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Tree Goat
May 24, 2009

argania spinosa
In keeping with the theme, I think next month should be either Camus' The Plague or alternatively Kadare's The Fall of the Stone City.

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Bilirubin
Feb 16, 2014

The sanctioned action is to CHUG


Tree Goat posted:

In keeping with the theme, I think next month should be either Camus' The Plague or alternatively Kadare's The Fall of the Stone City.

Or Bend Sinister by Nabokov

Burning Rain
Jul 17, 2006

What's happening?!?!
or Babyfucker by Urs Allemann

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

How soon before the start of the month do you typically choose a book? It would be cool to put in a hold at the library.

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 ideal schedule is suggestions day 20, poll 25th, new book on 1st. The typical schedule adds about three to five days of delay to that.

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
Speaking of last day for suggestions for next month

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Taking another break from old white dudes might be good. Maybe something from Mo Yan, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kobo Abe, Chimamanda Adichie?

Or we support Roxane Gay's protest of Milo's book deal by reading one of hers?

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

Guy A. Person posted:

Taking another break from old white dudes might be good. Maybe something from Mo Yan, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kobo Abe, Chimamanda Adichie?

Or we support Roxane Gay's protest of Milo's book deal by reading one of hers?

Good idea but I have never read any of those people so give me a title and a "why" sentence.

fridge corn
Apr 2, 2003

NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN :black101:
Secret Rendezvous is the best Kobo Abe so it should be that imo

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Good idea but I have never read any of those people so give me a title and a "why" sentence.

Ok! I will do that this afternoon!

Burning Rain
Jul 17, 2006

What's happening?!?!
I'd be up for reading something new from Mo Yan. Maybe Republic of Wine or Big Breasts, Wide Hips? Two of his books that I read (Garlic Ballads and Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh) were quite a wild ride into the everyday craziness of China souped up with a bit of surrealism that made it all sound like something off back pages of myths.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


I have no suggestions for next month, but I just finished Mother Night and had a blast. I'd never read any Vonnegut -- I've had Cat's Cradle and Timequake on my shelves for years, but never got around to them. This was a blast, though; I couldn't put it down and went through it in about a day.

For reasons I can't entirely put my finger on, it reminds me a bit of Lem.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Here's my list of recs, hopefully one or two look good:

Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe - Abe is Japanese author of surrealist novels. His most famous novel is probably The Woman in the Dunes about a school teacher who gets trapped in a bizarre village composed of homes dug out of the ground that need to be constantly cleared of sand. Anyway it's real good. Secret Rendezvous seems to be about a woman who is picked up by an ambulance and her husband can't track her down. I haven't read it but fridge corn says it is his best work and I haven't read it so that is the suggestion!

The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o - A Kenyan author whose name has frequently been tossed around as a probable Nobel candidate. I haven't read any of his stuff yet but I've seen his name recommended in a few of the threads here. I chose this book because it is one of his earlier ones but if anyone has a better recommendation I am open to it.

Republic of Wine by Mo Yan - Mo Yan is a Chinese author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. This one I have read and it is my favorite of his. Follows a few narrative threads including a detective story and fictional letters to Mo Yan by a fellow author and fan, but is largely about corruption and bureaucracy using food and drink a metaphors for greed and excess. I highly recommend it, it is a little heftier at 350 pages but is a page turner IMO so it shouldn't be hard to get through.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Adichie is a Nigerian author you may recognize from this rad BBC interview from before the election:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eloHoAvArCo

Anyway, she has several books, Purple Hibiscus is one I haven't read but was nominated for the Booker and Orange Prizes the year it was published.

--

I was also going to recommend one by Roxane Gay in light of her publisher protest but hers are mostly essay/story collections and a recent memoir and I wasn't sure if that was a good rec for book of the month. She does have one novel An Untamed State and it is good but also a rough read, I don't think I can read it again so soon.

apophenium
Apr 14, 2009
Not necessarily a recommendation for next month, but Mother Night inspired me to finally read Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt and it's good so far.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Guy A. Person posted:

Here's my list of recs, hopefully one or two look good:

Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe - Abe is Japanese author of surrealist novels. His most famous novel is probably The Woman in the Dunes about a school teacher who gets trapped in a bizarre village composed of homes dug out of the ground that need to be constantly cleared of sand. Anyway it's real good. Secret Rendezvous seems to be about a woman who is picked up by an ambulance and her husband can't track her down. I haven't read it but fridge corn says it is his best work and I haven't read it so that is the suggestion!

