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Welcome goonlings to the Awful Book of the Month! In this thread, we choose one work of Resources: Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org - A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best. SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/ - A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.  For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. Past Books of the Month [for BOTM before 2015, refer to archives] 2015: January: Italo Calvino -- Invisible Cities February: Karl Ove Knausgaard -- My Struggle: Book 1. March: Knut Hamsun -- Hunger April: Liu Cixin -- 三体 ( The Three-Body Problem) May: John Steinbeck -- Cannery Row June: Truman Capote -- In Cold Blood (Hiatus) August: Ta-Nehisi Coates -- Between the World and Me September: Wilkie Collins -- The Moonstone October:Seth Dickinson -- The Traitor Baru Cormorant November:Svetlana Alexievich -- Voices from Chernobyl December: Michael Chabon -- Gentlemen of the Road 2016: January: Three Men in a Boat (To say nothing of the Dog!) by Jerome K. Jerome February:The March Up Country (The Anabasis) of Xenophon March: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco April: Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling May: Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima June:The Vegetarian by Han Kang July:Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees August: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov September:Siddhartha by Herman Hesse October:Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse November:Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain December: It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis 2017: January: Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut February: The Plague by Albert Camus March: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin April: The Conference of the Birds (مقامات الطیور) by Farid ud-Din Attar May: I, Claudius by Robert Graves June: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky July: Ficcionies by Jorge Luis Borges August: My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber September: The Peregrine by J.A. Baker October: Blackwater Vol. I: The Flood by Michael McDowell November: Aquarium by David Vann December: Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight [Author Unknown] 2018 January: Njal's Saga [Author Unknown] February: The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle March: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders April: Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio de Maria May: Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov June: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe July: Warlock by Oakley Hall August: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott September: The Magus by John Fowles October: I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara  Current: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard Book available here: https://www.amazon.com/Arcadia-Play-Tom-Stoppard/dp/0571169341 Or here: https://theliterat.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/arcadia.pdf About the book: quote:
quote:Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present, order and disorder, certainty and uncertainty. It has been praised by many critics as the finest play from one of the most significant contemporary playwrights in the English language.[1] In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it one of the best science-related works ever written.[2] quote:Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house in Derbyshire, and takes place in both 1809/1812 and the present day (1993 in the original production). The activities of two modern scholars and the house's current residents are juxtaposed with those of the people who lived there in the earlier period. quote:This year is the twentieth anniversary of Tom Stoppard’s amazing play “Arcadia,” which opened at London’s Royal National Theatre. Actually, it seems ironic and maybe even a little trifling to attach dates to a play in which time is so supple and elusive a medium. The scenes in “Arcadia” alternate between the present day and the early nineteenth century. The sizable wall of years separating the two becomes, as the play progresses, increasingly permeable. “Arcadia” concludes with two pairs of dancers onstage, one of them contemporary and one belonging to the era of Byron and Keats. The four waltzers are united by the strains of a single melody. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/tom-stoppards-arcadia-at-twenty    About the Author quote:Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL (born Tomáš Straussler; 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter.[1] He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He co-wrote the screenplays for Brazil, The Russia House, and Shakespeare in Love, and has received one Academy Award and four Tony Awards.[2] His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a key playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation.[3] In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".[4] quote:LONDON (Reuters) - Tom Stoppard was given a special award as “the greatest living playwright” on Sunday at the 60th London Evening Standard Theatre Awards in recognition of more than a half century of work that has won him an Academy Award and four Tony Awards. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-theatre/stoppard-called-greatest-living-playwright-at-london-theatre-awards-idUKKCN0JE0VR20141130 quote:It is a mistake to assume that plays are the end products of ideas (which would be limiting): the ideas are the end products of the plays. Themes quote:The Second Law of Thermodynamics, with its entropic vision of a running-down universe aeons and aeons hence, may seem an impossibly remote prospect for a literary sensibility to focus on productively. Pacing Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law. Please post after you read! Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion. References and Further Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_in_Arcadia_ego https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron Interview of Tom Stoppard by Charlie Rose where he discusses the play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEmK_Tumgr4 There are a number of crappy recordings of the stage show on youtube but I haven't found a high quality film version yet. Detailed set of in-depth materials about the original production: http://www.act-sf.org/content/dam/act/education_department/words_on_plays/Arcadia%20Words%20on%20Plays%20(2013).pdf Final Note: Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book! (Or, in this case, the play). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Nov 6, 2018 |
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Nov 6, 2018 03:59
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The nice thing about this one is that it's a fairly short play.
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Nov 6, 2018 16:15
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chernobyl kinsman posted:read it today. its fantastic and beautiful. will post more at some point One reason I picked this one is that (by virtue of a school trip back in the day) I was able to see the original Broadway production of it. Just a brilliant show. When she picks up the candle at the end of the play, and all the lights dim down so it looks like just that candle is lighting the whole stage .. . The other contrast that doesn't always come through when reading the play is the marked difference in costuming and dialogue between the historical and modern characters. You go from regency fashion to . . . people just slumming in blue jeans and sweats and sneakers. . .
