LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL BOOK DISCUSSION

It's me, Archimedes!  Baron and I are back "on the grid."  As Baron alluded to the last couple of months have been CRAZY!  The book club meeting was a welcome respite from our hectic routine of late.  

I have to give a big shout out to Indy, who really carried the meeting this time.  Also shout out to Deuce, who was basically Indy's only support.  This book was written by Thomas Wolfe, a native of lovely Asheville, North Carolina, who has been called "one of America's foremost Southern writers." LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL has gotten rave reviews and has been called a "stunning, classic coming of age novel" and "rich with lyrical prose and vivid characterizations."  

Perhaps this lofty praise contributed to several members' frustration and discouragement with this particular group.  I have to confess, as I did during the discussion, that I really didn't know where the book was going for quite some time and found it hard to follow.  

Indy stepped in with some back story that really helped our feelings.  As most of you probably realized, LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL was based upon Thomas Wolfe's life, and the book reflected his horrible childhood, his father's mental illness, his mother's obsession with money, and his experience with being bullied.  Thomas Wolfe was 6'6" tall, which is RIDICULOUS, especially for the time period.  Indy shared that he used his refrigerator as a desk.  Indy also shared, and I was astonished to learn, that Mr. Wolfe's publisher actually cut out much of the material Mr. Wolfe wrote.  Indy also shared that Mr. Wolfe wrote his books by hand, in pencil!  All I can say is that Thomas Wolfe's publisher must have qualified for sainthood.

The highlight of the book discussion for me was the Forward by Pat Conroy to OF TIME & THE RIVER by Thomas Wolfe, the sequel to LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL, in which Mr. Conroy discussed his discovery of LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL and the impact it had on him.  Like Thomas Wolfe, Pat Conroy had a difficult childhood, so we discussed the possibility that Mr. Conroy was able to relate to LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL because of the similar circumstances in which they were raised.  We also discussed the possibility that Mr. Wolfe experienced some type of mental illness and may have been bipolar.  Mr. Wolfe died at 37 of "brain tuberculosis."

The perspective gained from the information Indy shared has inspired me to give LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL another go, but I fear that it may still be over my head.

MAY MEETING SUMMARY

Hello Novel Spirits, as you can see I am trying to catch up on all the important posts I neglected for the past couple days (or months whatever, who's counting?) So here is the May meeting summary post.

First order of business was the money. No surprise there. Indy and Diesel paid, no one else did. No surprise there. However, I can inform you all that as of now, Achimedes and I have put our $5 bucks into the super secret squirrel dictionary book safe so now we are current in our dues. And don't worry Waldo, we aren't adding to your balance, even though I'd love to take all the interest from that account and put it all on black! We won't make you pay until you come to your first meeting. :-)

Even though I provided some pictures in the last post, I'll bring the book safe to the next meeting so everyone can see what the club's very first investment looks like. I really think its awesome myself!

After another review of everyone's books yet to read, none of us decided to change out our book choices so no changes to that.

Indy now has (or I hope she has, depending on how technically savvy I am) admin access to the blog so she can update her own "Off the Grid" segment, which has its own gadget here on the blog. Now she can put her own style and personality to it (which she has done very well in person) and it will be better than me just trying to summarize her discussion.

And of course, as we all know by now, Bean's next book is The Carpet People, by Terry Pratchett. We ended up discussing the second Maze Runner book last time, so we'll try again for The Carpet People again this time.

The adults' book (although calling us adults is rather a stretch I think we'll all agree) is Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. You might have heard of him.

I'm looking forward to our next binge eating and moderate drinking session aka book club meeting!

BOOK SAFE UPDATE

Check it out Novel Sprits, I came home after a hard day, expecting to see the usual sight of a destroyed house thanks to my cats, but NO!, this time I happened upon my beloved Princess Leia Skywalker-Organa-Solo (Jr.) expanding her knowledge by quietly perusing the The New English Dictionary! And I was able to sneak a picture:

I am so proud.... wait a minute, that's not really a dictionary, it is our club's super secret squirrel book safe!! Man I feel just like James Bond! Here's a few more pics to give you a little more info:

We are big time now Novel Spirits!! Oh and FYI, JB and Cat, you owe us $5 each for the May meeting. Take care now, bye bye then.

AMERICAN NATIONS BOOK DISCUSSION

American Nations was a very informative non-fiction book about how and why the different regions of America developed their unique attitudes, dialects, political views etc. We had a long, in depth discussion so I won't waste space with my puffery. Onto the discussion summary:

The book mentions most every country that was represented were of people who were escaping war,
famine, oppression of the “mother” country. So we are a country full of people escaping a bad situation in search of a better life and opportunities. And that image of America still exists since we are the "Land of Opportunity".

