Book Club Day

Yesterday I participated in an online bookclub. It was fun. This post talks about the club and the book we read, "Vermillion Sands".

I was invited a few weeks ago by a friend, and eagerly joined. I've been feeling a bit rudderless these days; something that I guess usually happens in spring semesters, when school is extra busy and I start dropping hobbies and habits because of it. Anyway, it sounded like a great opportunity to start something new, meet new people, and force myself to read some books.

The book we were reading this time was "Vermillion Sands", it is a collection of short stories from the 70ies by a famous british author. All stories take place in some sort of beach resort and focus around similar characters: Rich, old, detached people. Usually a man who is an artist meets a mysterious woman, and something tragic happen.

Against this repeating background, what changes from one story to the next is the art - sometimes it is sculpting clouds with gliders, others it is singing statues, or maybe plant-insect hybrids. The "Art" part of the story was psychodelic, impressionist, a strong contrast with the drab, distasteful characters.

Unfortunately, as much as I loved the weird art ideas in the stories, I hated the characters and the repeating plot much more, and I gave up on the book around halfway through... So much for my first participation in the book club!

However, when the day of the book club meeting happened, it turned out that almost everyone had the same reaction to the book - we all found the stories repetitive, end stopped reading midway through! Still, there was a nice discussion about how each of us felt reading the book, the nature of science fiction, and science fiction vs fantasy. I tried making a joke about whether the definition of science fiction was more or less controversial than the definition of roguelike, but I was the only one who got the reference... oops...

The next book will be "The Tainted Cup". Hoping I like this one better!

One last thing, the stories often mention "sonic statues" as a recurring part of the background. While I'm sure the author meant something like structures made by the effect of wind on the sand, I kept imagining that this expat enclave was somehow filled with homages to Sonic the Hedgehog. Brought a silly smile to my face every time.

Gotta go fast!