The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o - A Kenyan author whose name has frequently been tossed around as a probable Nobel candidate. I haven't read any of his stuff yet but I've seen his name recommended in a few of the threads here. I chose this book because it is one of his earlier ones but if anyone has a better recommendation I am open to it.

Republic of Wine by Mo Yan - Mo Yan is a Chinese author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. This one I have read and it is my favorite of his. Follows a few narrative threads including a detective story and fictional letters to Mo Yan by a fellow author and fan, but is largely about corruption and bureaucracy using food and drink a metaphors for greed and excess. I highly recommend it, it is a little heftier at 350 pages but is a page turner IMO so it shouldn't be hard to get through.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Adichie is a Nigerian author you may recognize from this rad BBC interview from before the election:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eloHoAvArCo

Anyway, she has several books, Purple Hibiscus is one I haven't read but was nominated for the Booker and Orange Prizes the year it was published.

--

I was also going to recommend one by Roxane Gay in light of her publisher protest but hers are mostly essay/story collections and a recent memoir and I wasn't sure if that was a good rec for book of the month. She does have one novel An Untamed State and it is good but also a rough read, I don't think I can read it again so soon.

These all sound awesome.

For Roxane Gay, there's Bad Feminist, which are essays/stories, and pretty relevant with the Women's March, her publishers, and it's super common in libraries and stores, and affordable. Also, it's not all doom and gloom, it's supposed to have it's humor too.

Burning Rain
Jul 17, 2006

What's happening?!?!
I'm sure Chimamanda Adichie has some good novels, but i didn't really enjoy Purple Hibiscus. It's clearly an early work by an author still looking for her style and choosing to stay in the middle of the road instead of doing anything daring, while also keeping one eye on movie rights.

But an African author might be a good pick. Has there been any in previous BotM?

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Burning Rain posted:

I'm sure Chimamanda Adichie has some good novels, but i didn't really enjoy Purple Hibiscus. It's clearly an early work by an author still looking for her style and choosing to stay in the middle of the road instead of doing anything daring, while also keeping one eye on movie rights.

But an African author might be a good pick. Has there been any in previous BotM?


I've heard good things about Americanah,. It was almost chosen by my book club a few months back.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer
I am going to be patriotic and suggest The Fall of the King, by Nobel Laureate Danish author Johannes V. Jensen. Widely considered the greatest Danish novel of the 20th century, it has only recently been translated into English. Looking at the list of previous BOTM, I notice a distinct lack of Danish authors. This situation must be rectified.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Burning Rain posted:

I'm sure Chimamanda Adichie has some good novels, but i didn't really enjoy Purple Hibiscus. It's clearly an early work by an author still looking for her style and choosing to stay in the middle of the road instead of doing anything daring, while also keeping one eye on movie rights.

Franchescanado posted:

I've heard good things about Americanah,. It was almost chosen by my book club a few months back.

TBH I selfishly chose Purple Hibiscus because it was one of the 2 of hers I haven't read. Americanah is more recent and very good.

Enfys
Feb 17, 2013

The ocean is calling and I must go

I really liked Purple Hibiscus. She's a great author. Half of a Yellow Sun is highly regarded and has also been on my shelf for two years, so that's my selfish recommendation.

thatdarnedbob
Jan 1, 2006
why must this exist?
So I guess it looks like we're done discussing the book for this month, but I want to post in the thread anyway to knock off that part of the book lord challenge. This wasn't the first Vonnegut I've read; God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian recently and Slaughterhouse Five last decade. I should reread S5 to get the cameo appearance I saw someone mention. Mother Night has a lot to say about our modern era and to me specifically, not just the obvious "we're living in a burgeoning fascist society" sense either. So much of what people do is posing, trolling, putting up a front, etc., that our fundamental failure to behave as we know we desire to be manifests constantly. Since reading this I've definitely thought a lot about how much my inner monologue represents me versus my actions in the world. I somewhat wish that the book didn't conclude with as much finality as it did.

