50 Book Challenge Part Five

We are all completely beside ourselves - I thought this was quite an entertaining read but I can't quite understand why people rave about it. I didn't know about the twist so that's probably what kept me interested. I have a feeling it's on our book club list for later in the year. Might stick it on audible rather than 'read' it again

I quite liked We are all completely beside ourselves. It was ok.

There is even evidence that plants...communicate between themselves yes, Triffids, right?

The Cazalets does start slowly Fatowl bit picks up pace, I'd say it's worth persevering. I don't do audible though so not sure what difference that would make.

I also liked We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves. I read it for a weekend when I was away from my children, and the physicality of the descriptions really resonated.

Nice to see the Never Let Me Go debate rearing its head again, didn't we do this last year? I'm on the snap out of it & do something side, but tend to spend half my life mentally shouting at annoying protagonists.

25. The Hydrogen Sonata - Iain M Banks. This made me think of Cote, music and sci-fi. There's a musician trying to play an almost impossible piece of music on an instrument that you need four arms to play, the Antagonistic Deconstring, a group of amusingly named Culture Minds, a man who is thousands of years old, and an alien race that is about to sublime. There's an added poignancy to the story as it was Iain Banks' last sci-fi book before he died, and it is kind of about mortality. I'd forgotten how much I like the Culture books, they were probably the first sci-fi I got into. I'd recommend but probably best to read some of the earlier ones first to get into the world.

"I can imagine scenarios where I would accept the looming death, TBH. Although they'd tend to be the kind of scenario where I'd be sacrificing myself to save my DC, not a "we need to kill you so a stranger you've never even heard of can live" scenario. "

Of course. Needless to say. The alternative has to be far worse a thought than being butchered & left to die.

wilting - "Not everyone is you cote."

They are not? What do you mean?

"People make unbelievable choices. They kill their children. Live peacefully amid a murderous regime. Blow themselves up for god. Etc etc."

Yes, sure, everyone makes different choices BUT we all have one thing in common: When you know you will get horribly mutilated & killed, you run and hide. People do it. Animals do it. Insects do it. There is even evidence that plants take measures not to be eaten (communicate between themselves when an animal comes to graze and make their leaves bitter).

Ultimately, it is just not believable that these humans will hear "We'll butcher you & kill you when we feel like it, for someone else's benefit" and do nothing whatsoever to avoid that fate except ask nicely if they can have an exemption. Without any attempt at an explanation, no conditioning, no genetic modification to render them docile, no nothing at all. Just a big gaping plot hole that I can throw 20 of those pathetic, whiny clones through. (Sorry, just couldn't resist it )

I would do anything, go anywhere to escape looming death. Are you saying you wouldn't, unless a destination is nicely presented to you?

I can imagine scenarios where I would accept the looming death, TBH. Although they'd tend to be the kind of scenario where I'd be sacrificing myself to save my DC, not a "we need to kill you so a stranger you've never even heard of can live" scenario.

It'd have to be some very powerful indoctrination to have all these clones marching acceptingly off to the slaughter, especially when they're given ample opportunity to attempt escapes.

chessie re: Brooklyn and the sponsorship by the priest - it was apparently very common and it never struck me as being something that was pending revelation. It's all laid out what happened and for what reasons. The Catholic Church was strong link to home for thousands of people who left a weak Irish economy for the prospect of employment in America and facilitated the transition. The main character helps a lot with Church activities when she's there and there is a strong Irish community around the Church that the Priest obviously wishes to continue to strengthen. Also I feel she did have a personality - some personalities are however, quiet, reserved, uncertain, and watchful, and I want to read stories about those kind of personalities too, so I liked it for that. I think when we discussed it here before, those it appealed to identified a bit with the feeling of rootlessness and of being an outsider.

Chessie, I felt the same about We are all completely beside ourselves, and it falls into a category of highly acclaimed novels that I can't understand what all the fuss was about. I did, however, think there were some powerful scenes towards the end when they were reunited although it's years since I read it. Just thought I would let you know you're not alone.

I also read Never Let Me Go and really did not like that one either. I don't remember enough of it to expand upon that statement. Although I do remember that I read it because it was highly recommended by my local newsagent who was 80+ at the time, I think I was about 29, and that was a pleasant surprise for me. That recommendation was the beginning of an unlikely friendship based on love of reading.
Am enjoying The Kitchen House so far.. back to it.

