H. P. Lovecraft

We don't have a specific book or story for this week.  Just read 2-3 short stories and we'll share what we liked.  Here's a link we found with a bunch of his stories online. 

Fight Club

From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick

What You Missed

I apologize in advance for the bullet-pointedness of this post :) 

Things we discussed and voted on at club tonight: 

• We will update the blog at the end of each club meeting with the location of the next meeting as well as with the title for the next book we choose.  
• Chris will be the contact for everyone if you have any questions and he'll send a reminder text a couple of days before the club
• To make snack coordination easier for everyone, we decided to start a rotation that Chris will keep track of.  If you  host the club meeting at your house, you don't need to worry about bringing any snack stuff that night.  We're going to try it to see how it works out and hopefully it will make things easier to coordinate.  
• Because From Hell is proving difficult to find and is really expensive to buy, we decided to push it back another two weeks.  Hopefully that will give everyone time to find a copy and read it since it is so large.  We decided to pick a small book that will be easy to read in the meantime.  And the winner is.....Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick.
• The book after From Hell will be...... Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.  There are a lot of copies at the library but they are all checked out so hopefully this will give us enough time to put them on hold and read them before then. 
• Lastly, after Fight Club we will read H. P. Lovecraft. Instead of reading a specific book or story, we voted to have each person pick 2-3 short stories and we will talk about what we read.  It could be a really interesting way to review him as an author and see what themes we pick up on.  Check the Lovecraft post for a link to a bunch of his stories available online. 

This week's Quote of the night: "Ben and I have a history of Lovecraft!!!" Chris Lake 

And for the vote results so far (the poll is still up and running on the lefthand side of the blog if you want to vote):

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert	0 (0%)
Firmin by Sam Savage	1 (16%)
Pastoralia by George Saunders	0 (0%)
The Astonshing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson	0 (0%)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson	2 (33%)
Lefthand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin	1 (16%)
Maus I and Maus II by Art Speigelman	2 (33%)
Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami	3 (50%)
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers	0 (0%)
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier	1 (16%)
Lush Life by Richard Price	2 (33%)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman	1 (16%)
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett	1 (16%)
The Plague by Albert Camus	1 (16%)
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis	2 (33%)
Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett	1 (16%)
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith	0 (0%)

Change of Venue

At the last minute, we were able to get the Post Theater for our movie viewing this evening.  Here is a map of the location.  It will be after parking service hours so we can park at the Fort Douglas Museum which is just to the west of the theater (it's the building behind all the military equipment you see on the left when you drive East on  South Campus Drive/Hamstead Road).

The Maltese Falcon and Bogie

So, I am a few chapters into The Maltese Falcon and I can say that knowing the Bogart movie as well as I do has changed the reading experience for me. The dialogue in the movie follows the book quite closely so far. This means that although Sam Spade is described in the novel as a "blond satan" I can't get Humphrey Bogart's face and voice out of my head when I read about Spade. Joel Cairo is Peter Lorre in my head as well. I have the same problem with The Lord of the Rings. With the movie out, all I see when I read is Elijah Wood as Frodo and Ian McKellan as Gandalf. Do you think this diminishes the reading experience? or is it a good thing?

Also I do have to say that I was shocked by the homophobic portrayal of Joel Cairo. I knew it was there but Hammett lays it on pretty thick; all the "mincing steps" and "perfumed handkerchiefs" are distracting. This might be something to talk about when we meet. How do stereotypes in an older book affect our enjoyment of the book? How should we react to these kinds of negative stereotypes? Anyway just something to think about.