Kim's pick

For early November?

WTF?

What was the deal with Madam and Miss Emily, shacking up together in that weird house with some big Nigerian servant dude and who knows who else? I feel like there's some code to understanding and appreciating this book that has completely eluded me.

If I were some British writer wanting to explore how the government has taken charge of an individual's body to make it conform to its plan, I'd write about this amazing man.

Emotion

The narration of "Never Let Me Go" seemed almost void of emotion, even when describing the deaths of close friends and her own impending death. Did that lessen the emotional weight for you as a reader?

Ruth

Why do you think Kathy was friends with Ruth?

Science fiction

I've seen this book compared to "1984" and "Brave New World." Do you think the book is successful in its portrayal of a dystopia that clones individuals to be organ factories? Does it seem horrifying, or does it seem too unlikely to be taken seriously?

"Never Let Me Go"

Did you like it? Any general impressions? Do you think it deserves to be on TIME's list of top 100 novels?

Erin's pick

"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Related reading

Just read an interesting post on Salon ("History is bunk after all") about Margaret MacMillan's "Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History," which is quite relevant to our discussions on Horwitz. An excerpt:

"Dangerous Games" calls for "professional historians" (by which I think MacMillan means "academics") to "contest the one-sided, even false, histories that are out there in the public domain. If we do not, we allow our leaders and opinion makers to use history to bolster false claims and justify bad and foolish policies." In recent years, she complains, academic historians have become either unduly "self-referential" or preoccupied with "fun" but ultimately insignificant fluff like culture studies.

The whole post is here.

Your past

One of the things that really fascinates me is how people differ so much in their relationship to their past. Some people are completely uninterested in their ancestors and whatnot. But others — and not just disenfranchised minorities — are really drawn to what they consider their ethnic/racial/cultural/religious roots. And it ranges from simple historical curiosity to stringent identity politics to obsessive, off-the-wall kookiness. Horwitz encounters all types in his book, which underlines his point that history "lives" in both expected and unexpected ways.

Where do you think you fall on that spectrum of interest in your deep past?

Also, people's pride in their ancestry takes different forms. For some, it's about dignity and careful preservation and respect. But others seem to prefer showing their pride through festivals and marketing to tourists, etc. It's almost like a kind of cynical commercialism is always pawing at the door of authenticity.

Why are we so stubbornly stupid?

Did you think there was sufficient explanation in the book for WHY people are so tenaciously attached to false history? Or did Horwitz just treat it as a given that people cling to their myths — religious, historic and otherwise — even when they are demonstrated absurdities? Like it's just human nature to hold on to the first thing you were told?

I sometimes wished he would explore this phenomenon more. He touches on it when he makes comments to the effect that history is written by the winners, which in this case was white, Anglo Protestants, but I sometimes wished he would talk to a psychologist (vs. a local historian, say) to delve into this weird mental hurdle people have with perpetuating bad history.

Good and bad history

Were there incidents of "fake history" that especially stood out as something you remember learning as a kid? And did any aspects of the real history surprise you?

Horwitz's method

Did you enjoy the book?

What did you think of Horwitz's method of interspersing historic accounts with present-day treks to the sites?

Tales of the Black Freighter

What do you think is the purpose of the pirate comic that is interspersed throughout the story? How does it relate to the main narrative?

And in a related question, did you like all the extra materials between each chapter? Or did it get in the way?

God

I read a piece of a review of "Watchmen" that argued that the theme of the book was what it means to be God.

There's a quote in the book from some military guy or something after Jon's accident that says, "There is a God, and he's American." And Jon does have some godlike powers, including the ability to see and travel through time and space, survive on Mars, give Laurie some kind of force field, get disintegrated and still survive, etc.

And then we have Veidt, who is certainly playing God in his attempt to manipulate world politics by sacrificing millions of lives.

Thoughts?

Rorschach

What did you think of Rorschach? I found him really likable, despite his being a total sociopath. Why do you think that is?

Dr. Manhattan

What was your reaction to Jon? Why do you think Laurie lived with the guy for 20 years?

Cold War

Do you think all the 1980s stuff about the Soviets and nuclear war makes the book too dated?

The Comedian

My God, what an asshole.

What was up with his relationship with Silk Spectre? He brutally attacks her, but then she "can't stay mad" for some reason and has sex with him. But 16 years later, she's mad again and yells at him for talking to her daughter. And then at the end, we see her tearfully kissing his photo. WTF? Do you buy this love-hate relationship?

The ending

What did you think? Did you find it "chilling"?

I did enjoy the very last part, the part where the news clerk stumbles upon Rorschach's diary, and we can assume that Veidt's plot will eventually be revealed.

But Veidt's plot itself -- creating a giant octopus-looking monster with the cloned brain of a psychic and using it to distract world leaders from fighting each other -- struck me as a bit ... stupid. Not to mention contrived and overly complicated.

The whole thing depends on the existence of psychics? And "sensitives"? To use an old joke, didn't the psychics see this coming?

But then again, it is a comic. Am I being too picky?

Kim's pick: A Voyage Long and Strange

I thought this book looked fun. I've read and enjoyed a few other books by Tony Horwitz, the husband of Geraldine Brooks (the Pulitzer power couple) — including "Blue Latitudes," where he retraces the voyages of Captain Cook, and "Baghdad Without a Map," about his travels through the Mideast. He's a great historian, journalist and adventure traveler.

The hardback has a different subtitle ("Rediscovering the New World") than the paperback ("On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and Other Adventurers in Early America," which I suppose is sexier in its specificity), but it appears to be the same book — although there's a fun 15th century woodcut in the intro to the hardcover that I don't see in the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon with the paperback. I would hate to miss an illustration!