15 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Read inspired by you lot! Thoroughly enjoyed it, will recommend on actually to DF. Not his usual thing (written in last 50 years) but I think the structure will appeal to him. My only reserve would be that my mental health wasn't quite up to keeping track of who all the characters were when I met them second time around. However that's what flicking back though the book is for!

Now going on to Terry Pratchett's The Truth!

It's been many years since I read Never Let Me Go but it has stayed with me. I was able to suspend my disbelief and be open to a world where cloned children were brought up separately with limited access to the outside and subjected to a particular education and indoctrination. I didn't feel I needed to interrogate all the preconditions that led to that world being as it was portrayed. And as for people being willing to believe that clones don't have souls, people throughout history have been willing to believe many things that absolve them of guilt about fellow humans or animals (slavery, concentration camps, 'struggle sessions' in communist China).

Not everyone is you cote. People make unbelievable choices. They kill their children. Live peacefully amid a murderous regime. Blow themselves up for god. Etc etc.

50. The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett

Already reviewed quite a lot on these threads. Told me some stuff I didn't know about.

51. The No-Spend Year: How I Spent Less and Lived More by Michelle McGagh

A freelance journalist decides that for a year, she will spend nothing other than her essential bills. She allows herself and her husband £30 per week to cover food, essential toiletries and cleaning products. On the one hand I really admire her because she made it quite tough for herself - she allowed herself no travel budget so had to cycle everywhere, and her list of essential toiletries was very short - no moisturiser for example. On the other hand, the book irritated me because a lot of her suggestions for saving money only really work if you're in London or another large city. For example, for entertainment she suggests going to watch TV shows or DVDs being filmed. Great in London, not so great elsewhere! It was also easier in her job to get away with not spending money in some circumstances - anyone with client-facing jobs would struggle turning up to work in ripped/worn/smelly clothes as she admits she did towards the end of the year. She also doesn't have children! It was quite thought provoking though, as by the end of the year she had managed to save up £22,000 which she used to overpay her mortgage. It did make me think about the areas I waste money. I will try and make more effort to spend less!

52. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

After the discussions upthread I was a bit nervous about this. It's about a young Irish girl in the Fifties who emigrates to Brooklyn. It was.... ok. Nothing much happened in the story and the main character had no personality. I don't understand why so many people rave about it. I was also baffled why the priest would pay for her to emigrate - I kept waiting for some revelation but no, there was no reason but they all just accepted it. Strange.

53. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler.

Narrated by Rosemary, looking back at her childhood and the disappearance of her sister Fern. There is something odd about Fern, revealed about a third of the way in. This was another book where I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. I didn't particularly like or care about any of the characters and didn't find the story particularly engaging. I did know the 'twist' before I started reading though - maybe it's better if you don't know in advance?

35 The Murdstone Trilogy by Mal Peet

Philip Murdstone is a once-successful YA author whose books have fallen out of fashion. His agent instructs him to write a fantasy novel, despite the fact that he loathes the genre. At which point a strange dwarf-like creature turns up and offers him a Faustian bargain. . .

Definitely a light quick read, but very, very funny in places. Just the thing for a slightly hung-over Sunday :) (I imagine even funnier for the friend who lent it to me who is a children's author & quite frequently cries off social engagements looking distinctly frazzled at the edges because she has to produce something for her agent )

Viola is nicknamed Villy

The Cazalets

"We do live in world where we have seen mass cult suicide, nazi Germany and North Korea. Not to mention trump"

There is a lot of systematic brain washing going on in cults, where people actually end up believing that apocalypse is coming and they are better off going to promised land or whatever. They kill themselves because they believe it to be the better/least painful choice. And you can't very well just say "Bye" to cults & leave them, either. There is no such brainwashing in Never Let Me Go.

Nazi Germany, Trump, FGM etc have nothing to do with the inexplicable loss of the instinct to stay alive.

"As for running away, you need somewhere to go"

ANYWHERE would do. Run away to a desert island, go to the hills and live in caves, whatever. Nobody can tell them from people who are not cloned, so why not just go to some other city or another country? Get a fake ID, change your name, hair colour, whatever. Criminals do it all the time, so why shouldn't they?

I would do anything, go anywhere to escape looming death. Are you saying you wouldn't, unless a destination is nicely presented to you?

Anyone interested in Never let me Go I've just noticed it's one of the titles in the Audible BOGOF offer this week

We do live in world where we have seen mass cult suicide, nazi Germany and North Korea.

