Maybe end of April, so Wednesday the 28th?
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I’d love it to be the week prior or after that as I will (weep for me) be in Pinehurst that week and plan on being otherwise occupied at that time. If it doesn’t work out, understood.
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I vote for the following week.as well. Need extra time to find our next selection.
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Same here. I’ve been a full week behind on Moby Dick every week and actually want to finish the damn thing.
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I’ll throw in a vote for the week after too.
and @DuckDuckHook trim those sails and make some progress!
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I think the writing style of the selection will warrant more time v less. (fascinating but not easy in my mind).
Would encourage a MOD thread title update to first May Wednesday and let’s plan on it.
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Let’s do it! @OffTheDole @Double_Bogey_Dave can someone update the title of the thread to “Refuge Book Club - Milkman by Anna Burns, Wednesday May 5th”?
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Quite the Cinco de Mayo celebration
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We’ll need @jscore to provide his margaritas recipe
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Not sure if anyone else experienced this but it turns out the first chapter is not supposed to be filled with blank pages. I assumed this was a stylistic choice, looks more like a misprint. Safe to say we are off to a great start.
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Those extra pages might be sitting in a cargo ship outside the Suez Canal
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I’ll have to write my congressman about this ink shortage.
Too bad you don’t have any ink!
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You know what has ink? Squid. You know what eats squid? Sperm whales.
Moby-Dick is everywhere.
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Just bumping in case people need a reminder - really enjoying this book!
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Dang, just realized I’ll be on my first flight in forevah during book club. I’m loving the book so far.
I 100% understand the irony of the fact that so many of y’all just slogged through Moby-Dick, but I’m having such a hard time getting into this book. I’m powering through though, and I’m really looking forward to the discussion so y’all can explain to me why I’m a dumbdumb
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This is the best part about book club. I pushed myself to keep reading through a couple of our selections where otherwise I would have just put them down. This book i find myself taking a bunch of breaks. Maybe just because I gave myself more time to read it. Maybe it’s because of the style. Good questions for the discussion!
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Finished up this morning
I haven’t found book club discussion questions I like that much but here are some below
Summary
m. Describe middle-sister. She’s 18 years old and bookish. What else? She says she prefers 19th century books “because I did not like the 20th century.” What does that statement (or any of her others) suggest about her?
m. What is it about the middle-sister that draws Milkman to her? Reviewers call him creepy. Do you agree? How else would you describe him: agressive, violent, obsessive intimidating … all of the above, none of the above, something else?
m. When Milkman finally prevails in his pursuit, middle-sister says, “I’d been thwarted into a carefully constructed nothingness by that man. Also by the commuity, by the very mental atmosphere, that minutiae of invastion.” There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence, which encapsulates the primary tension within the novel. Care to talk about what the statement means, say, phrase by phrase?
m. How would you describe the society in which the book is set (presumaly Belfast, though never acknowledged). Consider the city’s atmosphere, the sense of totalitarian oppression.
m. The book is concerned with power. How does power operate in Milkman —on a personal as well as societal level? Who has power and for what purpose? How is power used and over whom?
m. Milkman is also about tribalism. Talk about how group identity functions in this novel. Consider the us versus them allegiances, even down to the brand of butter or tea.
m. Did you find the author’s stream-of-consciousness style difficult?
m. What about the lack of character names? The author says that in her initial writing that she used names, but that the book never worked until she removed them. Why might the writing have gone more smoothly without names? Does the lack of names lend a dystopian quality to the work?
m. The author wrote Milkman years before the onset of the #MeToo movement, yet its subject of sexual predation is timely. How did you experience the book in light of today’s more aware society. How might you have read it several years ago…or even (if you’re old enough) 40 years ago when the events of the book supposedly (thought not specifically) take place?
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Also finished the book.
Interested to hear how everyone thinks “Ach” is pronounced.
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