[Aptorian]

Tomorrow starts week three of our five week read-through of 84K.

We're reading from roughly p. 200 to p. 300 or from 40%-60%.

Feel free to discuss the past weeks without spoilers. Any discussion for the last 40% needs to be spoiler boxed.

What did you think of last weeks section?

Where do you think the story is going?

What do you think of the characters?

What do you think about North's world building?

What do you think of the prose?

Discuss.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 01 September 2019 - 02:58 PM

[Aptorian]

Just wrapped up week 2.

I can't say I love this book. It's a fascinating setting but it's all a bit much. And I loath the style of writing North is using in this book.

As much as I loved Harry August, this book feels like a completely different author wrote it.

Still the dystopian world of privatization keeps me interested.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yeah it's got a massively different feel to Harry August and also A Sudden Appearance of Hope which I also loved.

When you say "It's a bit much" what do you mean by that? Is it just the writing style or is it the fact that nothing is given away and progress seems slow?

[Aptorian]

No, it's more the dreariness. This is one of those tales where the odds seem so stacked and the world so grim that it's uncomfortable to keep reading. I don't like stories with no hope.

And I really do think the kind of system described in this book is hopeless. Even if, by the end of this book, somebody, somehow brought The Company low, the lasting impact on society and culture is a permanent scar.

Britain is utterly fucked.

EDIT: Mind you, as I understand it, Britain still retains a lot of cultural and class artifacts of the class based society your country used to be divided into. Maybe that makes North's vision less alien and more prescient to a brit. But I find it hard to see how this future Britain isn't locked on a dark path for generations to come.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 01 September 2019 - 04:13 PM

[Andorion]

Aptorian, on 01 September 2019 - 03:48 PM, said:

No, it's more the dreariness. This is one of those tales where the odds seem so stacked and the world so grim that it's uncomfortable to keep reading. I don't like stories with no hope.

And I really do think the kind of system described in this book is hopeless. Even if, by the end of this book, somebody, somehow brought The Company low, the lasting impact on society and culture is a permanent scar.

Britain is utterly fucked.

EDIT: Mind you, as I understand it, Britain still retains a lot of cultural and class artifacts of the class based society your country used to be divided into. Maybe that makes North's vision less alien and more prescient to a brit. But I find it hard to see how this future Britain isn't locked on a dark path for generations to come.

Agree on the dreariness. I don't think there is any realistic way back from this short of a complete collapse and an utter reconstruction.

Also, re: the remnants of old society, I got the same feeling when reading V for Vendetta. Unlike America which sees dystopias as fragmentation, in Britain you get the feeling that there is this sleeping authoritarian beast and it only needs to be awakened. The bones of the past lurk underneath the present

[Tiste Simeon]

As a Brit I find this book far too realistic tbh. Especially with the rise of far right racist ideologies and the people now running the country very much the type to try and privatise everything for a profit. Heck private security companies have been taking on roles the police used to do and some medical centres have gone from being NHS to private.

[Salt-Man Z]

I made it a little over 50% last week, so I held off a bit so as to not get too far ahead (and like, I've been super busy as well.) If it wasn't so compellingly-readable, I might be upset by the "nothing given away/no progress" thing.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 03 September 2019 - 04:56 PM

[Macros]

Starting week 3 reading now

[Macros]

Ok, half way through and it's at the books break 'twixt part one and two.

So things have actually taken a bit of an upturn on pace now.
But the very end was depressing for me:

Spoiler

the meeting with Pritchard, his callous attitude. Everyone knows, of course they do. This depressed me because it's a reflection of the world we live in.
We know that people suffer in virtual slave labour wage prison jobs.
But we still buy the shiny phones. People don't care until it affects them directly.

People are inherently shit

[Salt-Man Z]

I was kind of hoping the Part One/Two split would be where the flashbacks catch up to the "present day", but no, still waiting on that...

Also, I was very confused by the chapter where Theo encountered Andy. I read it twice, partly because it was the last chapter I read before setting the book aside for a couple of days (I was getting ahead of the Club), and partly because I was having trouble following the back and forth dialogue.

Spoiler

So do Theo and Andy both think Lucy's their daughter? Or do they think she's the other's? Or is it a case of it doesn't matter because it could be either?

[Aptorian]

I'm about 50% into the book.

This concept of the ragers I find kind of novel. The idea of roaming dispossessed raging at the universe, life and everyone around them. It's kinda Zen in a violent kind of way.

Also sorta Mad Max.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 07 September 2019 - 12:07 PM

[Aptorian]

Macros, on 06 September 2019 - 12:20 PM, said:

Ok, half way through and it's at the books break 'twixt part one and two.

So things have actually taken a bit of an upturn on pace now.
But the very end was depressing for me:

Spoiler

the meeting with Pritchard, his callous attitude. Everyone knows, of course they do. This depressed me because it's a reflection of the world we live in.
We know that people suffer in virtual slave labour wage prison jobs.
But we still buy the shiny phones. People don't care until it affects them directly.

People are inherently shit

I still thought it was a bit callous when it's going on in your own nation.

But then again the man's a smuggler. Not the most charitable of sorts.

Salt-Man Z, on 06 September 2019 - 03:05 PM, said:

I was kind of hoping the Part One/Two split would be where the flashbacks catch up to the "present day", but no, still waiting on that...

Also, I was very confused by the chapter where Theo encountered Andy. I read it twice, partly because it was the last chapter I read before setting the book aside for a couple of days (I was getting ahead of the Club), and partly because I was having trouble following the back and forth dialogue.

Spoiler

So do Theo and Andy both think Lucy's their daughter? Or do they think she's the other's? Or is it a case of it doesn't matter because it could be either?

Spoiler

I think Andy understood that he'd been misled but also that it didn't matter. Whether the child was his or not, he'd done nothing to help her and could do nothing to help her. The screamers and ragers seem beyond hope. For themselves or others.

[Macros]

Ok,

Finished up to page 300ish.

And This may sound weird but I'm on Holidays in SA at the minute and it's made this book even grimmer for me.
In Joburg all of the people I'm meeting live in walled compounds, or little enclaves with electric fences and walls around their houses.
Fucking electric fences around their houses. This is so bizarre to me, and really made 84k even more depressingly possible seeking.

But back to the book,

Spoiler

a bit too much coincidence with the Helen/Dani meeting, but it had to be set up somehow I guess.
Theos turn becomes increasingly believable through the flashback and costings of people's lives. He always knew, now he is facing up to what he has done.
One line near the end of the chapter said it all 'There is a place in he for me'. He is resigned to this, he doesn't want absolution for what he has done, he wants to break it up to fix it, regardless of what it does for his soul or whatever