CestMoi
Sep 16, 2011

Burning Rain posted:

or Babyfucker by Urs Allemann

I've been hearing great things about this from all sorts of people

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer
There's so much more to talk about this book and no one is talking.

No one has brought up anything about Free Will in this novel, or lack thereof.

Is Howard ever in control of his fate?

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
Good question. I think I'd argue that he has control at the inflection points where the American spy controller guy shows up, and he makes his decisions. And he has control at the end. But even there -- at the beginning he doesn't really understand what his decision entails, and at the end, he's very likely to have been executed anyway.

One big theme in other Vonnegut books is that human beings are basically robots, with little or perhaps even no autonomy:

quote:

As for the suspicion I express in this book, that human beings are robots, are machines: It should be noted that people, mostly men, suffering from the last stages of syphilis, from locomotor ataxia, were common spectacles in downtown Indianapolis and in circus crowds when I was a boy.
Those people were infested with carnivorous little corkscrews which could be seen only with a microscope. The victims’ vertebrae were welded together after the corkscrews got through with the meat between. The syphilitics seemed tremendously dignified—erect, eyes straight ahead.
I saw one stand on a curb at the corner of Meridian and Washington streets one time, underneath an overhanging clock which my father designed. The intersection was known locally as “The Crossroads of America.”
This syphilitic man was thinking hard there, at the Crossroads of America, about how to get his legs to step off the curb and carry him across Washington Street. He shuddered gently, as though he had a small motor which was idling inside. Here was his problem: his brains, where the instructions to his legs originated, were being eaten alive by corkscrews. The wires which had to carry the instructions weren’t insulated anymore, or were eaten clear through. Switches along the way were welded open or shut.
This man looked like an old, old man, although he might have been only thirty years old. He thought and thought. And then he kicked two times like a chorus girl.
He certainly looked like a machine to me when I was a boy.

from the intro to Breakfast of Champions

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Good question. I think I'd argue that he has control at the inflection points where the American spy controller guy shows up, and he makes his decisions. And he has control at the end. But even there -- at the beginning he doesn't really understand what his decision entails, and at the end, he's very likely to have been executed anyway.

One big theme in other Vonnegut books is that human beings are basically robots, with little or perhaps even no autonomy:

The irony with his conversations with Frank is that he always chooses what he thinks is the path of least resistance, whichever will allow him the most neutral life, which almost always seems like the wrong decision and further complicates his life.

Even his romance is out of his control:

Howard loves and misses his wife > Kraft enlists help of white supremacists > White supremacists seemingly conjure his wife in a miracle > Reunited, Howard is conflicted because the lovely memories of his wife have been replaced by his actual aged wife > They make love > Wife is revealed to be fake, and actually is her younger sister Resi > Howard agrees to love Resi because she loves him > Resi is revealed to be a spy sent to capture Howard > Resi admits to being a spy, but chooses to love Howard instead > Howard does not return this love, is not able to make a sacrifice to show love > Resi, heartbroken by Howard's inaction, commits suicide in an act of true defiance in the name of love, completing her arc of being a broken child incapable of love or action that grew into a woman capable of both

Through all of this, Howard is propelled by others.

Things Howard actually accomplishes in the novel (for himself):
*He carves a chess board, which results in him cutting his hand;
*He takes a stand against the drunk Nazi hunter who has embellished Howard into his sworn enemy, breaking his arm (arguably he's pushed into this by the adversary and doesn't do this for himself, but for the drunk);
*He commits suicide

Ben Nevis
Jan 20, 2011

Franchescanado posted:

Things Howard actually accomplishes in the novel (for himself):
*He carves a chess board, which results in him cutting his hand;
*He takes a stand against the drunk Nazi hunter who has embellished Howard into his sworn enemy, breaking his arm (arguably he's pushed into this by the adversary and doesn't do this for himself, but for the drunk);
*He commits suicide


He also turns himself in but I think that could fairly be lumped into the third on your list. His "path of least resistance" MO really winds up causing a great deal of harm, both personally and in the world at large.

fridge corn
Apr 2, 2003

NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN :black101:
I mean I guess he could have turned himself in at any time except he didn't know if he was guilty of anything

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Ben Nevis posted:

He also turns himself in but I think that could fairly be lumped into the third on your list. His "path of least resistance" MO really winds up causing a great deal of harm, both personally and in the world at large.

