[TTLG Book Club] Discuss December's book Motherless Brooklyn

Stitch on 9/10/2006 at 20:58

12/01/06 update:

(http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1532031#post1532031) Discussion has started!

11/10/06 update:

Candidates are no longer being accepted for January. (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110078) You can vote if you wish.

You should be reading Motherless Brooklyn right now. This thread will be bumped for discussion of the book on December 1st.

11/2/06 update:

Voting has closed, with Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem winning by a comfortable margin. You should be reading this book now so you can discuss it on December 1st.

The floor is now open for candidates for January's book of the month.

Original 10/9/06 post text:

Runnin a little late here d00dz

Below are the eight candidates for December's TTLG Book Club selection. Please vote for the book you would like to read for discussion in December. The poll is public and will be closed in a week.

(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375724834/sr=8-4/qid=1153423485/ref=pd_bbs_4/103-0986735-4367055?redirect=true&ie=UTF8) Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

The short and shady life of Frank Minna ends in murder, shocking the four young men employed by his dysfunctional Brooklyn detective agency/limo service. The "Minna Men" have centered their lives around Frank, ever since he selected them as errand boys from the orphaned teen population at St. Vincent's Home. Most grateful is narrator Lionel. While not exactly well treatedAhis nickname is "Freakshow"ATourette's-afflicted Lionel has found security as a Minna Man and is shattered by Frank's death. Lionel determines to become a genuine sleuth and find the killer. The ensuing plot twists are marked by clever wordplay, fast-paced dialog, and nonstop irony. The novel pays amusing homage to, and plays with the conventions of, classic hard-boiled detective tales and movies while standing on its own as a convincing whole. The author has applied his trademark genre-bending style to fine effect. Already well known among critics for his literary gifts, Lethem should gain a wider readership with this appealing book's debut.

Resubmitted by Stitch

(http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Sheep-Chase-Vintage-International/dp/037571894X/sr=1-1/qid=1160424113/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3488886-9297648?ie=UTF8&s=books) A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Immensely popular in Japan, the author's first novel to be published here is a comic combination of disparate styles: a mock-hardboiled mystery, a metaphysical speculation and an ironic first-person account of an impossible quest. The narrator is a modern Japanese yuppie: divorced, in a mildly exciting relationship and a much less exciting job as an ad copywriter, he lives unexceptionally until a photograph throws his life into chaos. The snapshot, which he uses to illustrate a newsletter, shows a field of sheep with one unique crossbreed, and the picture is special enough to have attracted the attention of both the nomadic friend who sent it to him and a right-wing Mr. Big who, moribund, wants the source found before he dies. The Boss's henchman, a sleek, scary majordomo, gives the narrator one month to track it down, and the story that ensues is a postmodern detective novel in which dreams, hallucinations and a wild imagination are more important than actual clues. With the help of a fluid, slangy translation, Murakami emerges as a wholly original talent.

Submitted by Tungsten

(http://www.amazon.com/Damnation-Game-Clive-Barker/dp/0425188930/sr=1-1/qid=1160424224/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3488886-9297648?ie=UTF8&s=books) The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

I have seen the future of the horror genre, and his name is Clive Barker," Stephen King has written. Fortunately, this first novel (Barker has published short story collections) more than bears the weight of King's praise. Barker is a better writer than King, and his characters are just as interesting. Set in modern Britain, the story thrusts a flawed "innocent"parolee Marty Straussinto an epic conflict between wealthy Joseph Whitehead and Mamoulian the Cardplayer, a centuries-old creature with whom Whitehead had struck a bargain to obtain his wealth and power. Whitehead reneges, and the resulting struggle is played out primarily on his fortress-like estate. Barker's excellent writing makes the graphic, grotesque imagery endemic to current horror fiction very effective. Highly recommended anywhere horror fiction is popular.

Submitted by Gorgonseye

(http://www.amazon.com/Jealousy-Jupiter-Books-Alain-Robbe-Grillet/dp/0714503118/sr=1-2/qid=1160424302/ref=sr_1_2/002-3488886-9297648?ie=UTF8&s=books) Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet

"In Jealousy, Robbe-Grillet's most famous and perhaps his most typical novel, he explores his principal preoccupation, the meaning of reality. The novel is set on a tropical banana plantation and the action is seen through the eyes of a narrator who never appears in person, never speaks and never acts. He is a point of observation, his personality only to be guessed at, watching every movement of the other two characters' actions and events as they flash like moving pictures across the distorting screen of a jealous mind."

Submitted by Paz

(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385720955/sr=1-1/qid=1154990625/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0986735-4367055?ie=UTF8&s=books) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Atwood does not mess around in her riveting new tale: by the end of the first sentence, we know that the narrator's sister is dead, and after just 18 pages we learn that the narrator's husband died on a boat, that her daughter died in a fall, and that her dead husband's sister raised her granddaughter. Dying octogenarian Iris Chasen's narration of the past carefully unravels a haunting story of tragedy, corruption, and cruel manipulation. Iris and her younger sister, Laura, are born into the privileged Canadian world of Port Ticonderoga in the early part of the 20th century. At 18, Iris is the marital pawn in a business deal between her financially desperate father and the ruthless, much-older industrialist Richard Griffen. When the father dies, the rebellious Laura is forced to move into Richard's controlling household, accelerating the tangled mess of relentless tragedy. At this point, Atwood brilliantly overlays a second story, an sf novel-within-a-novel, credited to Laura Chasen, that features nameless lovers trysting in squalor. Some readers may figure out Atwood's wrap-up before book's end. Worry not, nothing will dampen the pleasure of getting there. Highly recommended.

