OT:First BE Bookclub Discussion Thread - Last Days
- About two weeks ago, a few of us in the Junk Drawer decided to start the first unofficial Blazersedge bookclub. The first book that was read by the bookclub was Last Days by Brian Evenson. If you read any further in this thread, this book will have been SPOILED for you. You have been warned. But anybody who reads the book is welcome to contribute to the conversation. If you like the idea of taking part in the bookclub's next book discussion, it will be “Norwegian Wood” by Haruki Murakami. More information to follow. Each person who reads the book should feel free to post what you felt about reading this and what the experience was like for you. If you want to dig deeper, go ahead. I've made a few simple questions that could be used to get people started. If other people have points and questions, just bring them up. Then we can discuss with one another to understand each of our points and see what kind of conversation happens. And please try and keep it civil (the person I'm referring to knows I'm talking to them).
- Evenson clearly minimizes the details he provides in this book. Nil information outside the scope of the story is included and information that might have been included in the story was even left out. The characters are flat, and the scenes are void of details. The Introduction describes some of the dialog as "knockabout minimalist ping-pong". Even the disturbing imagery of mutilations and amputations are told in a straight-to-the-point manner with almost nothing embellished. How would you characterize the effect that this minimization of detail had on your experience reading Last Days?
- The story beings with Kline as a man less than himself and not even interested in leaving his bed most of the time. But he was hopeful enough to think that things were bound to improve. is thrust through an increasing impossible series of feats on the way through his eventual masscre of both "cults". During this ending, he wonders at first if he can possibly come out of this still human. At the end, he's just running and wondering 'What Next?' Is there any point at which Evenson gives you a thought or a detail about Kline to make you identify with this transformation he experiences? Is there any way to relate to Kline as a character or his experiences to your life? Explain how your answer affected the way your understood the point of the book.
- One of the repeated images we are greeted by is that of a locked door and needing to be allowed entrance into (and often out of) places. Not only do we see this in both of the "cult strongholds" but Kline even has to deal with this at his own home when returning without his keys. There were even other less literal and yet less subtle ways in which access to more required a specific process for admittance (i.e., access to the knowledge Kline). The rigidness of ritual in the order highlights this, but Evenson makes a deliberate choice to continue to put human barriers between each next step that Kline will do. Discuss how effective this theme was in drawing you towards what you believe Evenson's aim was in writing it.
- Did you imply any reason from Evenson as to why Kline couldn't keep from "embellishing" himself further into the "investigation". Despite always being clearly interested in ending it, he continually re-engages and finds himself needing to dig further. How did this read to you? Did it feel like merely part of the necessity of moving plot or did you take something else from trying to understand why Kline behaved the way he did throughout this story?
almost 2 years ago
idoltime
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ok, i’m not gonna be here long so don’t worry about me getting uncivil.
first your questions:
How would you characterize the effect that this minimization of detail had on your experience reading Last Days?
i agree with your point but am not sure that this was on purpose. this is because i’m not sure what Evenson’s point in this book even was. was it satire? was it pro or con for organized religion? is there not being any obvious point the point? and if so, is that even ok? for me, it’s not. and this is my biggest issue with this book. it doesn’t do anything. he doesn’t make any comment on anything. it’s basically a slasher/potboiler.
Next, i’ll just use one question cause I don’t really agree with the start of this section of your discussion, which i’ll get in to.
Is there any point at which Evenson gives you a thought or a detail about Kline to make you identify with this transformation he experiences?
I have an issue with the following part of this section of discussion and i think it needs to be addressed before anything else can be answered, for me.
But he was hopeful enough to think that things were bound to improve
is there any textual evidence for this? i didn’t see any. my main problem with Kline is that he just floated along. he reacted and did what people told him. i found him boring and static. perhaps this was something of Evenson’s point, i don’t know because, like i said before, i don’t know what he’s trying to say in this book. As such, I don’t see any way to identify with Kline or how Evenson even leads us to make such an identification. If the book had said something or made some sort of comment or been clearly a satire or something, anything, identifying with the protagonist in some way would have been much more possible.
as for the last couple questions, i can’t give an answer because, again, i don’t know what Evenson was trying to say. i’d say the locked doors and human barriers were less a theme than a simple plot device in order to give Kline some sort of conflict or obstacle to overcome.
and, for the last question,
Did you imply any reason from Evenson as to why Kline couldn’t keep from “embellishing” himself further into the “investigation”?
i think Kline was only involved because people kept dragging him in to it. I saw no motivation for him at any time to continue to do what he did except people were forcing him too. This “forcing” could have been used to great effect if some comment would have been made about a person being “forced” in to a belief system and whether or not actual faith can be derived from such an occurrence. This idea was not, however, addressed in any way within the text. Which leads me to some final thoughts.
I think Evenson hit on some good ideas early in the book. First, on page 54:
We’re not Catholics," said Ramse between mouthfuls. “Or Mormons. Besides, we’re concentrating on his absence, not his presence, on what he’s severed rather than what remains.”
this idea of focusing on the absence is interesting and in a book seemingly having something to do with organized religion (though i still don’t know what), fruitful ground for exploring the depths of faith and the merits of focusing on things which are not there.
Secondly, on page 59:
“Mr. Kline, surely you’re enough of an armchair philosopher to realize that everything is a reconstruction of something else?”
again, another interesting idea that, in the context of organized religion, would be fruitful ground for exploring how religion is simply a way to reconstruct the world in order to understand it better and whether or not this has merit or is beneficial for people to do.
Much to my disappointment, however, Evenson doesn’t expound on these ideas at all. Now, I realize some might argue that the supposed minimalist writing style Evenson uses is designed purely to draw our attention to these very questions without exploring them at all. Personally, i don’t think that’s legitimate. a writer should explore his themes after leading the audience in to them. not just make a mention and the ignore it. I felt there was no further explanation or exploration of these ideas in the book; it just because a procedural followed by a slasher.
This book had a really good opportunity to be a meditation on faith, identity, and what it means to be “called” by God or some higher power. But Evenson seemed content to simply let his protagonist be dragged along until he, for whatever reason, agrees to kill a bunch of people and then……nothing. that’s the end of the book.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
that would have been uncivil
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:02 PM PDT up reply actions
But he was hopeful enough to think that things were bound to improveis there any textual evidence for this? i didn’t see any
Things will get better, he told his stump. Someday we’ll leave the house. Things are bound to improve. </blockquote – p.27>
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
ok. thanks.
so…..they didn’t, obviously. does this mean Evenson is saying hope is useless? this seems like another abandoned idea.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:08 PM PDT up reply actions
I think it's entirely followed through as Klines ends the book very eager to find what's next.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
and there isn’t anything next. the book ends. what does Evenson want us to think about that? i think with a deeper exploration of what it means to go through life on faith earlier in the book, that final question would have resonated more. as it was, i found i didn’t care what was next cause Kline didn’t have anyone to make him do something else. he still didn’t find an identity. but would we want him to?
i thought what Evenson should have done is have Kline really embrace his role as a savior. really dive in to the cult full bore and explore what that sort of faith looks like.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:17 PM PDT up reply actions
Why would I possibly care about what happened next?
The story was so disconnected that I didn’t even feeling from the supposed slasher/potboiler aspect of it. It wasn’t that in the slightest to me. I couldn’t even bring up care about the mutilations and killing. It didn’t even connect at a level of fear. It wasn’t supposed to either.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
i agree. i don’t care either. but the author would want us to care right? he was unsuccessful, obviously.
now, on the last part where you say, “it wasn’t supposed to either” why is that? it’s supposed to make us feel something right? even if that something is nothingness or emptiness or hopelessness? but we don’t even feel that. what were we supposed to feel? i don’t think “nothing” is an acceptable answer for a book either.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:25 PM PDT up reply actions
I think its Evenson’s very intention, at least to a degree, to make you not care about some unspeakable acts, and then he hopes you’ll be introspective about that. Whether or not he succeeds is another question.
Never mind that. Jake already said it.
I think Evenson succeeds PERFECTLY at how we are supposed to feel about his story.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
how does he want us to feel? and why?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:34 PM PDT up reply actions
he wants you to feel strange and perhaps a little guilty about not caring about people being brutally killed.
I can get behind this theory
but with the amount of gratuitous violence in evening television and modern film I feel that we are already pretty desensitized to violence. If he set out to write a novel with the express intention of “making people feel weird for not caring about murder” than he was about fifty years too late.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
yes. exactly.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:40 PM PDT up reply actions
I think that’s a fair criticism.
I’m not nominating Evenson for a Nobel Prize in Literature or anything, but I didn’t feel like I wasted my time reading it the way you guys appear to.
