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Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Welcome earthlings to the Awful Book of the Month!
In this thread, we choose one work of literature absolute crap and read/discuss it over a month. If you have any suggestions of books, choose something that will be appreciated by many people, and has many avenues of discussion. We'd also appreciate if it were a work of literature complete drivel that is easily located from a local library or book shop, as opposed to ordering something second hand off the internet and missing out on a week's worth of reading. Better yet, books available on e-readers.

Resources:

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org

- A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best.

SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/

- A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.

:siren: For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. :siren:

Past Books of the Month
2011:
January: John Keats, Endymion
Febuary/March: Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote
April: Laurell K. Hamilton, Obsidian Butterfly
May: Richard A. Knaak - Diablo #1: Legacy of Blood
June: Pamela Britton - On The Move
July: Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
August: Louis L'Amour - Bendigo Shafter
September: Ian Fleming - Moonraker
October: Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes
November: John Ringo - Ghost
December: James Branch Cabell - Jurgen


2012:
January: G.K. Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday
Febuary: M. Somerset Maugham - Of Human Bondage
March: Joseph Heller - Catch-22
April: Zack Parsons - Liminal States
May: Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood
June: James Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
July: William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch
August: William Faulkner - The Sound & The Fury
September/October: Leo Tolstoy - War & Peace
November: David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
December: Kurt Vonnegut - Mother Night

2013
January: Walter M. Miller - A Canticle for Liebowitz
Febuary: Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
March: Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains Of The Day
April: Don Delillo - White Noise
May: Anton LeVey - The Satanic Bible
June/July: Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
August: Michael Swanwick - Stations of the Tide
September: John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids
October: Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
November: Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory
December: Roderick Thorp - Nothing Lasts Forever

2014:
January: Ursula K. LeGuin - The Left Hand of Darkness
February: Mikhail Bulgalov - Master & Margarita
March: Richard P. Feynman -- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
April: James Joyce -- Dubliners
May: Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- 100 Years of Solitude
June: Howard Zinn -- A People's History of the United States
July: Mary Renault -- The Last of the Wine
August: Barbara Tuchtman -- The Guns of August
September: Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice
October: Roger Zelazny -- A Night in the Lonesome October
November: John Gardner -- Grendel
December: Christopher Moore -- The Stupidest Angel

2015:
January: Italo Calvino -- Invisible Cities
February: Karl Ove Knausgaard -- My Struggle: Book 1.
March: Knut Hamsun -- Hunger
April: Liu Cixin -- 三体 ( The Three-Body Problem)

Current:
John Steinbeck -- Cannery Row

This one is a personal favorite of mine.

quote:



“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.”


quote:

Cannery Row is a novel by American author John Steinbeck, published in 1945. It is set during the Great Depression in Monterey, California, on a street lined with sardine canneries that is known as Cannery Row. The story revolves around the people living there: Lee Chong, the local grocer; Doc, a marine biologist based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts; and Mack, the leader of a group of bums.

quote:


“Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and turn it into wisdom. His mind had no horizon - and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, 'I really must do something nice for Doc.”




About the Author

quote:

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Red Pony (1937). The Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939), widely attributed to be part of the American literary canon,[2] is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece. In the first 75 years since it was published, it sold 14 million copies.[3]

The winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been called "a giant of American letters".[4] His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature.

. . .

During this period of the Great Depression, Steinbeck bought a small boat, and later claimed that he was able to live on the fish and crab that he gathered from the sea, as well as fresh vegetables from his garden and local farms. When that didn't work, Steinbeck and his wife were not above getting welfare, or rarely even stealing bacon from the local produce market.[10] Whatever food they had, they would share with their friends.[10] Carol became the model for Mary Talbot in Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row.[10]

In 1930, Steinbeck met Ed Ricketts, who became a close friend and mentor to Steinbeck during the following decade teaching him a great deal about philosophy and biology.[10] Ricketts, usually very quiet, yet likable, with an inner self-sufficiency and an encyclopedic knowledge of diverse subjects, became a focus of Steinbeck's attention. Ricketts had taken a college class from Warder C. Allee, a biologist and ecological theorist, who would go on to write a classic early textbook on ecology. Ricketts became a proponent of ecological thinking, in which man was only one part of a great chain of being, caught in a web of life too large for him to control or understand.[10] Meanwhile, Ricketts operated a biological lab on the coast of Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, fish, rays, starfish, turtles, and other marine forms to schools and colleges.

Between the years 1930 to 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends. Steinbeck's wife began working at the lab as secretary-bookkeeper.[10] Steinbeck himself began helping out on an informal basis.[10] They formed a common bond based on their love of music and art, and John learned biology and Ricketts' ecological philosophy.[10] When Steinbeck had emotional upsets, Ricketts would sometimes play music for him.[10]


. . . .

In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to give himself time off from his writing[18] and to collect biological specimens, which Ricketts sold for a living. Their joint book about a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never found an audience and did not sell well.[18] However, in 1951, Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of the book as The Log from the Sea of Cortez, under his name only (though Ricketts had written some of it). This work remains in print today.[19]

Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the trip, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and ended a year later, in 1941, even as Steinbeck worked on the manuscript for the book.[10] In 1942, after his divorce from Carol he married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger.[20] With his second wife Steinbeck had two sons—Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck (born 1944) and John Steinbeck IV (1946–1991).

Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the character of "Doc" in Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954), "Friend Ed" in Burning Bright, and characters in In Dubious Battle (1936) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Ecological themes recur in Steinbeck's novels of the period.[21]

Steinbeck's close relations with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved away from Pacific Grove and divorced his wife Carol.[18] Ricketts' biographer Eric Enno Tamm notes that, except for East of Eden (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts' untimely death in 1948.[21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck

Discussion, Questions & Themes:

A few more sample quotes:

quote:


“And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country.
Because he loved true things, he tried to explain. He said he was nervous and besides he wanted to see the country, smell the ground and look at grass and birds and trees, to savor the country, and there was no other way to do it save on foot. And people didn't like him for telling the truth. They scowled, or shook and tapped their heads, they laughed as though they knew it was a lie and they appreciated a liar. And some, afraid for their daughters or pigs, told him to move on, to get going, just not to stop near their place if he knew what was good for him.
And so he stopped telling the truth. He said he was doing it on a bet - that he stood to win a hundred dollars. Everyone liked him then and believed him.”


quote:


“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”




Pacing

No pacing or spoiler rules this month. Just read!

References and Further Reading

This book has an almost equally beautiful sequel, Sweet Thursday. Feel free to spill over into discussion of that book also if you want. Steinbeck seemed to view at as an attempt to fix the "problems" (thematic? stylistic?) in Cannery Row.

The verses quoted near the end of the novel are an extract from Black Marigolds, an extremely free translation of the Caurapańcāśikā by E. Powys Mathers (that's the same Mathers as in the Mardrus and Mathers translation of the 1001 Nights).

Final Note:

If you have any suggestions to change, improve or assess the book club generally, please PM or email me -- i.e., keep it out of this thread -- at least until into the last five days of the month, just so we don't derail discussion of the current book with meta-discussion. I do want to hear new ideas though, seriously, so please do actually PM or email me or whatever, or if you can't do either of those things, just hold that thought till the last five days of the month before posting it in this thread. Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book!

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:36 on May 3, 2015

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Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Oh wow on a re-read this book definitely has Man Opinions about Women, how had I missed that before

corker2k
Feb 22, 2013

Yup... You work night and day to provide a boiler for your woman to live in and she will still be nagging you about curtains for the non-existent windows!

That aside though, I love the imagery and the characters are all lovable!

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

corker2k posted:

Yup... You work night and day to provide a boiler for your woman to live in and she will still be nagging you about curtains for the non-existent windows!

That aside though, I love the imagery and the characters are all lovable!

Yeah, that's really the charm of this book. Steinbeck's writing is beautiful and all the characters are adorable. There is no malice here.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP
I got a very Catch-22 vibe when I read this for the first time a few years ago, except as you said there wasn't the sort of malice/cynicism that was present in Catch-22.

I own Sweet Thursday but I've never gotten around to reading it.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

computer parts posted:

I got a very Catch-22 vibe when I read this for the first time a few years ago, except as you said there wasn't the sort of malice/cynicism that was present in Catch-22.

I own Sweet Thursday but I've never gotten around to reading it.

Interesting comparison, how so?

Sweet Thursday is worth the read if you liked this one. On an overt level it lacks the bittersweet tang this one has, but if read in context with the fact that Ricketts had passed away by the time Steinbeck wrote Thursday, it's in some ways even more poignant.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Nominations for next month?

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



It's been a while since we did a Pynchon. How about Mason & Dixon?

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Toph Bei Fong posted:

It's been a while since we did a Pynchon. How about Mason & Dixon?

It's possible but frankly I'm worried that Pynchon would be asking too much of the forum.

Burning Rain
Jul 17, 2006

What's happening?!?!
Maybe do it as a two-month thing, seeing as it's summer and the participation might drop off a bit anyway?

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



Doing it as a two monther might be best, if we did decide to, as it's pretty long. It only took me about a page and a half to get used to his faux 18th century style and get into the jokes, but I can see that holding a lot of folks back.

It's a fun one, not quite as far out as Gravity's Rainbow or V. in terms of sheer craziness, but with plenty of Pynchonian meat to enjoy. It manages to be both a philosophical treatise about the division between the old and modern world, but also a cracking bedtime story told to two rambunctious kids and their family to pass the time on a winter's night. There are also plenty of resources online to help illustrate his various allusions and references.

http://hbpub.vo.llnwd.net/o16/readersguides/9780312423209RG.pdf - a reading guide prepared by Picador shortly after the publication of the book

http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page - the M&D wiki, with full spoiler free chapter annotations, a complete concordance of the book, and plenty of pictures

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_episodes_in_Mason_%26_Dixon - a shockingly complete (if dry) set of chapter summaries

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
The problem is that if it's just too high a hurdle -- and without a lot of people posting interest, I'm worried it would be -- then we've locked the book club into a dead zone for two months.

What about something a little more accessible? Maybe Graham Greene? I've wanted to read The Quiet American for a long time.

Maybe In Cold Blood?

Don Quixote?

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



A very sensible and understandable position. I wouldn't want to wreck anyone else's fun.

Those are all excellent choices. Don Quixote would be a hoot for a two monther, and I love me some Graham Greene.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Hrm. Maybe Hunter S. Thompson? Either of the Fear and Loathing books?

Maybe King Leopold's Ghost?

I'm just sorta going down my own personal to-read list right now.

Walh Hara
May 11, 2012
I failed my last attempt to read Don Quixote but the other suggestions sound good. Maybe a quick poll if you find it difficult to decide? (I'd probably vote for In Cold Blood)

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
Yeah, I think i'm gonna go with In Cold Blood for next month. I'll get a thread up in a day or two.

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Crashbee
May 15, 2007

Stupid people are great at winning arguments, because they're too stupid to realize they've lost.
I was going to nominate The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, just finished it and I think it'd provoke some interesting discussion.

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