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

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Ruth wrote: " Just look at the history of the acceptability of drunk driving, seat belts, gay marriage. It does seem that once a segment of the population agrees with something, the rest will inevitably follow. ..."

Yeah, the acceptability of smoking is also a good example. It's not quite as in vogue as it used to be, thank goodness. (Speaking as an ex-smoker who wishes she had never allowed herself to start in the first place.)

It's almost as if a belief has to find a critical mass in a population before it becomes the new in-thing. ...and if there is money at stake, vested interests will fight uncomfortable truths.

Mark wrote: "Good point on the limitations of I-narrative. I know we are not discussing this here, but I thought Us by David Nicholls is an excellent example of how to overcome this limitation. Although the reader ..."
Us sounds interesting! Will have a look at it.

Cecily wrote: "Chance wrote: "I think the journal format is perfect for the story. If he dies, he is leaving a log..."

It also means you're never sure if he will survive, which keeps you turning the pages."

Yep, exactly - as opposed to a "live" narration in which you know the person must still be alive...

Linda wrote: "Well, great minds must think alike, as they say, because the same thoughts were running through my head! :D.."

LOL. *Traveller capitulates and melts into a ball of marshmallow*
It seems as if resistance is futile. :D Okay, let's make it a date. But for when? Bleak House is BIGG.

Linda wrote: "I'm down for that! For both, bc I've heard so much about Collins.
I haven't read Drood, but we did read the Dickens book and "The Last Dickens" as a companion piece (in a F2F I used to be a part of).."

Oh dear oh dear oh dear...... *Wrings hands* ...it's coming TRUE!!!!!! :O:O

Jennifer wrote: "I read Drood. Which made me want to read those stories."

Wow, you are putting terrible thoughts in my mind here, Jennifer... huge, ambitious thoughts like a kind of reader's orgy involving one big project consisting of reading and discussing Bleak House, Drood and the Moonstone all together..... *enter scary Gothic music*....
*must not think such thoughts - bound for failure* *remember that BIG TBR list*.....

Jennifer wrote: "I have never read Dickens. I have been thinking of reading Bleak House and I also want to read The Moonstone. Yes I know two different authors."

I have also missed out on Bleak House, and by all accounts, I have missed out on a lot. So what do you say we do a buddy-read/discussion for it here on the group sometime in 2016?

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins? I wonder if we'll get some takers for that, but yeah, that's another one I've had on the TBR a long, long time. Btw! Of course Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens were friends(/rivals) - and if you're interested, their lives are dealt with in an interesting way in the novel Drood by Dan Simmons.

Yes, I remember when we started to discuss We by Yevgeny Zamyatin on another group, how everybody groaned about the journal format: but one soon grew used to it, like Jennifer says, and like you say, Chance - it overcomes many of the problems of a first person narration, one of them being that a first-person narration takes away some of the suspense in that the narrator still has to be alive in order for them to narrate.

Suzanne Collins inadvertently highlighted many of the potential hiccups of a first - person narration in The Hunger Games.

For one, realistically speaking, you can only see the world out of the eyes of the narrator, and sentences can often come out pretty clumsy if your narrator is saying things like :

This is an okay place to die, I think. My fingertips make small swirling patterns in the cool, slippery earth. I love mud, I think.

That’s mine, I think. It’s meant for me.
It’s the smoke, I think. It’s sedated them.
It’s now or never, I think, and begin to saw.
Better, I think, to sneak up here at dawn and send the nest into my enemies.
Each time I wake, I think, At last, this is over, but it isn’t.
And suddenly, I’m not thinking of Gale but of Peeta and . . . Peeta! He saved my life! I think.
Water first, I think. You can hunt along the way now.

In the case of The Martian, though, the style seems to fit the situation quite well.

Good, good, guys, we're gaining traction. Yeah, I noticed the novel starts off in medias res with a colorful exclamation or two. :)

How do you people feel about the first-person "journal" format of the book?

(Keep in mind that there's a special thread for the movie, btw - here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... )

Mark wrote: "I am in. Loved the book. I left a review, perhaps that would serve as an initial contribution from me? Love to chat about it.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Oh good! Will respond to your review a bit closer to our "official" starting date.