I wouldn't say I wasted my time on it
because through it we were able to have this discussion, and as I said down at the bottom, I like literary discussion even if it’s on something I didn’t like reading. I will say, however, that if I was reading this for anything besides the book club (unless it was a lit class) I would have stopped reading it after the first 100 pages or so. I almost did anyways,but decided it was pretty quick and I may as well plow through it.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
i didn’t feel like i wasted my time at all. i enjoyed sitting through the 2.5 hours or so even if i didn’t think the book was all that great. it was fun reading about something i wouldn’t read about
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I’ll rephrase: I didn’t feel like the book was a pile of junk the way you guys did. I’m generally a non-fiction guy, so this isn’t really my cup of team, but rating this book against other fiction, I give it about a 5.5 out of 10.
I felt like it was a waste of time as far as reading to get something out of the book itself goes.
I don’t feel that it’s a waste of time discussing it with others who have read it.
I really enjoyed the experience.
And felt that he entirely accomplished what he set out.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
and what did he accomplish?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
Dragging me and his story through a ridiculous plot.
And making me feel like I was dragged through each empty phase and taking any possibility of enjoying the story out of it every step of the way.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
and what do you think his point in doing that was?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:01 AM PDT up reply actions
I think his point was to invoke these feelings.
That’s as far as I go with trying to interpret him in this. He doesn’t give us enough information to interpret his intention, so why would I even try?
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
hahaha
now i think we’re arriving at the same point from extremely different, roundabout paths.
i’m trying because this is a book club and we’re here to discuss a book. if it wasn’t for that, i would have forgotten about this book the second i stopped reading it. hahaha
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:27 AM PDT up reply actions
That's just not a part of bookclubs I've been in the past were about.
Since we’ve never had the author come to a bookclub. The intention of the author outside of how we experience the book is always obfuscated and, in this book, it’s entirely excised.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
there are modes of criticism that completely discount the author when addressing a work. i do not agree with those modes of criticism. i think the author is entirely culpable and responsible for what happens in the book.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:34 AM PDT up reply actions
I agree with your last point.
But find it irrelevant to how I critique books. I am looking for meaning and experience, not culpability and responsibility, to critique.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
well i’m looking for meaning and experience too. but i feel the author is largely responsible for that.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions
For me.
I can put blame or responsibility to the author but I’m not going to start with that. I’m going to start with the experience and not worrying about the author or his intention. I’ve read a lot of bad writing and it doesn’t make me feel like this story at all. I’ve read a lot of good writing and it doesn’t make me feel like this story at all.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
ok.
but then, again, why all the religious/cultish stuff? they weren’t killing people. just maiming them. he only spends the last 10 or 15 pages on the slaughter. is all the stuff before that supposed to de-sensitize us?
it’s just amputation. he wasn’t nearly graphic enough with the amputation to desensitize us. i mean, they were taking medication to dull pain and had actual doctors and stuff.
he didn’t numb us at all to the later killing. except, perhaps, that by the time we got to that part of the book we didn’t care at all about the protagonist or what was gonna happen. but i doubt that’s the sort of numbness he was going for.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:40 PM PDT up reply actions
but he could have done a wayyyyyyy better job at that…
it went straight to being absurd pretty quickly for me
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
yeah. if that was his point all he had to do was make the amputations super bloody. like, actually have a scene where a guy gets his penis severed. that’s how you desensitize someone. and then go in to more detail when Kline is killing everyone. not just shooting people and lighting fires. get dirty with it if you’re trying to get people to become numb to the violence.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:52 PM PDT up reply actions
every time Kline punched a guard, it felt so easy…i was thinking, “well, that dude is on one leg…how hard is it to knock him over then stab him in the back of the neck?” hahahaha
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
right. it would have been awesome if Evenson went the whole way and was like, “yep, Kline is the second coming of Christ here to pwn fools and redeem humanity by cutting their limbs off.” then you’re digging in to something for real.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:55 PM PDT up reply actions
I need someone of convince me that Evenson himself knows what he wants to get at.
All I felt was repulsion and annoyance in reading this book. If that’s his goal, then well done. But I don’t know, that seems pretty stupid. I know it’s supposed to be some horror book, but it’s ridiculous to give Evenson a free pass and say, “it’s a horror story, readers were repulsed, you wrote a good one.”
yeah to me if you get absolutely zero out of a book it has failed on a very basic level. A book should exist for something other than just to be text printed on paper. And that’s how I felt about this book… But perhaps, somewhere out there, somebody was moved by it, and if even one person somewhere was then I suppose it is validated in its existence.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
No I don't think he wanted us to care a
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
he doesn’t want us to care?
i have a hard time believing this. i can’t think of any reason a writer would put effort (likely a lot of effort) into a piece of work only to want people to not care about it. if he doesn’t want us to care, what is the point of that?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:35 PM PDT up reply actions
He doesn't want us to care about about the story for it's own sake.
His message is achieved in the feeling he’s creating not in caring about the story or the characters.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
the issue i have with that is that you have to engage the reader at a level where they care enough about the story to continue reading it to really immerse yourself in understanding which feeling he’s trying to achieve….at least for me it was
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I think you have a point.
But I don’t agree that a writer has to do this, per se. And I am sure that Evenson isn’t doing it.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
but what feeling is he creating?
or are you saying the feeling he’s attempting to create is that the reader shouldn’t care about what they’re reading? this can’t really be what you’re saying can it?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
If I was to guess his mind which I don't know.
I think that producing a feeling of not caring about the story or the character is how he wants the book to engage people. I think the story and characters are not the point of this book.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
so what is the point of the book? same question i asked above.
if it’s to “not feel or care” we can do that without reading anything right?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:02 AM PDT up reply actions
yep, although i do like idol’s questions, he might be giving Evenson too much credit here…which shouldn’t look pass too much other than a sloppy attempt by the author
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I just think you fail to miss the point.
And my questions assume nothing about his writing.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
miss the point of your question or the point of the book?
hahaha, i’m pretty sure i miss more than my share of both.
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
No no. haha
Of my question. I have no idea of the point of the book. Do I look like Mrs. Evenson?
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
your entire first question is about his writing style!
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
But I don't give him any credit.
I purposefully phrased the first questions so that it reflects the facts. The facts are is that this story has no details. I just asked about how this impacted the experience of reading the story. And you’ve all answered it too. But I don’t see how my question really assumes or gives him any kind of credit. I may be giving him some credit beyond all of you, but I don’t think my questions give him any credit. They are simple critical thinking questions.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
so you give him no credit for the style the book was written with? this doesn’t make sense to me.
having written, i can understand how a story can take on a life of it’s own and become something the author didn’t intend, but where it concerns style…i mean…someone’s got to write the words and decide how to write them, right?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:03 AM PDT up reply actions
I'll rephrase what I meant, cos this was not it.
He certainly owns whatever style he writes in. So in that sense, he gets credit for it. But I’m not giving him credit for meaning anything with that style. Especially not in the question I asked. I’m merely reflecting on characteristics of this writing and asking people how the lack of detail affected their experience. There’s simply no credit being assigned by this question.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
Where is everyone?
Good questions idol. I’ll think about my answers to them, but I’ll start by noting that one of the main themes that the introduction and some of the stuff I read online touched on is how it becomes easier and easier for Kline to kill people as the book goes on and yet he still “pretends to be human” as he’s told by Borchert… and the experience is much the same for the reader— once we justify the first few killings, we get numb to them (and this is made easier by the deadpanned, no detail writing), but the reader tends to still sympathize with Kline and justify what he does, at least to a degree. The reader’s experience is intended to mirror Kline’s in this way.
so, in this scenario, what is Evenson’s point?
does religion numb people to killing?
do cults numb people to killing?
what’s he trying to say.
i, for one, did not sympathize with Kline.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:01 PM PDT up reply actions
is this a serious question?
it doesn’t have to be obvious, but he has to say something doesn’t he? otherwise, what’s the point?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:09 PM PDT up reply actions
sorry, Jake, i shouldn’t have had that “is this a serious question” part in there.
i apologize.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:09 PM PDT up reply actions
Absolutely its a serious question, and you feel the same way I do— you should have something to say, but it need not be obvious.
i’m not trying to say it should be obvious, just that it should be there. in this book, i don’t think there was anything there. so i’m trying to find out if anyone else saw something there that can be backed up with text. with evidence that the author wanted there.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:12 PM PDT up reply actions
towards the end, I think Evenson uses Kline’s consciousness to tell us what he is trying to say about the struggle to retain humanity faced with an inhuman situation.
pg 169:
What is the fewest number of them I have to kill…
pg 170:
If I only use one clip… maybe I can still come out of this human
pg 185: (actually not clear that this is Kline speaking— could be Evenson’s voice)
How do you know the moment you cease to be human…
It's such a fascinating angle.
That this character who doesn’t react in a particularly human way the entire book suddenly finds himself worried about not being human. It so doesn’t sit good in me at all. This was one of the most disturbing elements of the book. To me, Kline was something less than human — drug through a less than human world into a series of events while never conveying the slightest hint of a human reaction. Yet.. for some reason he wonders why that is and about how you know you cease to be human? The implication for me, is that he never was human.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
i can really buy in to the “never was human” idea.
i still don’t think this leads anywhere productive though, as Evenson doesn’t really seem to make a clear point about “never being human” or “trying to regain” humanity.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:31 PM PDT up reply actions
I agree that "he never was human."