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Nov 7, 2018 15:38
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cebrail posted:Just got it from the library, I'm excited to read it because I know so little about english (language) theatre outside of Shakespeare and mass-produced broadway musicals that I wasn't sure of its existance. This is a really good place to start. Stoppard is [now that Edward Albee is dead, anyway] at least arguably the greatest living english-language playwright (imho the argument is between him and Mamet, but I'm probably forgetting some others). Most of Stoppard's reputation rests on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which is an absurdist, existentialist retelling of Hamlet from the viewpoint of two minor characters who die off-screen. It's gobsmackingly brilliant and funny but also fierce and brutal and it does a full on face tackle of the problem of existentialist despair -- sortof a more literary, metafictional version of Waiting for Godot. This is a very very different play and while it doesn't get the attention of RaGaD, Arcadia is my personal favorite of Stoppard's works (at least of those I've read or seen performed). It's this crafted polished little gem and it just shines. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Nov 7, 2018 |
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Nov 7, 2018 17:23
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quote:
full article contains heavy spoilers https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/is-tom-stoppards-arcadia-the-greatest-play-of-our-age-1688852.html A webpage about the mathematics of Arcadia, put together by a math professor: quote:What Thomasina has discovered and what Valentine is trying to explain is what is now commonly called the "Chaos Game." The game proceeds in its simplest formulation as follows. Place three dots at the vertices of a triangle. Color the top vertex red, the lower left green, and the lower right blue. Then take a die and color two faces red, two green, and two blue. http://math.bu.edu/DYSYS/arcadia/sect2.html Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Nov 10, 2018 |
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Nov 10, 2018 22:32
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Tree Goat posted:while I preferred R&G when i finally got around to it, arcadia was somehow the first stoppard that i read (and i've never seen it performed somehow). i remember reading it in high school and being blown away but it's a little bit less rosy this time around. Yeah I'm kinda wondering if it isn't basically the ideal high school /college play, the perfect introduction to the compare and contrast essay, especially if you focus on the romantic / enlightenment split. I think it's more interesting as an affirmative response to RaGaD's philosophical negative, though. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Nov 14, 2018 |
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Nov 14, 2018 19:28
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precision posted:
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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Nov 16, 2018 20:56
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Yeah, Franchescanando linked a free recording of a performance above, you need a library card though. I had no idea Stoppard did this much revision to Last Crusade: quote:Between an undated "Amblin" revision and a rewrite by Tom Stoppard (under the pen name Barry Watson) dated May 8, 1988,[6] further changes were made. Stoppard polished most of the dialogue,[9][19] and created the "Panama Hat" character to link the prologue's segments featuring the young and adult Indianas. The Venetian family is cut. Kemal is renamed Kazim and now wants to protect the grail rather than find it. Chandler is renamed Donovan. The scene of Brody being captured is added. Vogel now dies in the tank, while Donovan shoots Henry and then drinks from the false grail, and Elsa falls into the chasm. The Grail trials are expanded to include the stone-stepping and leap of faith.[6][20]
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Nov 18, 2018 16:39
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Please recall this is the thread for discussion of a specific work of fiction, not the thread for discussing the predilections, real or supposed, of other SA posters, unless Tom Stoppard posts here
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Nov 20, 2018 19:00
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cebrail posted:Even the main emotion vs. academia debate seemed a bit trite to me. I guess that's more a problem with the piece itself than with the format. Yeah, I think there may be a fair bit of this that works better in a play format because you can't pause and think about it -- it's just quip-quip-quip-quip and the fact that, say, fractals and chaos theory are different things, gets papered over by the movement of the presentation, because you only have so much time to think about any one thing before the next set of things is happening.
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Nov 23, 2018 00:15
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Need suggestions for next month. Christmas-themed is optional but not mandatory.
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Nov 26, 2018 17:03
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Franchescanado posted:How about "The Chimes" or "The Haunted Man and the Ghost", both by Charles Dickens. Dickens wrote 5 Christmas/holiday novellas, and A Christmas Carol is the most well-known, despite being the first one written. Both are readily available and under 200 pages, if I'm not mistaken. They also fit within your theme for the year. Right now I'm thinking these two plus carol for a dickens holiday medley. Nobody ever reads anything but Carol so spreading out to the other titles will be interesting, and it'll give me an excuse to read them too.
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Dec 2, 2018 03:54
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Apologies it's taking me so long to get the December BOTM thread up! I have had some poo poo going on that has kept me preoccupied! It is going to be the dickens christmas poo poo because what the hell https://manybooks.net/titles/cricket-hearth and https://manybooks.net/titles/dickenscetext96tchms12.html and so forth but I'll try to throw a few curveballs in to keep it interesting
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Dec 7, 2018 03:56
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