What have you read from this list?

I really enjoy lists of "100 books you should read".  I've added a page to our blog called Manliness, with an August Checklist of 100 books from the Art of Manliness blog.  Head over and check off what you have already read!  You can see the responses of those who precede you after you complete the survey.

My plan is to take the August Checklist page off the blog around 1 September or whenever everyone has had an opportunity to respond.

Discussion of Gone Girl

I feel I have procrastinated this post way beyond reasonable, so here goes:  If folks feel I missed important details here, please remind me I'll update the post for posterity!

We met July 10th to discuss Gone Girl.

In attendance were:

Dave & Mary
Darryl & Barbara
Jack & Shelia
Susanna
Catherine
Jeremy
Amy
Gayla

Our poem was selected by Barbara, who found two editions in translation of the same poem, with quite different tones.

At this point, I don't remember who finished Gone Girl and who didn't, but I think seven of us finished this one.

This was the easiest read so far for our club, and several folks expressed they were happy to have an easy read.  The three men who finished rather disliked the book, the women enjoyed it more. I think the female members liked having a strong female character to read, and probably didn't mind reading the somewhat bumbling and clueless man.  I said it before, but I personally rather identified with Nick in some respects, and other men indicated similar sentiments.  No women admitted to identifying with Amy, though at least one expressed appreciation for Amy's execution of her revenge plan.

We discussed at some length the relationship between Nick and Amy, and we spent a bit of time talking about what a "good relationship" is.  Some of us shared how much we identified (or didn't) with various characters in the book.  One of us tried lifting an idea from the book that seems romantic on first evaluation, and reported his experience trying to implement it ran very similarly to how it went in the book.

We ran through the list of questions picked up from LitLovers, but nothing new really came out of the questions.

Our club is at a strange point, where we are not well defined in terms of the purpose of the club, and there is a certain tension when selecting what to read next.  The vote approach shortened the discussion around what to read next, but I'm personally not really clear whether that is good or bad.  From votes, we have selected C S Lewis' "Til We Have Faces" for the next read.

We had already selected Guns Germs and Steel, and for various reasons the next meeting is fairly far away from the Gone Girl meeting (about 7 weeks).  That meeting will be August 28th (still 2 weeks remaining as I write this, a month late).

I've been bad

Well, things have been very busy for me, and I've once again been remiss in my duties toward the club.

I owe a post on the Gone Girl meeting, I will try to get that out tonight.

Other than that, I've updated most sections of the blog with the current and next selection where appropriate, and I've culled some entries off the candidates list that did not get votes last time.  The list is down to 10 choices, which may be perfectly appropriate, but if I can get Gone Girl off my list, I will see what I can add. I have several ideas of my own, and inputs from others (on the Dave's Notes page) that need to be genned up and added to the list.

I'll shoot an email out when I have the Gone Girl meeting post up.

Also, I owe a post on Guns Germs and Steel.  Folks are having a rough time with this choice, but I'll talk about that later.

Shelia says...

I have finished the book and loved it. I am almost too afraid to admit it but I like Amy, sure she is a psycho path but she is so organized, well thought out and disciplined, however; on that note I don't know why the author choose to have her have her money all in one place, why her first choice was to seek Desi instead of plot out a way to get her money back.  At first I liked Nick, the affair---- I understand the freedom and the excitement of an affair, I also understand oh too well the betrayal of an affair (book really makes me wish I had read it before I divorced my ex ;-)  In the end not so sure if I liked Nick or not its still up in the air. See ya on the 10th...

Gone Girl, Week 4

Ok, I've finished the book.

Warning! Spoilers!

Here's my main thought: I find myself identifying with the Nick character, in ways that make me uncomfortable.

Let me explain. 

Nick is revealed to not be overly concerned about the consequences of his actions.  I feel I am like that.  Frankly, like Nick, I never worry much about outcomes, I'm much more concerned about inputs, about doing what is "right" then letting the chips fall where they may.  Nick is described that way as well: he sees himself in the stereotypical role of "the provider".  He ascribes many of his own emotional troubles in Missouri to his inability to provide for Amy in the manner to which she had become accustomed, including the society available in New York, as compared to Missouri.

 Nick is "nice to everyone", in part due to the doing what is "right" thing, but in part because internally, his self-image is somewhat in doubt in his own mind.  I definitely feel that way myself, I worry about whether I have met the expectations of others, that kind of thing.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm doing what I think is "right" irrespective of the opinions of others, I just wonder how others see me, and whether my notion of "right" is close enough to what others think right is, that I can pass for "right enough anyway". 

Much like Nick, I am quite flawed in ways that (I hope) are not obvious to the casual observer.  When there is no clear "right or wrong", convenience becomes important to me, and I will likely half-ass something or not do it at all if there don't appear to be significant consequences.  My close friends have seen me drunk and angry, and listened while I raged of things neither they nor I had the slightest control over, and they probably had little interest, except for my well being. Hopefully they too were drunk and have forgotten some of that :-)  But, Nick's videos manipulating Amy to return to him, are representative of things I have done, putting spin on what I say or do, to influence others in ways that I believe are to my advantage.

I understand Nick's affair, both the opportunistic elements of it, and the emotional freedom from expectations that he felt burdened by when he was with Amy.

Amy on the other hand, should be institutionalized immediately.  No redeeming qualities to Amy at all.

One giant plot hole here, is that anyone who is as sociopathic as Amy, is really unlikely to be able to operate in society. 

Among my other criticisms:  Amy did not apparently punish her parents, yet she is very hostile about their expectations she will be "Amazing".  Amy did not punish the two folks at the cabins she hid out at who stole her money.  While she was able to orchestrate this multi-faceted frame-up of Nick, where was her backup planning and all that when they were taking her money belt from her? At least split the money into two hiding locations!  Why was it all with her, especially since she had become paranoid about them?  It seems to me she should have had a plausible amount in the money belt for them to steal, say a few hundred bucks, but the rest should have been in a hole in the ground somewhere.

I was rather enjoying the book until Nick figured out Amy was alive.  After that, I no longer enjoyed the book.


I did like this line, where Nick is describing Amy during their honeymoon:

"She'd made a grim figure on the Fiji beach during our two-week honeymoon, battling her way through a million mystical pages of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, casting pissy glances at me as I devoured thriller after thriller." Nick is describing to the police how Amy did not abandon a project (the ironing), with this being one example. 

Note that I seriously considered adding Chronicle to the candidates list a while back, when I was looking for a Japanese author... In fact I think I will do so.  623 pages, available on Kindle.

I liked this line as well, Amy narrating, describing what it is to be cool girl:

"I didn't worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber.  But also happy."

That is really interesting... the idea that not worrying and being happy leads to shallowness and stupidity?  I wonder if there is, in fact, some relationship there...

Anyway, looking forward to the 10th!

Alice Says...

I have completed our book. Thanks for the easier, interesting read.

Very interesting. Crazy people!

Susanna Says...

I finished the book last night. It was captivating and infuriating. Definitely worth reading to the end. It was an enjoyable read, not to tough. The author did a great job at toying with the readers emotion. When she wanted me to like a character I did, if she wanted me to not like a character I did, no questions asked. I absolutely hated (yes, I'm willing to use that strong of language) the characters at times, my blood boiled. Every character (besides perhaps Go) is at one time or another loved and despised