MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and
chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.
27 November 2005
MeCha book club? Who's interested? Suggested reading/format/bylaws? I'm used to reading a book a month and then "meeting" to talk about it. I say "meeting" in quotes because we could do it on IRC and/or in a thread here.
here ya go. any good B&N or Borders will probably have it, too. I'll be happy to help with the discussion thread since I know the book backwards and forwards.
You've described it. That's sufficient. Honestly, people judge books without reading them all the time. No one can read them all and if the praise sends me running, I say that's a fair indication. The boy would probably love it.
And goatdog! I missed that. It is officially the best shoutout that has ever been sent to me. It may have have to enter into desktop rotation with my many undressed Michael Phelps pics. (By the way, I am sorry for not emailing back. I was waiting to watch the movie first, because it's at my video store. I still love you. Even more now, really.)
Honestly, people judge books without reading them all the time. No one can read them all and if the praise sends me running, I say that's a fair indication.
You didn't just say that you thought you wouldn't like it, (which I'd accept as fair enough), you called it "nonsense," and said you "refused," to read it. The vehemence of a response like that strikes me as a bit defensive, and I'm just curious why.
Because I hate books like that with an unreasonable passion. But I'm like that with books.
It's my rugged good looks and relentless charm.
Nah. I put it down to my perversity. Like my capitalism-loving Chelsea boy friend. It makes no sense, but somehow I am drawn. Then again, I think Saddam is looking kinda fine these days and when I was in the voting booth in 2004, I was almost overwhelmed by an urge to pull the Bush lever. I'm just not right.
You haven't read it. How do you know what kind of book it's like? It's the endorsement of me, matteo, the Wino and tr33hugger. It's not every book that could draw that diverse a group of guys together. And gaspode and Hugh Janus both loved the other Price novel I loaned them.
And it is my good looks that makes you put up with me. But don't let it bug you.
I dunno, sam. I think thread discussions would be better because there would be more time to engage with the ideas, and people don't have to be around at the same time. It could last for days.
It's a boy book. I hate boy books. It's an "oh, my life is crap" book. I hate "oh, my life is crap" books. It isn't logical, but there are so many books that interest me out there, I feel fine not engaging. I mean, I hate mustard. Nothing is going to make me not hate it. This is like that.
I never quite understood the point of book clubs. It just seems like so much talking about music or dancing about architecture to me. Sure, I talk about music a lot, but, meh, I don't need a formal structure or club to do that.
Writer's groups I understand. Maybe, sometimes. But even with all the booze consumed at those it gets tedious.
Actually, I just had a thought about what the point of book clubs might be about. It's to give people who don't normally read books (as a leisure activity) a schedule and motivation to read. I doubt very many people here need a motivation to read for leisure. However, finding the time to read all that is desired is a completely different sort of fish-kettle.
I'm more than open to explanations of what a good book club should be about, though.
What the fuck? What kind of mutant freak are you? How can you not like mustard? Spicy brown deli mustard on a hot pastrami? Honey mustard salad dressing? French's Yellow on a Coney? It's like saying you don't like breathing or some kind of equally crazy-assed shit.
It's a chance to talk about books with people you like, loq. Because sometimes you read something awesome & then no one else you know has gotten around to reading it or they read it so long ago they can't really discuss it in the detail you'd like. I think.
Merely the smell of mustard makes me want to vomit. I told you I wasn't right. Though most of my nonimaginary friends are more disturbed by the Saddam thing. Huh.
Merely the smell of mustard makes me want to vomit.
I have a similar thing with iceberg lettuce and raw onion. But at my dad's 60th birthday party last weekend my Aunt Annie said that when my dad was a teenager, he'd come home from a night of drinking with his boys and make himself a mustard sandwich on white bread with chocolate milk, then she gave him a loaf of Wonder, a jar of Guldens and a bottle of Bosco. (yes, we are painfully white).
And as far as the Saddam thing, Harlan Ellison in his novel Mefisto In Onyx, says that if you remove the associations of the evil things he's done, Saddam looks like a kind avuncular old man. Hard to really disagree without sounding ridiculous.
It's an "oh, my life is crap" book. I hate "oh, my life is crap" books.
Like Sylvia Plath or countless other chick books? (I realize I'm not being rational but Richard price is my literary hero and main influence as a writer (or at least his style is closer to my own than any other writer I've encountered) so rationality is out the fuckin' window). And the narrator of the book relentlessly criticizes and castigates himslef more than any outside influence. just saying. But kit's a warts and all portrait of the male libido, and warts and all portraits arent often pretty.
