I don't like it at all.

Adrian mole 😁

>The Glass Castle

I haven't read it yet, however, it's now in my digital library so that's what I'll be doing this weekend....:o)

It's amazing how kids still love their parents even after abuse, neglect, etc. I lived it many years ago but still harbor PTSD from it all. I'm in therapy so I'm hoping that gives me some relief. I become so angry at people who do these things to their children.

Sort of like all the brutal women killing is in the mind of the author. It was just a little too gleeful for me to think he wasn't enjoying it, too.

I grew up from one shitty situation to the next, since we werent aloud much TV at the children's home I read a lot, an it took me away from the bordem or whatever an now I use reading to forget my traumas an the horrors of day to day life I do everything in my power to forget even if it's for a fleeting moment an books n some hardcore heavy metal do just that

I always had the sun thought as well!

For me, it's a symptom of his obsessive behaviour. You can also see him trying to find meaning in the shallowest of things -comercial pop music- as a vindication of himself. Be defending shallow music he was implying there is more to him beneath his looks and attitude, which are also pretty shallow.

Of course, the music he defends so passionately HAS artistic value. Just not in the ways he thinks it does.

People today sometimes get quite a shock when they find out about real history.

Yeah most people are taught the allies were the good guys who beat evil in WW2 but they were all up to their own nefarious shit. Look up the Bengal famine for one. When it was convenient for the allies they didn't even punish the people responsible for the atrocities of WW2 like with operation paperclip and also high up intelligence officials because they were too valuable to the allies.

Let's not forget that black veterans were often sidelined on return to the US and sodomy was still illegal in the UK post WW2 driving top codebreaker and father of computing Alan Turing to suicide

Was it good they won? Yes of course, are they moral paragons? Far from it. History is written by the victors

It's pretty good so far, and was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

I've read it, along with Artemis and Project Hail Mary. That's a good suggestion though.

Laura is a little kid in kindy. One day, Laura finds her mothers favourite necklace on the dressing table and decides she wants to take the necklace to school and impress all her friends. While playing on the field, Laura realises her necklace is missing. Laura is so scared of what would happen if her mother finds out she took the necklace, so when her mother questions her about it, she lies. Yet, Laura still helps her mother look for the necklace around the house. One day, her mother confronts her about it after a friend from Laura’s class returns the necklace. Laura might lie, Laura might try to deny it, but once the moment passes, Laura also feels relief from the burden lifted of her shoulders now that she longer needs to hide the truth.

I think, to a certain extent, that this describes Theo’s relationship with guilt. I agree that Theo acts like a narcissist, but the more I study his character the more he seems like a person who has a level of self awareness that he refuses to confront. He doesn’t register his guilt which leads to him expressing it in incredibly odd ways. I believe that one of the other reasons Theo began working at the grove was to deal with his suppressed guilt. Like how Kathy is said to have unconsciously left the laptop open for Theo to see, he unconsciously does a lot of stuff because he wants someone find out about what he’s done so he can let go of the guilt. That’s what the last chapter is all about. That snowflake scene at the end of the book represented him letting go of his guilt (and also finally moving on from his trauma) and being free. It’s a little bit odd, but I’ve come to learn that there really are people who act like that. They want others to confront stuff for them. The suppressed guilt lingers in the back of your mind and makes you listen more to instinct than reason.

Btw, (I’m adding this part for the sole goal of annoying you both even more) when the cops turned up at the crime scene they should’ve found an extra chair, some extra wire, oh and also some marks around Alicia’s wrists and ankles. And what did they decide to do with that information?? NOTHING. Hell, half of the characters in the novel knew how to get in the house without a key. If just one officer considered the possibility that she was bound and perhaps someone else was in the house literally everything could’ve been avoided. And don’t even get me started on what would happen if an officer got their hands on the diary. Since most of the characters are designed for the sole purpose of being a red herring this case would’ve been all over the place.

You make it interesting point about putting a book aside, and maybe returning to it and a number of years. I think it's totally valid that sometimes you're not in the right mind space for a book. What doesn't work for you today, might work for you in 5 years.

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Yeah it is the structure of Rolling Stone reviews or other magazines of that time, when the book appeared it was more evident because every review approached in a similar way. Bateman has learned to mimic that in order to appear more 'common' or 'friendly',

>Damn really, it's just memorization of another's words???

He memorises Zagat restaurant reviews too if I recall correctly ...

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True or false, what was the bus driver’s name?

That business card scene in the film is magnificent. Simply magnificent.

The Rifle, by Gary Paulsen. The book starts off describing a rifle hanging over a fireplace mantel. The book ends >!with a character being shot and killed by it.!<

Of course, there's an album that he buys three times because he wants to have it on every format ... Which brings it back to materialism.

Fro me, the music chapters show how he has to over-analyse everything, deconstruct it and take it apart instead of just enjoying it. Look at the praise he dumps on Huey Lewis and the News ... All those superlatives! Is that a fair, honest, appropriate assessment?

(Aware of the irony of over-analysing the music chapters after what I've just written!)

Edit: They also give us the scene in the filmed version where he monologues about Genesis (?). Pure brilliance!

Yes, its very verbose, i was very into it until they reached the cathedral/abbey/whatever it was. Might give it another go

It's dense that's for sure, I loved getting sucked into that world and plowed through it, but I could see how it's not to everyone's tastes.

I guess it's just such a deeply shameful subject. How could we even imagine that America, the so called land of justice and democracy, have been the genesis of fascist and racist ideology, mixed with eugenics and feeding/fueling the anti semitic movements ramping up in Europe in particular in the early 20th century.

I didn't even realise that eugenics in America was a thing that had anything to do with the Nazis until recently, or about the extent of sterilisation programs going on. I don't believe this stuff is actually known by younger people in particular, and that's not too good.

It means as far as I see it, that we are trying to whitewash this particular area, at least in a mild sense:

'The idea that western allies of WW2 are completely innocent of having any connection with the ultimate genocide of entire peoples as finally enacted to terrifying efficiency by the NAZI regime'.

Yes. The information is available, but only if one seeks it out. It's not tought to masses, in any deeper sense as far as I see it. Perhaps this is just 'too much' and even unnecessary to know. It is a sad and as another poster says, it can be seen as 'offensive' to even talk about in any way. And I understand.

Today, we don't blame modern Germany for the crimes of their recent past. That would be stupid and it would be pointless and it would not allow for all of us in the world to move on towards a better future. We have to acknowledge our own pasts even if it's terribly painful. That's surely the way to avoid history repeating again. If we look at history it DOES repeat in roundabout ways. We today more than even have a lot more means to understand history and stop it from repeating.

Anyway, let's just keep educating and learning. It's the only thing we can do.

There’s a character who first appears in book five of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series whose arc memorably concludes in book thirteen.