The Nix - February CC Book Club Selection

[Midwest67]

Oh! I still call it Circle! Oops! I’m showing my age!

But yes, now that I think of it, my kids say UIC, usually in reference to a concert.

I was surprised by the mention of Chicago suburbs and I had a subtle feeling it wasn’t adding up. Descriptions and driving distances, etc.

I missed the part about being able to see the Lake from the dorms. I’m surprised I didn’t catch that.

[Midwest67]

I did like the part about Alice being obsessed with garlic mustard plants. That was something I could relate to.

Garlic mustard & buckthorn. Grrrrr…

[Mary13]

@Midwest67, Hill did get Henry and Samuel’s “powerful and devotional all-consuming love for the Chicago Cubs” right.

…up went posters of Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson and Cubs pennants. Broadcasts on WGN weekday afternoons, Samuel literally praying to God–on his knees on the couch looking up to the ceiling–praying and crossing his fingers while actually making deals with God in exchange for one home run, one late-inning victory, one winning season.

Yep.

His description of Wrigleyville and its environs was a bit off, but that made sense because it was being seen through the eyes of a paranoid and over-protective Henry.

[author]

Thank you for the welcome.

I asked about the bomb shelters because, I thought, the pivotal point in Faye’s story came when she discloses her father’s secret bomb shelter.
Do you think the bomb shelter shows her father’s sense of humanity to rationalize society’s ills? Is he taking a stand against the ultimate evil, the atomic bomb?

My family did not have one. I remember civil defense drills from the time of the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis where we were let out of school to run home. My mother was a teacher in another school district. No one was at home, when we made it to our basement.

Charlie Brown got tamed, for me, with his thoughts on the gift of Faye’s trial prolonging his retirement:

“…the thing they never mentioned about traveling in your retirement is that in order for it to work you must, at the very least, be able to endure the person you’re traveling with. And he imagined all that time together—on planes, in restaurants, in hotel rooms. They couldn’t escape each other, he and his wife.”

How do you escape in a wheelchair …your caregiver?

I see, Periwinkle, becoming the character who dropped back in, conforming to the me generation.

Do you see similarities between the 1960’s counterculture members of Alice and Sebastian and cyber-culture that Pwnage and Laura represent?

[HImom]

It always saddens me when couples stay together because they HAVE to tolerate one another rather than having any interest in being together. I know it happens a lot, especially as folks age. Several of my acquaintances got divorces as their kids went off to college. They realized that they couldn’t imagine more decades of tolerating one another and decided to make new lives for themselves while they still could. Now, decades after their divorces, they are content. Some are in new relationships and some are happy alone but with a large network of friends.

Charlie Brown just represents a lot of anger and rage to me. He seems to be dissatisfied with his marriage but no idea when he chose to remain in it all those years when he doesn’t really care for his spouse.

Again, I think there are so many “victims” in this novel. No one takes action to improve their personal lives, other than Alice. Charlie did improve his vocational life but was still in his loveless marriage. At the end of the novel, it sounds like Samuel finally is. I guess Faye running away to Sebastian was an attempt to get out of her unhappy marriage–not clear why she didn’t try to help make her marriage happier instead of bailing.

[ignatius]

Neither Sebastian nor Alice is truly the person their followers believe them to be. Sebastian is not a radical hippie; basically he’s a fraud and having fun being one. Alice, on the other hand, is a (self-described) radical hippie. She believes in no possessions, free love, etc. But she also spends time “pushing the envelope” (nice euphemism) sexually with Charlie Brown, knowing that she’d have a hard time explaining it to her compadres. Her homework/grades, the books she reads, the music she listens to in her quiet time reflect a quieter, less counterculture Alice. You see more of this in the adult Alice though she retains bits and pieces of the 1968 Alice. I think adult Alice managed to pull her many sides together nicely. Interesting though that those two radicals - considered leaders - weren’t quite legit.

[VeryHappy]

You know, the more we discuss this book, the less I like it.

Faye seemed to see the world as either/or – Either she stays with Henry and suffocates, or she abandons her son and husband and disappears forever. IMO, there are many alternatives along that spectrum.

[mathmom]

I really enjoyed reading it, but I do think it’s seriously flawed. That’s why I’m half inclined to think the Nix is real.

[Mary13]

@HImom

I guess Faye running away to Sebastian was an attempt to get out of her unhappy marriage–not clear why she didn’t try to help make her marriage happier instead of bailing.

Samuel wondered the same thing and Periwinkle gave him as good an answer as any of us is going to get: “Your mother is the kind of person who never feels at home no matter where she is. She didn’t leave your dad for me, per se. She left your dad because leaving is what she does.”

@VeryHappy

You know, the more we discuss this book, the less I like it.

I put a lot of stock into being entertained, and The Nix came through for me in that regard. And this excellent discussion is worth all 620 flawed pages.

[Mary13]

@HImom

I couldn’t decide whether it was supposed to be Samuel or Sebastian who was Faye’s Nix—oe both of them?

I was just reading about the nix (neck/nokken) on Wikipedia, and I’m going with Sebastian:

It is difficult to describe the appearance of the nix, as one of his central attributes was thought to be shapeshifting…In folklore he was more frequently described as wearing more or less elegant clothing…He was thought to be most active during Midsummer’s Night, on Christmas Eve, and on Thursdays.

Sebastian “shapeshifts” to Periwinkle, and Periwinkle wears elegant clothing. Samuel observes his expensive suit, which “sculpts his body into clean angles and straight lines” (p. 57).

