Paula’s Comments (group member since Jun 18, 2025)

Paula’s comments from the Reading the Chunksters group.

Everyman wrote: "Sera wrote: "I hope that you do, Sandra. E:) is doing a great job leading the discussion."

I need to pull it down and dig back into it. Read it not that long ago for another group, but it's well..."

And then there are those of us who are hoping you will one day lead us through Gibbons :).

Everyman wrote: "Zulfiya wrote: "please do not take it personally, but I do not handle well reading the same books over and over again, especially if one does not accept the philosophy behind the book. It is my per..."

I enjoy rereading books I love...it's seeing the same books chosen for group reads over and over that makes me wish for a different outcome.

Ah, but anyone itching to throw Proust into the mix in the near future...a group just kicked it off on January 10, so come on over :).

Dustin wrote: "Linda wrote: "Sandra wrote: "Does Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset fit the criterion? If so, I want to nominate it."

I'm not one to say if it fits this nomination ..."

Hi Dustin! If it doesn't win then you will easily find it being discussed elsewhere. This is one of those books that pops up regularly in other groups. Like War & Peace, readers have heard of it, they know it's long and it kind of makes everyone's "bucket list".

There was a Kristin buddy read back in August in one group, there was another in September in another group, and I believe yet another is going on right now in another group. It's a very popular book in the GR groups.

I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed for a book that gets us away from the books we've heard of, which are already sitting in our TBR lists, and perhaps into something that would be new territory. There's always a risk that it won't turn out well, but it would be fun to step outside the box. We really haven't done that yet.

Kaycie wrote: "Zulfiya wrote: "Our nomination thread again turns into a discussion :-)"

A major perk of this group for me! :-) I have never before been a part of such an active and accepting community of reader..."

I agree with you both. I love all the back and forth. :)

Sarah wrote: "I was planning on passing anyway but then there schedule covers something like 8 months. 8 months discussing the same book! And a book I could easily read on my own. I would go crazy."

You made me laugh!!!! :)

Sera wrote: "There are a number of us reading War & Peace and enjoying it very much. I understand the frustration with repeat reads. In fact, I didn't participate for the latter half of last year, because I h..."

I don't think it had been done in this group. If I remember correctly, the discussion some of us had was that there are a core group of books that seem to be selected over and over across different groups. Sometimes it feels like, no matter what group you join, there they are...those same books. I remember once there were two full discussions going on simultaneously in two different groups with a couple of buddy reads in two other groups. Four different discussions for the same book. But I don't think our moderators would want to prevent a book from being nominated just because it was picked up with regularity in other groups. It can be a little frustrating since chunksters take a long discussion time and it's a long time to wait for the next poll.

Just my thoughts.

Zulfiya wrote: "Paula wrote: " It was my second time. Maybe we're just a well-read group here :)."


Or we choose WaP...Sorry for the sarcastic tone, but I read once in high school, read again for a f2f book club ..."

I'm with you...it would be nice to have something different.

Sarah wrote: "I seem to see it getting nominated all over the place, but isn't it mostly well known in Norway?"

I don't think so. I've seen a lot of buddy reads on GR and my book group here at home read it over the summer. It was my second time. Maybe we're just a well-read group here :).

Sandra wrote: "Does Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset fit the criterion? If so, I want to nominate it."

Didn't Undset win the Nobel prize for this? I can't remember...

Amanda wrote: "Like the chunksters in translation theme. Great idea!"

I agree!

This is going to be interesting - so many good nominations! But it's going to be a long list to choose from...

What a nice "problem" to have :).

I'd like to nominate Adam Buenosayres: A Critical Edition by Leopoldo Marechal.

Linda wrote: "re: House of Leaves

So it looks like we have Ami, Sarah, and myself ready for this buddy read? Should I go ahead and PM Zulfiya and ask to her open up two threads for this read? W..."

I'd like to join you guys!

I went ahead and finished the book yesterday. It was really intriguing until a little more than halfway through, when it started to jump the track. I kept on, hoping this was temporary, but it just devolved and fell apart for me. It's not that I found it upsetting or offensive...it just got tedious and boring...and very dated. I think if I were about 5 or 6 years older I could wax nostalgic about my wild, rebellious years immersed in the whole tumultuous counterculture movement, and I would probably be able to enjoy it a little more. Or maybe if I were a 15 year old boy. But I think we've moved on and become more sophisticated in our thinking. Of course, we owe a debt to those who cleared the way in freeing up our thinking. But here, the writing got so darn clunky, it didn't hold my interest. Glad I'm done. I can't think of what I could talk about with this one. So much potential and them, whew, so self-indulgent.