Resubmitted by Scots Taffer.

(http://www.amazon.com/Kite-Runner-Khaled-Hosseini/dp/1594480001/sr=8-1/qid=1160424435/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3488886-9297648?ie=UTF8&s=books) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.

Submitted by do0m

(http://www.amazon.com/Hyperion-Dan-Simmons/dp/0553283685/sr=1-1/qid=1160424490/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3488886-9297648?ie=UTF8&s=books) Hyperion by Dan Simmons

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

Submitted by Tonamel

(http://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Music-Novel-Tim-Winton/dp/0743228480/sr=1-1/qid=1160424578/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3488886-9297648?ie=UTF8&s=books) Dirt Music by Tim Winton

The stunning new narrative by Australian writer Winton (The Riders, nominated for the Booker), a tale of three characters' perilous journey into the Australian wilderness in efforts to escape and atone for their pasts, may just be his breakthrough American publication. At 40, Georgie Jutland, former nurse, inveterate risk-taker, incipient alcoholic and lifelong rebel against her prominent family, has moved in with widowed lobster fisherman Jim Buckridge, "the uncrowned prince" of the western seaside community of White Point. Although Georgie devotes herself to Jim's two young sons, their relationship is uneasy and somehow empty. When she's drawn to shamateur (fish poacher) Luther Fox, who breaks the law to keep his mind from tragic memories, the lives of all three begin to unravel. Lu, the lone survivor of a disreputable family of musicians who specialized in dirt music (country blues), is a memorable character, vulnerable and appealing despite his many flaws. When the White Point community resorts to violence against him, he heads into the tropic wilderness of Australia's northern coast, and the plot begins to challenge CBS's Survivor. With masterly economy and control, Winton unfurls a story of secrets, regrets and new beginnings. His prose, sprinkled with regional vernacular, combines cool dispassion and lyric concision. Geography and landscape are palpable elements: as the narrative progresses, the atmosphere shifts from the austere monotony of a seacoast battered by wind into spectacular gorge country, the bare desolation of the desert and the terrible heat of the tropics. But it's each character's inner landscape that Winton authoritatively traverses with his unerring map of the heart.

Submitted by Ercles

Now vote!

Scots Taffer on 10/10/2006 at 01:39

By the by, Motherless Brooklyn is being adapted by the author and Edward Norton into a motion picture that Norton will also direct.

Jonesy on 10/10/2006 at 02:17

I didn't resubmit my book in the effort to make this not a four way tie for second place again. :o

Gorgonseye on 10/10/2006 at 03:02

Argh come on people, The Damnation Game is good I swear!

Aerothorn on 10/10/2006 at 03:27

I'm really tempted to vote for Hyperion since it's sitting on my bookshelf, but knowing that A. It's not going to win after Ender's Game's victory, and B. If another classic Sci-Fi novel wins people will go ballistic, I voted for The Blind Assassin.

Which, as I understand it, is actually science fiction, but bookstores always put it in the normal 'fiction' section under the rule of "If critics like it and it's read by non-sci-fi fans, it's not science fiction". Go figure.

Edit: Oh shit, I was thinking of The Handmaiden's Tale. I SHOULD have voted for Hyperion. Can't take any more family drama >_<

Stitch on 10/10/2006 at 03:40

Rest easy, my little nerd, for The Blind Assassin contains some sci fi, as a huge part of the book features a guy making up a pulp sci fi serial to entertain his lover. Thankfully, the book also happens to be utterly brilliant. I'd love to reread it.

And The Handmaid's Tale is most definitely not sci fi, at least no more so than, say, 1984.

hopper on 10/10/2006 at 09:52

Voted "Jealousy" because its purported subject, the meaning of reality, attracts me. We already did hard-boiled noir, so although I'm usually all for it, I guess it's time to diversify a bit. Also, I've never heard of this author before, and the main reason for me to participate here is to get to learn about new, interesting stuff.

tungsten on 10/10/2006 at 18:18

Where did you rip that critic of the Sheep Chase? It's probably not far off, but it is definitely not like i remember the book. But then that's a reason why I want to read it again. Really weird and entertaining story, I felt like a kid again, when someone tells you some amazing fairy tale...

Aerothorn on 10/10/2006 at 18:25

Quote Posted by Stitch

Which would make it sci-fi, wouldn't it? I mean 1984's constant array of new terms and gadgets, and it's big "what if" scenario makes it the very definition of sci-fi.

Paz on 10/10/2006 at 19:18

I'd say it's more of a political dystopia, really.

Which probably fits under the broad church of science-fiction, but only if it's being a REALLY GREEDY CHURCH.

Actually, I think Nineteen Eighty-Four is officially part of the special Great Literature™ genre anyway.