Agree @ Caraid- welcome everyone.
Mathmom’s question–is only Shakespeare timeless–got me thinking about other plays that would fall into the that category. I’d definitely say Chekov’s plays (Cherry Orchard) but I also think Greek tragedies, e.g., Sophocles (Oedipus Rex), could be put in the timeless category. While I don’t think many Broadway plays will withstand the test of time, I saw a Broadway musical two weeks ago that I really enjoyed (Beautiful–Carole King). It took me away from every day life for a few hours and made me happy. That’s not a bad thing.
I could see some quirk where Carol King’s musical score gets unearthed and lasts - those songs are timeless!
I do like to think that after 20 years, maybe someone out there is ready to write new plays even if they aren’t in the troop we are following.
Lol, like bob Dylan’s " basement tapes" great Showtime docu, I just watched this weekend " lost songs- the basement tapes continued"
Ok I digress back to the ongoing " book" discussion. Do not want to derail with movie discussion.
There are other timeless pieces, like Antigone. I think Shakespeare was chosen as the most known of pieces, and probably the most performed. Plus maybe it was chosen because life wasn’t easy back then either, Shakespeare’s time managed without modern medicine, electricity, etc. Perhaps it gives hope because they survived and created art in a time very similar to where they find themselves now.
I’d be sitting in college libraries learning how to farm, bring back electricity, etc.
^ I wonder if books would be burned as source of heat/ cooking ?
Agree that the Greek comedies and tragedies might get performed in a future dytopia. They survived all this time already, so why would they not survive (in performance form) in that kind of future? I don’t think they are performed quite as often as the work of the playwrights I mentioned in post #111, but they should be on the list.
I think that Shakespeare was performed because there were more copies of his plays to be found.
Also, I have been wondering what happened to the people on Arthur’s home island? Do you think that they survived? It was isolated and hard to get to, so I wonder if the whole community survived.
^^^ Oh, interesting! That thought never occurred to me.
LOL, that was just my lazy shortcut in lieu of writing out, “Czeslaw Milosz, the poet who wrote the epigraph chosen by Emily St. John Mandel for the opening page of the novel.”
Re the structure of the book, in the interview that SJCM posted earlier, Mandel says:
The above interview also includes a photo of Mandel’s Excel spreadsheet, which she used to map the various storylines.
@eyemamom, you are channeling the author. This is what Mandel said in another interview:
This article is about rabies (The Worms & Germs Blog – who knew?!), but it provides some general info on viruses: http://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/2012/07/articles/animals/dogs/rabies-virus-survival/
So maybe the Georgia Flu is an “enveloped” virus.
It seems like there would have to be isolated pockets like that in the world where the virus never reached. It’s funny how we think about characters we barely even met–I have wondered about the fate of the people who left the safety of the airport and boarded a plane with a surviving pilot, hoping to reach California.
Yes I wanted to know what happened to the people on that plane.
So funny about the Excel spread sheet. I actually did exactly the same thing - only by hand and I commented to my kid that it would work better in Excel - I wanted a column for each time period and then the rows for the successive chapters. My handwritten version is hard to read, but I did do one! (I’m not mathmom for nothing!)
Wow, mathmom. Well, I read *The Luminaries/i twice when I was preparing for our book club discussion, and I took voluminous notes the second time. Yet I still did not grasp the answer to a puzzle that was embedded in the last chapter, and ignatius had to bail me out.
The Luminaries was way, way too contrived for me. I could not bring myself to care about that part of the puzzle.
I do think that Mandel is a good enough writer that she must have had reasons for chopping up the story where she did.
I had to take my copy of Alas, Babylon off the shelf when I read your comment. You’d fit in nicely in Pat Frank’s post-apocalyptic world:
I haven’t been able to come up with any creative answers to this question. If Jeevan had saved Arthur, the mood at the end of the evening would have been different, and he would likely have gone home to his girlfriend Laura, gotten the flu and died (unless he were immune). Arthur would have survived the heart attack, only to be consumed by the flu shortly thereafter. Neither of those outcomes seem like they’d have any great impact on the story as a whole. What do you see as alternate scenarios?
Clark, Elizabeth, and Tyler would not have been on the plane together. No reason to be really, if not for Arthur’s funeral. If Elizabeth and Tyler remained in Israel, their paths would not have crossed with that of Kirsten and the Symphony.
Clark would not have realized any tenuous connection with Kirsten, as her memories would not have fixated on Arthur’s last night like they did. She may have come and gone through that airport never knowing that she shared memories of Arthur with Clark. And she wouldn’t have the paperweight. (I like that paperweight.) (And I like that Clark/Kirsten connection.)
On the upside, maybe Tyler would have caught the flu in Israel and died before wreaking havoc as the Prophet.
(And there goes the whole story.)
I don’t think Arthur surviving would mean anything. He was the connection to many of the characters, but not instrumental in their lives. His survival wouldn’t change anything, and if anything he’s just a memory.
I would believe there would be isolated pockets of society that survived. Including the island. Some people may have been immune - some places perhaps more out of the way - like where Jeevan ended up - they were out somewhere remote.
What they don’t talk about much is how did they eat? It had to have taken so much effort and energy for people accustomed to shopping in grocery stores to figure out how to hunt, farm, gather, etc. I kept thinking, the airport is probably so far from water and a food source - how did they feed that many people? They’re also in Michigan - long brutal winters.
If you survived in your own house, would you know how to survive the winter? I wouldn’t exactly know how to hunt a deer with my bare hands or have the seeds to plant a garden.
I determined I’m not the surviving type. I’m not sure I’d even bother to try. Miranda dies peacefully; it seems Frank does also.
I laughed at this at the beginning of the book:
I never ever ever take notes on what I read but admire those of you who do. ^:)^
NJTM: I’ll have to look back at The Luminaries and figure out, well, what I figured out. Ha. I loved that book. I plan to read it again sometime (without notes :D)