BOOK CLUB | SUNDAY, August 10 | 11 AM–1 PM | FREE
Illiterati: Gen X Book
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Illiterati: Gen X Book Club will meet at FUSION | The Cell on Sunday, August 10, from 11 AM–1 PM. The August discussion will be on Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.
This one is such a blend of feelings, an opening compliment and counterpoint to the last read (Fight Club). Instead of FC's trauma of breaking the banal into reality, here we go questing to resolve an inherited but personally unexperienced trauma. Beautiful, brilliant, funny, moving.
Plenty to discuss with relevant timing, as most of the story is set in Ukraine and exploring the aftermath of that former pogrom. Might be hard, if interesting, to reconcile that cultural schadenfreude while a few more are currently underway.
There are no end of glowy reviews out there for you to find, so I'll share instead a fun critical bit from The Guardian: "Foer has taken from everyone from Lawrence Sterne to (oh mercy) Dave Eggers: there's Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magical realism; there's a plotline plundered from William Styron; there are repeated borrowings from the Tin Drum (right down to having a character hide under someone's skirts). There's gimmicky referencing of his own name just like every achingly postmodern male US writer who began his career after the millennium."
***Novel Point has not been open on Sundays, so BYO snacks and drinks!
This book club is FREE and open to the public!
All are welcome. The club will be discussing books related to Generation X. You're welcome to BYO snacks and drinks. Later in the season Novel Point Coffee will also be open next door. Look in the photos section on Meetup.com for the current reading list. If you have reading suggestions please send them to genxbookclub@gmail.com, and keep in mind:
Authors should be born between 1960 and 1980. Outliers will want good reasons to be included. Any books over 400 pages may be discussed over multiple months.
Folks are welcome to attend even if they haven't finished the book, and audio versions are fair game.
Gen X Book Club is looking for discussion above agreement, but being mean will not be tolerated. Disagreement can be lovely as long as it remains respectful.
ABOUT ILLITERATI: GEN X BOOK CLUB
“Things are weird. The adults are all gone. We've been left to fend for ourselves by the light of an empty fridge.
Gen X was made for this. We got ourselves to the mall food court, looking for each other without appearing to care. Let's read Gen X literature. Let's discuss it as if it's real. As our ultimate rebellious act in a dying world we'll make it so.
Now that we've found a couple of interested slackers we'll crack open Eggers, Wurtzel, Safran Foer. Hewlett & Martin. If all goes well and follows in reasonable order we'll start with early Gen X authors and move to the later. Maybe rinse occasionally with something hopeish from outside the timeline, like Allie Brosh.
But when does it all go well and follow in reasonable order?”