Laurie R. King Virtual Book Club discussion
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Lexicon by Max Barry - VBC October 2018
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I can't remember if it was part of the story or as one of the between chapters bits, but there was something about people whose first language wasn't English having a better defense against compromise. And Yeats has an international meeting with poets and comments about the other poets speaking English with him, which was a sign of weakness on their part since it showed they were concerned enough about him to want to add that extra level of defense.
But I'm guessing this was more about whatever commands the poet was trying to give rather than the compromising words. Like if they new a person's segment and compromised them, then that person's brain would default to it's native language and would have a harder time with commands in English?
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Can't the same questions be made of every book ever written? These questions are basically why we have English majors, right? ;-)
I think you can take as much or as little as you want. If it makes you think about something in particular, or if you just see it as something to pass time with.
A more interesting question to me is what inspired the author to write about this? My guess is an interest in all of the between the chapter details that he included about manipulation, especially on the internet and social media, which was a bit younger at the time the book was written. I don't know that there necessarily has to be a message, so much as triggering contemplation.
I didn't realize there was a quiz, but found & did it for fun. So I'm Margaret Atwood, which seems like a good thing- tho really, I have no idea what it means. It did say my personality type is found in 0.03% of the population. Should I be worried? Find a shrink?
Dena wrote: "I didn't realize there was a quiz, but found & did it for fun. So I'm Margaret Atwood, which seems like a good thing- tho really, I have no idea what it means. It did say my personality type is fou..."Weren't there like 200 segments? 0.03 would be about right!
There are 10 questions (and i don't think the last one "why did you do it?" counts) and chart shows 17 characteristics. I was joking. I like to think we are all unique beings. This was an interesting read but I am really looking forward to the newest by Louise Penny, Sara Paretsky & Ian Rankin- not to mention Alan Bradley. What riches we have - now & in the next few months.
I discovered that if you retake the test using the exact same answers, you will be a different poet. Apparently the poet—and possibly some of the “explanations” along the way—are randomly generated and not keyed to your response.
Lenore wrote: "I discovered that if you retake the test using the exact same answers, you will be a different poet. Apparently the poet—and possibly some of the “explanations” along the way—are randomly generated..."I am not surprised- I copied my "results" so I could compare when I do try it again. ;-)
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This reminds me of the numerous Harry Potter Hogwarts house quizzes that are all over the place.
Hmm. So Is it wrong then (or wrongheaded, as is implied) that we cannot ask in this bookclub why a book has been written (or the way ERIN puts it.. what inspired the author) but just take what is written as ‘ entertainment’? A number of the books we read are ‘light’ I agree, but some merit, don’t they, a search for the author’s meaning and direction of thought. What are we being told about our modern world or should we be alert to a danger the author has identified, no matter how intuitively?
It still eludes me apart from taking a real world linguistic technique like neuro-linguistic programming (which I find personally sinister and manipulative) to a level of absurdity and wrapping it in a puzzling yet fascinating thriller.
I haven’t been around for a few days and have just caught up with some of the comments which responded to my comment.
It still eludes me apart from taking a real world linguistic technique like neuro-linguistic programming (which I find personally sinister and manipulative) to a level of absurdity and wrapping it in a puzzling yet fascinating thriller.
I haven’t been around for a few days and have just caught up with some of the comments which responded to my comment.
To ask why a book was written is a reasonable question, unless it implies that the book should NOT have been written. Who am I to say that a book should not have been written? A better question, perhaps, is “why should I read it?”I asked about this book on one of the linguistics Facebook groups I follow. One member discredited the concept of neurolinguistic programming as it was presented in the book. However, words DO have power. In that sense, neurolinguistic programming is possible, but it takes a sustained effort over time to have the effect that a few words had in the book.
From what little I have read about it online, my understanding is that the concept of neurolinguistic programming has been largely discredited. However, the thrust of the book -- that populations can be manipulated by directing them to websites (or tweets or TV programs of whatever) that ally with some of their beliefs, and using those sites to incorporate additional beliefs -- is very scary indeed and does have remarkable resonance with some of what we are seeing today with some Facebook feeds and sites like Infowars.
Lenore wrote: "From what little I have read about it online, my understanding is that the concept of neurolinguistic programming has been largely discredited. However, the thrust of the book -- that populations c..."Yes! Bombs sent to high-profile critics of the right-wing & the miserable & frightening person in the White House, students murdered in their schools, African American people- in churches and Jewish people in a synagogue. A Jewish community center painted with swastikas. Absolutely people are manipulated by words, by lies, by propaganda. And that puts many of us in danger.
Yes, the validation of violence by leaders’ words has a dreadful current resonance. Such leaders can always point out (disingenuously in my opinion) that there is no provable causal link between their statements and the results we are so appallingly seeing. I fear for the people of Brazil with this morning’s news.
Back to the book. It has been a salutary read, at a timely moment and having fallen victim to on line propaganda manipulation (who me? Impossible!) I will not forget it.
Back to the book. It has been a salutary read, at a timely moment and having fallen victim to on line propaganda manipulation (who me? Impossible!) I will not forget it.
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You can always ask the question! A discussion is not really a discussion without disparate viewpoints, after all.
Personally, I've always been a bit skeptical of making assumptions of intention in books. I had such a hard time with this in English classes because the reader's experience is obviously not necessarily the writers experience. Classic example: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. A lot of readers (maybe most?) would say that book is about government censorship, but Bradbury has said in interviews that he was writing about television taking people away from reading. Does the writer's intent negate what the reader's are taking away from the story?
We had a similar discussion pop up a couple of months ago with one of Laurie's books (MURD or ISLA? I can't remember).
Someone told me once that Lord of the Flies was not intended to be an allegory about human nature. I was like, what? Not only was I sure it was an allegory, I didn't think it was particularly subtle.
Emily wrote: "Someone told me once that Lord of the Flies was not intended to be an allegory about human nature. I was like, what? Not only was I sure it was an allegory, I didn't think it was particularly subtle."I had a similar experience with John Grisham's The Firm. I was absolutely sure it was parody, and was amazed to hear that it was supposed to be a "serious" thriller.
Having just caught up, belatedly, with this series of posts, I had a couple of reactions. One, that music has much more ability to sneak into the brain, via different pathways, as we learned during my brother-in-law’s stroke recovery, than words do.
And that led me to a book that had a great description of one type of this phenomenon, Anne MacCaffrey’s “The Ship Who Sang”.
“A Dylanist is a social commentator, a protester, using music as a weapon, a stimulus. A skilled Dylanist, and I wasn’t one, …can make so compelling an argument with melody and words that what he wants to say becomes insinuated into the subconscious.
The trouble was, you weren’t supposed to analyze Dylan. You had to feel him and if you tried to parse what he was saying into Basic or into psychological terms, it…it was meaningless. It was the total imagery of the music and the words that made the gut react. That was the whole purpose of his style. When the gut reacts the mind gets the whiplash and another chip is knocked off the solid block within.”
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This strikes me as an odd question for a book club that mostly reads fairly light books... isn't being entertaining or absorbing sufficient? But maybe that's a good question, too... if words become too entertaining, so that they distract you from life, is that another way to wreck people's lives?