OS Book Club Pt II

[mattlanta]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Anyone here use GoodReads to track the books they've read or are currently reading? I've had it for a year now, and it's nice to have a community of friends to track what they're reading and such. But part of me would still rather write down the name of the book and the author on a simple note file on my laptop lol.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Anyone here use GoodReads to track the books they've read or are currently reading? I've had it for a year now, and it's nice to have a community of friends to track what they're reading and such. But part of me would still rather write down the name of the book and the author on a simple note file on my laptop lol.

Oh yes. It's quite an addiction at times between giveaways and adding more and more suggestions.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/68583017-chase

[Chip Douglass]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Who Lost Russia? by Peter Conradi.

Concise, well-written, and engaging overview of the deterioration of US/Russia relations from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the present.

Not much new in the book that people familiar with the topic aren't already aware of, although I was surprised to learn that Putin pretty much told the US as early as 2008 that any hint of a sign that Ukraine was drifting from Russia's orbit would lead to a Russian invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. It's a well-balanced account: while Conradi is very critical of the democratic backsliding in Russia under Putin's regime, he also makes clear that the US has been insensitive to Russian concerns, such as NATO expansion to Russia's doorstep. A useful counterweight to the reflexive demonization of Russia you see in the media today.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

It's a retelling of the Iliad, so the story is probably at least somewhat familiar. Not a ton to say, it's a well told story. Told from the point of view of Patroclus, the son of a king who is taken as a prisoner and eventually ends up falling in love with Achilles. I knew more about the general outline of the story, and the role of the gods than the people, so there was a lot to learn for me. I have always like mythology, just thought it was cool, so I wasn't surprised to like this. If reading about war is interesting, reading about a war where a dude shot an arrow and a god guided it for him is even better. There is an innocence to the way the story and the relationship of Patroclus and Achilles is portrayed that makes it compelling to read. There's not a ton of god interference and the story is not a retelling of the Trojan War so much as its a retelling of the journey of Achilles to fulfill his destiny as the greatest warrior of his generation. The story is pretty straightforward, it's just that the writing is so well done and the almost poetic language used goes well with the emotional beats of the story and time period.

Spoiler

"Sometimes a limb must go. Those are for cutting, those for suturing. Often by removing some, we may save the rest."

"We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other."

"He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature."

"I have heard that men who live by a waterfall cease to hear it - in such a way did I learn to live beside the rushing torrent of his doom."

"It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after."

Pretty great, definitely glad I read it before Circe as apparently Circe follows her during the Odyssey, which takes place directly after this so hopefully there will be a familiarity with some characters. Odysseus is the man.

Gotta figure out what's next, there's been another glitch in the slate matrix, and I'm choosing between A Well Regulated Militia, Locking Up Our Own, and with doubling up on fiction and trying to knock out Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology in the 3 days between now and God of War coming out.

Kratos won out, need to know who I'm decapitating. Norse Mythology it is.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

It took me a little bit longer to read than I had planned, but I'm glad I took my time with it. Some days I would read only a chapter while other times I would read 50-60 pages. Compared to the first two the prose in this is significantly more definitive. More than once I felt like I was reading from the King James' Bible. The tone is definitive sounding - there's no question of what happened and the words themselves are more regal and nuanced.

Considering the abundance of religious allegory this evolution in diction makes sense and further pushes the symbolism of Aragorn, Gandalf, and Frodo as parts of a trinity. As I came to the end I realized that while each of the three characters push the action of the world very seldom does Tolkien take us inside their heads. Instead the reader is more often in the hobbit feet of Sam, Merry, and Pippin. The despair, doubt, and unflinching loyalty of each creates a stream of emotion and feeling on every page. Tolkien does a fantastic job of placing these hobbit voices inside the reader's head, but he builds a beautiful, lush world around them that is so vivid you can hear the crush of leaves, the blow of wind through the grass, or feel the darkness of a brooding, clouded mountain.

It has been an amazing experience reading the trilogy. Each goodbye (and there are many) is met with a small pain in the heart, a wetted corner of an eye, and slight tremble of the lip. The extended journey is fascinating both in it's scope and it's execution. Tolkien's world building is second to none and he does it in such a way that requires little to no back-story. It creates an effect in a world that is changing and has been living for a very long time. The world feels both new and old simultaneously as a new age gains ground and the Third Age comes to a close.

