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HAF Book Club: October poll and discussion

Started by Sandra Craft, September 23, 2020, 10:55:13 PM

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Sandra Craft

The Final Solution: a story of detection, by Michael Chabon.  Retired to the English countryside, an eighty-nine-year old man, rumored to be a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man.  Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot.  (131 pages)

Mrs. Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls.  In the quiet suburbs, while Dorothy is doing chares and waiting for her husband to come home from work, not in the least anticipating romance, she hears a strange radio announcement about a monster who has just escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research.  (111 pages)

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.  A boldly imagined future in which no hope remains, but in which a father and his young son are sustained by love.  (241 pages)

The Reporter, by Scott Sigler.  The Reporter follows Yolanda Davenport, a reporter for Galaxy Sports Magazine, as she searches for the truth about Ju Tweedy's involvement with the murder of Grace McDermott - the incident that drove Ju to join the Ionath Krakens. The Reporter takes place between week three and week six of the 2684 Galactic Football League season, the season that encompasses The All-Pro.  (138 pages)

Under the Skin, by Michael Faber.   A sci-fi work described as a combination of Roald Dahl and Franz Kafka, as Somerset Maugham shacking up with Ian McEwan. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory - our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion.  (296 pages)

The Year of Wonders: a novel of the plague, by Geraldine Brooks.  An historical novel based on the true story of Eyam, the "Plague Village". In 1666, a tainted bolt of cloth from London carried bubonic infection to this isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners. A visionary young preacher convinced the villagers to seal themselves off in a deadly quarantine to prevent the spread of disease. The story is told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Anna Frith, the vicar's maid, as she confronts the loss of her family, and the disintegration of her community. (304 pages)
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Sandra Craft

Nuts, another tie.  It's between The Road and Under the Skin, will whoever voted who isn't me or Davin please break the tie? 
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Randy

I'll flip a coin again.

It's...

Under The Skin
"Maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happens." -- Homer Simpson
"Some people focus on the destination. Atheists focus on the journey." -- Barry Goldberg

Sandra Craft

Quote from: Randy on October 01, 2020, 12:50:16 PM
I'll flip a coin again.

It's...

Under The Skin

Thank goodness, I've already started reading it.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Sandra Craft

Up to about chapter 5, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be having this reaction but I'm beginning to feel even worse about steers than I usually do.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Sandra Craft

#6
Can't believe I finished this one so fast.  Yesterday when I picked it up I thought I'm misplaced the bookmark because it was so close to the end, but no.  I was actually nearly done.  Anyway, here's my FB post about it:

Under the Skin, by Michael Faber.  A book club selection which I think may have finally turned me vegan, or at least vegetarian for the long term.

This is a science fiction novel about aliens running a meat processing plant in modern day Scotland.  And of course the meat they're processing is us. 

That in itself doesn't bother me -- I've read and seen my share of vampire stories based on farming humans so I'm used to the idea, but in a hazy way.  There's nothing hazy about Under the Skin, it's right up in your face with everything that's done.

The story is told almost entirely from the point of view of Isserley, the alien whose job it is to pick up likely looking hitchhikers, drug them and bring them to the plant (disguised as a farm) to be beefed up, so to speak, before being slaughtered, turned into plastic-wrapped steaks and shipped back to their homeworld where vodsel (that's us) meat is a high-priced delicacy.

Altho most of the aliens working at the plant retain their natural form (which sounds like a cross between baboon and cat), Isserley and one other have had horrific surgical alterations done on them to make them able to pass as Earthers, if you don't look too closely.

And since only males are selected for slaughter, Isserley is a female and was given gigantic breasts to enable her to lure males more easily.  This would almost be funny if the assorted amputations she's suffered as well didn't completely dip the scale on the side of tragic.

That's another thing I noticed while reading this, how Faber managed to make Isserley a tragic figure, almost tho not completely sympathetic, despite the terrible way she makes a living.  She's a complicated character and evokes complicated emotions from me.  Esp. since, as an occasional meat-eater, I'm complicit in the same horrors she's perpetuating, if on different species.  It's hard to take a moral stand with this book, much as I want to.

Other than that, I can say it's very well-written, didn't bog down for me at any point even tho most novels do.  It kept the dramatic tension up right to the surprising, but perhaps inevitable, end.  Definitely recommended.

See you at the salad bar.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Sandra Craft

Did anyone else know this had been made into a movie?  With Scarlett Johansson, I think.  I have a hard time seeing her as Isserley.
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Magdalena

Quote from: Sandra Craft on October 19, 2020, 04:54:54 AM
Did anyone else know this had been made into a movie?  With Scarlett Johansson, I think.  I have a hard time seeing her as Isserley.


"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant

Sandra Craft

I have a couple of thoughts about this story that keep nagging at me. 

The first one is about Isserley's story being a voyage of discovery, which I've seen in a number of online reviews, but I'm just not seeing that.  I don't see anything changing with Isserley during the whole of the book, she seems to me to remain consistent in her perceptions and reactions from start to finish.  She's embittered, haughty and dismissive -- both of the vodsels she rangles (I can't think of anything to call her job but vodsel rangler) and the humans (to her, aliens to us) she works with.  She's also contemptuous of the humans on her homeworld but since they rarely visit Earth we don't hear about it quite so much. 

