OutReaders:2019-10
10/19/19 2—4 pm
Kirkwood Library
Vox by Christina Dalcher
18 people attended. We had snacks and drinks. We went over these items:
- We need a rating system for books we’ve read. There were some ideas but nothing concrete.
- Book club needs a name. Asked for ideas for next month.
- Do we want to meet in December? It’s scheduled for Dec. 21. Everyone seemed OK with it, but we will revisit the subject in November.
Book discussion recap
The discussion leader, Jameson, opened by listing 7 themes in the book to talk about:
- Political activism
- Language and comm
- Feminism
- Education and indoctrination of young people
- Otherness in society
- The Pure Movement in real life
- Self-silencing to mesh with society.
Some general comments that were made at the beginning of the discussion: The lead character complains about choices she was forced to make, but she was not really forced into them. There were complaints about the ending and how convenient it was. The main character's husband’s death was very convenient. Romance was shoehorned into the book. There were complaints about how science happened or was depicted -- i.e. not very well. Discussed various plot holes.
It was never explained in detail how this society developed. We’re just presented with it. Some people thought that the backstory would make an interesting story. Our actual society today is sort of the starting point to her world. Maybe she inferred that the backstory is our real political climate. It’s not far off. But the book may not age well. Is it a cautionary tale?
The book does not address the classes and what happens to poor people in this society. The book is very New England, very Peyton Place.
The author was better at building romance than science/sci-fi. Even though she is a scientist.
Political activism
How effective is it? How much of your life should be spent on it? We spent some time talking about this. The main character didn't care about activism; she only cared about science. General apathy toward politics is a default for many people.
Parick seems passive and complacent but is really working behind the scenes. In the end his way doesn't work and he takes action to poison the top people. Patricks works for the resistance, but it’s unclear how that happened and what his role was. The book is limited by its first-person narrative, so there are things the main character doesn’t know, such as Patrick’s secret doings.
We talked about what would the story have been like one generation in the future.
Education of children
Christianity is taught outright in the book, not guised as “literature” or “history.” We talked about how that blatancy would work in our world.
How would the story develop had it continued? Would the government go for minorities, LGBTQ, etc. next?
Language and communication
What would it be like to not be able to speak? We talked about how crippling it would be to your sense of self and ability to even be a person. But you can have part of yourself that is separate from language.
Female equality
Do we reward girls for silence on our society? In subtle cues? Is Jean a feminist? “Feminism” is sometimes considered a bad thing even though we think women should vote, run for office, etc. The author in an interview said Jean is a humanist but Jean takes things for granted. We talked about what a feminist is. We talked about how people have done feminist things but don’t identify as one.
Rating
Meh. Good concepts but not great writing. In another author’s hands, it could have been a good book.
Byron created an app to let us vote online through our phones.
December book nominations (winner in bold):
- Old Man’s War by John Scalzi - Byron Altice nominated
- The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
- Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
- Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
- The Golden Globe by John Varley
- John Dies at the End by David Wong