Someday in the future I hope to read the trilogy as a whole back-to-back.

Spoiler

What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked.
"A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.

But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.

If this is victory, then our hands are too small to hold it.

Over the land there lies a long shadow,
westward reaching wings of darkness.
The Tower trembles; to the tombs of kings
doom approaches. The Dead awaken;
for the hour is come for the oathbreakers:
at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again
and hear there a horn in the hills ringing.
Whose shall the horn be? Who shall call them
from the grey twilight, the forgotten people?
The heir of him to whom the oath they swore.
From the North shall he come, need shall drive him:
he shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead.

On to Fahrenheit 451 (which is relatively short) and then Circe.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman, renowned fantasy writer, reaches back to stories he was told in his childhood that inspired him to write and create and retells them. Anything I know about Norse mythology is tied up in Marvel comics, so some of the basics were the same. The stories are interesting, especially the Norse version of Genesis I guess. I'd like to learn more about the people and cultures who created and believed in the myths but that's the work of another book. This one, tells the stories of Odin, Thor and Loki from the beginning to the end, Ragnarok, which as Heimdall puts it, isn't officially the end but is a new beginning. Pretty cool read, it reminded me of the Hobbit in the way you can see them explaining natural phenomena through the myths, like Thor grips a salmon too tight and now all salmon are thinner near the tail, and also in that it's written like a children's book, straightforward with a little magic behind it. My favorite 3 stories were Before the Beginning, which tells of how things came to be and how life was created when Odin and his brothers slew Ymir, Treasures of the Gods, where Loki ends up unintentionally commissioning Mjollnir, and Ragnarok, which is just epic. Thor traveling to the land of the giants was a fun story as well. I can't wait to see what God of War does with some of these characters. I imagine all of Loki's children as they've been described here will make an appearance, as we've already seen Jormungundr, the Midgard serpent that wraps its entire body around the FLAT EARTH. Expecting Hel, and more importantly, Fenris Wolf.

Spoiler

"Neither side could win the war. And more than that, as they fought they realized that each side needed the other: that there is no joy in a brave battle unless you have fine fields and farms to feed you in the feasting that follows."

"When we hear a fine poet, we say that they have tasted Odin's gift." & "No one, then or now, wanted to drink the mead that came out of Odin's ***. But whenever you hear bad poets declaiming their bad poetry, filled with foolish similes and ugly rhymes, you will know which of the meads they have tasted."

"They call me Skrymir. It means 'big fellow'." No matter how many times I look at this name, it reads Skyrim every single time

"Surtur's fire cannot touch the world-tree, and two people have hidden themselves safely in the trunk of Yggdrasil. The woman is called Life, the man is called Life's Yearning. Their descendants will populate the earth. It is not the end. There is no end. It is simply the end of the old times, and the beginning of the new times. Rebirth always follows death." - Heimdall

Ready to play God of War, moving on to reading The Female Persuasion.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

Fiction book following a college freshman, Greer Kadetsky, as she meets a prominent feminist and has her worldview shaped by her. There were parts I liked quite a bit and parts that I could've done without. The closest thing I've read to this is probably Little Fires, it has a similar change of perspective and follows different characters for chapters and is almost as if not a little less compelling to read. It's something I'd recommend to someone who just wants an easy read, not as heavy on the topics it covers as I might expect. It deals a lot with issues that women face but mostly in an indirect way, as Greer works for a women's charity. Around 60% through it got really interesting and I was eager to see how it ended but it kinda simmers back down. Not a must read at all but not a bad one at the same time. For as long as the book is (400+ pages, not a huge book or anything) , it feels kinda empty looking back. It very briefly touches on the topics I would've thought it would focus more on.

Movie rights have already been figured out, and Nicole Kidman is gonna play the older feminist Faith Frank. It seems like the kind of book where they can make a movie equally as good if not better.