I’m not sure that Evenson purposely wanted to imply as much, though. To me, Kline’s lack of humanity feels like an accidental byproduct of the author’s elimination of all superfluous information so that we all focus singularly on the developments in this plot.
In the process, Evenson withholds details that could have helped us, as readers, relate to Kline. All we know is that he had his hand cut off, cauterized, then he shot his attacker in the eye. We know absolutely nothing about the circumstances that led to the incident. This being all I know about him, I never got the sense that Kline is human.
That being the fact, I never could relate to Kline as I read the book. If anything, I hated every single one of the characters, and Brian Evenson himself, for having anything to do with this book.
ok, i can buy this.
so let’s say that’s what he’s exploring: the struggle to retain humanity in an inhuman situation.
why all the cult/religion stuff? i don’t think you can bring that stuff in to a book without it being, on some level, part of the focus. it’s not an innocent theme. so, is Evenson maybe saying that religion/cults are an inhuman practice and it is necessary to escape them before they rob us of our humanity?
if so, then what do we make of the end of the book, where Kline is finally wondering about his future, seemingly “alive” and with purpose for first time in the entire work? it would seem like annihilating (at least most of) the religious part of the book brought him back to life, but at the cost of his humanity. so his struggle didn’t actually maintain his humanity?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:29 PM PDT up reply actions
Personally, I think it goes back the point of ritual.
Ritual was far more important than belief to these cults.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
so how does ritual affect Kline on more than a physical nature and what do we take away from that?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:32 PM PDT up reply actions
Sometimes what is not said is more powerful than what is said.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I'm trying to wake up by your discussion
it’s sort of working. I’ll try giving my point of view in a minute
nope.
tha’ts why it’s labeled off topic
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:01 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
this ^
this site is a community. Yes, we’re all Blazers fans and that’s what brought us to the site in the beginning, but it’s also a community of individuals, and a few of us decided we would like to have a book club.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
every time he returned home apparently oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t going to just resume his old life, I wanted to kick him in the butt. And unfortunately, that aspect did feel just like plot device. Reset, next stage.
yes.
also, i didn’t mention this, but the second part of the book was basically just the first part but longer.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:11 PM PDT up reply actions
if I understood correctly, the 2nd part was written after the first part had already been published as a novella.
yeah i saw that too.
makes me think it was possible there was too long between the separate works.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:18 PM PDT up reply actions
I was trying to imagine having just read the first half. It actually seemed more hopeful, although I would definitely have been shocked to turn the page and find nothing there.
i did like the first half more than the second for sure. i think if it was left at that, i would have enjoyed it more as a short story.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:20 PM PDT up reply actions
Well, he never wanted to do anything.
At no point in this story did he have any motivation be apart of anything that was happening or even existing particularly. I felt the continuity of this as as driving “anti-motivation”. He wanted nothing to do with the particulars of this investigation, but he also wanted nothing to do with any life. Was Kline even human at the beginning of the story, or just pretending the whole time? Did he lose that when he had to remove a piece of himself?
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
doesn’t the “he never wanted to do anything” sort of conflict with “things will get better” from page 27?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:23 PM PDT up reply actions
Not really.
That’s what he thought things would get better about. They just weren’t yet. He didn’t want to do anything then but things were bound to improve. No reason or hope or thought is offered. He’s just a lost soul with some vague notion that it may not necessarily always be like that.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I did not read the book, but I will defend to the death your right to read it.
Benjamin Franklin Tinfoil
them climbin' in yo windows, they snachin' yo people up
hahahaha
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:10 PM PDT up reply actions
Me neither, couldn't get it as an audio book.
I read “Sh*t My Dad Says” instead (that’s the title, don’t flag). Seeing this summary, I suppose it was much funnier. But I plan to get the next one, though Norwegian Wood is just the story of my life.
by Norsktroll on Aug 2, 2010 10:13 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
have you read it?
or just saying cause of the word “Norwegian”?
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
That book must be popular in the universities in Norway.
“Wanna go for a date in the forest, I’ve got a real deep book we can read together.”
In Bayless I trust.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Is there any point at which Evenson gives you a thought or a detail about Kline to make you identify with this transformation he experiences? Is there any way to relate to Kline as a character or his experiences to your life? Explain how your answer affected the way your understood the point of the book.
I searched as I read through the path Kline follows and find that I cannot relate with him at all. Any moment where I might relate to him (the “compassion” he shows to his “friends” in Gous and Ramse) is entirely minimized and overshadowed by how much his every action the lack of clear motives or even details to connect to. I never felt sorry for him or rejoice with him or even felt mad at him. The entire reading experience was far more unsettling because there was nothing and noone to hold.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
AH HA!!!!
you agree with me! hahahaha
i agree with this comment. i felt like Evenson never gave us anything to cling to. we have a very cursory explanation of the cult’s belief system, next to no detail about the case Kline lost his hand on, no development of the other characters. there was nothing to dig in to here. i racked my brain for a week trying to see if there was anything and could find nothing.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:15 PM PDT up reply actions
If I'm having brinner right now, so I have to be brief but will respond more in depth later
I had a lot of trouble getting through the book because I felt like Evenson just watched a detective movie and then wrote it down word for word. The worst thing for me was the obnoxious part where Ramses kept repeating what Kline said with "he says ‘such and such’ and then looking at Gous. ughhhh. As I said, I’ll answer Idol’s questions later and talk a bit more in depth, but this was my first impression of the book and lasted the entire time. I also really didn’t like the prose/dialog
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
The dialog always lacked the feeling of connection.
Which is why it was so funny to me that he’d even bother with paying special notice of Gous and Ramse. Why not just kill them? There connection entirely lacked a humanness outside of sarcasm or purposeful ignorance.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
my worst moment of dialogue:
“There’s always a second car. Unless there isn’t.”
ugh….
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:19 PM PDT up reply actions
but that's so existential, bro
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
hahaha
so cliche…..
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:21 PM PDT up reply actions
about the dialogue format,
I was really offended by the introduction. What’s-his-face who wrote it probably got paid by Evenson or was high when he compared the author’s dialogue use to Hemingway’s.
I didn't read the intro.
holy zach. if I had done so and seen that before I finished it I absolutely would not have kept reading it when I almost backed out. I would have been too pissed off. Hell, I may not have read past the first page.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
such an elitist…the book was sooo short…you making it sound like you could have saved a life in that time!
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
not really.
that’s the reason I finished it, because it was short and a fast read. I just cannot possibly fathom that someone would try to say this guy writes like Hemingway. That’s absurd, man!
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
yeah, i don’t like him dissing Hemingway’s name…
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
i’ve already stayed much longer than i’d anticipated.
even with bad books, i love this kind of talk….
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
yeah, it's always fun.
it’s why I like literature classes so much. Well that and all the uber hotties that are guaranteed to be there.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
My initial thoughts then I'll respond to previous posts
my feelings went from intrigued, to predictable, to absurd, to laughable.
intrigued by a book about cults…i haven’t read much of this type
predictable…who didn’t think Borchert was behind it all? that was too obvious
absurd…there were a ton of absurd areas…first being the calendar of amputated women…i mean, these guys get amputated to get closer to a higher order, not as a sex symbol. then the image of Aline’s torso and head flailing around the room was over the top. at that point, i was pretty much smh the whole time.
laughable…as idol mentioned, there was really no character development with kline…there were hints of it as a former undercover cop that lost everything, he might had a wife, he might had a previous life he gave up on…etc…but who the heck would cut off a limb to research a cult unless they were really an active undercover cop? oh, and they whole Paul thing was beyond ridiculous….
at that stage of reading on the plane, every time i read about Ramse, i thought of Jerryd Bayless with no arm at the elbow joint…and chuckled.
so basically for me, this book was about 3/10…3 being the sucks obviously….it could have been soooooo much better. it was an easy and fast read….at the end of the day, i thought Evenson had a great idea for a cult (“yeah, brotherhood of amputees”) then thought just that alone would carry the book…it did, but sadly, only for the first few chapters
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
you bring up stuff i didn’t even get in to, but i agree. why use the apostle Paul? what organized western religion holds up a female as a sex symbol? both of these are things where he seems to be attempting to make a comment about organized religion but never does.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 2, 2010 10:50 PM PDT up reply actions
I don't think this book was about organized religion at all.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
i definitely thought he was hinting at the correlation
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
It's possible.
I think the organized religion stuff was just empty framings for his empty story.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
Peter Straub thinks that the actual theme of Last Days is the fanatical belief-systems
and zealotry encouraged by some organized religions.
I can see why he'd think that.