And I can totally understand her being this way, I don't think I'd have found it believable if she'd been depicted any other way.  She was screwed over (literally, apparently, and figuratively) by the Elites on her world and then could only get out of life in the Estates (which sound to me like the Colonies of Handmaid's Tale, where all the planet's shit work is done) by taking this vodsel rangling job on Earth, which she seems to be the only one doing, that required her to be massively and permanently surgically mutilated in order to barely pass as one of us.

As far as I can tell, she stays bitter and angry to the end -- so, where am I missing a voyage of discovery?  Or am I misunderstanding what a voyage of discovery is?  I thought it was a series of experiences that fundamentally change one in some way, usually for the better (is it still a voyage of discovery if you change for the worse?).

The second thing was her rape and potential murder by a psycho hitchhiker she'd picked up (and it's surprising that as often and long as she'd been doing this, he was the first psycho she'd met).  I wouldn't wish rape on anyone, quite literally not on my worst enemy (and I think Isserley would count as that for Earth people), but on the other hand I did have a kind of tit for tat feeling about it, considering the vodsel rangling and despite the fact that I think most of us would have given her that vodsel for free.  I was wondering if anyone else who'd ever read the book had a similar reaction to the rape, or am I over here just being perverse on my own?
Sandy

  

"Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet."  Sarah Louise Delany

Tank

Quote from: Sandra Craft on October 19, 2020, 04:54:54 AM
Did anyone else know this had been made into a movie?  With Scarlett Johansson, I think.  I have a hard time seeing her as Isserley.

I saw the film and got the book as a result. Unlike a book where you have an infinite special effects budget tailored exactly to your own expectations a film has financial limitations. Within those limitations it's a good film.  I'm glad I saw the film first as it would have been a huge disappointment if I'd read the book already.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

Quote from: Sandra Craft on October 25, 2020, 01:35:38 AM
I have a couple of thoughts about this story that keep nagging at me. 

The first one is about Isserley's story being a voyage of discovery, which I've seen in a number of online reviews, but I'm just not seeing that.  I don't see anything changing with Isserley during the whole of the book, she seems to me to remain consistent in her perceptions and reactions from start to finish.  She's embittered, haughty and dismissive -- both of the vodsels she rangles (I can't think of anything to call her job but vodsel rangler) and the humans (to her, aliens to us) she works with.  She's also contemptuous of the humans on her homeworld but since they rarely visit Earth we don't hear about it quite so much. 

And I can totally understand her being this way, I don't think I'd have found it believable if she'd been depicted any other way.  She was screwed over (literally, apparently, and figuratively) by the Elites on her world and then could only get out of life in the Estates (which sound to me like the Colonies of Handmaid's Tale, where all the planet's shit work is done) by taking this vodsel rangling job on Earth, which she seems to be the only one doing, that required her to be massively and permanently surgically mutilated in order to barely pass as one of us.

As far as I can tell, she stays bitter and angry to the end -- so, where am I missing a voyage of discovery?  Or am I misunderstanding what a voyage of discovery is?  I thought it was a series of experiences that fundamentally change one in some way, usually for the better (is it still a voyage of discovery if you change for the worse?).

The second thing was her rape and potential murder by a psycho hitchhiker she'd picked up (and it's surprising that as often and long as she'd been doing this, he was the first psycho she'd met).  I wouldn't wish rape on anyone, quite literally not on my worst enemy (and I think Isserley would count as that for Earth people), but on the other hand I did have a kind of tit for tat feeling about it, considering the vodsel rangling and despite the fact that I think most of us would have given her that vodsel for free.  I was wondering if anyone else who'd ever read the book had a similar reaction to the rape, or am I over here just being perverse on my own?

I think it was a journey where she discovered things simply to keep the narrative of disclosure going. She took the job to get away from her circumstances but the job turned out to be more than she was expecting as it progressed. She had no intention of learning anything at the beginning.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Davin

It took me a lot longer to read this than normal. Had some life events the last few months.

The writing style was alright, not too tough to read. I liked the narrative switches from Isserley to her victims.

The plot is a little flat, in my opinion it could have been a short story and would not have lost much. Isserley is an alien that comes from a low class in the alien society who chose to be mutilated to be able to pass for human because she thought it would be a better life than mining. I couldn't detect much character arc for her though. There was a bit of drama, but most of the story seemed to be about her hunting and capturing humans to be used as a kind of high end meat to sell to the upper class aliens.

It was a good read, the idea is interesting, and it was fun.

Quote from: Sandra Craft on October 25, 2020, 01:35:38 AM
The second thing was her rape and potential murder by a psycho hitchhiker she'd picked up (and it's surprising that as often and long as she'd been doing this, he was the first psycho she'd met).  I wouldn't wish rape on anyone, quite literally not on my worst enemy (and I think Isserley would count as that for Earth people), but on the other hand I did have a kind of tit for tat feeling about it, considering the vodsel rangling and despite the fact that I think most of us would have given her that vodsel for free.  I was wondering if anyone else who'd ever read the book had a similar reaction to the rape, or am I over here just being perverse on my own?
I'm not sure I feel the tit for tat on the rape. I think it was an occupational hazard of having a lone woman seeking out strong and healthy hitchhikers to harvest. So it seemed more like something that just happened to her due to the risks she took, and not something that happened due to what she was doing.

I think a better tit for tat would be more like she got found out by a concerted effort to look for the person responsible for all the missing hitchhikers or the psycho was cannibal.
Always question all authorities because the authority you don't question is the most dangerous... except me, never question me.