Been getting through Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Jr, he's following the history of African American officials in DC as they tried to battle the issues coming up out of the 60's and 70's to today. Very interesting so far, it's just amazing how perspective and unforseen circumstances change opinion on things.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I have that on my list. Not sure when I'll slot it in. I'm enjoying my time with Circe at the moment. So far it feels like an Olympian memoir.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.

James Forman Jr., a former DC public defender and son of a prominent civil rights advocate, follows the history of the Black community in DC (arguably the best place to base a study like this given the demographics) supporting tough on crime policies that play a role in the system of mass incarceration we see today. Separated into 2 parts: Origins and Consequences, each part has 3 chapters. The chapters in the first part deal with fighting against marijuana legalization in the early 70's coming out of the heroin epidemic of the 60's, which I had not known was nearly as bad as the crack era of the late 80's. Given the image of marijuana at the time as a gateway drug, it does make it a little more understandable the stance. Chapter 2 deals with gun control, and how the sides were split between those who supported gun control as an attempt to disarm drug deals vs. those who saw guns as a last resort self-defense method against either those drug dealers in neighborhoods where cops didn't bother to police or others who mean harm. Chapter 3 deals with the rise of Black cops and how the people who championed the need for Black cops as those who would be more understanding and less likely to judge harshly were not the same who became cops, who had completely different goals (just doing their job).

Chapter 4 is about supporting long sentences and mandatory minimums for gun and drug offenses, both as a way to guarantee equal punishment (stop favorable sentences from judges on one half and harsh ones on the other) and to deter future crime. Chapter 5 is about the crack era and how it was so devastating that it led to a new style of policing where policeman acted more as soldiers in an occupied space. Chapter 6 is about supporting stop and search policies, and how targeting policing in certain areas created higher disparities in crime than there truly are. He presents a ton of information, it's a pretty direct timeline and he tells some stories of his own clients in the meantime, one who was arrested for selling $10 of heroin and got off on a technicality while facing a max of 25 years and having turned down a plea for I think 5 years.

Spoiler

"As the tough-on-crime movement gathered force, those who had been arrested or convicted rarely participated in debates over criminal justice policy, in D.C. or nationally. They rarely told their stories. And their invisibility helps explain why our criminal justice system became so punitive."

"As an officer in the D.C. suburb of Prince George’s County, Maryland, said, “Sometimes we’ll be cruising down a street, and a group of black teenagers will yell, ‘Hey, soul brother!’ So I get out and explain that I’m not their soul brother or their friend, I’m a policeman.”"

"Where lawyers and judges see due process, many officers see a series of incoherent, permissive decisions that conspire to undo the hard, often dangerous work that produced an arrest in the first place."

"As a generation of black children grew up seeing friends shot over matters as serious as a drug debt—or as trivial as staring too long at the wrong person—the resulting trauma was as real as the physical harm. Children exposed to violence are less likely to attend school (and more likely to be disruptive when they do go to class). They are also more likely to carry weapons and to require less provocation before using them. Underlying these behaviors is usually a profound sense of hopelessness: Why sacrifice for a tomorrow that may never come?"

"It is no small success that the African Americans on my block, or the residents of Merrifield, felt this way. To the generations of black middle-class D.C. residents routinely humiliated and harassed by Jim Crow policing, respectful police treatment would have seemed an impossible dream. The idea of a majority-black police department would have seemed equally miraculous. But for Ms. Dozier and the black poor trapped in Spartanburg, there was nothing to celebrate. Indeed, in one crucial respect, things had gotten worse: they were still being stopped and searched because of where they lived and the color of their skin, but now they were told that this is how Dr. King would have wanted it."

"What if we came to see that justice requires accountability, but not vengeance? What if we came to understand that equal protection under the law, including equal protection for black victims too long denied it, doesn’t have to mean the harshest available punishment? What if we endeavored to make the lives of black victims matter without policies that lead to the mass incarceration of black defendants? What if we strove for compassion, for mercy, for forgiveness? And what if we did this for everybody, including people who have harmed others?"

Reminded me a lot of Just Mercy. Takeaway being that the system we have today was built by tons of smaller separate parts that people didn't connect at the time but that are now clear in hindsight, and that it should be a cautionary tale in how we respond to crises in the future.

