great review man. i read it a while back and took away a lot of the same things. like the whole vibe of suburban life being bleak. and how the group of boys romanticized the suicides. the movie is one of my favs. i also did the audio book of kurzweil. pretty awesome stuff. learned about his synths in college. i am (at the very least) interested to see what 2029 looks like
Very good book, I gotta say! I'm tempted to either leave another comment with my thoughts or toss up a video response soon. Either one works for you, right?
I studied this at uni. I really loved the book and it is nice to look at it analytically. When I say I loved it I mean I loved the language and they way it unfolded as a creative work, the story of course upon completion left me with a profound emptiness. I believe it is not based on a true story. I agree with your setting. Your world of teenage boys predating video games theory is brilliant and one I hadn't heard before. The Lisbon girls were not real girls, no from the boy's perspective.
@genericfirstname I hadn't considered the teenage thing either until reading this book. It makes me wonder what life was like even further back. In say...the 1500's where they had so few distractions, how did the common man fill his time? I also wonder if that's a trend over human history, that as we expand culture and have more and more distractions, we have become less and less preoccupied with sex. Since when did I find anthropology so interesting?
@thepeteris It is times like these when the character limit on comments annoys me most. I like reading Jane Austen because I love her use of language (the voice in my head starts talking like her books even when I'm not reading them) and I enjoy women orientated literature. As she writes of the period in which she lives it give a very good impression of what it would have been like to be a woman in the early 1800s. I understand of course tracing back my family tree I would have been a commoner.
@genericfirstname Not at all a lady of leisure as the books portray. I believe my family were carpenters in London around that period so at least we were people with a trade and not in servitude. Obviously it shows a class that is very comfortable living off the suffering of others, which for women involves a lot of sitting around and waiting to be asked out. Considering I find the notion of waiting around the telephone most boring I could not imagine enjoying such a life.
@genericfirstname (part three) A lot of women romanticise living as a lady of leisure in the 1800s and Austen has a lovely way of expressing just how monotonous it is and that even the loveliest of women can end up married to abhorrent husbands. Of course as you say sitting around waiting for men is fundamentally just preparing for sex. Really period books just teach me that as I am right now, I would be miserable without modern technology.
@davidleduc85 Thanks, I've done that a couple times now, I dig it. Sort of like a visual version of where in text it would be a footnote or as you said, in parentheses.
i'll have to come back tomorrow, or the next day, or some other time this week. i don't even know what page i'm on! ugghh. i feel like a failure for not finishing on time. Even though i know this is just something you decided to do and i followed along, i'm still kinda sad.
@NessaR12 Take your time, the video will be here whenever you're ready. I'm glad to have encouraged reading at all. Small details such as time are not of importance.
I read the book a few years ago and I really liked it. Whether it was because I was a depressed teenager living in a small town and could see myself in the characters, or perhaps the interpretation that the narrators gave of them. I think that the fact that certain things are never really explained make the novel interesting. Suicide as a whole is always never truly understood-it is that which I think lingers with the narrators.
If I read every book in the club this year, do I win a prize?
And I agree, I think it would have been a really lame cop out to have an explanation in the end. I think he was trying to show that suicide is not something from which you can receive a clean and easy answer from.
I felt gross reading this. So many things made me cringe. I know the boys didn't know first hand what went on in the house, but their description of it, however skewed, was just... What terrible parenting. And terribly creepy boys. And the girls. I don't even know what to make of them. It didn't give me high hopes for humanity. I think that was part of the point. Every character was so hopeless, and knowing what would happen from the beginning gave me no hope for them...
@ThePeterIs The reader watches this well-to-do community decay. There was so much slipping. Even the EMA workers... at first, they had this sense of urgency and importance. But by the final visit, they just sort of... schlepped to the house. It was really weird to go from reading I'm Okay, You're Okay to reading this. I kept thinking about if only the characters would find their adult and be okay.Or like, the book you're reading, if they'd just control the left side of their frontal lobe...
I said I don't know what to make of the girls. I think this is intentional. We're only seeing them from the perspective of the boys. The boys understanding of news stories, neighbors, Dr. Hornicker about the girls are mixed in. The Lisbon sisters are wraiths pinned to the mist. (hurrrr I made an oM reference. I win best comment now. Cause... that... makes sense.) I was going to elaborate more, but no. Wraiths pinned to the mist gets it...
You are literally a cross between John Green and Ashton Kutcher.
librarylover321 1 week ago
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great review man. i read it a while back and took away a lot of the same things. like the whole vibe of suburban life being bleak. and how the group of boys romanticized the suicides. the movie is one of my favs. i also did the audio book of kurzweil. pretty awesome stuff. learned about his synths in college. i am (at the very least) interested to see what 2029 looks like
vichkovski 5 months ago
Comment removed
vichkovski 5 months ago
wow next time I need help writing an essay on a book, Im going to ask you.
nickjonasnumbe1lover 8 months ago
Very good book, I gotta say! I'm tempted to either leave another comment with my thoughts or toss up a video response soon. Either one works for you, right?
- Jason
crimsong19 9 months ago
@crimsong19 Sure, whatever is easiest for you.
thepeteris 9 months ago
Mmm. Preferred Middlesex.
