Just finished Chapter 3 / Luisa Rey Part Spoiler Pretty straight forward. Besides the comet birthmark, was there anything linking her, besides Rufus to the previous stories? The more I read, the more I like this book. Obviously everything ties together. Cant wait to get to that point. Anyone besides Blackfish and Gin Buckets reading this? Marty Kaan Arkie Proud ?
Poor form of literature/character inconsistency displayed in Chapter 6 when Mitchell wrote that Zachry "Burned a dry faggot" Spoiler
Just started earlier tonight. (Working 3-11 pretty much sucks, seems I'm always kinda busy.) I love the way the guy writes so far.
One last Zachry/Ch. 6 question that comes from not being able to read. Spoiler After Zachry's story does his son continue on? Because it pauses in the tape and then says "Zachry my old Pa was..." I'm assuming the story continues with someone that is his son, but since this is the first time the narrator/person reading hasn't changed voices I don't know.
For The Blackfish and Gin Buckets and whoever is up to RE: The first 10-15 pages of Chapter 4 Spoiler Im probably reading too much into it, but I noticed Timothy Cavendish described the teenagers chicks that mugged him as "vampiresses" similar to how Frobisher described Adam Ewing's doctor. Is there anything more to that, or am I just looking for something that isnt there. BTW - Even though there is only about 5-7 people reading this, I think its pretty cool to be able to discuss the book with others as I read it.
I didn't even notice that but there are lots of little similarities that I'm sure I missed. I think the two meant different things by it though
Finished Chapter 4 Spoiler After this chapter, Im really want to try and let the story come to me, instead of trying to figure out where its all going. The fact that the Luisa Rey story is a novel really threw me for a loop. That has to make the Frobisher letters and Ewing Journal works of fiction as well doesn't it? How does that all fit together? Did the author of the Luisa Rey Mystery (dont remember her name) also write the other two to fit into her story? Am I about it find out that Cavendish's memoirs are fictitious too? (Obviously I dont want the answers, but am just ranting.) Anyway, needless to say, after a slow start, this book has me hooked. Cant wait to get to all of the answers to my questions. THis line from Timothy killed me: “Look, I’m sure you’re a reasonable woman.” The oxymoron passed without comment. Also noticed there may be a pattern in the stories. The central characters seem to rotate between good/high morals(Adam Ewing/Sixsmith/Luisa) and those who don't Frobisher and Cavendish who seem to be swindlers. Just a random observation Hope to knock out the next chapter tonight before the weekend of football starts.
Spoiler The Luisa Rey novel isn't necessarily a work of fiction and I made a similar observation about the pattern of the stories in my write up of the full book
How far along are you? I had similar feelings. The further into the book, the better it gets when stuff starts to tie together a little bit. IMHV of course
Not to the second half of the book yet. So hopefully it will start rolling. I'm very ADD when it comes to books. If they don't grab me early on, I usually dump 'em.
Ok... After finishing Somni's 2nd chapter my mind is blown. The rest is pertaining to that, so don't read spoiler if you haven't read this yet. Spoiler I don't even know what to ask, but I'm kind of confused because it was a whole long ass story and then in the last 2 paragraphs she says it's all made up? So, she was a fabricant (half human/half robot ?) that was created just to make this whole long story, so everyone would hate fabricants? Was her story about fabricants being slaughtered part of the publicized version? Is she really just a robot, or did she really believe the unionist revolution that was made up even though her goal was to prevent it from happening? Like what? I'm so confused.
Spoiler She isn't a robot, she is a genetically engineered clone. What I believe is that corpocracy wanted to make everyone more leery of fabricants because their ascension was possible so they fabricated this story and made Sonmi go along with it. I don't think she really had a choice, but chose to go along with it willingly because even though they were going to use it against her and other fabricants her "declarations" would still be out there and read by millions and that could hopefully, at somepoint in time create change as opposed to just making people fear fabricants. What I didn't understand was why they would put out the information about the papa song fabricants being killed and their matter being harvested and made to engineer more fabricants and also put into food and everything else. I wonder if that was left out of her trial and just put in her deposition to the orison i don't know. But we do know that eventually her declarations and her testimony to the orison made it out and resonated in some people by the fact that Zachry's people worship her
Spoiler Most consumers don't know about the fabricants being harvested. I think this is made quite clear by the archivist's reaction to Sonmi's revelation.
Spoiler Thats what I was saying, why would they want to let that be known since the whole thing was a setup edit: I see what you're saying, most details obviously didn't get put out there in the trial which was the point of Sonmi telling her story to the archivist and the Orison
Spoiler I think the point of letting her see the killings was to help motivate her to write her manifesto.
Chapter 6 Comment: It has nothing to do with the plot, just the writing style but Ill spoiler it anyway Spoiler For the guys that are there, what accent do you perceive Zachry having? Im only a few pages in, but in my head, Zachry sounds like Brad Pitt's character from Snatch. Cant really understand what the hell he is saying, but you get the gist of it.