I liked the introduction and I even like some of Straub’s normal writings here and there. But I just don’t think the fanatical beliefs and zealotry are being in a way that makes them themes I can relate to any current real religions. Maybe this is why I struggle with the idea that he intended (or even that he succeeded if he did intend) to make us compare these cults to anything experienced in our own lives. I feel more connection with the Heaven’s Gate cult that made gender neutral people and prepared for mass suicide when Haley Bop showed up. I feel like I could understand the people affected by a real cult in a way that he doesn’t allow us to feel for these people.
But I think the answer to the question is that if there is a major theme here based on religion, it’s truly about the fanatical belief-systems themselves and not in any way about people in religion. Maybe that’s why I’m fighting this as a theme so much because I think about the people in cults and religions as how you connect these themes to a reader. But I don’t feel for these people at all. Not a single sympathetic character or backstory bit to make us understand these cults in terms of people in a lost world trying to connect with some. The backstory provided for the history of both cult was, simply put, pathetic.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
i agree with your last paragraph and think this is where our differences lie.
you seem to see Evenson’s lack of background as an intentional effort designed to divorce the reader from any feeling one way or another.
i see that lack of background as poor writing. because, at the end of the day, if his point is to divorce us from feeling anything, then why are we reading the book at all? we would have had the same experience from not reading it.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:17 AM PDT up reply actions
I don't think either of us have any idea what Evenson intended.
And you are the only one that is bringing it up.
And it’s certainly not true that we’d experience the same thing from not reading it. He dragged us through a impossible plot and gave us nothing to hold on to. That’s not the same as not reading a book at all.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
if i started with nothing. and i end with nothing, i have nothing.
and i’m bringing up what Evenson intended because i have no idea and what to know what other people think. he didn’t right a book for kicks and grins. he had intention. there was something he wanted to say. i’m trying to figure out what it was.
and you’re right, i have no idea what he intended. this is a problem for me.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:25 AM PDT up reply actions
nothing ain't nothing, DTL.
But it’s free.
All I can do is accept what the book does to me. Whatever he intended or whatever he wanted will have to await his Author notes or the class he teaches on this (can you imagine?).
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
hahaha….i would like to listen in on that class.
i would love to hear his explanation. there really could be something i’m missing and i’d love to hear what it is.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:29 AM PDT up reply actions
I just could not imagine it.
Of course, that’s one of the interesting things about this book. Unless I choose to judge the author like many of you have, I have nothing from his words as to how to understand him — not just his intention in writing the book but even any sense of an author’s voice is very muted in this work.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
an author’s voice should be muted. but his intentions should not, in my opinion.
i think it comes down to you seeing the writing as an obvious choice and me seeing it as simply bad writing.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:36 AM PDT up reply actions
I think it comes down to you judging the writing.
And me merely taking in the experience of it.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
i’m doing both.
but the first completely and totally impacts the other for me and is most important. if the writing doesn’t engage me, i can’t get in to the experience.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:47 AM PDT up reply actions
I just don't need to judge the writing to experience it completely.
As for the rest of it, I was engaged by how many ways he found to disengage me.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
so then he actually engaged you, not disengaged you.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:53 AM PDT up reply actions
I was engaged by how many ways he found to disengage me.
That’s it. Despite protests to the contrary, I believe idol disliked this book more than any of us.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
i’m not really sure. it seems like he liked that he felt he was made to not like it.
it’s definitely and approach to a book i haven’t seen before.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:55 AM PDT up reply actions
I really really disliked this story.
Like profoundly disliked the story. Like I’d punch someone in the face if they made me sit down and they told me a story like this book contained. As a story goes, it’s worse than bad. It’s not graphic enough to be disturbing nor connected enough to evoke empathy.
But I did enjoy how forcibly I was made to feel this about the story. I couldn’t have disliked a story more and that intrigues me. I couldn’t have disliked a story this much if it was just written poorly. I couldn’t have finished the story if I felt it was as badly written as most of you. I would have been far more judgmental then any of you are being if I couldn’t have gotten enough into the writing to be able to hate this story so profoundly.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
Interesting
I didn’t hate the story at all. I just wanted the story to actually be told. The writing took such a straight line that we missed most of what I felt I could have enjoyed.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
I really didn't get the straight line of it at all.
It was a straight line like the Greyhound bus route up the 5 is straight. A straight ugly boring line that stops frequently but without giving one enough time to get a bag of nuts or pee and is entirely uncomfortable and awkward the whole time.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
Straight line
In that we don’t deviate at all from what is happening to Kline at that exact moment. No history, no perspective, etc.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
That's true.
But it was like stop-and-go traffic.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
this is like saying i should like Avatar because i disliked it so much. hahaha
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 11:28 AM PDT up reply actions
Many ways to dislike something.
But I think we are just entirely different in how we pass judgments.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
it would seem so.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 11:43 AM PDT up reply actions
That's possible.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
well there sure as heck was a lot of time spent on a bunch of cult members and showing at least an outline of a belief system.
when you put those elements in there, it means something. they aren’t innocent so you can’t bring them up and not have them matter, like you seem to imply.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
yes, I think it was
perhaps once he got into the nitty-gritty of chopping all those body parts off, he forgot what he was trying to say.
I felt a definite sense of commentary on ritual for ritual’s sake, but then what?
The fact that the women apparently got to chop off parts, but then they got to be strippers left me rolling my eyes, but that runs parallel to plenty of religions, too. I’m not sure the intent was that sophisticated, however.
DTL: CYM
i don’t know what that means either.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:26 AM PDT up reply actions
i think it means “carry your manpurse”
i’m offended!!
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:54 AM PDT up reply actions
oh, maybe it means “cute young man”.
yeah that must be it.
thanks, 323!!
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 11:29 AM PDT up reply actions
This confused me a lot.
I don’t even understand how or why they get these women when the order is clearly a brotherhood. The presence of women in this story at all completely lost me.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
me too.
i think BRP’s point about the women is very good.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:26 AM PDT up reply actions
Yeah, definitely one of his best points.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
It didn't bother me
It felt consistent with my feeling that the book was written with haste and without any real direction.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
I don't think this book was really about cults at all either.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
hmmm if that’s the case, he could have done a better job of getting to your view on the book without that as the backdrop…
based on reading his background and work afterwards, i think there’s definitely a not so subtle exposition on cults
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I have three coulours dedicated to Cults (i did colour code in the end, Jake)
one about rituals, the other about mockery of organized religion and the last about “teachings”, so I’d say it is a significant theme in this book, even if it’s not central.
yeah, i agree. i think it is the central point also and i think it’s what he’s trying to comment on. but i can’t figure out what he wants to say about them. and so far, no one in here is helping me find that out. hahaha
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
If you're interested, I will go so far as to put into reasonable words
all the notes I took about what he was saying about religion and cults, but it’s going to take me a while.
naw, you don’t need to do that.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
well i wouldn’t want all that work to go to waste so if you want to post, have at it :)
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i hope you have something in there about the calendar with the mutilated women. i thought BRP’s point concerning the sexualised iconography by a group who is mutilating to reach a higher spiritual plane.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
then end of that sentence should be:
“…to reach a higher spiritual plane, is an interesting point of discussion.”
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i figured it would be. i wanted to save you the trouble. hahaha
but, being raised Catholic, you probably have some interesting insights into that side of the book i’m lacking. i have the knowledge, just not the practical experience.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
I just mean that.
I don’t think this had anything to do with a look at people and why they are parts of cults. This isn’t a story about alienation or the togetherness to be found in cults by people desperate for meaning. I just feel that the motif of the cults and the religious aspects of the story were not about cults and religions in our society but are being used to make more formal the rituals that are a plot device more than a major theme of the story.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
so what was this book about, idol?
you’re making a lot of statements about what the book isn’t. so what is it?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
This is the amazing thing about this story for me.
It’s far more defined by its negative space than its thematic contribution.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
it also uses the story to bare itself even more
by having people strip off their limbs constantly and bare their bareness.
I didn't want to say this again, but I completely agree.
And it’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if Evenson intended for all of this to be experienced. Because the only major theme of the story seems to parallel his horrid style for the book.
And even if he didn’t intend it, it’s definitely where I ended up and why I can say that I slightly enjoyed this book more than I didn’t enjoy it.. even though I didn’t enjoy the story in and of itself.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
To you.
I thought about drawing the connection between the bareness of the story and use of negative space and how that correlates to the removal of body parts and the idea that less is more as you “achieve rank” in the brotherhood.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
ahahha This is two of my colours :)
I called them Removal and Negative. It is what I found was most present in the story and was reiterated throughout.
Why wouldn’t you want to agree with me, silly? If you are going to agree with someone is should be with me, there is much to gain by it!!
hahah no no I don't mean I didn't want to agree with you.
I entirely wanted and enjoy agreeing with you (and do it like all the time whether here or else in the junk). What I didn’t want to say was the point you brought up to begin with. Once you said it, I felt very good about agreeing with it. :)
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
OT. One of the toughest things for me when I was learning Latin.