Not to mention trump

All of which I find far more incredible than events in never let me go

Fgm absutely in same mind set. Not to mention suttee.

Inca practice of human sacrifice anyone?

And that's just the stuff that occurs to me off the top of my head.

As for running away, you need somewhere to go.

The industrial schools here in Ireland, not to mention the magdalen laundries were horrific institutions but I don't believe running away was common as the culture of the time agreed those people should be there. Mostly it was your own family that put you in.

I think it's a great book personally.

Cheerful - I didn't expect the people in Never let me go to run away, but was surprised that they obeyed the rules about protected their bodies, didn't drink/do drugs/shag about with people from the 'real world'/eat yummy crap food until they were morbidly obese. To live in such a fucked up way and not be tempted by drink and drugs seemed oddly not explored. I'd expect them to all be off their faces. And perhaps they were engineered to be obedient, but there was no explaination of that, there didn't seem to be warnings about reprocussions if they did 'ruin' themselves, if they couldn't be used what would happen? Would they be 'put down' or just left to do their own thing? Would it be a death sentence or a reprieve to drink until your liver is close to being pickled? They were just told not to, no "or else XYZ" - there was nothing in it for them to behave.

Cheerful - re Never Let Me Go:

"The children had been brought up in a place that didn't tell them how to run away"

So? Nobody needs to be actually told that they should run away from harm, let alone how they should run away. Surely the meaning of "run away" is to somehow get far away, or even stay close but hide. Animals run away from harm. Hell, even insects run away from harm and I really doubt they learn that in an insect school on "how to run away from certain death"

"It's hard to run away even when you have a plan or somewhere to go to."

Not harder than certain and painful death by missing multiple organs, I presume. Run, hide, figure it all out later. No gentle little school whose only claim to 'conditioning' is 'not telling them how to run' (what? ) is going to undo the 'fight or flight' reflex chiselled into all animals over millennia.

"It wouldn't have been hard to microchip them or something"

And then no sane human would stop until that microchip is removed, even if that means losing a limb in the process.

"It's no more implausible than soldiers on the western front walking to their deaths or women performing fgm on their children."

Soldiers go to their death either because they believe they are helping defend their country, fight for their way of life, etc or they know for a fact that they will be shot if they turn back. And yet many soldiers desert in every war.

FGM has nothing to do with voluntarily walking like sheep to one's own death.

"I agree that there must have been exceptions somewhere, but i think the book is about those who don't run."

There are no clones who run. If there are, why do we not know about them? Why is there no mention of anything of that sort in the book?

I find it quite pathetic that the book is so full of holes, so inconsistent and weak, that the reader has to try to come up with stories to make up for the author's laziness.

I tried reading the first Cazelet and thought it was dreadful. Definitely not for me.

I'm reading Past Mortems by Carla Valentine, it's about death and what happens behind the scenes at the mortuary during an autopsy, it's her autobiography as a APT and Technical Curator at the medical museum she works at.

I'm really loving non-fiction books at the moment!

Fat owl I loved the books but I read them as a paperback and think there was a bit of thumbing back and forth to remember who everyone was to begin with. Kindle I find is hard for that - probably just me. And imagine I might have been lost on audio books too.

Re : Never Let Me Go. I read it many years ago. Can remember the basic premise of the book but can't say it last a lasting impression and can't remember having any strong feelings either way. So I guess for me that means it's crisps; quite tasty at the time, filled a gap, but forgettable.

fatowl I'm out at the moment, but I'll take a photo of the family tree for you when I'm back home. It does help. Can't quite imagine it working on Audible for the reasons you say.

I liked Never Let Me Go. I agree the not running away should have been lampshaded a bit, but that was one of the things I liked actually. The children had been brought up in a place that didn't tell them how to run away - they literally had no understanding of how they'd live or work in the real world. They had no role models or story of how it would work, the way slaves in America had.

It's hard to run away even when you have a plan or somewhere to go to. It wouldn't have been hard to microchip them or something, but I think it's a deliberate choice not to. He's interested in stories - the story they tell about the gallery, about the falling-in-love getout. If they had a plausible running-away story, I think they'd use it. They don't.

It's no more implausible than soldiers on the western front walking to their deaths or women performing fgm on their children. I agree that there must have been exceptions somewhere, but i think the book is about those who don't run. I think that's the whole point of it, actually.