Not only that, guess what day Faye has her fateful date with Sebastian:

“And now,” Faye said, “he wants me to come over. To his place. Thursday night” (p. 442).

[mathmom]

So here are some things I loved. Mostly because they made me laugh.

p27 Pwnage’s wonderful circular reasoning which made me laugh at loud

So while he was typically far under his 2,000-calorie daily maximum, he understood that the calories he needed to consume in order “to eat better”, were totally different kinds of calories, namely the organic fresh whole-foood kind that were prohibitively expensive given the monthly credit card payments he was making on his smartphone and its associated text and data plans. And he grasped the paradox of this, that it was somewhat of an ironic bind that paying for the device that showed him how to eat right prevented him from having the mony to actually be able to eat right, and…

p196

"You have to be careful, Pwnage said, “with people who are puzzles and people who are traps. A puzzle can be solved but a trap cannot. Usually what happens is you think someone’s a puzzle until you realize they’re a trap. But by then it’s too late. That’s the trap.”

Periwinkle’s response

“You should try talking to them”
“I did once. This kid, maybe twenty-five years old. He was down by the drum circle, juggling. His hair was in white-boy dreads. He began every sentence with the word ‘Well.’ It was a tic he had. But he pronounce it like wool. I literally could not hear anything else he said.”

This piece of dialog with Peter. p305

“Do you really want to know about this?”
You absolutely do not want to know about this. You nod.
“Well, I won’t go too much into it,” he say, "but it’s about the C-Ratio. You hear of it?
You are not sure if he meant, C, or see or sea. You say, “Remind me.”

p503

“Do you remember the story I told you about the Nix?”
“Which one was that?”
“The horse.”
“Right, yeah. The white horse that picked up children, then drowned them.”
“That’s the one.”
“Excellent story to tell a nine-year-old, by the way.”
'Do you remember the moral?"
That the things you love the most can hurt you the worst."
"Yes. That people can be a Nix to each other. Sometimes without even knowing it.
… [this is when the TSA stops them at the airport]
“And you’re telling me this now?”
“I wanted to get it in under the wire.”

And even though I thought the whole Cronkite section should have been excise. p 530

It’s a chilling thought, that politicians have learned to manipulate the television medium better than the television professionals themselves.

[HImom]

Yeah, I think quite a bit of the book may be autobiographical/biographical. That does explain the flaws in the characters and the shallow lens with which most of them are seen.

If Nathan was Samuel, I am sorry he had such a tough life but personally wouldn’t feel comfortable exposing myself and loved ones in a book like this. I wish him well but don’t see myself reading his books.

[mathmom]

I think Sebastian/Periwinkle was Faye’s Nix, Samuel was just an innocent victim of her actions, he didn’t cause them. But Faye obvfiously thought she was Samuel’s Nix. I think you could make a case for Bethany’s brother though. Really though I think everyone carries their Nix inside themselves. We choose our adventures, we don’t need to listen to the Nix.

[Mary13]

@mathmom, all your examples were things that made me laugh as well. I particularly liked the repartee in Samuel’s conversations with Periwinkle.

I also want to echo what @buenavista wrote earlier, about liking Samuel’s search for the perfect gift – the John Cage cassette. I knew nothing about 4’ 33", and find it fascinating. This is from one of the links @buenvista posted:

4’33” is among the most important of all contemporary music compositions. Composed and premiered in 1952, 4’33” is a piece for any instrument or combination of instruments. The score instructs the performer or performers not to play their instrument for the duration of the piece (generally four minutes and 33 seconds). As challenging and thought-provoking now as it was when it was premiered, 4’33” completely changed popular thinking on silence, sound, composition and listening. Mute Records • STUMM433 - Mute Records

All the acclaim reminds me a bit of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” but I’m not a musician, so maybe I’m missing something (like sound ).

Do you think 4’33" is supposed to be meaningful in the wider context of the novel? I feel like there must be a metaphor in there somewhere, but nothing comes to mind.

[ignatius]

I thought Alice and her obsession with ridding the world of garlic mustard plants must have a deeper meaning but don’t know what.

[Midwest67]

@ignatius

Maybe! But getting rid of garlic mustard plants (& buckthorn) is definitely a thing.

[mathmom]

Garlic mustard is kind of a Nix, it’s really beautiful, but impossible to get rid of. I pull up gobs of it every spring. https://www.kingcounty.gov/services/environment/animals-and-plants/noxious-weeds/weed-identification/garlic-mustard.aspx

[ignatius]

I’ve never heard of garlic mustard. If someone had mentioned it, I would have assumed it is a condiment, like Dijon mustard.

[Midwest67]

@ignatius

Yep. People who care about invasive plant species care about garlic mustard. So, I took it to mean Alice was a passionate environmentalist doing good in her little corner of the world.

[jollymama]

@mathmom , thanks for the list of laughs. Here is my very favorite, to add:

Samuel thought how his father married to his mother was like a spoon married to a garbage disposal.
“May I be excused?” Samuel said.
Henry looked at him, wounded. “It’s family night,” he said.
“You’re excused,” Faye said, and Samuel leaped off the chair and scurried outside.

Also, the whole chapter of Laura Pottsdam in Samuel’s office justifying her cheating … ending up making it all his fault! … had me rolling. I know too many college professors, I guess, but it struck me as just close enough to real life / just exaggerated enough to be perfect.

I agree the book has many flaws, but I truly loved all the sharp observations of imperfect people and our society.

I even think of Pwnage when I’m obsessing over my favorite online word game at 1 am … just a few more minutes!