Was trying to translate prepositions properly. English uses prepositions in a strange way that I find entirely inconsistent once I had to deal with prepositions and phrases in Latin.
BTW. Also, forget what I said in that old junk. I was just in a mood. A good one even but I was wrong and, if I can, I’ll be around.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
i don’t really know what a preposition is. but i have a feeling i just ended that first sentence with one.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:50 AM PDT up reply actions
prepositions are words that only morons end sentences with.
by jksnake99 on Aug 3, 2010 10:52 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
i remember something involving school house rock.
of, to, through?
i don’t remember.
i never really learned a ton of the little grammar parts of english. i go by ear.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:53 AM PDT up reply actions
with is a preposition i take it?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:54 AM PDT up reply actions
no wonder i don’t know them all.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:56 AM PDT up reply actions
Can we just get a quick count of who liked that book?
On a scale of 1-10, 10 being you loved it, how would you rate your experience as a reader?
yeah, I'm with BRP, you asked two questions
I’d give it a 1 for enjoyment, a 5 or 6 for experience since it’s my first book club and we seem to be having a good discussion in here.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
I guess those are two question.
For me, I hated the book, and if it wasn’t because I recall chuckling once, I would give it a 0 for how much I like it. And yes, I know that’s on a scale of 1-10. As it stands, I’ll give it 1/10.
Experience as a reader: same as you guys, since it’s a first time and it’s so out of my normal reading experience, I’ll add these two factors together and throw in the 1/10 from above to bring the grand total to 3/10.
I neither liked it nor disliked so 5/10
10/10 just for being in a book club and getting to read all of your reactions and takes on it, and getting better at it for when we actually read a masterpiece :)
btw, my wife asked me about the BEdge bookclub book
i describe to her, " the books about a cult, reaching immortality through losing limbs…so basically guys get together and try to one up each other…"
wife, “so like BlazersEdge…”
hahahahah “yeah… BEdge is kinda like a cult”
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
hahaha, that's freaking awesome.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
anyone feel a bit creepy reading this book?
i had that for about 10 minutes near the beginning then laughed it off
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
not really
I was so instantly turned off by the dialog/style of the book that I never really felt anything but annoyed. as I said in my original post in here, I felt so much like the guy just took a rejected, crappy ,detective movie and printed it as a book. But, yeah, it was especially bad when I started laughing at it when you aren’t supposed to.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
yeah the premise is creepy for sure
the execution(no pun intended) was so unappealing to me that I never was able to get creeped out.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
can you really cut someone’s arm off with a cleaver? or someone’s head?
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
Any butchers in the house?
I’m sure this could be answered pretty easily. I’m no butcher, but from having dissected a human cadaver, I can say that bone is pretty soft stuff. We used saws for the larger bones, but they cut much more easily than, say, douglas fir lumber.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
Not at all.
I felt disturbed not by the story but by how the author forced me through an uncomfortable journey with people I wouldn’t even bother to despise. It was uncomfortable, not creepy.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
no. he didn’t evoke enough creepiness to be creeped out.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
In general, I thought this book was bad.
In particular, I still thought this book was bad. It feels like we are trying too hard to make heads or tails out of nonsense, which, by the way, should be the secondary title of this book. It’s one of those moments where you stop and say to yourself, am I reading too much into this. Hell yes. Evenson himself probably can’t even discuss the book at length without coming up with fake motifs about the story.
one more thing,
the “reading too much into it” part, it happens to me a lot when I read canonical works. I would read a simple sentence like “I like fish” and try to analyze and assign importance to the statement, just because it’s by a famous author.
Sometimes I wonder if any of those famous authors accidentally became mainstays of the literary circle simply through people making too much out of nothing.
I'd agree with that
It was simple writing, and it felt like the author wrote a single draft without much forethought. It made for a simple book without a lot of built-in layers. One can always discuss the unintentional ramifications, but it isn’t always worthwhile.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
the author only has 2 fingers on each hand…that’s probably why he didn’t edit his novel
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
by broyposse on Aug 2, 2010 11:45 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
I believe the writing style is the most deliberate thing about this.
The story is actually second the feeling he’s conveying.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
It's okay if you don't get it.
Lack which lacks the most is the hardest thing get the point of
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I haven't read the other comments yet. I wanted to answer the questions first, before getting too biased. Then I'll join the conversation.
How would you characterize the effect that this minimization of detail had on your experience reading Last Days?
I think it helped. The reason it helped, though, is that I didn’t really enjoy the book, but the lack of detail kept the pace up. If it had stagnated, it would have been very easy to put the book down, and never pick it back up.
Is there any point at which Evenson gives you a thought or a detail about Kline to make you identify with this transformation he experiences? Is there any way to relate to Kline as a character or his experiences to your life?
This relates to the first question about detail. There was so little detail about Kline the person, I didn’t get a sense of change after killing x number of people. The character was more or less blank to me, aside from being extremely violent. As far as relating to my life, not really. He was a flat character that responded to challenges by excessive violence. Doesn’t sound like any adults I interact with.
Discuss how effective this theme [locked doors] was in drawing you towards what you believe Evenson’s aim was in writing it.
I don’t feel like I can speak intelligently on the writers intent for the reader. To me, it didn’t seem that well thought out. I got the sense the guy was just writing, then he looked at what he wrote and went, “Ok, I think I’ll see if I can get this thing published.”
Despite always being clearly interested in ending it, he continually re-engages and finds himself needing to dig further. How did this read to you? Did it feel like merely part of the necessity of moving plot or did you take something else from trying to understand why Kline behaved the way he did throughout this story?
As I mentioned before, I didn’t have much sense of Kline’s character, so his repeating to dig further felt to me like a plot vehicle, more than anything else.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
I suspected most of you would feel this way.
Hence, how my questions were guided by DTLs own interpretation of the book.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I think we will only use a day or two on discussing this one
and then give people maybe 2-3 weeks to read the next one (it’s pretty short, but I know people are busy). If you’re gonna join (and you should :-) ) I would start it soonish, just to be ahead of the game.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
haha, true
but some people who read it (Dougall is the only one who really comes to mind) aren’t really around. But I guess he said he won’t have internet for a while, so he may just have to jump back into this if Idol keeps the page on the site after the discussion.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
dougall? it will take him a good month to finish it…he reads an average of 5 pages a day
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
he already read it
and then let Idol borrow his copy, which Dougall had borrowed from the library.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
I've noticed that most everyone said they read the book in one sitting.
Part of the reason is the length of the book, but does anyone feel like if they took a break from it they might not pick it up again, so you just tried to finish it all at once? I sure as heck want to burn this book.
Yeah, I put it down after about 100 pages and had a whole lot of trouble picking it back up.
If I wasn’t particularly insomniatic last night I probably would not have finished it.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
I read it over the course of 3 days, I think
I’ll say I was somewhat hooked by the story, but not the writing. I was curious to find out what was going to happen, and I really hoped to eventually get some background. Of course, I was disappointed there.
As I mentioned above, had the author gone into much more detail about the events, I probably would have been bored enough not to pick the book back up once I set it down.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
it had potential at the very beginning…it being a cult and all had me fascinated, but the drop off was like the fast and the furious 1 to 2
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I almost agree
It was like the drop off from the fast and the furious trailer to the fast and the furious movie.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
come on, the original fast and the furious wasn’t bad…stereotyping FTW
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I'm like the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket
I don’t stereotype. I hate all [nsfbe epithets] equally.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
I read this book over several sittings.
By several, I mean like five. Two for the first part. Three for the second.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
a lot of my answers to the questions have already been said above
by me, or by me agreeing to others. So I’ll make this shorter than I would have otherwise done so.
How would you characterize the effect that this minimization of detail had on your experience reading Last Days?
I like minimalist fiction, I enjoy reading it when it’s well done and there is a good story to go with it. I did not enjoy Last Days, at all, but the minimalism made for faster reading, so I was able to get through the book when I may not have otherwise been able to.
Is there any point at which Evenson gives you a thought or a detail about Kline to make you identify with this transformation he experiences? Is there any way to relate to Kline as a character or his experiences to your life?
I almost feel like Evenson deliberately makes us NOT identify with Kline. There is nothing there, no humanity, no character definition or refinement, just a shell to carry a plot line.
Did you imply any reason from Evenson as to why Kline couldn’t keep from “embellishing” himself further into the "investigation
No, and I also couldn’t see any reason why Evenson couldn’t stop from “embellishing” himself further into the ‘novel’
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
i have an idea, we should invite the authors to our discussions…i’ll email him unless someone objects
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
ha ha
that would be so amazing if we actually got an author in for one of them. But I think a lot of us would feel bad for hating it so openly.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
interesting...
he’s currently at Brown University and use to be part of the LDS church…evenson = tingyaga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Evenson
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
Will I get banned for saying that Evenson has cult experience?
