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Better World Book Club: Ella Minnow Pea

Posted by Dana on 05.28.2009 at 10:54 am

Don’t forget to sign up for the Better World Book Club Newsletter. Our monthly book club email includes a synopsis of the book, discussion questions and even a great recipe. You can sign up by going to manage subscriptions now.

You can also catch the selections AND discuss the book here on the blog.

Our Latest Pick

ELLA MINNOW PEA by Mark Dunn

I actually read Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea several years ago for a book club I was part of and it stuck with me, so now I want to share it with you. While clearly a literary exercise (as letters fall off a statue – they are removed from the written and spoken vocabulary of an island community by its totalitarian government), it is also a really good story and a thought provoking political statement.

I have read other books that felt like literary exercises to me. Some work and some don’t. The one that pops into my mind first is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book was very highly acclaimed but I found myself distracted by some of his literary devices, and for me that took something away for the book. I felt like it was a project for a graduate level writing class. It would get an A for sure, but I want to feel the emotion and discover the plot rather than be cleverly deviced to death.

2 Comments » | Tagged Better World Book Club, Author Mark Dunn, Book Club Pick, book reviews, dana barrett, Ella Minnow Pea, Everything is Illuminated, jonathan safran foer, literary devices, literary works, Mark Dunn

Extremely Loud, but Incredibly Wrong?

Posted by Jack on 07.15.2008 at 3:05 pm

***The following represents the views of the author, and not those of Better World Books in any way shape or form, (but sometimes a guy who writes about books has to speak his mind about them)***

It is not my nature, or perhaps the nature of any blog that attempts to be linked to a company and based on fact, to approach subjects that are more dire than say, an indictment of modern lit or the praising of a book about a political topic. However, sometimes, amidst all the noise, one hopes for a clear sound to ring out, to wade through the incessant chatter of people bent on getting their opinion heard and media engines looking to hock the latest wares. Sometimes a person needs to stand up and at least say “Now hold on a second…”

I’ve heard plenty about Jonathan Safran Foer’s latest book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I’m saying “Hold on here…”. On one hand, he is an author praised for his very well respected Everything is Illuminated (even thrown the fincky label of “genius” by the New York Times) and perhaps there is something to be said, some type of Pirsigian “Quality” to his latest text that creates such a stir amongst the reading public about it.

However, by nature I hate the book. I am inherently biased against any book that looks to use 9/11 as a vehicle for its story, and even moreso when it comes from the hand of a writer who wasn’t there. Those of us who were closer–those of us who were in New York–realize that the disaster was global, but the suffering is still uniquely ours in its way and affects many everyday on a conscious or subconscious level. So a book that wants to take me through a story about it is not exactly inspiring me the way, say, something about the Black Sox would or even something grittier about the Troubles in Ireland.

I’m sure you can tell, but I have a distinct distaste in my mouth about it, one akin to getting so hungry that you can taste your stomach. I realize that the story undoubtedly looks to add an element to people’s understanding rather than capitalize on the infamy and confusion surrounding the event, but this seems to fail on the “too soon” meter, falling flatly while approaching some type of addendum to Godwin’s Law (which Foer already breached having discussed the Holocaust and Antisemitism in Everything is Illuminated). It’s hard, however, to swallow a sense of trying to convey emotion over some capitalizing kitsch when Foer has sold the rights to this latest book such that it be made into a film (on that note, Everything is Illuminated will actually be out soon, I suppose he’s two for two).

Perhaps I’m making an error; only I will lose if I restrict my reading list, especially should I cut out books that have been lauded to whatever degree and credence that we are willing to offer the Public, but I will no sooner tell my Japanese roommate about a love story across internment camps in the West than I will have someone traipse through the memories of such a day, be it with stream of consciousness or with a 14 page flipbook or some “Pearl Harbor”-esque abomination filling theatres.

Please, no political commentary below, but feel free to tell me why I’m wrong about this book. It’s time we stopped talking about if Oprah likes it and started talking about if it’s a worthwhile read and why.