impalpable
New Member
Yeah, this is how I feel as well. Plus, I've studied a lot of similar literature and I've been meaning to read this anyway.
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Suggestions: December 2008 Book of the Month
- Thread starter Robert
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Yeah, this is how I feel as well. Plus, I've studied a lot of similar literature and I've been meaning to read this anyway.
impalpable
New Member
How come? Too sad?
Libra
Active Member
Peder
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't say that 'sad' was the word.
Here is the content I don't care to read about,
I have seen enough of these boy soldiers in the media already. :sad:
abecedarian
Well-Known Member
I'm curious to know your reasons why not...Not trying to twist your arm at all, just trying to understand your thinking on this one. I can see where this particular book might be a real downer...particularly over the holiday season. As libra points out, this is all still in the choosing stages and nothing is cut in stone here.
impalpable
New Member
Yeah, I can understand this mentality but December is the time of year when you should be grateful for what you have :whistling:
abecedarian
Well-Known Member
Oops, didn't see this before I posted up above. I see your point..there's so much evil in the world, and the holiday season might not be the best time to dwell on it, particularly as this book centers on evil done to children. OTH, I see this type of book as exposing the evil in order to destroy it, and what better time than during the season we celebrate God sending His Son to destroy the works of the evil one and offer hope to a dead world...it's your call, and I respect your choice even if happens to be different from mine this time. Anyway, t'aint over yet, the fat lady hasn't sung yet
Peder
Well-Known Member
It's hard for me to describe my feelings exactly but I'll try. And the only way I know how is by concrete example to back up what might otherwise seem somewhat abstract. I have declined to read the following books for the reasons briefly indicated (beginning with the one that lead to an enormous brawl here some time back)
The Ice Man - because a criminal sociopath, who was a hired killer with 50 cold-blooded murders to his 'credit,' and who psychologically and emotionally tortured his young daughter, was described as "a good father;"
The Beautiful Bones - because it described the rape-murder of a young girl;
On Chesil Beach - because it featured tight-focus on the consummation of a marriage on the nuptial night (to use archaic language);
Never Let Me Go - because it dealt with deliberate cultivation of human beings in order to harvest of their organs and leave them dead.
A Long Way Gone - because it deals with a child learning to commit "truly terrible acts" (a euphemism including atrocities?)
As one can see there are a variety of individual underlying reasons of all sorts. Murder, rape, sex, criminality, human degradation are not specifically off my radar screen, in and off themselves. Although they are certainly far from my first choices. I suppose my rebellion is against reading about evil that is used to propel a larger story that capitalizes on it or otherwise frames it in some apologetic sense.
In the case of "A Long Way Gone," I could imagine reading the contemporaneous narration by a boy-killer himself of his activities in a non-fictional account -- a newspaper interview for example. I'm sure we would see a reality we couldn't imagine. I find it harder to go for an account where the author has now had the benefit of 14 years of delay and hindsight to adjust and present his story to us in a light well chosen by him to show his final achievement of redemption. My mind boggles.
In short, I guess I reject the use of evil as a tool to propel a larger story of different intent. 'Sensationalism' might be the word that comes to mind, although I lack for a good one.
Separately, there is a person at another site that I visit who has a vitriolic scorn of authors who use events of the Holocaust as a backdrop to provide 'color' for novels which ultimately are for 'entertainment' in the broader sense of the word. I think that is an ultimate example and I completely understand his view point. The Holocaust was an evil that should only be treated in the context of evil. And he would say preferably by reading (only) direct accounts of Holocaust survivors and witnesses, not second-hand accounts by hucksters of fictional stories such as Omega Minor, which was the case in point.
So those are my unfocused but definite reactions to this sub-genre.
PS Sorry for the cross-post. I didn't see the previous two posts while I was typing. But as for the list, by all means leave it on and let people vote on what they wish to read. I do not wish in any sense to be a censor here. I only have one vote like anyone else. And I was only answering a question about my own reasoning.
The Ice Man - because a criminal sociopath, who was a hired killer with 50 cold-blooded murders to his 'credit,' and who psychologically and emotionally tortured his young daughter, was described as "a good father;"
The Beautiful Bones - because it described the rape-murder of a young girl;
On Chesil Beach - because it featured tight-focus on the consummation of a marriage on the nuptial night (to use archaic language);
Never Let Me Go - because it dealt with deliberate cultivation of human beings in order to harvest of their organs and leave them dead.
A Long Way Gone - because it deals with a child learning to commit "truly terrible acts" (a euphemism including atrocities?)
As one can see there are a variety of individual underlying reasons of all sorts. Murder, rape, sex, criminality, human degradation are not specifically off my radar screen, in and off themselves. Although they are certainly far from my first choices. I suppose my rebellion is against reading about evil that is used to propel a larger story that capitalizes on it or otherwise frames it in some apologetic sense.
In the case of "A Long Way Gone," I could imagine reading the contemporaneous narration by a boy-killer himself of his activities in a non-fictional account -- a newspaper interview for example. I'm sure we would see a reality we couldn't imagine. I find it harder to go for an account where the author has now had the benefit of 14 years of delay and hindsight to adjust and present his story to us in a light well chosen by him to show his final achievement of redemption. My mind boggles.
In short, I guess I reject the use of evil as a tool to propel a larger story of different intent. 'Sensationalism' might be the word that comes to mind, although I lack for a good one.
Separately, there is a person at another site that I visit who has a vitriolic scorn of authors who use events of the Holocaust as a backdrop to provide 'color' for novels which ultimately are for 'entertainment' in the broader sense of the word. I think that is an ultimate example and I completely understand his view point. The Holocaust was an evil that should only be treated in the context of evil. And he would say preferably by reading (only) direct accounts of Holocaust survivors and witnesses, not second-hand accounts by hucksters of fictional stories such as Omega Minor, which was the case in point.
So those are my unfocused but definite reactions to this sub-genre.
PS Sorry for the cross-post. I didn't see the previous two posts while I was typing. But as for the list, by all means leave it on and let people vote on what they wish to read. I do not wish in any sense to be a censor here. I only have one vote like anyone else. And I was only answering a question about my own reasoning.
Libra
Active Member
Peder, I have to agree with you, even I thought about it after I suggested it,thinking it would not be a good book for discussion. So, you are not alone in your thinking.
Really nothing to talk about such terrible things.:flowers: (that's why I am torn between two others)
Landslide
Well-Known Member
Okay, so 3 new suggestions:
- Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
- Paula, by Isabel Allende
- The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
The first two I've already read and can highly recommend them. The World Without Us I plan to read soon, because it's a subject that really interests me.
- Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
- Paula, by Isabel Allende
- The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
The first two I've already read and can highly recommend them. The World Without Us I plan to read soon, because it's a subject that really interests me.
silverseason
New Member
I have read Paula, a memoir about her daughter by Allende. Very moving.
I have not read Into the Wild, although I saw the movie, but have read In Thin Air, the one about the Everest expedition.
Both books would prompt lots of discussion.
The World without Us is an interesting concept, and I am certainly willing to read it.
Please, let's keep Speak, Memory by Nabokov on the list.
Isabell
Active Member
Oooh, I have "The World Without Us" in my wish list on Amazon. Let's add that one to the list
joderu95
New Member
That is non-fiction and it is a very good choice. I nominated it for a different month but it got no love whatever. I read it already but I would like to see it discussed anyway.
I liked that one a lot too.
Libra
Active Member
Maybe it will get some loving this month.:lol:
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