Having been a part of LDS.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
nah, you won’t…but comparing LDS to Last Days is kinda crazy…i don’t know much about LDS but have a handful of friends who are and they remain great friends. they definitely don’t act like they are in a cult
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
Well, I tend to think of all religion as cults
But there’s a spectrum of how crazy they are. Some just ask you to believe in a made-up being and perform harmless rituals, while others have you cut off your limbs. Then there’s a whole lot in between.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
By all means
I’d be surprised if he were interested, but I’d be curious to hear his take on some of these questions. I also want to ask him if he considers himself a good writer.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
Of course he deliberately makes us not identify with Kline.
This was exactly why I enjoyed this reading. It left me feeling like someone following the lies of a ritual without understanding anything behind it. Because there was nothing more to understand. I love the shallowness not because the story is powerful and captures the imagination, but because the feeling it left me with was such utterly empty and void of meaning. Facades of rituals.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
So lets get a vote on if we should contact the author...he teaches at Brown
let me know, and i’ll ask him to join our conversation
http://research.brown.edu/research/profile.php?id=10194
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
hahaha you just made me guffaw
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Seriously, do it
There are a number of questions I’d love to ask him. Civil questions, even.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
done and done.
Hello Dr. Evenson,
I’m part of the Portland Trailblazers blog community called BlazersEdge (http://www.blazersedge.com). Obviously we root for the Blazers first but also discuss a variety of topic.
The community has thousands of users and we recently started a book club. The first book club book chosen was, “Last Days.”
We would be honored if you took a look at the site and our open discussion of your book and help us fill some of the void.
Here is the link to the main site: http://www.blazersedge.com and here is the link to our discussion of your book: http://www.blazersedge.com/2010/8/2/1602319/ot-1st-blazersedge-bookclub
Please join us if you can.
Thank you,
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
nice, hopefully he responds.
it’d be super rad if he comes by.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
yeah, i think idol asked some questions that would be cool to see how the author responds…
i think that should be rule #1239182409 of the Book Club: try to get the author to join the discussion
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I'll say don't even bother with Murakami.
he’s kind of a recluse and is incredibly busy. Plus, he’s probably the most famous Japanese author writing today and one of the most famous of all time.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
that won’t stop me from getting him to join the discussion
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
ha
if you got Murakami to join our discussion and there was a way to prove it was really him, I would flip out. I’d probably have a seizure.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Probably right
But you never know how someone will respond to, “Hey we’re a group that discusses a basketball team, and we started a book club…”
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
yeah, haha. We're such an awesome basketball website.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
The questions
How would you characterize the effect that this minimization of detail had on your experience reading Last Days?
The lack of detail made it easy to feel completely detached from the story, especially from the characters, but I found it amusing how every character seems to say the first thing that pops into their mind, without editing, which is quite common and relatable.
Is there any point at which Evenson gives you a thought or a detail about Kline to make you identify with this transformation he experiences? Is there any way to relate to Kline as a character or his experiences to your life?
Here is what I could pick out from Kline:
- He satisfies everyone’s need to hear what they want, but not for a need to gain acceptance through his flattery, but simply to achieve his goals.
- Curiosity, the need to know, etc. counter his constant wish to leave.
- He shruggs at the posibility of mutilating someone if it’s at their request and to satisfy his curiosity, but feels that an amputee party is going too far. His reactions to similar situations caters to benefit his needs.
- He believes the body is merely a vessel for the person, so indirectly he acknowledges the existence of souls.
- He quickly interiorizes that he “can’t be killed” but at the same time struggles to retain his humanity; he questions weather Paul is right but then goes to the point of changing his metaphoric sword (the gun) for a real sword (the cleaver). At the end, both his hands shake: even the author believes his divinity.
I never identified with Kline, nor cared weather he lived or died. I do not relate to him as a character but I think that upon further reflection, I am starving and want to have breakfast. I will continue trying not to make a fool of myself while answering the questions on my return.
Continuation
Discuss how effective this theme [locked doors] was in drawing you towards what you believe Evenson’s aim was in writing it.
I believe the guards’ presence was more effective than the locked doors.They’re one-eye blind and rumoured to be castrati…
Despite always being clearly interested in ending it, he continually re-engages and finds himself needing to dig further. How did this read to you? Did it feel like merely part of the necessity of moving plot or did you take something else from trying to understand why Kline behaved the way he did throughout this story?
He doesn’t have a purpose in life, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, how he’ll learn to live with his ghost hand, so when his curiosity is awakened, he lets that be his direction.
Yes, the presence of guards everywhere was so tiring.
It was my third favorite thing. The way the otherwise simplistic story kept being halted by having to wait for guards to allow entry and such. It’s so funny to me that it seems to everyone that Evenson didn’t purposefully try to constantly destroy any connection, flow, or personableness to be found in this story. At any time I might have be willing to suspend my doubts and try to engage in anything going on in the story, every single aspect of the story stopped me from settling. The reason I gave this book a fairly high mark despite not connecting or making a story that flowed was because he did such a great job at making it an impossible story to connect to. Which is exactly the opposite of what a potboiler novel would have done. The lack of people recognizing this tells me a lot about how we read and where we fail to take our minds when reading something that doesn’t adhere to the conventions we expect from a popular book.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
interesting take idol…if Evenson deliberately tried to make a disconnect for a group of readers, i’m highly confident he would connect with another group of readers…those in maximum security prison;)
i can go with this argument but this novel is setup like a potboiler and has many conventions of it.
1. guy wakes up and strangers want him to do something
2. guy get involved with an underground group
3. guy tries to learn more by getting accepted within group
4. guy finds out too much
5 guy becomes group or leads them
6. mass carnage
7. guy tests our morality
and so on
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
This novel is setup to look like and have the conventions of a few different looks.
But, again, I just feel I’m being hit over and over again with how much he’s trying to stop the read from going from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on. He drags me along just like that kind of story but makes it a painful process.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
i think you’re reading a lot in to this book forcing it to be better than it is.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i didn’t see a lot to speak about, honestly. but upon re-reading, why are the guards more important? you mention they have one blind eye and are perhaps castrated. i remember there being something in the book about how this was a pact they made.
do you think these particular choices in mutilation make a larger point within the context of the book? if so, what point is that?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
You are right, i didn't manage to convey as much as i would have liked
They’re the real obstacle, not the locked doors. There are only doors so that the guards can keep them.
The blind eye recurrs throughout the book, it is one of their attributes, as is the gun arm (like in artistic representations of greek mythology), so they are easily recognizable upon view.
Castration is only hinted at when Gous says that “a guard can hit all of the high notes and none of the low ones” and Ramse replies that “nobody knows that for certain except the guards” and i think the secrecy of the elements of this subsect give them an aura of mystery that add to their power as centinels (fear of the unknown).
so you would say that the simple act of the pact itself is what gives the guard’s their power rather than the very specific body parts Evenson chooses to have them lose?
i like your point about how there are only doors so guards can keep them. that’s interesting. do you think the guards should have been given more importance? they ended up being faceless slaughter victims at the end, seemingly only there to be killed.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
the specific body parts they lose are simply symbolic
the eye: they are guards, they’re supposed to see they NEED to see, so drawing attention to their eye sight and the fact that they purposefully maimed it is telling.
the penis: they are supposed to be strong, in order to fend their cult, and yet they cut off the symbol of their masculinity.
the arm: they have to be able to fight, but they remove their natural weapon (even thought they replace it with a gun arm).
good points.
with the eye, do you think there is some deeper message in having them remove something so important? like you said, they need to see but then remove an eye. why is this telling and what does it tell?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
A theory of why a guard would remove an eye
They cut off body parts because they offend them, so their eye offends them, perhaps because with it they see those who wish to harm their cult.
Also, I think that by removing an eye they are seemingly losing faculties but in reality gaining them, because they retain their vision and hint at their superiority at the same time.
Lastly, it suggests to me that by losing an eye they are opening the inner eye, but I admit that this last part is farfetched :)
interesting thoughts. i’m not sure i buy them, necessarily, but they’re interesting.
mostly i think Evenson just wanted them to be cooler or something. because, realistically, it makes 0 sense for a security guard to cut out an eye doesn’t it? hahaha
the hand they made a gun is sorta cool though. especially because it sort of replaces the penis they lost, in terms of possessing a phallus with the gun as a phallic symbol.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
I agree with most of what you just said
However, we seem to be getting stuck on what the author was thinking or meant to convey. That doesn’t matter to me so much as what actually is conveyed to the reader. To me, so much of the book came across as unintentional, meaningless, and as DTL said, “to be cooler.” Of course, that’s another way of saying it came across as bad writing.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
Of course, that’s another way of saying it came across as bad writing.
yep.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:19 AM PDT up reply actions
hahaha he definitely wanted them to be cooler
warriors with different traits and attributes that set them apart…
Also I like that theory, he is sort of replacing their penes with another phallic symbol! So maybe it does follow that each maim is replaced with its equivalent?