Eh, I didn't love The Bell Jar either. But I don't like boy books, especially. There are few things less interesting to me than maleness as an idea. (Men themselves of course . . .) And I don't care for portrayals of simple ugliness. I find the ugliness of life distressing enough in its real form. To me the affection for that sort of stuff is one of the worst aspects of contemporary literature. That's not to say a book has to be entirely optimistic or that bad things can't happen, but it has to be more than a portrait of ugliness. Does that make sense? I mean, I hate anti-heroes and find people's affection for such both bizarre and unnerving; it kinda makes me wonder what's wrong with them. I am willing to admit that the problem may be mine. But, you know, I'm gonna be a passionate asshole about it anyway.
I mean, I hate anti-heroes and find people's affection for such both bizarre and unnerving; it kinda makes me wonder what's wrong with them
The "shock of recognition." Having your inner conflicts articulated to you better you could do yourself. The simple realization that you don't have to be a "hero," to be an honorable human being. In fact it's when we deny and avoid the ugliness within us that it sneaks up on us and then we're in trouble.
Douglas Coupland, Shampoo Planet: Your refusal to acknowledge you're dark side makes you prey to that dark side.
Frank Pembleton, Homicide: your vices along with your virtues are part of what make you you. you have to embrace them. But if you wanna pretend you're the fair-haired choirboy, you go right ahead...
I'm gonna be a passionate asshole about it anyway.
That's why we like eachother. we're two articulate, passionate assholes.
Woah. There's a difference between understanding and wallowing. I have plenty of understanding for my unfavorable parts. But just rubbing them all over you like mustard is gross. There has to be more than that.
Like, I said, you haven't read the book, otherwise you wouldn't be so quick to assume that's what it is. Besides, before we can think about what could be, we have to face what is, even on a personal level.
But stopping at what is is both dull and sick. (Also, please stop implying that I'm some sort of denial-ridden Pollyanna. I'm pretty sure we both know that isn't the case. Besides, you're ruining the book club for agropyron.)
Also, please stop implying that I'm some sort of denial-ridden Pollyanna.
I'm not implying that, anymore than you're implying I'm some kind of ugliness worshipping nihilist. which we know isn't the case. Differing perspectives is all, that's what makes discussion intersting, right?
it's still a boy book.
Oooh, icky. Isn't feminism supposed to be about getting past facile labels.
Like Alcibiades at the Symposium, I have once again arrived late. But I'm not drunk.
I have a hard time with fiction. Didn't used to be true but there it is. Probably because the real shit is so damn weird that there's no need to make things up.
I'd really like a history discussion. Or something. Just not fiction.
Maybe a way to proceed is to put books up for discussion? And then if there is interest in that particular title, go on from there.
Oh, and another thing. I don't do IRC. A thread would be good, but I don't know if many people want to do the effort of writing the mini-essays this sort of thing would need to be really good. Short posts and rapid changes of subject can be distracting.
Clearly we need several book clubs. There's the fiction thread book club, the fiction IRC book club, the non-fiction thread and IRC book clubs, then there's the jonmc-picks-the-books book club, and the jonmc-and-dame-shouting book club.
Well, I suggested that because it sounds like you want the opposite book club. I wanted fiction, and favor IRC discussion. There might be enough people for us both to get what we want, who knows. On the other hand, it might be difficult to get just one off the ground.
I'd probably still be in for a non-fiction with thread discussion. Depending on the book. Is it ok to decide whether or not you join based on the book, or are you supposed to be game and just give it a try whatever it is?
You are. You keep saying that I need to look at something I am quite intimate with, thanks.
Oooh, icky. Isn't feminism supposed to be about getting past facile labels.
Don't be an asshole, jon. Feminism is about being free to like what you choose. And being free from dull struggles with maleness being cast as some universal that everyone ought to have interest in. Unless it's in me, I don't care about your dick. I don't care about your relationship with your father and how it shaped you. I don't care about the listlessness and manufactured problems of your male privilege and your stupid quests. I just don't. And really, whatever you have to say about it, it probably has already been said better since that's the majority of what men have been nattering on about since they learned to write. I mean, natter by all means, but I'm not going to pay attention or pat your fucking head.
On preview: Don't worry about me arguing with jon, agro—I probably won't join anyway. But it does remind me of the time my grandmother and I were loudly discussing something and her boyfriend said, "Stop yelling." She replied, "We're not yelling. We're having a conversation." Jon and I are both children of Italians. I think this is how we talk. I mean, I'm not mad at him. He's wrong. But I'm having fun.
