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GeekNights Book Club - The Great Gatsby

MrPeriodMrPeriod
edited February 2013 in GeekNights

The Great Gatsby is a classic novel that, surprisingly, neither Rym nor Scott had ever read. Considering that a fantastic-looking movie is coming in the nearing future, we'll have but one chance to read the novel ahead of seeing it, so what better time than now?

Per Amazon: The Great Gatsby stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

But, before we tackle this, we talk about centaurs, armagnac-soaked bread, shipping things to Australia, Rymblr, an ancient technology called "fax," and the GeekNights Grand Prix. Also, the next book club book is going to be The Player of Games (Culture). Download MP3
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Comments

  • Snickety-SnakeSnickety-Snake
    That's the second Panty and Stocking AMV I've seen for that song.
  • Luke BurrageLuke Burrage
    I think I've been recommending Player of Games as the perfect written-for-geeknights book since the book club started. I know I recommended it in person to rym at least twice.
  • ChurbaChurba
    I think I've been recommending Player of Games as the perfect written-for-geeknights book since the book club started. I know I recommended it in person to rym at least twice.
    Strongly seconded. It's an excellent book.

  • RymRym
    I think what surprised me the most about the book was how much I actually identified with the characters and situation. The interactions were surprisingly "real."
  • GroverBombGroverBomb
    It's timeless to a surprising degree.

    I find that most people say they can identify with Nick but that all of the other characters are just crazy or something. Well said in this episode when you talk about the "Fedora Nice Guy" thing... Seeing Jay Gatsby in oneself is no small achievement, and most people don't seem capable of it.
  • MattMatt
    I just can't stop thinking about Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School.

    What do you know about the Great Gatsby?

    He was great!
  • GauntletWizardGauntletWizard
    I think I've been recommending Player of Games as the perfect written-for-geeknights book since the book club started. I know I recommended it in person to rym at least twice.
    Thirded. I'd love your guys take on The Culture, and look forward to gravitas puns.
  • JoeJoe
    For your watching pleasure.
  • YoshoKatanaYoshoKatana
    edited February 2013
    Is Panty & Stocking a good anime? It looks like it's probably either awesome or terrible, but I can't tell which. Kind of reminds me of a movie I saw (or possibly a comic?) where two characters who look very similar are put in a kind of moon jail and eventually bust out. It was very whacky. What was it called...?

    EDIT: Aha! Dead Leaves. Apparently by the same director as Panty & Stocking and, strangely enough, Gurren Lagann.
    Post edited by YoshoKatana on
  • lackofcheeselackofcheese
    edited February 2013
    Is Panty & Stocking a good anime? It looks like it's probably either awesome or terrible, but I can't tell which.
    It's both.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • GregGreg
    TIL Crash Course has a lit section. That's fairly useful. Is seeing your older self in someone a thing? If it is, I see that in that guy.
  • MATATATMATATAT
    Dammit I will sit down and finish this book tomorrow. I keep thinking about it then just doing other stuff. And FE hasn't been a help to getting anything done.
  • MATATATMATATAT
    edited February 2013
    This book is every "reality" show that is Real Housewives or even Jersey Shore. Its a trainwreck of absurdness, you see it coming, but you can't look away.

    EDIT: Also this

    Post edited by MATATAT on
  • YoshoKatanaYoshoKatana
    edited February 2013
    Also, the next book club book is going to be The Player of Games (Culture)
    Just finished that book last night. Very interesting. I imagine that's what would happen if John Scalzi rewrote Magister Ludi / The Glass Bead Game.

    I noticed a weird thing while reading it. Post-human socialist semi-utopias like the Culture (or Beta Colony in the Vorkosigan Saga, or the transhumanism of Cory Doctorow's works, among other examples) feel like a natural, obvious thing to me. What I find interesting in books like this are the pre-modern sociopolitical systems existing in a spacefaring society (see also: Barrayar in the Vorkosigan Saga). As natural and pleasant as they may seem, places like The Culture don't have dangerous, sexy conflict. Still, I wouldn't mind living there.