I disagree with the thought of them seeming cooler.
Just because I feel that it had the opposite effect. I really felt that anytime the guards or Kline or the cops could have likely been made to seem “cooler” by these things I wasn’t given enough details to get it as cool. Instead, it feels like a joke. I don’t think it makes the guards cooler at all. It makes them ridiculous.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
in theory the gun arm would be cool
but the guards in the story are pretty much pathetic, it seems like their brain in maimed too, they repeat the ritual formulas, are easily beaten (like the dumb slow fighters they are) and little else
They do seem dumb
But it felt to me just like any foot soldier in a comic book or movie. The first time he confronts them, they beat him to a pulp, so the reader is supposed to respect their power. But the hero is the hero, so after that first experience he consistently beats them.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
The gun arms should have been cool.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I don't think anything of what he says above
is reading too much into the book.
Semi-OT: Do you like modern art?
sure. i don’t know much about art though.
i like any sort of art as long as it’s good. or even as long as i can see what the creator is trying to accomplish. and in any good piece of art, whether it be literature, film, sculpture, painting, etc, the story and the ideas should be clear.
in this book, they weren’t. and to say that this was the author’s point is a bit of a cop out in my mind.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i wasn't asking relating this story just in general :)
I don’t agree in that the story and ideas should be clear. Sometimes the greatness of a work of art is its ambiguity (this comment is unrelated to the book).
i agree with you. ambiguity is fine. leaving the audience with questions is fine. i don’t think everything should be spelled out either.
but if there is ambiguity or questions the reader is left with, they should be about some specific subject right? ambiguity just to be ambiguous is pointless. it is more effective to raise a question, explore it, and then leave the answer hidden, for the reader to find on their own. in my opinion. the questions shouldn’t be ambiguous.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
That's a good question, and relevant to this discussion
I personally dislike a lot of modern art. And I dislike it even more when people tell me that I only dislike it because I don’t have the education or intellectual capacity to appreciate it. Attraction to art is personal, but easily swayed by group think. Those who fancy themselves in charge of what art is currently good have no more important an opinion than anyone else, but they pretend to. And when people disagree, they typically fall back on name calling.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
I do agree that trend setters are frequently self-important
zach-holes, but I usually give suspend my disbelief and give the benefit of the doubt to people whose life is dedicated to something.
Well, I listen
But then I form my own opinions. And when it comes to art (any kind), I overwhelmingly think that people talking about the validity of art as fact are blowhards.
When people get very involved studying things like science, they learn a lot. When people get very involved studying art, they work around so many opinions, it is easy to forget those things are only opinions. And often they need to think of those things as something more concrete than opinion to justify to themselves why they spend so much time thinking about it. On the other hand, a lot of them just have financial interests in spewing bs.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
I think you're not reading enough into this book.
And that it is only as good as how one experiences it.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
To me it sounds like you're making the modern art argument
Or, by your measure, every book is either a classic or a flop depending on how much the reader decides to read into it.
To you, this was a worthwhile book, and it affected you in a specific way which you either enjoyed or appreciated. To me, this was a poorly written book, which aroused some curiosity, but left me entirely unsatisfied.
Don’t read that as thinking that I don’t find the discussion worthwhile, though. I do. We just disagree on the overall value of the book.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
You made the most important point earlier.
However, we seem to be getting stuck on what the author was thinking or meant to convey. That doesn’t matter to me so much as what actually is conveyed to the reader.
I am purely experiencing what was conveyed to me as the reader. I’m not trying to create anything and have no use for modern art. I am merely left with what was conveyed to me and am not even yet at the point of trying to put a value on the book. I may not be post-modernist, but I’m certainly not a utilitarian when it comes to art. I’m just trying to reflect upon the experience I’m left with and what reading this brought to me.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
He doesn’t have a purpose in life, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, how he’ll learn to live with his ghost hand, so when his curiosity is awakened, he lets that be his direction.
for me, if the author’s attempt to make me feel empty and void of meaning, i rather understand Kline’s background a bit more, which might possibly leave me with more of that feeling of emptiness…i know for certain other books have done this
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
I think you definitely did the best so far around here in answering these questions.
And I hope that GB will ask good questions for the next book.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I have to admit that it was very hard enunciating my thoughts
especially because right now i’m inmersed in the french language, but it definitely was interesting to read what everyone had to say :)
This was a fascinating experience.
I’ll probably check this fanshot again late tonight and see if there’s anything worth engaging in.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I am very grateful to have taken part in this
I really enjoyed the experience, and do not regret the book choice. Thank you so much :)
Is it relevant or meaningful that after Borchert asks Kline to kill him with the cleaver, Kline kills all the subordinates (at least up till Ramse) with the cleaver rather than the gun?
i think so.
to me, it showed that he might be buying in to this whole cult thing and that he might be a savior. it was one of those spots where i thought Evenson was getting somewhere but then the book was over. hahaha
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i think that after this discussion in here, i’m on the side that he wasn’t human for the entire story.
i think that this point where he uses the cleaver rather than the gun and goes all out might be the point at which he acknowledges he’s not human. but, then again, doesn’t his act of mercy towards Ramse show some humanity? i’m really not sure if Kline loses humanity or not…..and i think that’s a problem.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
It’s one of the most confusing things to me too. Because I feel like I should have at least slightly felt a human connection in the mercy he shows both Ramse and Gous. He treats them like they’re the two friends he had on his adventure and no matter what happened, he wanted to leave them standing.
But why? The connection was superficial and entirely full of lies always. And because of it, I couldn’t feel any compassion towards it. Of all of the things that he may or may not have intended with this, I couldn’t possibly come up with a reason for this or can even tell what I’m supposed to feel. Is it a failed attempt at evoking sympathy (I don’t think so) or did he miss something in explain how we are to understand their relationship? Not sure.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
yes. i agree completely.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:23 AM PDT up reply actions
The connection was superficial and entirely full of lies always. And because of it, I couldn’t feel any compassion towards it.
There was so much of this novel where I kept asking myself “what, really, is the point of Gous and Ramse being in this thing? Are they just there to carry Kline along his journey?” but then I could see that Evenson was sort of trying to make it seem like they were important to Kline and were therefore his “friends,” yet I never once felt a lick of compassion or interesting for those two. If they left after the first car ride when they explain everything to Kline and he just found his way through the cult on his own, I would have felt exactly the same as having them there. Maybe even a little less annoyed by, what seemed to me, a weak need for a guiding force of the protagonist(if Kline can even be called a protagonist, which I don’t think he can).
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
was i the only one that kept waiting for Ramse and Gouse to start making out?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 12:52 PM PDT up reply actions
Yep
That was just you.
Although it would have provided lots of fodder for our discussion.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
hahaha
i was sorta joking. although they did seem to be a little close sometimes. what with Kline using the threat of killing one of them as leverage against the other.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
it did seem like the only sentimental connection between characters
unless i’m forgetting something obvious at the moment.
no i think they were it.
unless you count Borscht and his cleaver. (i don’t remember that guys actual name.)
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
yeah that looks right. hahaha.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
Speaking of which
Why the odd names in the cult? Ramse, Gaus, Borchert. Were those their given names, or did they change them, as the Pauls did?
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
at first he doesn't even give them names
just names them by their traits, it doesn’t get more minimalist than that.
if he was a true minimalist the book would have been:
“man. cut off limb(s). absence. kill. presence?”
THE END
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
is it fair to say he fulfills the prophecy when he doesn’t complete the job?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
you mean by leaving Ramse in charge?
perhaps he didn’t consider him and the rest false prophets (those which he must cast down)
i think he said he left Ramse alive so he would change things. or, at least, leave Kline alone after he gets away.
but, if we take what you say, that he didn’t see them as false prophets, does this mean he buys in to the cult?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
Maybe.
if nothing else, it certainly throws away the slightest thought of him being human or retaining a humanness. It connects his past, with their rituals. And it’s the sword by which he comes.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
related question: what purpose does the cop, Frank, serve— he’s the guy that ends up telling Kline something to the effect of “buddy, look at yourself, there’s no way you can be human again…”
this is a very good question.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 10:50 AM PDT up reply actions
That's a strange character and quote.
I’d figure most assume that it’s some kind of plot device but I don’t get it as that at all. It doesn’ t seem to add anything storywise. It doesn’t keep things making sense. I also don’t get why he’s so pissy about everything having to do with Kline. I can’t get what he’s representing or doing in the story most of the time. He sort of maybe tries to connect with Kline at first but then just gets more and more annoyed with him as he doesn’t cooperate but there’s nothing else going on there. I don’t get how Kline could show him a head and then go walk over the Pauls and burn them down. I don’t get why they went through the whole tedious bit about him saving Kline from the first car just to find a second car.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
At first I thought Frank might serve as a vehicle for us to learn about Kline's history
So I was interested. But it went the way of the rest of the book. Just another character who was there. And violent.
