sucks to your ass-mar!
My friend S and I got the idea to do a book club together with our friend group. I pitched it to our monthly Letterloop but no one bit, so S and I coordinated our first session between the two of us last Saturday.
S was rereading Lord of the Flies so I decided to pick it up too, since I'd never read it in full myself, even though we were assigned to read it in high school. I was an overachiever in English class but one with what I'm now realizing are attention issues, so I did the same thing I did with nearly all my assigned readings throughout high school and college: read just enough to BS in discussions and write an okay paper.1
This time, for book club, I was determined to get through the whole thing. We had a month, but I read it digitally alongside a free audiobook of it I found on Youtube in the two days before we met. I needed audio specifically for the setting descriptions, which were probably the reason why I didn't read the book in full the first time around. Like, I don't CARE... Tell me what the boys are doing!!!
S and I had a lot to talk about during our meetup, despite not having prepared any formal "book club"-type discussion questions. We talked about the framing of Ralph vs. Jack as the main social conflict on the island2, what we would write if we had to write essays now just for fun, the homoeroticism of Jack and Ralph's relationship3, and a hypothetical girl version of the story's premise, among other things.
I'm glad I read it, and I thought it was good, but I wouldn't do it again I think. This sort of book is something I would not read of my own volition, but is thought-provoking and fun to discuss with friends, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to read things outside my preferences. In future book club meets, I'd like to try reading other books I wouldn't normally pick up. I wonder if my friends would be willing to read Colleen Hoover.
After sending a picture of our silly notes to the group chat, we extended the invite to book club again and this time, two other friends asked to join. Yippee :)
Our next readings are "On Keeping a Notebook" and "On Self-Respect", both by Joan Didion. I printed them out today and felt excited about the warm paper and the annotations I would get to write! (I think this is why my + my friends' parents tease us.)
Tweet from S, in which she tells her family about our coffee hang.
I'm also restarting the Artist's Way and hoping to finish Lolita before the end of the month. And trying to be less serious about what I post here... I don't know if mundaneposting is the way out, though it is different from what I put elsewhere online. I guess I'm not sure what this blog's role in my thoughtdump ecosystem is at this point. Maybe seriousness is the point? Maybe it's not so much tone as it is subject matter? Unsure. Future of blog unclear.
Yes, I am going to get an ADHD assessment.↩
As opposed to Jack vs. Piggy, or Simon vs. Roger – those two seem more like direct opposites than pitting Jack against Ralph, who doesn't have as straightforward a symbolic role as the four mentioned. Anyway.↩
I did not read the full book in high school, but I was in the LotF Tumblr fandom ^__^↩