Going into A Well-Regulated Militia by Saul Cornell, which is a historical study of the opinions that led to the writing of the 2nd amendment and the arguments that have been used for and against through time. After that I'll do Fahrenheit 451 before the movie next weekend, then Heads of the Colored People, and Enlightenment Now. I'll probably slip something fun in after that, maybe a Star Wars EU book or something.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I'm hesitant to call this a dystopian novel since it's oppression is fairly harmless comparative to other novels. There's no mass subjugation of people - no hindrance in emotions, thought control, or independence of society - that is too far removed from reality. Books have been outlawed, but there's no mention of an over-reaching ruling class. It's a result of an ever-changing society valuing books less and less. The censorship isn't about protecting any governing or ruling body, but to protect feelings from being offended.

It's an interesting concept and state of affairs. Typically there is some truth to all dystopian novels - some threads from reality that can be traced to the author's alternate. Bradbury's world doesn't necessarily feel like an alternate, but rather an organic, consistent progression from our current reality. His ability to not only create different worlds and times, but to also draw them close to our own is amazing. In Something Wicked This Way Comes he does it by poetic-nostalgia. The Martian Chronicles establishes a planet whose human colonization resembles that of America. In Fahrenheit 451 he makes a huge change to our current society that from the on-set seems completely reasonable. In these ways Bradbury pulls the reader into his world because there's already a sense of familiarity with it.

Perhaps it's unfortunate I read Something Wicked This Way Comes first. It's poetic flow and equally poetic narrative immediately overtook my mind and is hard to shake off. Each book of his thereafter I will forever measure to it. As such Fahrenheit 451 doesn't quite reach the pinnacle of the other. The narrative is fairly straight-forward as Guy Montag, firefighter and burner of book, awakens his mind and self to the constricting nature of reality and his current station in life. The dialogue spans the spectrum of serviceable to poetic monologue and doesn't feel as consistent as his other works.

Still, Bradbury's valleys would equal many authors' peaks. Fahrenheit 451 is an interesting and provoking read that touches upon culture of mass consumption, progress, and think. The manipulation we allow ourselves to be part of for the sake of comfort and ease. There's a lot to decipher and discuss in this short book. Even more parallels to modern societies. While it doesn't immediately become a pinnacle of my favorites it's easily a book I look forward to revisiting in the future.

Spoiler

It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.

He felt she was walking in a circle about him, turning him end for end, shaking him quietly, and emptying his pockets, without once moving herself.

How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know that refracted your own light to you? People were more often - he searched for a simile, found one in his work - torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?

There are too many of us, he thought. There are billions of us and that's too many. Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood.

Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.

The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.

Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean.

There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.

If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Circe by Madeline Miller

Those I have told about this tremendous book I have summarized as reading similar to an Olympian memoir. Circe is born to Helios and from there we follow her through her life as a Greek goddess -from her time in her father's house, her time in exile, and finally her release.

Circe chronicles many Olympians from her perspective. It's fairly interesting perspective. Many of these gods are ingrained at birth and as such they always feel powerful, faultless, and pristine. Circe does away with all that. Driving home the faulty, dirty personalities of the divine. Circe herself pushes to not necessarily be better, but to be different. From the onset she is ostracized and her naivety prevents her from unraveling the coarseness of others' pride and greed until she experiences that coarseness head on.

While the narrative is straight-forward and simplistic it pushes forward a character who is striving to live in a world that pushes her down or to the side, but to also try and wield her own power and push back in any way she is able to. The book's themes revolve around this identity - oppressed females pushing back and wielding their own power as they can - and pushes a pace that never seems to languish no matter how trivial some of the moments are. Circe remains an engaging and interesting character throughout the book.

The big surprise for me was the introduction to Madeline Miller's style of prose. I'm hesitant to call it simplistic simply because it isn't, but it reads that way. Everything flows rhythmically. Each sentence and word pointedly working a character or major theme. I suppose succinct is the apt term here. Nothing felt wasted and her ability to craft a sentence that elicits an exact feeling, thought, or image was incredible.

The entirety of the book was a pleasure to read. I took my time with this by mostly reading it a chapter or two at a time in the mornings before work, but I could also see myself being entranced for a full weekend and reading straight on through whenever I decide to visit this again.

