Stephen’s Comments (group member since Nov 06, 2015)

Stephen’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Despite the rumors, not all Russian literature is dark and bleak, or necessarily that long. ;) I'll have a look at the short stories, and I might try to start a discussion on one of those. If it's just me, that'll at least motivate me to get some reading done early.

Happy 2018, everyone!

Let's try to revive this group! Is anyone interested in repeating the Super Mash-up Challenge this year? I'd like to beat my previous record of 12/20. :)

Also, I'm back in grad school, so I will selfishly propose the following books for discussion, if anyone wants to delve into one of them with me:

• Tolstoy, War and Peace
• Dostoevsky, Demons (a.k.a. The Possessed, Devils)
• Dostoevsky, The Adolescent
• Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary (short works)
• Dickens, David Copperfield
• Dickens, various short works

For something more modern, The Nonexistent Knight has been on my shelf for a while, and since I know several of us like Calvino...

I've only joined in a few discussions so far, but I've enjoyed them. I just moved to Moscow to teach English for the year, but in a week or two I think I'll have settled in enough to participate more.

Out of the books currently on the group's list, I recently read The Three Body Problem and could talk more about that. I'm also interested in Memoirs of Hadrian, All the Light We Cannot See, and Cloud Atlas. Although I'm not in St. Petersburg, maybe it's still a good time to reread Notes from the Underground too!

I'm also falling behind on my mash-up challenge. If anyone wants to read any of the books/authors listed there, let me know! ☺

It was in the paperback copy I got from the library. I think they got successively darker, so your explanation may be right. In Acceptance, (view spoiler)[there are only three such pages: black before the prologue and the epilogue, and light gray before parts I to III. (hide spoiler)]

I did enjoy the discovery of Whitby's hidden room; it finally gave us proof of how much Area X had infiltrated the outside world.

It's always difficult to review books that aim at more than simply providing enjoyment. I found the secrets and paranoia in this book frustrating, but I suppose that in a way that was the point.

One aspect of the book design which I enjoyed in Authority and Acceptance, and which I assume was in Annihilation as well, was how the pages separating the chapters were colored, ranging from light gray to black. It seems maybe related to the seriousness of the plot. Did anyone else notice that?

I hope you're feeling better Amy! We all need a break every now and then, for whatever reason.

I just finished this, but I'll try not to include any spoilers.

Definitely a big change in style from Annihilation. I enjoyed the interaction between Control and the biologist, partly because it allowed for some character continuity from the first book, though as you all note, the nature of the biologist is a big plot question. But I was less satisfied with the bureaucratic quarreling and secrecy. It certainly makes sense in the context of this world, but the actual plot developments weren't very compelling for me. For instance, I was never sure how were we supposed to understand the bickering between Control and the assistant director. Overall, I got the impression of a spy story but without any obvious danger to provide tension and move the story along.

But I felt it definitely improved in the final two chapters, so I'll be interested to know what people thought of those.

Whitney wrote: "Vadermeer denies that Roadside Picnic was an influence, but that is the one that I (and quite a few others) were immediately reminded of in Annihilation. The idea of artifacts left by..."

I'm glad I was not the only one who thought of that. I haven't read the book yet; I've only seen Tarkovsky's excellent movie Stalker which is based on it, but the alien presence, the idea of a wild zone with hidden dangers, set apart from the normal human world, all made me think of that. That said, I totally believe that VanderMeer could have come up with a similar concept on his own, and Annihilation is very different in its set of characters and the focus on biology and the environment, among other things.

Arriving late to the party, but a couple things from the first two chapters, which I just finished:
- I really appreciated the faster pacing, since I just came from reading Possession, a good book but very meandering
- Still unusual, I think to have four main female characters, especially from a male author
- Perhaps related to the preceding point, it's interesting to see how the relations of power and knowledge develop among the characters
- I was initially skeptical about hypnotism as a plot device, but it seems to work here, and it increases the weirdness of the whole story so far.

Difficult to have Hugo on a 20th-century list... :P

Ooh, this one looks good too, though it's perhaps no accident that 49 of them are French? :)

A challenge would be great, if you have the time. I gave up on the 1001 books because I didn't want to enter them in, but this is more manageable. I've only read 14 myself so far.

This is great; I'm adding the ones I'm read to my shelf. People who like these kinds of lists might check out Robert Teeter's Great Books Lists, especially the indices at the end.

I've never read Stephen King either, but I might check out The Shining or The Dark Tower sometime, because I don't want to feel too snobby.

Some of the longest books on my "read" list: War and Peace (amazing), Les Misérables (great), Shōgun (not bad), and some fantasy by Martin, Sanderson, and Jordan (ranging from pretty good to tiresome). Those who liked The Pillars of the Earth might also enjoy Sarum: The Novel of England , parts of which have a similar setting. It covers a period of 10,000 years, so I suppose the thousand pages are warranted.

(moved from the wrong section!)

Just finished the book a few days ago. I felt the frame story was a bit rushed at the end—I would have perhaps liked to see the reunion with Ludmila :) —but in a way, that makes the frame storyline of the readers as open-ended as the rest.

Oops, I think I meant to post that in the ending thread. I'll delete it and move it there. The video, however, doesn't have many spoilers.

Yes, Calvino does seem to want the reader to just enjoy the book; there was also something in the video about meeting the reader "on the page." I think the discussions here are far from the factionalized ones he describes, though!

If anyone hasn't yet seen the Bookmark video, I recommend it. It includes an interview of Calvino, his English translator, and a reenactment of some of the early scenes. I sympathized with Calvino's avowed difficulty of expressing himself in speech (though he seems fairly eloquent here). I especially appreciated this line: "Our civilization has plenty of records of everyday life: the movies, the television, the papers... I think literature should give something more—a fantastic interpretation of reality."

Good point. If you want a comprehensive history of the region, this is not the right book. It does come up a few times, but Ascherson himself acknowledges that "Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania get less attention than they deserve" (10).

A challenging book I'm currently reading is Naomi Mitchison's novel The Corn King and the Spring Queen, set in ancient Scythia, Greece, and Egypt. It has a rich historical setting, and well-developed themes of barbarism and civilization, magic and philosophy, but I've been struggling to identify with the characters.

I heard about this in Neal Ascherson's Black Sea, which, in contrast, I can recommend wholeheartedly. It's one of my favorite non-fiction books.

Linda wrote: "or have to use books, I know, I know, the whole "common core" issue"

To be fair, the Common Core doesn't actually seem to mandate particular books. All I can find is a few general requirements: "Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist," and "Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature." That may, however, be enough to make some teachers feel obliged to overload their students with complex classics. And then there are other standards they have to follow.

I have mixed feelings too. I enjoyed starting Shakespeare early (maybe a bit too early, when in third grade my friends and I tried to perform Macbeth in the playground!), but I'm glad I waited until college to read Moby Dick. A large portion of my "to reread" shelf here consists of high school books, since I think I've forgotten about half of them and didn't fully understand the other half at the time.

Traveller wrote: "I did finally get through Benji's bit, but then I had to move on to other reading. Been meaning to get back to it ever since..."

I gave up several times before finally finishing it a few years ago, and by the end, I found it very compelling. I think the key for me was not to get too caught up with understanding Benjy's stream of consciousness. A lot of it becomes clear after you read the other chapters, which are much more coherent.