Just finished Luisa Rey's 2nd section.... Spoiler Not loving the way the stories are coming together right now... Not sure what I'm missing, but it just seems like a bunch of different stories that are loosely tied together at this point. The stories are interesting enough, but I hope something changes to better tie them all together.
20 pages in. First time in a while I have had to consistently stop and digest what I read. Man I feel dumb. I need to start working on my vocabulary.
Ok – This is while reading the 2nd Frobisher part although it doesn’t really pertain to it, just speculating on the story as a whole. Spoiler I’ve thought this the entire book, but it’s as if it feels like it’s a constant story within a story within a story - almost like then there are two mirrors facing each other. Now that I’m almost finished, this has become pretty obvious, that the whole point is that you can never really tell if it’s real or not, and that everything – real or fake – just repeats itself. Finally, it is supposed to make us as readers feel a little funky (kind of like the matrix) in that we may be part of another story that’s being written. I’m at the beginning of the Frobisher part, but all of the recurring things and “story within story” makes it seem this way.
Still got about 50 pages left of Zachry's chapter. Like it but its slow reading. Is anyone but me and Gin Buckets still reading it?
I've picked it up 3-4 times, but just can't get over the hurdle. Sucks because i was really looking forward to getting into a good discussion.
I'm all done... Finished this morning on the plane. Think what I wrote in my last spoiler is still pretty accurate I guess. Don't really know what to think.
Just finished Chapter 6. Man that was long and with the dialog - it felt like a chore at times. Looking forward ot the next couple where its a quicker read. Still enjoyed the story though. Here are my responses to others and thoughts in general. What what I gather, I think at his youngest he is around 12 and at his oldest of his stories he is 20 +/- a couple years. So I dont hink he is quite THAT young, but definitely younger than Hanks should be playing Spoiler Blackfish answered the rest. The Dingos are just the wild dogs of the island. They just scavenge and eat the dead corpses. My thoughts: Spoiler At the end of the chapter when he lying on the boat, staring at the clouds. He comments on how they are just souls drifting - who knows what shape they take the next day or where they are going. Starting to become clear that Frobisher, Louisa, Somni and Meronym are the same soul that is being 'reincarnated' for lack of a better term. A few question in my head as I read the second half: Will these stories tie together more tightly? Or is it just going to be a loose theme like cloud floating across the sky? Is there any correlation with the comet birth markers partners? IE Sixsmith, The guy with Somni (dont remember his name at the moment) and Zachry? Who if, anyone is going to have the comet birthmark in Adam Ewings story? im guessing Autua, but It could be the Doctor. Also after reading this Chapter I think my new go-to term for having sex is : "Shootin' up a woman"
Spoiler loose theme. They are the same soul reincarnated throughout time. There may be some correlation regarding the partners but I'm not sure. When you finish read my post on the whole book and my thoughts on which actors were playing which characters
Regardless he is still too old to play Zachry. I think the movie does it to hammer home the reincarnation theme.
This was good stuff, after a week to let the book sink in I'm starting to appreciate it more than I originally had. I'm posting this from word and it screws up spoilers sometimes, so be warned.(I write in word sometimes if it's a long post as it looks better to do that at work and then copy and paste rather than spending 10 straight minutes on this board while posting.) Spoiler I agree with pretty much everything you said, especially the Frobisher/Cavendish aspects as they seem like completely different people. I'm sure there's a reason that Mitchell did that, but it is beyond me. Spoiler Just thinking out loud (online) here, but maybe reincarnations aren't all the same, and definitely aren't improvements which is why we never see someone stand out among the rest. Ewing was a really good guy, and was born as Frobisher who was actually born into a wealthy family but due to poor decisions was disinherited. Then Frobisher was born as Luisa Rey who was born into very little (albeit she had a famous Dad) but was good and then born again as Cavendish who had more and so on and so forth. That could have something to do with it, but I really do not know. Speaking of Luisa Rey – her and Ewing were the only two to know people who also knew their previous selves (Sixsmith and Ultua)? Either way, the more I digest the more I enjoy and appreciate the book. As far as the movie goes, I completely agree with you, but if my theory above (that clearly has holes) has any sort of merit it could make sense – ala people make their own choices to be good or bad, and aren’t always going to be the same. though, because the same soul should have roughly the same qualities, and not go from clearly evil to good.
Spoiler Sixsmith and Autua aren't previous encarnations if thats what you were saying. The only encarnations, at least in my opinion are Ewing, Frobisher, Rey, Cavendish, Sonmi and Meronym. I agree that you appreciate the book more when you come to understand that there isn't going to be some sort of LOSTesque connection between the characters. I definitely agree that the whole nature vs. nurture thing plays a role in the differences between the encarnations, but at the same time it still feels like the base morals of Frobisher and Cavendish were of a more self centered focus than the other 4.