Deep Underground Book Club
I don’t want there to be any pressure or homework or anything like that, so I’m not going to regiment the reading. Let’s start reading now, go at your own pace, share your thoughts in this thread, and if you all think it’s a good idea I might even start a poetry thread based on the book (i.e. poems from the perspective of the murderer/victim).
The_Silly_Sibyl said:I don’t want there to be any pressure or homework or anything like that, so I’m not going to regiment the reading. Let’s start reading now, go at your own pace, share your thoughts in this thread, and if you all think it’s a good idea I might even start a poetry thread based on the book (i.e. poems from the perspective of the murderer/victim).
ay alright sounds good 👍🏻 i guess my reasoning was that being me i would either finish the book in 2 days and ruin it for everyone or forget about it for a month 😂 a poetry thread could be reall y good
ay alright sounds good 👍🏻 i guess my reasoning was that being me i would either finish the book in 2 days and ruin it for everyone or forget about it for a month 😂 a poetry thread could be reall y good
anna_grin said:
ay alright sounds good 👍🏻 i guess my reasoning was that being me i would either finish the book in 2 days and ruin it for everyone or forget about it for a month 😂 a poetry thread could be reall y good
I hadn’t thought about spoilers. Maybe discuss it chapter by chapter and put spoiler warnings where you feel they’re appropriate?
ay alright sounds good 👍🏻 i guess my reasoning was that being me i would either finish the book in 2 days and ruin it for everyone or forget about it for a month 😂 a poetry thread could be reall y good
I hadn’t thought about spoilers. Maybe discuss it chapter by chapter and put spoiler warnings where you feel they’re appropriate?
Umm said:"I have never really got used to being on earth. Sometimes I think our presence here is due to a cosmic blunder, that we were meant for another planet altogether, with other arrangements, and other laws, and other, grimmer skies. I try to imagine it, our true place, off on the far side of the galaxy, whirling and whirling. And the ones who were meant for here, are they out there, baffled and homesick, like us? No, they would have become extinct long ago. How could they survive, these gentle earthlings, in a world that was made to contain us?"
- John Banville, The Book of Evidence
That quote reminds me of this one from Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles:
"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
"Yes."
"All like ours?"
"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound--a few blighted."
"Which do we live on--a splendid one or a blighted one?"
"A blighted one."
- John Banville, The Book of Evidence
That quote reminds me of this one from Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles:
"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
"Yes."
"All like ours?"
"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound--a few blighted."
"Which do we live on--a splendid one or a blighted one?"
"A blighted one."
I’ll be beginning my copy today I’ll be starting it today and I’m planning to journal my thoughts here, nothing too a level English just my impressions, so there will be spoilers
.... though i think i might be the only one in the group who’s not already read it
.... though i think i might be the only one in the group who’s not already read it
anna_grin said:I’ll be starting it today and I’m planning to journal my thoughts here, nothing too a level English just my impressions, so there will be spoilers
.... though i think i might be the only one in the group who’s not already read it
I haven't read it either, though I've been meaning to for years. I've read one of the author’s other books, a continuation Philip Marlowe detective novel called The Black-Eyed Blonde.
.... though i think i might be the only one in the group who’s not already read it
I haven't read it either, though I've been meaning to for years. I've read one of the author’s other books, a continuation Philip Marlowe detective novel called The Black-Eyed Blonde.
chapter one
our narrator is an asshole. arrogant with an affected self-effacure and a conscious lack of empathy he pretends to slowly discover rather than admit to even himself he has known himself well all along. what surprises me is how like an ordinary man he sounds. this is no American psycho. he is measuredly in control of his... condition. the condition of being a murderer. i fully expect the appeals to “your honour” to fade as he drops the act that he is doing anything other than masturbating to the sound of his own voice
our narrator is an asshole. arrogant with an affected self-effacure and a conscious lack of empathy he pretends to slowly discover rather than admit to even himself he has known himself well all along. what surprises me is how like an ordinary man he sounds. this is no American psycho. he is measuredly in control of his... condition. the condition of being a murderer. i fully expect the appeals to “your honour” to fade as he drops the act that he is doing anything other than masturbating to the sound of his own voice
I agree with you, anna_grin. I’ve now read the opening and what strikes me is the narcissism in the narrative voice, as well as the dark humour and cynicism of the general narration. I was surprised by what a visceral and powerful portrait of prison life you get. The depressing quality sunlight has when it reaches the prison yard, the smells and the schoolboy-like nattering about parcels. I was amused by the use of the term “catamite”, an old Greek word for young male lover of an older man, in reference to the idea that he should start sleeping with another inmate (or prison wife, in modern parlance). Yet although there’s humour it’s also deeply upsetting, like when he describes hopeless addicts with vacant eyes.
Regarding his depiction of his wife, Daphne, I found it interesting that he says he finds their lovemaking most exciting when she appears to be at her most vulnerable and “lost”. Hints of a predatory nature?
Favourite line thus far:
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Don't make me laugh.”
Regarding his depiction of his wife, Daphne, I found it interesting that he says he finds their lovemaking most exciting when she appears to be at her most vulnerable and “lost”. Hints of a predatory nature?
Favourite line thus far:
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Don't make me laugh.”
i think i missed that part about catamite, though it’s heavily implied i didn’t know the meaning or origin of the word. he thinks he’s got a wry humour and he does a bit but his narcissism makes it barbed with a lack of genuine credibility.
