A Hundred Summers

A woefully belated recap of our end-o'-the-season BC hosted by The Doctor at the Autumn Chateau.  Methinks El Jefe was a little saucy that night, as the entire meal, start to finish, is hazy to say the least.  Ah yes, due to the fact that some of us started off the evening with Salty Dogs, note the plural (whose idea could that possibly have been??). Pretty sure that the hors d'oeuvres involved burrata and were lishy.  Less sure that dinner was a hearty Tuscan soup involving sausage. And drawing a complete blank on dessert, clearly just plain hammered by that point.  Thank goodness that El Jefe knows the holiday menu by heart after ten years, so have no fear for next month.

What is crystal clear in El Jefe's memory (ahem, notes) is the abysmal review of Beatriz Williams' A Hundred Summers.  Three 2's, two apiece of 4 and 5, and one 6, for an overall average score of 4.5.  Yowsa, but not the lowest rating in BC history! True to da Game scored a 3.6 so this book is well in the clear. Nonetheless, when an author writes stuff like "Her lips formed a perfect 'O' around his…."  you know we are not talking about great literature. Those at the low end described the book as "atrocious," "wretched," and "it made me angry." Another complaint was that the Kiki reveal was obvious (recall, Kiki was the love child of Lily's mom and Nick Greenwald's father).  And Red said that she would rather read F. Scott Fitzgerald than someone copying the voice of that era and doing a shitty job (maybe we should read him, then!). Those at the high end, as it were, found the book to be more silly than repulsive-- for example, all the characters riding on the doors of houses through the hurricane to safety-- and at least credited it with having some fun drama and intrigue (but really poor sex scenes, unfortsch). We all agreed that there was simply not much to talk about here, so let's leave it at that and look forward to Thursday's holiday BC where there will be plenty of discussion! Can't wait to drink many glasses of champagne with all of you, not to mention the added treat that Blondie will be in town for the festivities!

Two days to read The Dinner by Herman Koch if you haven't already.  xoej

P.S. Just remembered that the dessert was a caramel pie!

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