scooper1958.bsky.social
Retired HR analyst; amateur musician; amateur artist; Anglophile. Happily married.
200 posts
39 followers
20 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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I learned George Orwell wasn’t lying when he wrote “1984.”
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Thanks; yes, I do see that activity on those pages.
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I honestly didn’t see a lot of reading of banned books going on in this book. I did note a lot of discussion of subversive ideas among the students.
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I belong to an online Torah study. It is conducted from a reconstructionist point of view and is quite progressive. We sometimes do projects like say, presentations about the history of Hebrew liturgy. I have made new friends and have learned so much. Important to keep my brain going at 66.
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Well, I enjoyed both the story and the illustrations. First time I have read a graphic novel.
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Thx for clarifying. Loved the book. Who did the illustrations?
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Thx. I will do that.
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Huh…I wonder where Trump gets his Adderral from? Would he sacrifice THAT?
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I voted pro-library in our general election. Not sure what else I could do. Suggestions?
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Are you married to the writer?
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Didn’t know any of that; and yes, I’d like to learn more.
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Well, for one thing you learn facts you might not learn otherwise. Like, South Korea had an authoritarian government at one time.
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It took me a minute to figure out that the authoritarian measures mentioned in the book occurred in SOUTH Korea, not North Korea. I need to catch up on my history.
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It took a HELLUVA long time to find a photo of a child who displayed the correct facial proportions for a future dramatic soprano. This one fit the description in the novel.
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Thea Kronborg, correction.
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So…I did some illustrations of Willa Cather’s “The Song of the Lark.” One is a pic of Thea Krinborg as a child. The other is her music teacher, Mr. Wunch.
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I’m guessing the amount of violence in the story. And I’m sure there are fundamentalists out there not happy that a preacher’s kid creates a religion which is essentially existentialism.
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Yup.
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Only if you have a strong stomach.
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Not sure they got it. Are they familiar with existentialism?
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The entire book was quite grim. For me, the worst was Lauren finding a human arm that might, or might not, belong to her missing father. And at the same time hearing far away groaning that might, or might not, be coming from her father.
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For one thing, Lauren got a lot of survivalist information from books. In addition, book knowledge seems to have inspired Lauren's new creed and has given her a certain amount of perspective about her situation.
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I would be curious, given the primitive way the characters in this book are forced to survive, how technology in their world would be advanced enough for interstellar space travel.
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Lauren seems to be inherently strong and resilient, and her father's influence probably helped to make her that way. Other strong women characters like Zahra, Natividad, Allie, Jill and Emery appear to be strengthened and toughened by the awful traumas that they have endured.
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I think that Butler's choice to do an epistolary novel supports the narrative. The protagonist who writes the journal entries which make up this novel is highly intelligent and perceptive, and thus she provides a detailed description of the world in which she lives, and the people she knows.
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What I saw in all the proverbs was a grim theology shaped by the grim circumstances in which the protagonist found herself.
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Hahaha! You're probably right!
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I did not find this work uplifting. It made "Handmaid's Tale" look like Disneyland.
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I am reminded of Malcolm Gladwell's book, "David and Goliath." In this work, Gladwell asserts that the underdog triumphs in many instances because he is forced to be more innovative.
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Are you talking about the book, or what’s actually going on now, lol? Because what Ms. Butler had to say in the 1990s is no longer speculative. Sad.
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Like “Mango Street,” I would recommend this book to an aspiring young writer as a model of style.
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It's hard to hear an African-American's story about racial harassment. My family is from Mississippi. My paternal grandfather was a state senator with ties to the KKK. In addition, he was a school superintendent who backed segregation in Vicksburg. He was a party to what Baldwin describes.
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Speaking of which, just finished the Butler novel. Looking forward to discussing it next month.
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I've read statements that the "administration" and the "government" don't care in regard to DEI. We must remember that almost half of the voters elected this administration. And I don't hear any complaints from the Trump voters I know about getting rid of DEI. So WHO really doesn't care?!
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Baldwin's writing style was quite elegant and easy reading for me. But the subject matter was depressing. I've read accounts of growing up black from current authors, and they relate some of the same types of incidents involving racism, bigotry, etc. Some things don't change. (I'm WASP)
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The Scottish-Bergonzi recording.
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If I could excise my knowledge of today’s politics from my mind, I could find some hope. Right now, I can’t.
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Amen to that, because we deprive ourselves of so much in terms of achievement, art, culture, music, STEM contribution.
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I regularly attend a Reconstructionist (progressive) Jewish Torah group. We are often reminded that the writers of the Tanakh (Old Testament) often linked fear and religion. Many fundamentalist Christians still do that.
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I got a different description of Elijah Muhammad from that of Malcolm X.
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Yesterday, I called both my senators and asked them to vote no on SAVE act.
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I like this one.
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There’s a quote from the book that I really love and that we all could learn from: “To be sensual…is to respect and rejoice in the force of life…and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.” I never thought of sensuality in that way.
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Even more so now with the advent of the religious right and their affiliation with Donald Trump, racist.
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Agree with other comments. Baldwin calling out racism is threatening to the white power structure, which probably interprets Baldwin’s comments about racism as the much maligned “critical race theory.” And his criticism of the Christian power structure is threatening to conservative Christians.