Argobot

YES! I noticed the repetition of Hawaii as well, and I really want to know what it's supposed to mean. If you accept the idea that all the characters in the book are the same soul, then I guess having Hawaii as a leitmotif makes sense. Ewing starts off in Hawaii, and his 'soul' doesn't return until the Sloosha section, at the end of the narrative's timeline. Mitchell is fond of this kind of symmetry in his books, and I find it all rather entertaining. Maybe a little obvious, but still good.

The current big literary 'thing' is the recent publication of DT Max's David Foster Wallace biography. My reaction to it was generally positive, I felt that Max did a fair job of summing up DFW's tortuous life and writing career. So I'm a little surprised to hear/read that so many people are dissatisfied with this biography. The major criticism against Max is that he didn't delve deep enough into DFW's history and that the biography is too short. Personally, I can't really picture what a more 'thorough' DFW biography would look like, so I feel these complaints are a little overblown. All the internet chatter over this, and the recent news that Philip Roth has agreed to work with his own biographer, has got me thinking about biographies in general. Has there ever been a biography of someone (I'm thinking more specifically of writers, but any famous or 'famous' person will do) that was received with an overall positive reaction? Or are biographies incapable of every fully satisfying readers? Have any of you read any good/satisfying biographies?

Yeah, the post-IF section is fairly short; it's mostly about the Pale King with little discussion on Oblivion or Interviews. Most of the reviews I read for the bio described it as a 'jumping off point' in learning more about DFW, so I enjoyed it as a cursory glance at a complicated man's life. Obviously, cursory is not the word you want to use when looking for thesis material, so I can see why you'd be frustrated. If you haven't already found it, you should read Conversations with David Foster Wallace, maybe that will give you more of what you're looking for. (Also, thesis on DFW, that is so exciting! Do you have a topic yet?)

I just finished the DFW biography! Were you really not a fan? I'll admit, I did not particularly enjoy the Mary Karr sections, but otherwise, I thought the bio did a fair job of summing up his whole career.

Haha, if the future stuff in Goon Squad bothered you, then stay away from Shteyngart! That book was a nightmare to get through, all of his 'critiques' of our tech-focused society were super grating.

Wow, I'm kind of surprised that Good Squad disappointed you, but Cloud Atlas didn't. Personally, I loved both books, despite their "gimmicks." What about Good Squad made you dislike it?

I can't believe I never noticed the similarities before, but it's so obvious now. I love Italio Calvino.

I don't know, I think there's some merit to whole death-to-the-author idea. Not that I think you should completely remove the author's intentions when you're interpreting a book, but the thing is, we can never truly know what the author's intent was. Sure, Mitchell can say all that he wants in interviews, but is what he's saying actually lining up with what he's original intention was when he wrote about the comet birthmark? Who knows? DFW had a lot of interesting things to say about death-to-the-author/intentional fallacy/all those other fancy literary theories, so I think I'll defer to him: “once I’m done with the thing, I’m basically dead, and probably the text’s dead; it becomes simply language, and language lives not just in but “through” the reader. The reader becomes God, for all textual purposes”

Has anyone read anything by William Vollmann? I keep hearing his name pop up as an author to read, but I don't really know where to start...

As far as the movie, I think this review says everything that I need to know: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/tiff-review-cloud-atlas-is-bold-messy-disappointingly-unimaginative-20120908 I don't know, when I finished the book, it made me appreciate more what Mitchell was trying to do in each individual narrative. Each story explores the various ways in which humans enslave each other, and how 'slavery' goes through cycles before it reverts back to its most basic form: compare the slavery in the Ewing section to the slavery in the post-Apocalyptic story. Mitchell is really intentional with the way he structures the book. First the stories are ascending through time and then they start to descend until we're back at the beginning. It's at the beginning (or what is really the 'end' of the book) where Mitchell directly states the message behind the whole book:

I really do not understand the dislike for Veronica; I think her actions make complete sense given the circumstances. She's doesn't owe Tony an explanation, which is why she never directly comes out and tells him what's going on. At the same time, she wants him to figure it out, s0 he can share in some of her pain. It's a push and pull between two desires: to not reward him with an explanation and to punish him by letting him know what the last 40 years of her life have been about. If I were in her situation, I'd probably act the exact same way.

I have eagerly anticipated this podcast, and I was not disappointed. It did bring up all the insecurities about aging and memory I had when I first read Sense of an Ending, but I still really enjoyed listening to your thoughts. Very insightful. I agree that good books don't necessarily have to offer an escape for the reader; most of my favorite books have actually made me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't know, I think I would still want to have dinner with Don Gately, even if he cooked it.

I just finished reading Ghostwritten, and wow, what a great book. The whole last chapter made me feel almost giddy with the way everything unfolds. Mitchell is a great character writer and comes up with these amazingly outlandish scenarios, but what I like about him the most it that he just makes reading fun.

