Book discussion - The Quarry - Chapter 7

[Elusis]

It’s not that far off from how I felt about the last chapter of the last Harry Potter book, really. Except that I was sorry to be done with HP.

[Elusis]

I did know a guy who bought a hearse to drive around in, but only because it was the cheapest thing he could get to sleep in as well.

I know a lot of folks with hearses, but then again I was a goth in a city with a hearse club, so no big surprises there.

[penguinchris]

Then again, I have similar opinions about both Fargo (the movie) and 30 Rock. It doesn’t feel like I don’t get them, so much as it feels like there’s very little there to get. I understand what happens, I get the jokes, I find them oddly tedious or forced or puerile, and what I don’t get is why so many people whose opinions I value and trust freaking love those shows and find them quite sophisticated entertainment, for what they are. It’s a really strange disconnect.

I feel the same way about a lot of things. Parks and Recreation is probably the biggest current example (although that is finished now). The jokes from that work as gif-sets but I can’t sit through the actual show.

30 Rock is watchable and has good joke-writing, but it’s not something I’d ever get into (I’ve only seen a couple episodes… on airplanes… same with The Office both UK and US).

Fargo is great though. And there are other things in a similar vein to 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation and The Office that I do like. But these things I suppose balance on a fine line, and any individual person is on a spectrum along either side of that line and will like different things for not-entirely-obvious reasons.

[chgoliz]

Tomorrow is Friday. Do we know what we’re doing? I’d really like to keep this going, now that we know not to trust critical reviews of potential book choices!

[Elusis]

I think we need to pick a new book. I wonder if starting a new book choice thread would induce new participants??

[OtherMichael]

I have [a number of suggestions] (Dr. Chuck Tingle, Amazon Kindle author).

[Elusis]

I created a monster by starting that thread.

[OtherMichael]

Does it give you a… tingly feeling?

[noahdjango]

the book in question, which meandered around, revealed little, paused, picked up what few pieces remained, and tied things off neatly, boringly, and then snipped the ends clean.

totally this. guys, we need to aim for literature over untested stuff in the future. Well, I guess we’re doing non-fiction next–which is cool–but something with some vetted prose next fiction,eh?

Dorothy Parker

yes, Dorothy Parker, for example : )

[daneel]

Proust?

[noahdjango]

I’m down.

[OtherMichael]

Edward Gibbon?

[Donald_Petersen]

I will, always and forever, be hoping for some genre stuff. But that’s because I’m a superannuated nine-year-old in so many ways. In a normal book club I might shy away from a nonfiction discussion, particularly if it’s about a topic in which I have little or no interest. But you guys… you guys make for a different story. I’d even follow you through the shoals of Russian Lit and down avenues lined by Histories of the O-Ring.

Feckit, I think I’ll start another nomination thread. Help me out if I screw it up.

[Donald_Petersen]

New book nomination thread here.

[Elusis]

Does it give you a… tingly feeling?

I hate you, Milkman OtherMichael.

[Elusis]

Reading Proust chapter by chapter a week at a time? Do you WANT to kill the book club?

[OtherMichael]

Time keeps on slipping slipping slipping… into the future

[OtherMichael]

Continuing the discussion from Huffing Boing Boing:

Huffing Boing Boing

What should I read next did not have The Quarry in it’s database – had to enter the isbn

There’s a reason for that.

[caze]

I thought The Quarry was great, he was dying, and angry, in previous books he had reserved most of his anger for the big targets, political and cultural, but this was a lot more personal, something he’s not done as well since The Crow Road (which was his best non-science fiction work I think).