me it seemed pretty clear that Winston hates women partly because he is indoctrinated and partly because he is sexually frustrated. ...and yes, it is nasty, but just adds to the grimness of the book for me - to that quality of utter realism. In many respects, to me Orwell is FAR ahead of most of his pussyfooting, sugar-coating contemporaries in this regard.

You're right! So was the grey old Orwell a bit of a mystic, after all? On the other hand, dreams are pretty darn mysterious things, even when you are familiar with Jungian and Freudian theory....

But yes, to bring them into fiction in this way hints at a touch of the supernatural, almost.

[(...I must admit that it feels to me like a touch of deus ex machina)... though of course the entire genre of magical realism is like that- but there it is completely integrated in the style and the, er.. "extra-natural" permeates the entire text and is to be expected.]

Thanks for commenting, Cecily, and interesting observation about the dreams. I was so busy taking in other things that I admit to perhaps not focusing on that.

Regarding O'Brien "knowing" , I suspect it is because there is that recognition between himself and O'Brien that is mentioned earlier on in the book. I had assumed that O' Brien is where he is because he is an acute observer of people and has excellent insight into human nature...