Spoiler

You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.

His mind worked best, he always said, without distractions. His eyes were fixed on the horizon. They were sharp as the eagle he was named for, and could pry into all the cracks of things, like water pricking at a leaky hull.

Those are not the same, he said. Nothing is empty void, while air is what fills all else. It is breath and life and spirit, the words we speak.

This is how mortals found fame, I thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroy cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All the smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind.

I had no right to claim him, I knew it. But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

I tried to remember the feel of Daedalus' scars beneath my fingers, but the memories were built of air, and blew away.

How many times would I have to learn. Every moment of my peace was a lie, for it came only at the gods' pleasure. No matter what I did, how long I lived, at a whim they would be able to reach down and do with me what they wanted.

Her only love was reason. And that has never been the same as wisdom.

It is youth's gift not to feel it's debts.

There is no one who can guess what my mother is doing until it is done.

Currently I'm reading Mistborn - The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. So far it's an intriguing read with imaginative world building. I'm nearly halfway through with it. I haven't decided what I want to read next - if I want to jump into the second book of the Mistborn trilogy or something else. Either way I don't know what that something else would be. I feel like I need a little break from the traditional novel. Perhaps it's time to pick back up with Maya Angelou's memoir series? Or perhaps some kind of non-fiction - maybe DuBois' Reconstruction text. Or for something completely different the poetry book The Princess Saves Herself In This One.

I was also made aware of a new book by H. Jon Benjamin (Sterling Archer, Bob Belcher) titled Failure Is An Option. I've never done the audio-book route, but this seems like an obvious one for that format since he reads it himself.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

A Well-Regulated Militia by Saul Cornell

Attempts to derive the meaning of the Second Amendment at the time it was written, and follows the way the changes in society have affected the way the amendment has been viewed. He argues that the original conception of the amendment was that citizens could keep weapons for the express purpose of defending their colony/state from foreign and domestic threats. He argues that the term "bear arms" had an understood relation to military service at the time, and that it was also understood that self-defense was an issue handled under common law and not under constitutional law. Also, in a time where a standing army was thought to be an instrument of subjugation more than defense, a militia was the closest thing they could come up with to defend themselves. The other issue ended up being that some believed that the states had a constitutional right to rebellion hidden in the 2nd amendment, that it entitled them to use their militias against the federal government if need be, and that was squashed many times, if not by courts, then by the Civil War.

I'll try to paint the picture in as few quotes as possible:

Spoiler

"The original understanding of the Second Amendment was neither an individual right of self-defense nor a collective right of the states, but rather a civic right that guaranteed that citizens would be able to keep and bear those arms needed to meet their legal obligation to participate in a well-regulated militia."

"The Concord minuteman who fired the shots heard round the world had been mustered on that fateful day to prevent British regular troops from confiscating the militia's powder and arms. The first statements of the right to bear arms in American constitutional law were clearly aimed at protecting the militia against the danger of being disarmed by the government, not at protecting individual citizens' right of personal self-defense."

"At the start of the American Revolution there had been widespread agreement that a well-regulated militia was the only form of defense compatible with republican liberty. The militia's mixed performance during the War for Independence caused many to lose faith in this ideal."

"Experience had demonstrated that most Americans were reluctant to sacrifice their individual liberty to the collective good and take on the burdens necessary to create an effective militia. Given this reality, Publius concluded that it was best to leave the future composition of the militia up to Congress, though he hoped that Congress would recognize the need to create an elite group of select militia drawn from the ranks of those citizens with the greatest aptitude for military exercises.

Yet, even in this unlikely scenario, Publius took great pains to point out that if this nightmare state of affairs presented itself and the nation were plunged into a civil war, then the exercise of the right of revolution would have to proceed in an orderly manner to enjoy legitimacy and have any chance of achieving its goal of restoring liberty and order. Thus, while Publius conceded that in extreme situations the states might have recourse to use their militias against the national government in the defense of liberty, he denied that individuals or localities were ever justified in a resort to arms. Indeed, as a practical matter the notion of individual or local resistance was likely to lead to disaster."

