Testing The Waters For An Ordinary Bookclub
Who wants to read Solzhenitsyn’s In the First Circle: The First Uncensored Edition
Sound off in comments. (We can also hammer out logistics there, if it comes to that.)
Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
I’d be in
PReport
I’m still waiting for installment 2 of the Beowulf/Grendel bookclub!Report
Are you?! The we will continue on Friday; JayB should not wait to start another.Report
Me tooReport
I say Monster Hunter International!Report
I’m game for In the First Circle.Report
This looks good. I will endeavor to participate, assuming I have time to keep up.Report
I’m game.Report
I’m in. I was trying to decide what to read next and this sounds good.Report
Okey-doke. Good enough for me. I’ll make an Official Announcement this weekend, give everybody a week for the book to show up, and then we’ll start.Report
I am in also, but do we need that exact edition, or will another do?Report
Oh, hell, now is not the time to cheap out…Report
I have another version upstairs, but I have never read “the first uncensored edition”.
I’m going to read that one. Now, of course, I doubt that we’re talking about something like “WITH 50 NEVER BEFORE SEEN PAGES!!!” as much as “we’ve got a handful of paragraphs in this one that weren’t in previous ones”. It’ll probably be the parts of the book that talk about Stalin, if I had to guess and I’m pretty sure that I won’t mind talking about the stuff that I recognize as being in the new version.
If you (or anybody!!!) prefer the version in your local library, get that one. The reason I’m excited to be reading this again is because of the censored version. You’ll be just as well-served by that one.Report
Well, I ordered the uncensored version, scant moments ago, so I am with you on that.
Normally, I do most of my book buying at library sales and thrift stores, but as that can be hit or miss, I figured let Jaybird do the walking…Report
I’m in. (I just started on Astro City; it’ll do me good to read some books without pictures.)Report
I’m in, since you forced me to put it on my Kindle. Yeah, that’s how I remember it.Report
Looks like an interesting book. Count me in.Report
i’ve read the original–it was good. don’t have time to participate this time, but I’m interested in how the “new” version differs. My old copy has 500+ pages. Solzy can get his ramble on.Report
Since I’m the only one involved in this that I know will have read both, I’ll do my best to shoulder the whole “here’s one of the censored bits” burden (no promises that I’ll catch everything, mind).
So I’ll try to make the posts worth the while of those in the same boat as you.Report
I’m guessing the tentacle porn scenes are new.Report
no, no, that was the /other/ nobel prizewinner who pulls that shit. You know, the troll.Report
… of course, you can ask if it’s x-rated but not remotely sexy — to anyone, is it really porn?Report
Mike FTW!Report
Thanks. If I read it today, I don’t know if I could catch new passages. It’s been ten years or so since I read it.Report
Solzy can get his ramble on.
He was working in the finest tradition of Russian novelists churning out doorstops, from Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky right up to Pasternak.Report
Ayn Rand worked that territory as well. I consider making my way through The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as an accomplishment on several levels, albeit not the accomplishment conquering War and Peace would be.Report
Quite true. I liked First Circle–August 1914–not so much. Maybe it’s the brutal winters that keep them inside and writing?Report