Monday, June 3, 2013

Wool

Thanks to Ms. K for hosting our May BC.  We started out with a platter of burrata smothered in sun dried tomatoes with crostini for scooping, followed by Thyme Cafe's chicken stew with biscuits and a mixed green salad, with two kinds of cupcakes for dessert.  Lish!



"If the Lies Don't Kill You, the Truth Will."  


Whoa, now that's deep.  The self-published novel Wool, by Hugh Howey, came in just shy of a 7.  Surprisingly, an almost identical score to The Hunger Games, our last pop culture sci-fi sensation, but with different player haters. While Ms. K. excoriated Hunger Games, she bestowed upon this book a solid 7.5.  By contrast, El Jefe was a big time HG fan but found this book to be "meh."  After all, Wool isn't really such a unique piece.  As the Maharani pointed out, it sticks pretty close to sci-fi 101:  post-apocalyptic world, only vague understanding of why, population control, Big Brother suppressing the innate sexual urges of lusty young adults, to no avail. Talk about lish!  This stuff is gratuitous, entertaining and campy; just right for a Hollywood movie. What's not to like? How about 500+ pages, for starters. Wool turned out to be a veritable tome (and wait, there's more-- rumor has it a prequel is in the works).  Logan's Run just couldn't slog through it (truly a sign of not enough editing--where's censorship when we need it?) and Red thought the story was fine but way too drawn out. Other criticisms were that the book came across as overly masculine (int, since there was a female lead), the reveals were obvious, and it made the reader claustrophobic. This latter point, however, seems to be a compliment to the author, whose highly visual writing rendered life in the silos with such detail that it actually caused discomfort in the real world. And, let's give credit that despite all the pulp, there was food for discussion. Of course the most vexing question being the one that the characters in the story couldn't answer themselves:  Why do people clean? Was it out of a sense of euphoria from going outside and (falsely) discovering that the world was alive and full of color? Was it to try and clear the lenses so that others could view the same miracle? Or was it simply out of respect for the tradition, regardless of whether the cleaners knew or suspected the truth? After all, if the lies don't kill you, then, you know.

So, who would we cast?  Because the world in which El Jefe might be able to answer that question is indeed a fictional one, here's the opinion of someone else who knows better:

Rhona Mitra-- as Juliette


Liam Neeson-- as Holsten


Helen Mirren-- as Mayor Jahns


Paul Giamatti-- as Bernard


Andrew Garfield-- as Lukas

Our next meeting is Wednesday night, in Cabana 173 by the Sea. Bring a sweater. Can't wait.  xoej






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