Still on the Rex bandwagon.
Definitely didn't do that.
I would have also figured that any normal story would have attempted to bring in a character from Kline’s past (old cop buddy). But nope. Nothing. And, for me, not even close to violent enough to make me care even about that.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
this feels related to GB's idea that he had a movie plot in mind
it reminded me of The Fugitive- the law enforcement guy who hates our main character, but eventually comes around to believe in him. not quite the same here, but.. .
when Frank appeared i kept thinking of old film noir.
only really really really really bad half baked film noir. like, film noir that i’ve never seen before.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
by DrivetheLane on Aug 3, 2010 11:30 AM PDT up reply actions
This would be a good 2nd book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fan_Man
If I wanted to know your opinion, I would have read your comment.
hahahaha
that could be fun.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
I found the book on the steps of a parking garage
It’s a strange book.
If I wanted to know your opinion, I would have read your comment.
hey, this book was the first one published by Underland Press, which is headquartered in Portland. Is that why you picked it, Idol?
It's how I found it.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
ha, that's kind of cool.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
dang, guys.
way to make me read for almost an hour after waking up. Excellent discussion though. JD bookclub is awesome! Obviously your choice, Idol, brought up a lot of discussion. Well done, friend.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Is it just me or do you wish this discussion went on and on
imagine what it’s going to be like when we read a book that people feel engages them!
yes. if there was this much discussion over a book people seemed to pretty universally think was no good, when we read a good book, it will be way cool to talk about it.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
hahaha
I love that you measure time by season/off season (i realize this a basketball blog). I actually hope it continues during the season, even if we have to stretch out timelines :)
I'm not convinced I'll enjoy talking about a better book more yet.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
I'm just glad to have the discussion
whether I like the book or not, I love talking about books and I’m glad we were able to in here even though many of us did not like the book. I feel like we may even have LESS discussion on a book a lot of us like because we had so much discussion in here of what we did not like.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
This is truth.
Plus, I have a slight bias for discussions between people who are reading vs. rereading a book.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
why do you hate me so much, Idol?!
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
I'm jealous of your hair.
If I had your hair and my beard, I would walk the earth in sequenced jump suits and have my own theme music.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
this is true.
and i’d follow you around just hoping to soak up the cool.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
I'd probably have a parade of people doing that.
You can be the Grand Marshall, if ya want.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
awesome!
count me in.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
you would have gold chains right?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
Damn right!
Big, old thick ones.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
now i want to know the theme music. original work or a song we know?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
original work by "the bright spot" (sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law (for real)'s band)
called ‘gitcha idle’
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
hee hee
well I’m jealous of our beard. Combined we would be pretty dang amazing. I’m glad it’s the hair. I’m used ot people being bitter against me for that. I was worried I gave you a bad Juwamby five when we ran into eachother at the market and you were angry with me.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
haha nope but I kept thinking how funny it was
That I was singing “hide yo kids hide yo wife hide yo kids hide yo wife” to my soon-to-be-brother-in-law (sorta not technically) when you suddenly showed and your girl even joked about that.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
hahaha, yeah that was hilarious
she’s been going crazy with me singing it all the time. She doesn’t like that it became so popular since it’s about rape. but I keep telling her nobody would think it was funny if the girl actually got raped and what we all find funny is the brother, and especially the song they made of it.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
I'm actually impressed by how much it went on
it’s great that we were able to do this.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
The back of the book says,
…a religious cult that takes literally the New Testament idea that you should cut off your hand if it offends you.
But it seems like the characters all found dismemberment to be a pleasurable/honorable act, not some sort of punishment.
yes.
this was curious as well. he needed to go in to a little more depth to really make that verse in Matthew a viable basis for an entire cult to base their beliefs on.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
what do they believe in?
Do we know what they think is right or wrong or good or bad? I’m not sure I know anything about their beliefs but that they believe cutting off limbs brings them closer to god.
this was one of my biggest concerns as well. he provided no basis for an understanding of their belief system, which makes it next to impossible to identify with them.
in terms of Christianity, i believe what that particular verse refers to is that a person should strive to cast sin from their life. i don’t think Christ was saying we should literally cut off limbs, just cast off sin from our lives.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
Just as much of the Bible is interpreted metaphorically by many
and literally by others: see Jehovah’s witnesses and blood transfusions.
I saw it as how they were making less more and achieving closeness to God through removing what's mortal and leaving behind what's beyond.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
their cult sets out from that idea
and evolves into something which has distanced itself completely from its original axiom. This is common in religion: see catholicism.
this is sort of how I saw it
they stared with what some of them thought of as a valiant/honorable gesture and then it morphed into something blind and ignorant with no real meaning to it. This is another case where it’s too bad the book is written how it is, because we have no real history to know if the cult began with these intentions or if it really is just a bunch of sick minded people who enjoy dismembering themselves.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
I don't feel like cult and religion is a big plotline.
I’d say that, in general, Evenson is taking a swipe a humanity. Kline begins the story as less than human. He tries to do little things of compassion like spare Gous and Ramse to retain him humanity, but he’s already compromised it beyond repair by showing a willingness — to me, maybe an obsession, even — to kill others in the name of self-preservation. (This makes me think of Harry Potter for a second. Voldemort is alive but less than human from all the carnage that he has caused.) Are humans naturally selfish beings? Chief Paul says that we have no choice “in the paths our lives take[.] God is the only one who controls our fate. We are predestined from the beginning” (136). So the Pauls accept this and only chop off one limb, but the separatists believe that they can improve their lot by amputating even more?
What’s the point of living if you’re Kline? No family, a fugitive, basically, with nowhere to go and blood on his hands. Oh wait, does he even have hands anymore? I don’t even remember what body parts he has left. What’s with these people not living in the here and now and instead choosing to cut themselves up into a mess so they can be closer to the divine? Yeah, you’re definitely closer to the next world since you’re barely alive in your wretched state.
I find that pg. 161-62 — which recap the history of the two cults — might include the most interesting passages in the book.
but it sure could have been.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i really really really really really really really really really doubt it
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
pshh what better use of his time would a faculty member at an Ivy League University have than commenting on this thread. Answer me that one.
It would be pretty awesome if he showed up though.
well, you have a good point there, Jake.
i agree that it would be really neat if he showed up.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
hahahaa
are you trying to butter him up in case he pays us a visit? (fun fact: i originally wrote “butter his cup”).
nope.
i’m more than ready to be put in my place by someone who has actually published a book. i still won’t like the book. but hopefully i can get a glimpse of his thought process while writing it.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
maybe i could have been.
i should have made a better decision for grad school. or at least a more informed one.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
and yet i don’t see Andre Igudola on the Blazers….
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
so you think it's gonna happen, right?
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
i was waiting for you
no one seemed to understand!
by Future Farmers of America on Aug 3, 2010 4:02 PM PDT up reply actions
This was interesting.
Not even the presence of an absence, he thought, but absence as absence proper. It should be called a twelve, but a minus twelve.
I think this was one of the key moments in which I suspected that Evenson intended at least some of the way his work was regarded. This comment was so bizarre yet it took my mind to a place very different than I might have thought otherwise, and I stopped thinking about the presence of the absence of detail as started wondering about ‘absence proper’.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've always imagined."
we probably should rec this thread
so mr. evenson can cleary see that it’s an important part of BEdge right now
I’d meet BRP at the airport, not flee!! - fanfaraway
and placed the order for Norwegian Wood and Moby Dick
and is now waiting anxiously for their arrival… hehehe
I think they’re is some bottled up frustration of some kind amongst my JD peers.
ha ha haha
that’s a very very funny point.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
If you were Mr. Evenson
and you popped into this thread, would you stay around? I don’t think I would. Unless he had really specific “rebuttals.” But then he’ll just sound defensive. I could be wrong.
if i were Mr Evenson
i’d kidnap you all and cut off three fingers!
by fanfaraway on Aug 3, 2010 4:36 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
that would be bad.
cause then i’d have to hunt Mr. Evenson and cut off his face.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
just the face?
you’re hardcore.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i was assuming you'd cut the head off
with his own cleaver.
by fanfaraway on Aug 3, 2010 5:35 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
decapitating someone isn’t quite my thing.
but no one cuts off 323’s fingers on my watch!
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
well in that case i’d wait around for someone to kidnap me and make me do something
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
you’re not gonna kidnap me are you?
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
i’m gonna break the key off in the lock on my door just in case.
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
oh well, it was fun while it lasted
but that right there is foolproof… there ain’t nothing i can do now! You win
(don’t tell anyone but i’ll leave my window unlocked)
"My love winks, she does not bother / She knows too much to argue or to judge"
hahaha ok
your secret is safe with me, but you are not… i hope no one knows where you live, though!
Anyways, til tomorrow, buona notte
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