Isa
Administrator
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Post by Isa on Apr 22, 2010 15:36:05 GMT -5
Reading and discussion schedule: Chapters 1-3: Start discussion on May 5 Chapters 4-7: Start discusion on May 12 Chapters 8-10: Start discussion on May 19
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Post by Dominique on Apr 22, 2010 18:03:34 GMT -5
Yay! I feel bad because I lost interest in Wuthering Heights because it was a reread, but I already have this and am looking forward to it!
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Rubina
First short story featured in regional newspaper
Posts: 182
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Post by Rubina on Apr 23, 2010 6:25:45 GMT -5
Great choice! I think I want to reread it anyway, hopefully this time uni work won´t get in the way!
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Isa
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Post by Isa on Apr 26, 2010 5:50:18 GMT -5
I just ordered it from Amazon.com It sounds like a great story and I'm excited about it. Let us know when you receive it Kristie, we'll plan the schedule accordingly.
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Kristie
Novel turned into BBC miniseries
"If a book is well written, I always find it too short."
Posts: 7,214
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Post by Kristie on Apr 26, 2010 16:44:42 GMT -5
Earliest delivery estimate is this Friday (April 30th). But I'm going to the library tomorrow and it's checked in, so I can get it and start reading from that early if you want to start towards the beginning of May.
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Isa
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Posts: 6,995
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Post by Isa on Apr 27, 2010 20:31:59 GMT -5
It's not a very long book, so what do you guys think of the following schedule :
Chapters 1-3: Start discussion on May 5 Chapters 4-7: Start discusion on May 12 Chapters 8-10: Start discussion on May 19
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Post by Dominique on Apr 27, 2010 21:05:29 GMT -5
Sounds good to me!
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Michelle
First novel published
Posts: 2,563
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Post by Michelle on Apr 27, 2010 21:42:23 GMT -5
I'm going to try to take part in this one. I bought the book a few months ago.
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Lu
Administrator
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Post by Lu on Apr 28, 2010 1:28:23 GMT -5
The schedule sounds good to me. I got an italian version from library on Monday. With the online database of libraries I located 5 copies in the whole Province, only two in the city and one was already checked out, I got the other one. yay!
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Isa
Administrator
Posts: 6,995
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Post by Isa on Apr 28, 2010 5:36:33 GMT -5
lol, well done Lu!
Alright, let's consider the schedule official, then!
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Isa
Administrator
Posts: 6,995
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Post by Isa on Apr 29, 2010 16:00:13 GMT -5
I enjoy discussions more if I don't skip ahead, I've realized. Yeah, it's the same for me. I don't mind reading 2 books at the same time just to make sure I don't get ahead of the schedule, it's more fun that way
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Post by Dominique on Apr 29, 2010 19:31:16 GMT -5
Just sent out an email notification! I'm really going to try to read along with the schedule for this one, in the past I always get impatient and finish it and then I have trouble remembering when it's time to discuss.
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Post by Dominique on May 4, 2010 6:56:27 GMT -5
Well it's almost May 5th here so I may as well post my thoughts now, I hope that's ok - I might forget otherwise!
Until the end of chapter two Jackson leaves us very much at sea. Merricat hands out bits of information as she starts out on her trip to the grocery store and library, the first and most intriguing of which is “Everyone else in my family is dead.” Why, how and who is dead we are left to wonder about for some time.
The next thing that struck me was Merricat’s intense dislike of the villagers. At first it seems primarily paranoia:
“I could tell a local car by the quick, ugly glance from the driver and I wondered, always, what would happen if I stepped from the curb; would there be a quick, almost unintended swerve towards me? Just to scare me, perhaps, just to see me jump? And then the laughter, coming from all sides, from behind the blinds in the post office, from the men in front of the general store, from the women peering out of the grocery doorway, all of them watching and gloating, to see Mary Katherine Blackwood scurrying out of the way of a car.”
That it’s probably paranoia was reinforced to me by the childish, slightly obsessive game she makes up where she must miss a turn if someone talks to her or harasses her and so on. But then some of the villagers harass her in the coffee shop, joking that Constance, her reclusive sister, might poison Merricat. Other than that they seem mostly jealous of her due to class reasons, rather than the horrible unadulterated hatred Merricat seems to believe they have for her. Then some of the children tease her about Constance and poisoning some more. These two incidents suggest that perhaps Constance poisoned the rest of Merricat’s family. Merricat being paranoid is later referred to by Mrs Clarke who tells Merricat that maybe there was once some ill feeling but Merricat has built it up in her mind. The paranoia and the weird game suggest to us that maybe Merricat isn’t quite a stable narrator. This is further reinforced by the fact that Merricat isn’t allowed to carry cups of tea or handle knives, despite being 18-years-old. We find out precisely what happens when Uncle Julian recounts it to Mrs Clarke and Mrs Wright, who have come calling for tea and to try to convince Constance to re-enter society. It was a bit of a surprise that to me that the family had callers, because while I thought Merricat was a bit paranoid I got the sense they were more cut off from the world than that. We learn that Constance was acquitted for the murder of her parents, her brother and Uncle Julian’s wife in a very famous poisoning case. Arsenic was mixed into the sugar and Constance served it to the family. Uncle Julian tells the ladies he’s convinced of his niece’s innocence, despite the fact that she bought the arsenic, scrubbed the sugar bowl and none of the other cutlery, didn’t call a doctor until it was too late and when the police arrived told them that they all deserved to die. I found this information pretty shocking coming from Uncle Julian’s mouth since he had just proclaimed Constance innocent, but then we discover he’s probably not a reliable narrator either; he was left an invalid by the poisoning and has to ask CONSTANCE, who is not exactly a disinterested party, whether it really happened or not repeatedly, as though he might have imagined it. Later he implies he’s not so sure she’s innocent, so he’s also very changeable. All the time Mrs Clarke and Mrs Wright are drinking tea and eating rumcakes that Constance, who we must assume is almost certainly guilty of multiple murders by poisoning, made.
Then Merricat says that they never touch the jam of the others (I assume the dead family members) because “Constance said it would kill us if we ate it.”
So basically every character in the Blackwood family is unstable and unreliable. It’s also very confusing that Uncle Julian and Merricat should at least know on some basic level that Constance killed the rest of their family, and yet they don’t seem to care. And they continue to allow Constance to prepare all of their food!
I found the first few chapters pretty creepy, weird and confusing, but I think it’s going to be a great book. I loved reading about some of Merricat’s bizarre behaviour, like writing magic words on her toast and eating them, or whispering them into a glass, filling it with water and then eating them.
What do you guys think so far?
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