"The murder of the Jeffersonian Charles Austin by Federalist Thomas Selfridge shocked the nation and altered the traditional common-law understanding of the right of self-defense."

"The case turned on the meaning of the common-law right of self-defense. In a decision that proved to be extremely controversial, the court recast the traditional Blackstonian theory in a more expansive fashion. According to this new doctrine, one did not need to be in actual danger; one need only have had reasonable cause to fear for one's life to use deadly force in self-defense. This new standard, reasonable cause to fear for one's life, proved to be the most controversial legal issue in the case and had a profound impact on the subsequent development of the law of justifiable homicide."

"A profound change in the nature of American gun culture occurred in the early decades of the new century (19th). Americans began sporting weapons designed primarily for personal self-defense. The expanding economy of the new century made a staggering array of these personal weapons readily available to consumers."

"Although their language was often inflammatory, most abolitionists continued to embrace nonviolence as the preferred method to achieve their goal. By the 1840s, however, the rifle usurped the Bible, as moral suasion gave way to armed resistance in the fight against the evil of slavery. By the middle of the century, a new revolutionary theory of the Second Amendment grounded in an individual right of armed resistance had become a cornerstone of abolitionist ideology."

"Cruikshank recast the Second Amendment's scope, reframing it in narrow states' rights terms. This legal narrowing of the ambit of the right to bear arms by the courts was followed by an equally profound change in the definition of the militia under federal law."

"Writing after the emergence of the modern National Guard, Emery viewed the militia in fairly narrow terms. The words of the preamble no longer referred to the universal militia of the Founding era, but now described the modern National Guard. The Second Amendment's guarantee only applied to persons who “bear arms in military organizations.” Perhaps the most significant aspect of Emery's argument was his explicit reformulation of the Second Amendment as a collective right. “The right guaranteed is not so much to the individual for his private quarrels or feuds as to the people collectively for the common defense against a common enemy foreign or domestic.”"

"The original vision of a well-regulated militia was premised on the notion that rights and obligations were inseparable."

So a ton of quotes. Crazy how many different interpretations can be taken from that single sentence, not that the history matters all that much I guess. Still, interesting to know...

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fresh pretty much said everything about this one. The thing that I noticed in relation to Something Wicked is I almost feel like Bradbury is too creative to be restrained in a world so bland. He really had the opportunity to showcase the way he manipulates language to create images in a mystic carnival setting, which sits halfway between reality and nightmare. It's kinda constraining to flex that much muscle in just a regular environment, he needs more room to stretch, a creative sandbox almost. Anyway, the writing is still haunting at times, though he does spend a lot of time just kinda wading from moment to moment. I almost wonder what this would've been in a short story format.

Spoiler

"And he remembered thinking that if she died, he was certain he couldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake still made her more empty."

"The living-room; what a good job of labeling that was now. No matter when he came in, the walls were always talking to Mildred."

"That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while."

"Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumors; the world is starving, but we're well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?"

"Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore."

Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston

First off I absolutely have to read an authorized biography on ZNH, she is just someone who intrigues me to the highest degree. I can't figure her out at all.

Anyway, this is the story of a survivor from a slave voyage after the practice had been constitutionally outlawed. The intro gets into how they worked that out but it's not the meat of the book. It's pretty short. The appendix and end notes are almost as long as the interview itself. The cool thing about ZNH is she writes in a way that allows her characters to come to life, she writes their speech out phonetically so you can almost hear accents, it just gives the subjects of the story a lot more humanity. Kossola, or Cudjo as he was named when he got over here because his African name was too long, was taken from his home in Nigeria, by another African kingdom and sold. He describes the kidnapping, the Middle Passage, there's a short chapter on slavery, but mostly it's just about his life. How he got on before and after Emancipation, how she sought him out after finding out about him and coaxed him into giving her the interview through gifts and shared experiences, like eating watermelon and crabs. There's a chapter where he talks about how his family came and went and it was just heartbreaking. To be robbed from your homeland and taken to a strange country, forced into labor, finally find some kind of solace in the new family you've built, and then lose that...just can't even imagine.

Spoiler

Alice Walker in the Intro:

"Those who love us never leave us alone with our grief. At the moment they show us our wound, they reveal they have the medicine."