We also noted how the colonies were not as united against the British as what is “taught” by our history classes in school. Particularly, the northern colonies kind of let it slide that the southern colonies kept slaves. If the northern colonies had put their feet down and tried to force the southern colonies to abolish slavery, then the southern colonies would have sided with the British, and the revolution may have failed or turned out quite differently.

The Midlanders were passive during the revolution

Even today, we can see the foundation of religious beliefs from the groups that emigrated here so long ago.

Some interesting parts of the book that our club noted were: Trail of Tears (Jacksonian period a very rough period politically), What if Mexico/Cuba had been included in America early on?, Yankeedom was afraid of the South having too much power (political move), the different southern regions looked at slavery differently (different treatment of slaves), different government view points among all the different regions, Yankeedom has high opinion of government, Appalachian region has no trust of government or any outsiders, Tidewater folks look out only for themselves (is it a coincidence that I spent part of my life in the Tidewater region??? hmmmm), the Vanderbilt family father came as an indentured servant and that family became one of the richest in America.

Cat posed a question to the group: In all of our travels did any of the attitudes promoted by the book ring true? Here is a summary of our answers:

Deuce: El Norte/Far West (California)-people kept to themselves and not very friendly people; Yankeedom (Wisconsin)-more friendly people; El Norte/Appalachian/Deep South (Texas)-nothing she liked. (Note to self: must cancel the Texas vacation)

Baron: Texas-had a very better than everyone attitude

JB: California-everything very in place,

Deuce: Appalachian people not wanting to be bothered; friendly if your one of them, (clannish) Yankeedom: very smart remarks (Is that smart like "Smart allick" or smart like "Intelligent"?)

Indy: vocabulary/dialect varies and hard to understand

JB: trip to England, each cousin had married a man from different parts of England; although speaking the same language hard to understand

Baron: can tell a difference in speech of Eastern/Western North Carolina

Unknown who said this: New York very accepting people and very diverse

The book had a lot of good information but it was possible the author let some of his own biases slip into his analysis. Also, it read like a textbook somewhat. But it is a non-fiction so I guess that is to be expected. Overall, we learned a lot about our country's history pertaining to our own regional attitudes etc. That was really cool to learn about all that.

Until next time Novel Spirits!

APRIL MEETING SUMMARY

Hello Novel Spririts, remember me? Its the Baron. Let me thank Indy for calling me out with a blog post a couple weeks. ago :/ So I have some catching up to do (along with some groveling no doubt).

So lets start with a summary of our April meeting. We are turning into quite a club. We have officers, meeting minutes, we collect dues, we're going to make shirts (if our lazy artist contractor ever decides to finish the drawing). Pretty soon we'll have our own SuperPAC and marching on Washington DC!!! Duece for President!!!

As mentioned above, we now collect $5 per person per meeting as club dues. For now, the money is for our shirts, but we will use it for other costs involved in club activities as well. Some ideas for future use are: field trip to Thomas Wolfe's house in Asheville, NC, monthly trip to Las Vegas, NV, and of course the yellow submarine that our treasurer intends to purchase from the funds embezelled from the club bank account.

Indy should now have "admin" access to the blog so she can update the "Off the Grid" segment herself. Hopefully Google did not lie.

That's all for the April 12 meeting summary. I'm very sorry for the long delay. Not to make excuses, but I had been studying for a pretty big test that, according to all the smart, successful people will greatly enhance my career possibilities. But I've heard that lie before! We shall see. Maybe if I sink enough money into all these certifications, degrees, etc., they'll just give me a job out of sympathy. But I'm thinking of starting my own business mostly just out of spite. However, I'm not sure if that is the proper motivation going into a business venture.

I'll try to get the posts all caught up to the present in the next couple days. But you've all heard that before so.....

Missing In Action!?!

My concern is rising having not heard from Baron or Archimedes since our last meeting! I hope that changing jobs, taking classes, moving, raising two splendid little boys and life in general hasn't over shadowed the Novel Spirits".  Truly missing their posts but not missing those pre retirement obligations - no sympathy there as I already paid my dues! As a note I hope Cat and JB are enjoying their travels and hope to see them at the June meeting (to be announced)!

American Nations

We are staying at the Andrew Jackson Hotel, in downtown New Orleans, named for our first Appalachian US President.