Thanks Nate!
Oh, which reminds me! I had made a poll for you guys who had been discussing transgressive fiction in the general books thread. https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Yes, Ulysses is a puzzling case, but I suspect I might never have reached the point in the book that it might have been banned for. Yup, I have STILL not finished Ulysses - I always get sidetracked.... *hangs head*

Will try to find the most recent actually banned. It appears that people try to have books banned from school curricula all the time...

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "my mother has a complete set, in leather binding, that she inherited from her father—who, honestly, I'd have thought was more a Meredith type than Dickens—but it's been promised to my older sister...grrrr!). ..."

Ugh, I feel your pain. My father had a similar set, as well as a leather set of "Punch", also of Balzac, but I lost out on a lot of his books in a similar way. >:(

I really should re-read A Tale of 2 Cities (found it a tad boring as a kid, but because it was over my head)- but, you know, HUUUUGE TBR...

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Yes, he was a caricaturist. I doubt Dickens would have objected to that characterization. It was the "…who aped the moralist" part that got me. I can only imagine from that, and "it has so little c..."

Yes, nothing inherently wrong with caricature, and after all, those of Dickens became classic.

That said, I loved Great Expectations most, perhaps because it presented itself as more subtle to me?

Oh, it's banned books week! We should start a "banned books" thread in honor of it...

I started one here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Let's make this thread a discussion of books banned at some point in time anywhere in the world.
(Amy will be updating the concomitant lists).

List to be populated by members, preferably by citing books that were actually banned by governments; for example:
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass(1865) by Lewis Carroll, a children's novel/adventure was formerly banned in the province of Hunan, China, beginning in 1931, for its portrayal of anthropomorphized animals acting on the same level of complexity as human beings. The censor General Ho Chien believed that attributing human language to animals was an insult to humans. He feared that the book would teach children to regard humans and animals on the same level, which would be "disastrous".

Some of the books we find, we might want to read, like for example the well-known All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque (Banned in Nazi Germany for being demoralizing and insulting to the Wehrmacht.) or
American Psycho (1991) by Bret Easton Ellis which was banned (one would presume for any of language, sex, violence or gore) in the Australian State of Queensland, but is now available in public libraries and for sale to people 18 years and older.

Okay, your turn!

Nell wrote: ""Not much of Dickens will live, because it has so little correspondence to life. He was the incarnation of cockneydom, a caricaturist who aped the moralist; he should have kept to short stories. If his novels are read at all in the future, people will wonder what we saw in them."."

And yet, calling Dickens a caricaturist is not far out. He was dead wrong about the durability and future popularity of Dickens though, eh? Ha.

Nell wrote: "Oh, I'm just laughing. Came across an open thread re Purity. I don't care if it's good or bad; once I take to a contemporary writer, I'm interested in her/his development and read..."

You're a Franzen fan? Hmm, as a person I find him rather cocksure and rather sexist - will point you to the essays he wrote that makes me feel that way when I find them. But hey, what did we just say in the other thread about not letting personal dislikes of authors get into the way, eh? So yeah, I should cut him some slack, I suppose.

Speaking of contemporary writers, I am glad you mention them, since I was hoping we'd gain some traction in this group for reading some of them soon.

And talking of contemporary, I was hoping we could have a look soon at the pièce de résistance of the new kid on the block, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

If you have read the book AND watched the film of The Martian by Andy Weir, this thread is for you!

How do you feel about the film adaptation of the book? Is the film better? Is there something you would have added or subtracted from it?

If you've not either watched or read the film or book, please be warned of SPOILERS.

All right then, I will send out a group notification shortly - FYI, I have started a thread for it here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hello, by popular demand we will be reading The Martian by Andy Weir and in a separate thread, we'll compare the book with the film. In yet another 2 threads, we will discuss spoilers - one for mid-book impressions, and one for ending spoilers.

This thread is just for getting together and and posting our initial impressions and feelings about the book. :)

Have fun!

PS. Although the "official" starting date of the discussion proper is October 4 to give those who have not read it yet a chance to catch up, please feel free to clock in already with non-spoiler-ish comments.

It reminds me a bit of bonsai... *_* You know, the cultivating and trimming...