I too would like reread this book. My BF is currently reading it for the first time, but he's aware of the 'twist ending. After he read the first part, he told me that the big reveal from the ending is very obviously laid out at the beginning. Meanwhile, I had the exact opposite reaction when I first read the book, and was just as shocked as Tony at the end. If I were to reread it, I think I would see the ending as even more devastating, because now I'm aware of how completely oblivious Tony is to what's happening around him.

To your very eloquent statement on the complex nature of humanity and our inability to ever really contextualize or understand the inner workings of long dead individuals and the fact that no matter much we know about a person we can never really know them, I would just like to add that Thomas More sure seemed like a big ole jerk.

But Devil in the White City has a charming serial killer, America loves charming serial killers! You don't need to worry about pesky things like 'facts' or 'historical accuracy' because, murder! As an aside, I just want to say Wolf Hall was great, Mantel managed to make the overplayed Henry VIII story actually seem fresh and interesting. Even though I can recognize it as fiction, I desperately want to believe that Mantel's Cromwell is the same as the actual, historical Cromwell. Clearly, writing pseudo-biographies of famous British figures is working out really well for her.

I have heard so many good things about Nixonland, maybe I will finally get around to reading it in my search for a 'satisfying' bio. Also, I kind of enjoyed Devil in the White City. I never believed what I was reading had any basis in reality, I saw it purely as fiction with a few historical details sprinkled in. Maybe that's why I was able to like it.

That's a shame, because I'm really enjoying Ghostwritten right now. It's obvious how this book had a lingering influence over Mitchell when he wrote Cloud Atlas. Ghostwritten is undeniably the weaker novel ('weaker' might be a harsh word here), but reading it is helping me appreciate Cloud Atlas even more.

Since there's not a thread yet for Cloud Atlas, I guess I'll put this here. Aleksandar Hemon interviews the Wachowskis on the making of Cloud Atlas: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/10/120910fa_fact_hemon The whole interview is really about the Wachowskis film career overall, but it has nice little tidbits about the process of adapting a seemingly unfilmable book. It's interesting, if you're into the whole 'how your sausage gets made' aspect of movies. Also, now we know that Natalie Portman is the one who recommended Cloud Atlas to the Wachowskis, so if the movie is bad, we know who to blame.

I don't know how much outside input you're going to take for book recommendations, but can this please be one of your picks? Just for fun, I'd like to throw out The Art of Fielding as a possible suggestion. One of its major themes is about what modern male friendship looks like, which seems relevant for this podcast. Plus, it's so well written that it actually made me care about (college) baseball.

Fair enough. Overall, I think Cloud Atlas is the better book, but I'm glad I read De Zoet first. Mostly because I think reading De Zoet after finishing Cloud Atlas would be kind of a let down. Currently reading Ghostwritten, which I'm really enjoying. Mitchell is quickly becoming one of my favorite living authors.

If Cloud Atlas wasn't the next book for the podcast, I'd have to disagree with you. I started with Jacob DeZoet, and I think reading that first really helped me when I read Cloud Atlas later. Mitchell is not overly difficult, but because Cloud Atlas is so jam packed with writerly flourishes, already being accustomed to his style was useful. Maybe this will be more relevant when Cloud Atlas is up for discussion in October, but I found it to be a really hard book to get into. If I hadn't already believed in Mitchell's writing ability, I might not have finished the first chapter, which would have been a shame because I now see Cloud Atlas as one of the more beautiful/optimistic books that I've ever read. Shorter version, if you think you can read Jacob DeZoet and then Cloud Atlas before the first week of October, then do that. Otherwise: Cloud Atlas first.

I wonder if the prevalence of ebooks is going to change the way authors construct their work. Michael Chabon's new book has an 'enhanced' ebook version with a long list of multimedia features that make it sound more like a Blu-Ray box set than a book. Personally, being the stuck up curmudgeon that I am, I have no interest in anything like that and really hope that 'enhanced' ebooks do not become a permanent thing.

Took advantage of the Steam sale and just bought the game (so now I feel a little guilty about not paying that extra $10).

I think it’s definitely an exclusion; that’s why we name things, to separate ourselves from others. It starts becoming negative when you’re expected to prove your credibility to self-label. Personally, I would never self-identify as a gamer, because I know that a lot of people would challenge me on that identification. My perspective is maybe slanted in this regard, but I think that the Video game community can be pretty confrontational with women who call themselves gamers. It feels like you have to work twice as hard to get people to deem you worthy enough to be included in the community. That’s one of the reasons why ‘girlfriend’ mode was so insulting to me. For one, it’s implying that the only women who play Video games are the ones who are dating male gamers, which is just plain wrong. Additionally, it intimates that if you’re a girlfriend of male gamer (which I am) and you play Video games because your boyfriend suggests them to you (which I often do), then you’re somehow not a real ‘gamer.’ Why is my status considered lower because my boyfriend recommended something to me?