    Also, that game sounds fantastic.
    Post edited by YoshoKatana on
  • ChurbaChurba
    edited February 2013
    Post-human socialist semi-utopias like the Culture (or Beta Colony in the Vorkosigan Saga, or the transhumanism of Cory Doctorow's works, among other examples) feel like a natural, obvious thing to me.
    Well, to be fair, of course it feels natural to you. You live in New York, just like in The Culture, apparently 90% of anything grand and notable is performed by young, hot, smart, sharp-tounged bisexual women, accompanied by snarky, extremely deadly self-aware robot companions.
    As natural and pleasant as they may seem, places like The Culture don't have dangerous, sexy conflict. Still, I wouldn't mind living there.
    The first book of the series - which plods quite a bit, but is still pretty good - features one of the Galaxy-scale conflicts the Culture gets involved in. Look to Windward, Suface Detail and Matter have them, too. The series of novels seems to have equal parts "galaxy" issues and "The fuckin' culture can't help meddling in everything" issues.
    Also, that game sounds fantastic.
    Sadly never explained in enough detail to make a complete real-world version. But still, what we do know about it, it's a pretty awesome game.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • AprecheApreche
    Post-human socialist semi-utopias like the Culture (or Beta Colony in the Vorkosigan Saga, or the transhumanism of Cory Doctorow's works, among other examples) feel like a natural, obvious thing to me.
    Well, to be fair, of course it feels natural to you. You live in New York, just like in The Culture, apparently 90% of anything grand and notable is performed by young, hot, smart, sharp-tounged bisexual women, accompanied by snarky, extremely deadly self-aware robot companions.
    I would like to be introduced to these women. Do you know any?
  • ChurbaChurba
    Post-human socialist semi-utopias like the Culture (or Beta Colony in the Vorkosigan Saga, or the transhumanism of Cory Doctorow's works, among other examples) feel like a natural, obvious thing to me.
    Well, to be fair, of course it feels natural to you. You live in New York, just like in The Culture, apparently 90% of anything grand and notable is performed by young, hot, smart, sharp-tounged bisexual women, accompanied by snarky, extremely deadly self-aware robot companions.
    I would like to be introduced to these women. Do you know any?
    Well, I'm a little out of touch, having not lived in New York City for at least 27 years, but I suspect that if the pattern holds true, you can find at least one around any large, notable event, subtly meddling in bloody everything.
  • AmpAmp
    Post-human socialist semi-utopias like the Culture (or Beta Colony in the Vorkosigan Saga, or the transhumanism of Cory Doctorow's works, among other examples) feel like a natural, obvious thing to me.
    Well, to be fair, of course it feels natural to you. You live in New York, just like in The Culture, apparently 90% of anything grand and notable is performed by young, hot, smart, sharp-tounged bisexual women, accompanied by snarky, extremely deadly self-aware robot companions.
    Your forgetting that they hide themselves as sex toys as well. I've read a couple and each time found the ending a bit meh and hurried. Hoping that this one will be a bit better.

  • J.SharpJ.Sharp
    I think the main reason my friends didn't like the Great Gatsby is simply because they were required to read it in high school. Nothing kills the enjoyment of literature quite like having to take a test on it.
  • RymRym
    I think the main reason my friends didn't like the Great Gatsby is simply because they were required to read it in high school. Nothing kills the enjoyment of literature quite like having to take a test on it.
    I have never understood that. Reading a book for pure enjoyment, it is just as easy to pass a test afterward as if one had read it solely for said test.

  • MATATATMATATAT
    its all about sticking it to the man in high school.
  • JoeJoe
    Seven Tips From F. Scott Fitzgerald on How to Write Fiction
    http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/seven_tips_from_f_scott_fitzgerald_on_how_to_write_fiction.html
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    I had a love/hate relationship with my high school required reading. There were some books that I was required to read that I enjoyed and others that I hated (Bronte sisters, I'm looking at you!). My level of enjoyment of a book was independent of being required to read it.
  • MATATATMATATAT
    I thought a lot of the stuff we read was cool, one of which I designed one of my tattoos around (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner). The only one I didn't much care for was the Scarlet Letter but I still thought the idea of it was cool.
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    It's been long enough that I can't remember which books I thought were cool -- only the ones I absolutely despised. A fair number of them were very well written and I considered to be extremely worthwhile to have read, but full of such heavy stuff (Holocaust survivor memoirs, tales about African colonization, etc.) that while I appreciated them, I can't say I enjoyed them because they were so heavy and depressing.
  • MattMatt
    I enjoyed almost every book I ever had to read for school, except Nickel & Dimed. Fuck. That. Woman.
  • Dragonmaster LouDragonmaster Lou
    I actually did enjoy much of the Shakespeare I read.
  • GroverBombGroverBomb
    Macbeth was my jam.
  • Anthony HemanAnthony Heman
    I didn't personally enjoy Romeo and Juliet. I did get to play Tybalt a couple times. The first time in 4th grade, the second in 9th. Macbeth was definitely more my speed.

    I also wasn't a fan of some Greek themed romance in 8th grade where I was Hades, but Hades was obsessed with some lady. The whole class was against this one and eventually the teacher gave up on it.

    When I read Catcher In The Rye it was just as a book report, and apparently my interpretation of the book at the time wasn't "correct." I disliked the lead, but not for the reasons one is supposed to dislike him, or some-such. I didn't dislike the novel though.
  • ChurbaChurba
    edited February 2013
    I just caught up with this episode, and the Diva song IS impossible to sing. The original was made with the original singer, singing notes in isolation, run through a vocoder, and then they fed that to a MIDI keyboard, and then essentially played it, rather than sang it. I can't remember exactly, but there are two reasons it's impossible to sing - the first that I do remember is that some of the pitch changes are simply too fast for a human to achieve. In this video, she breaks up the transitions into a number of smaller "HA" sounds, which is both different to the movie track, and not quite as crisp - she's smoothing it a LOT. The second reason is that there are some sections where the original harmonizes with itself, and it's simply soaked with reverb to the point where that would be impossible to reproduce perfectly without digital assistance.

    As for her individual performance, though, it's super impressive, and by no means easy. It's a very difficult song to sing, even when you dial it back to humanly possible levels. My only critique is that she gets a little shrill on some of the high notes, tags a few bum notes when she's going low, and her glissandos don't quite match, though they still sound good.
    Post edited by Churba on
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