Zulfiya wrote: "I am halfway through part three and plan to finish it today if life permits. I guess there will be the two of us, Paula."

I didn't realize you had finished Part 2. I will pick it up again :)

I was going to continue posting, but I'm wondering if everyone has other reading commitments that are keeping them from participating. Totally understandable. Maybe now isn't the right time for this book? At any rate, I think I'm going to continue reading because I have some big group reads coming up starting in January and I don't want to fall behind. Besides, this is a fascinating read and I'd like to keep going.

I've been deliberately holding back from reading ahead. I've only read through the second week of the schedule, but if anyone who finishes Infinite Jest wants more in a similar vein (I.e. beautifully fractured time, plot, place, events scattered about for you to pick up and connect), you might enjoy this book.

Happy reading!

WEEK 2, Part II, The Ruins of Morning

I'm going to post in smaller chunks, so it's more manageable for me.

This is Chapter 1 of Part II. No spoilers yet. Again, such an organic feel to the novel. "A good wind would wake this city". Continued constant references on just about every page to trees: "upper branches", "trees", "in a tree", "leaf-grey and twig-grey", "the trees waited", "first leaves", "apple eyes--apple green", "roots thick as her arm", "heavy trunk", "free of foliage", "it's stupid to be afraid of...trees". It just goes on and on. I don't know if it means anything, but it's hypnotic how Delany does this. Maybe that's the whole point. No idea.

And then, wow, this jolted me and I mentally jerked to attention:

(view spoiler)[ The notebook has resurfaced, hurray! But this here! A list of names on one of the pages and one of them is...William Dhalgren!!!! Could this be Kid? If not, who then? I know I'll be coming back to this list as we encounter other people on Kid's travels. He's just getting started after all, so he will probably meet lots of interesting and weird people.

And what's with the orchid and how it just magically seems to stay with him?

I'm wondering about Lanya...very interesting girl. Almost Pan-like with her harmonica ("Pan-pipes"), living in the open by herself under the trees. Kid emphasizes her unearthliness (at least in his own mind, but who knows? He's a very unreliable narrator) when he thinks:

"You can't make that discord on a harmonica. Not on any harmonica he's ever had."

So...is Lanya, like Pan or Coyote, a big bunch of strange trouble? Someone who likes to stir the pot? Instigator?

Or is Kid just seriously messed up?

Or both?

Again, no answers and I have no idea. But I'm looking forward to finding out!

(hide spoiler)]

Zulfiya wrote: "So far, I have read just ten or eleven pages from the next chapter, and I am behind, and I will try to catch up, but my general expression is it is getting curioser and curioser.

The feeling of s..."

I've already read this section, but it's been a couple of weeks, so I'm going to go back and reread.

Regarding the novel having a trippy feel - yes, I definitely get that vibe and I think it is in large part because of when it was written. Delany was in his 20's during the 1960's and his writing is very much a product of the times. I was born in 1955, so I was still pretty young during that decade, but I remember the flower children on the streets and later, when I attended college at James Madison University, there were several communes that formed around the area. I visited one of them a couple of times because I had a friend who decided to join them. The Harrisonburg and Charlottesville areas in Virginia were very popular for that kind of thing. Lots of hippies everywhere :). All of it was brand new.

Right now, I'm also reading J.G. Ballard and I just finished Iceby Anna Kavan. I'm finding very strong connections with their writing and Delany's.

As to the last question put forward...can science fiction be literary fiction? I feel that of course it can. In fact, science fiction was born out of the idea of exploring larger themes by creating more expansive environments, basically untethering us from our more restricted versions of reality/existence. Some of it is very well-written indeed...beautiful prose, again, exploration of over-arching themes, pushing the literary envelope either in story or structure.

Although, so far, I'm not getting a science fiction feel from Dhalgren. I only have these 54 pages to base anything on, but for me, it's more postmodern in feel, which to me, puts Delany right there with DeLillo, Calvino, Pynchon, and, later on, DFW, etc. The almost "fractal-like" quality to their prose and their themes.