Book clubs aren’t really my thing but in the past year and a half I have joined two. One of which is on hiatus because of the pandemic and the other was created because of the pandemic. The first was an in-person monthly meetup to discuss books based on a theme; but the pandemic saw our gathering place shuttered and the end of the club for the moment.
The second club was started by a literary friend of mine from back in the Bangkok Women Writers Group days. She was looking for some social interaction from within the confines of her remote setting—something to get the ‘little grey cells’ moving. So, she sent a shout out to friends, family and former writer’s group members about an online book club idea.
I joined because –well, what is there to talk about these days. Nothing that we aren’t all sick of talking about already.
In an odd symmetry, the pandemic became Shiva; a creator and destroyer of worlds -- in this case book clubs.
A book club becomes a world in itself; there’s commitment and duty to others, required tasks and times. It becomes part of your life and makes you a member of a new and evolving community.
Joining a book club is a way to enforce close reading. Generally, I read a book without putting much thought into what I am reading which is why I have read War and Peace twice; once for the story and once for all that literary stuff I was supposed to be noticing.
A book club also acts as a surrogate university. I have spent most of my adult life in university. I like to be introduced to new things and that is why I am, some might say, addicted to post-secondary education. I have a very broad range of interest; one might even call it catholic in the non-denominational sense of the word. But at this time, I am unable to attend classes due to the pandemic—I now rely on book club to introduce me to strange and wondrous things.
The most recent book I read for the online book club was an introduction – or perhaps a reintroduction—to a genre of fiction that I would not have picked up without inspiration from the book club.
The book was called Lovecraft Country – and in doing some research after reading, I found that it fell into this genre called New Weird. If there is one thing I like, it is weird.
I’ve always been a fan of magical realism and read a lot of science fiction and some fantasy when I was in my teens. In more recent years, I’ve been drawn to what I might call the grown-up version of these genres; speculative fiction particularly as penned by Margaret Atwood.
Lovecraft Country while weird was also familiar and it reminded me of how much I used to love Ben Bova, Carl Sagan, and Isaac Asimov. I decided it was time to read more widely in this new genre.
I did some research and found a few authors who fell into the New Weird genre and were available through my library. And here I’ll just stop to say; Libraries, how small my life would be without them.
Within a week of ordering, the library had delivered the full Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer as well as a few books by China Miéville along with other novels I had recently ordered.
With a weekend spread out before me like a fresh field of snow, I opened Annihilation- the first book in the trilogy-and didn’t stop reading until Sunday afternoon when I had finished all three books and could no longer ignore house or office work.
It’s been a very long time since I binged any one thing for that length of time; not movies, streaming TV series or books. That’s mostly because I lose interest; I no longer care what happens to the characters, if they live or die, or if the mystery is solved. But these books captured me- compelled me to refuse a dinner invitation (the only regular social interaction I’ve had during the pandemic), procrastinate about work (although that is a given in the life of a writer) and miss an online book launch and reading by friends of mine that I really did want to attend.
These books, like the novel that brought me to them, are part of a lineage of creation that flows back to H.P. Lovecraft. I have never read Lovecraft, but as a prolific reader I have come across his name from time to time.
And just when I was thinking of doing a little research of my own into that author, a podcast on Lovecraft and his current popularity happened to hit my playlist. A CBC Ideas episode—hard to believe that both the CBC and I were culturally on point.
The podcast mentioned the book Lovecraft County and defined the Lovecraftian genre as ‘Cosmic Horror’ which accurately described the Southern Reach trilogy although one might only think so after they have read the books—before it might not seem near descriptive enough.
And while I agree the term ‘Cosmic Horror’ fits, I find the more recent genre moniker New Weird less agreeable. These books reminded me of my favourite Stephen King novels: Tommyknockers and The Stand. Coming from Stephen King they are automatically cast in the horror genre although if you are a fan of King’s you know he masters many muses under that umbrella. So, I was left wondering what was so weird or so new about these books to merit the classification.
Sunday evening, I started a novel by China Miéville but maybe it was too soon after my affair with VanderMeer; I just couldn’t commit. What I did read felt a bit like Robert A. Heinlein and I have never been a fan of that type of science fiction. Plus, I usually need a break between genres and tend to skip back and forth between mysteries and novels on literary must-read lists.
Then the children decided to colonize my bed and the chatter eliminated the possibility of following any plot line let alone sentence. Given my seclusion, nestled in my blankets and pages for most of the weekend, I couldn’t reject their company.
I felt guilty for spending the weekend in bed; no physical activity, no fresh air on what was a sunny day, no accomplishments other than a stack of books that I could mark off as read.
But I was entertained; for a short while I could forget -mostly- about the pandemic. And if the value of entertainment wasn’t enough to assuage my guilt – thanks to the book jack design—I will never spell annihilation wrong again—and that’s a real bonus for a substandard speller such as myself.
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