I say this with all good intentions and friendliness possible: I wasn't worried about the fact that there was an argument, or whether you were mad, or hated him.
It's more that it's dominating/derailing the book club thread, and I was fairly interested in seeing how that whole thing would pan out.
Ok--the boy book's out. Let's list suggestions here and then we can vote or something.
Here are mine:
Cloud Atlas (very meaty, tons to discuss, and great)
a Dickens or something like that? (serialish and easy to get us started?)
some obscure book from a non-english author, like one of these Library of Latin America titles?
I don't care about your dick. I don't care about your relationship with your father and how it shaped you. I don't care about the listlessness and manufactured problems of your male privilege and your stupid quests. I just don't.
So, by that logic, should any of penised americans care about what it means to be a woman, or how some guy wouldn't take you to the prom, or how you were ignored in favor of the "pretty girls," or any of the tired ass themes of "womens literature?"
You've made up your mind that this book is some kind of Iron John jerkoff routine, when it was written waaaay before that shit was even thought of. And besides if we're going to base our literary choices on things like gender or race, why should anyone ever read anything written by anyone diffferent from us in any way? C'mon, you're smarter than this, gimme an answer that dosen't come from a women's studies pamphlet.
Jon and I are both children of Italians. I think this is how we talk.
*waves arms, swigs grappa, beats wife*
And being free from dull struggles with maleness being cast as some universal that everyone ought to have interest in.
You're a heterosexual woman. Like it or not, those dull struggles with maleness affect your existence, so understanding them is to your advantage if only in understanding the world you inhabit.
You're confused, dear. I get it. I just don't fucking care. Just like anyone has a right to be bored and hate anything I like and think it bodes ill for the universe. And I'm not going to even reply to the worst insult you ever dredged up. I'm gonna let God strike you down for that.
Sorry to take over the thread agro. I made you a new one.
So glad I elected not to have comments e-mailed on this one.
My passion is for the more philosophical works (at least of late). I don't see a reason we can't have three or so book choices every month and then people can choose which of those they want to read and then we'll have separate discussions for each. At the very least, we could have a fiction and a non-fiction choice.
We could do the book choices by consensus or just each take a turn recommending something. Consensus ensures that most of the people are interested in the book; turns ensures that it doesn't turn into the "romance of the month club" or the "sci-fi of the month club" or what have you.
Discussion can be in a thread, but you can't stop people from discussing it on IRC. I think having a scheduled chat at a coastally-neutral (suggested) time once a month might be worth trying, at least for awhile. Someone can post a log of the chat later for those who couldn't make it.
agro: I'm interested and I read a lot of books. So I'm interested. I also re-read books and make notes, write essays on them.
For instance: Charlie Wilson's War. I spent over a month researching and writing that. It got me the usual hate mail from a handful of wingers and one interesting discussion with Laura Rosen.
Last year I was reading on some of the early Greek Histories; Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucidides and a few modern commentaries like Eli Sagan's The Honey and the Hemlock. That all started with conversations with my friend Dan (who some of the Seattle MeFites have met). He's a classical scholar and we were searching for parallels between the Athenian invasion of Sicily and the mess in Iraq during the Peloponnesian war.
I tend to read a lot of history on politics and conflicts because that's my specialty. I also like the history of technology: Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps
Biographies are good, too. I'm currently wading through a not-very-well-written one on H.L. Mencken.
I was part of a study group on Walter Karp. Ultimatly, we bugged Louis Lapham into reissuing Karp's books and reprinting The Politics of War. At one point, we bought up every used copy of Indispensible Enemies in the U.S. There weren't very many and we cleaned out bookfinder.
I would dearly love to have a discussion of William Chambliss' study of corruption in Seattle, On the Take because my Dad and some of his friends were involved in outing the pinball scandals in the 60's.
I never quite understood the point of book clubs. It just seems like so much talking about music or dancing about architecture to me.
It is all about different view points. Everyone brings something new to the experience when reading a book-- you have different life experiences, different opinions, different interpretations.
So in a good book discussion you might have opinions based on the book and/or certain passages that depend on whether or not someone has read previous works by that author, previous books dealing with the same theme, even personal knowledge of the experiences portrayed by the author.
A good discussion can clear up misconceptions, provide insight, and challange your opinions. As a bonus it can motivate the lazy reader.
As for the idea that there is no discussion to be had about architecture, have you never taken an art history class? Because the history of architecture is worth learning about.
ok, I'm keeping my head out of the book club discussion because I don't know if I'll do it at all and there are too many nominations already, but I just ordered Jon's Price book because now I really want to know what all the yelling is about.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
