October selections are HOUSE OF LEAVES and/or THE LIZARD CAGE
If you would like to read along with me and the book club, send me your email and I will send you an invitation. Book club shares thoughts and insights on the selected book(s) using a private Facebook group. If you want to join to simply "listen in" , that is perfectly OK. Let me know [email protected]
The format and structure of the novel is unconventional, with unusual page layout and style. It contains copious footnotes, many of which contain footnotes themselves, including references to fictional books, films or articles. Some pages contain only a few words or lines of text, arranged in strange ways to mirror the events in the story, often creating both an agoraphobic and a claustrophobic effect. The novel is also distinctive for its multiple narrators, who interact with each other throughout the story in elaborate and disorienting ways. While some have attempted to describe the book as a horror story, many readers, as well as the author, would define the book as a love story. | Set during Burma's military dictatorship of the mid--1990s, Karen Connelly's exquisitely written and harshly realistic debut novel is a hymn to human resilience and love." In the sealed-off world of a vast Burmese prison known as the cage, Teza languishes in solitary confinement seven years into a twenty-year sentence. Arrested in 1988 for his involvement in mass protests, he is the nation's most celebrated songwriter whose resonant words and powerful voice pose an ongoing threat to the state. Forced to catch lizards to supplement his meager rations, Teza finds emotional and spiritual sustenance through memories and Buddhist meditation. |