Liliwa14 1 year ago
I studied this at uni. I really loved the book and it is nice to look at it analytically. When I say I loved it I mean I loved the language and they way it unfolded as a creative work, the story of course upon completion left me with a profound emptiness. I believe it is not based on a true story. I agree with your setting. Your world of teenage boys predating video games theory is brilliant and one I hadn't heard before. The Lisbon girls were not real girls, no from the boy's perspective.
genericfirstname 1 year ago
@genericfirstname I hadn't considered the teenage thing either until reading this book. It makes me wonder what life was like even further back. In say...the 1500's where they had so few distractions, how did the common man fill his time? I also wonder if that's a trend over human history, that as we expand culture and have more and more distractions, we have become less and less preoccupied with sex. Since when did I find anthropology so interesting?
thepeteris 1 year ago
@thepeteris It is times like these when the character limit on comments annoys me most. I like reading Jane Austen because I love her use of language (the voice in my head starts talking like her books even when I'm not reading them) and I enjoy women orientated literature. As she writes of the period in which she lives it give a very good impression of what it would have been like to be a woman in the early 1800s. I understand of course tracing back my family tree I would have been a commoner.
genericfirstname 1 year ago
@genericfirstname Not at all a lady of leisure as the books portray. I believe my family were carpenters in London around that period so at least we were people with a trade and not in servitude. Obviously it shows a class that is very comfortable living off the suffering of others, which for women involves a lot of sitting around and waiting to be asked out. Considering I find the notion of waiting around the telephone most boring I could not imagine enjoying such a life.
genericfirstname 1 year ago
@genericfirstname (part three) A lot of women romanticise living as a lady of leisure in the 1800s and Austen has a lovely way of expressing just how monotonous it is and that even the loveliest of women can end up married to abhorrent husbands. Of course as you say sitting around waiting for men is fundamentally just preparing for sex. Really period books just teach me that as I am right now, I would be miserable without modern technology.
genericfirstname 1 year ago
@thepeteris however that they had fewer distractions other things took longer
tobiosnmakky 1 year ago
I like how the grey was like you (in parentheses).
Nice touch.
davidleduc85 1 year ago
@davidleduc85 Thanks, I've done that a couple times now, I dig it. Sort of like a visual version of where in text it would be a footnote or as you said, in parentheses.
thepeteris 1 year ago
aaaghhh!!1. i'm not done yet!
i'll have to come back tomorrow, or the next day, or some other time this week. i don't even know what page i'm on! ugghh. i feel like a failure for not finishing on time. Even though i know this is just something you decided to do and i followed along, i'm still kinda sad.
NessaR12 1 year ago
@NessaR12 Take your time, the video will be here whenever you're ready. I'm glad to have encouraged reading at all. Small details such as time are not of importance.
thepeteris 1 year ago
I read the book a few years ago and I really liked it. Whether it was because I was a depressed teenager living in a small town and could see myself in the characters, or perhaps the interpretation that the narrators gave of them. I think that the fact that certain things are never really explained make the novel interesting. Suicide as a whole is always never truly understood-it is that which I think lingers with the narrators.
If I read every book in the club this year, do I win a prize?
mymarblesandme 1 year ago
@mymarblesandme The prize of...KNOWLEDGE.
And I agree, I think it would have been a really lame cop out to have an explanation in the end. I think he was trying to show that suicide is not something from which you can receive a clean and easy answer from.
thepeteris 1 year ago
Aaah, good luck with The Kurzweil book. He's a fucking genius. If you don't know his ideas already, prepare to be blown apart.
SpeakMouthWords 1 year ago
I felt gross reading this. So many things made me cringe. I know the boys didn't know first hand what went on in the house, but their description of it, however skewed, was just... What terrible parenting. And terribly creepy boys. And the girls. I don't even know what to make of them. It didn't give me high hopes for humanity. I think that was part of the point. Every character was so hopeless, and knowing what would happen from the beginning gave me no hope for them...
MigdalaVered 1 year ago
@ThePeterIs The reader watches this well-to-do community decay. There was so much slipping. Even the EMA workers... at first, they had this sense of urgency and importance. But by the final visit, they just sort of... schlepped to the house. It was really weird to go from reading I'm Okay, You're Okay to reading this. I kept thinking about if only the characters would find their adult and be okay.Or like, the book you're reading, if they'd just control the left side of their frontal lobe...
MigdalaVered 1 year ago
I said I don't know what to make of the girls. I think this is intentional. We're only seeing them from the perspective of the boys. The boys understanding of news stories, neighbors, Dr. Hornicker about the girls are mixed in. The Lisbon sisters are wraiths pinned to the mist. (hurrrr I made an oM reference. I win best comment now. Cause... that... makes sense.) I was going to elaborate more, but no. Wraiths pinned to the mist gets it...
MigdalaVered 1 year ago
@MigdalaVered Yep.
thepeteris 1 year ago
I stopped at page 112 - it got boring. I'm going to read The Hunger Games instead.
taylahboone 1 year ago
dude I really hope you enjoy this book, its great imo
RussTheBusker 1 year ago
I forgot to read it D:
TopHatKitty 1 year ago