This is an important point, because he doesn't necessarily turn himself in. He admits his crimes to a Jewish person in hopes that they will turn him in, and then they don't. They don't even care, because they are also in denial about the pain caused by Nazis, and want only to exist in the present, which is good enough for them. It is the Jewish Doctor's mother that wants to punish Howard, for no other reason than thinking it is karmic retribution, a (misguided) sense of divine judgement, to punish someone for something. She can't even do it herself, so they bring in three others who don't even fit into the story, and they turn him in. Howard has to have complete strangers decide his fate for himself.

Lunchmeat Larry
Nov 3, 2012

CestMoi posted:

I've been hearing great things about this from all sorts of people

I thought it was a joke recommendation but it sounds like Samuel Beckett writing from the perspective of niggerstomper58 so I'm actually intrigued

CestMoi
Sep 16, 2011

Lunchmeat Larry posted:

I thought it was a joke recommendation but it sounds like Samuel Beckett writing from the perspective of niggerstomper58 so I'm actually intrigued

My sole failure as a poster is that people think I am joking when I recommend Babyfucker by Urs Allemann.

CestMoi
Sep 16, 2011

I recommend it because a) it's called Babyfucker but mostly b) I think there was a botm a while back where people said they couldn't appreciate the prose because the subject matter was weird or something? Babyfucker is the absolute apotheosis of good words that make you feel revolted. I think it would be interesting to see people's reactions and I legit think it could change some people's minds about reading books they think are icky

Burning Rain
Jul 17, 2006

What's happening?!?!
but is it roguelike?

OscarDiggs
Jun 1, 2011

Those sure are words on pages which are given in a sequential order!
Conversation seems to be dying down a little bit but I did want to ask, are other Kurt Vonnegut books as absurdist/hilarious as this? When someone compared it to Catch 22 in the literature thread they were spot on. At the moment I'm only about half way through but it's so engaging it won't last much longer.

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

OscarDiggs posted:

Conversation seems to be dying down a little bit but I did want to ask, are other Kurt Vonnegut books as absurdist/hilarious as this? When someone compared it to Catch 22 in the literature thread they were spot on. At the moment I'm only about half way through but it's so engaging it won't last much longer.

Yeah, most Vonnegut novels are very similar to each other. In some he incorporates a a lot of SF elements, and some start to verge on a dark slapstick. Overall his narrative voice is pretty consistent novel to novel though, to the point I have a hard time remembering which book is which.

Overall if anything he's playing it relatively "straight" in this one. No aliens, no apocalypse, no porn stars, etc.

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Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

OscarDiggs posted:

Conversation seems to be dying down a little bit but I did want to ask, are other Kurt Vonnegut books as absurdist/hilarious as this? When someone compared it to Catch 22 in the literature thread they were spot on. At the moment I'm only about half way through but it's so engaging it won't last much longer.

Yes. Vonnegut's pretty much all about the one-two punch of Melancholy to Humor, finding hope in life's absurdity, making a better world by being a better person and trying not to go crazy.

Mother Night is now the best example of this, but it's definitely prevalent in The Sirens of Titan (predestination isn't always a good thing); Cat's Cradle (misadventures with dooms-day devices and false religions); Slaughterhouse-5 (Mankind's scars from WW2); Breakfast of Champions (the fine line of art and reality; America's not great). Player Piano is good, but it's definitely a first work and isn't as succinct (it deals with the ennui of a severely structured society; you are an engineer, a construction worker, or in the army, and the rest is operated by machines).

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