"Life, inexhaustible, goes on. And we do too. Carrying our wounds and our medicines as we go. Ours is an amazing, a spectacular, journey in the Americas. It is so remarkable one can only be thankful for it, bizarre as that may sound. Perhaps our planet is for learning to appreciate the extraordinary wonder of life that surrounds even our suffering, and to say Yes, if through the thickest of tears."

What a legend!

ZNH & Kossola:

"All these words from the seller, but not one word from the sold. The Kings and Captains whose words moved ships. But not one word from the cargo. The thoughts of the “black ivory,” the “coin of Africa,” had no market value. Africa’s ambassadors to the New World have come and worked and died, and left their spoor, but no recorded thought."

" When the day breaks the **** shall crow When someone crosses our roof we shall tear A nation down."

" When we see a man drunk we say, ‘Dere go de slave whut beat his master.’ Dat mean he buy de whiskey. It belong to him and he oughter rule it, but it done got control of him. Now dass right, ain’ it?"

"De work very hard for us to do ’cause we ain’ used to workee lak dat. But we doan grieve ’bout dat. We cry ’cause we slave. In night time we cry, we say we born and raised to be free people and now we slave. We doan know why we be bring ’way from our country to work lak dis. It strange to us. Everybody lookee at us strange. We want to talk wid de udder colored folkses but dey doan know whut we say. Some makee de fun at us."

" I am sure that he does not fear death. In spite of his long Christian fellowship, he is too deeply a pagan to fear death. But he is full of trembling awe before the altar of the past."

Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

A collection of short stories about the contemporary Black middle class. Reading it had me dying. One in particular, Belles Lettres the exchange of letters between 2 mothers who are doctors over whose daughter is the reason for them not getting along despite being the only 2 Black girls was HILARIOUS. That was followed by a series of stories that follows one of those daughters. After that, she drops Wash Clean the Bones on you, about a nurse with a young baby, which is as affecting and somber as the other was funny. Just awesome to get such a wide range in a small package. Short stories are the move.

Spoiler

"I concede that it might have been so much more readable as a gentle network narrative, with the cupcakes and the superheroes and the blue eyes and the nineties image-patterning. But I couldn’t draw the bodies while the heads talked over me, and the mosaic formed in blood, and what is a sketch but a chalk outline done in pencil or words? And what is a black network narrative but the story of one degree of separation, of sketching the same pain over and over, wading through so much flesh trying to draw new conclusions, knowing that wishing would not make them so?"

"Lots of people skip grades, and skipping kindergarten isn’t something to brag about. I doubt that the standards at her old school were as rigorous as those at Westwood. What exactly was she advanced at, naptime? Maybe a stint in kindergarten would have cultivated her social and problem-solving skills so she wouldn’t run home and tell her mother everything."

"I really hope that in addition to help for her lies and early signs of psychosis, you will get Christinia some help for her weight problem before she ends up—and I say this respectfully, so I hope you won’t be offended in the least—like you."

"When Alma first started at the hospital, some of the nurses taught her to pray for the children according to severity. A level one meant pray that the child would be well; level two meant pray for decreased pain. Alma was slow to understand level three—praying that the children would die, that mercy and grace would shorten their suffering—but she had come around to it a few months into her job, when the boy with the shattered face was wheeled in. His mother’s eyes convinced Alma that sometimes you suffered more the longer you lived."

Now I'm going on a short story collection binge, starting with The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy (more of a novella) and then others. I've got Chekhov, James Joyce, Baldwin, Alice Walker, DFW (Oblivion, and my hold just came up at the library so that will probably be after Ivan), Stephen King, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on my list of possible reads. Should be a good time, I love the format. Much easier to digest often with the same impact if not more.

[Beantown]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Bradbury is one of my favorites, but hard to disagree with enjoying Something Wicked over F451. I also read the former first, which could’ve had something to do as well.

Pretty excited to watch the HBO adaptation of it (I think it premieres tonight so I’ll watch tomorrow), though, with Michael B Jordan and Michael Shannon.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I'm intrigued...reviews are rough, I heard they changed the Hound into a drone lol. Should be interesting for sure.