Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 16/9/2002 at 01:28 AM |
Looks like there is no danger of the party starting without me. The book
is divided into three sections of about seven chapters each, so I thought
that worked well enough to begin rambling. It is probably a bit
predictable, but I will begin with part I.
My copy of the book came with a glossary (of sorts) in the back, which I
used extensively for the first chapter and then stopped using it altogether
as the flow of the writing was really interrupted by constantly flipping to
the end and starting sentences over and over. At first I thought that the
slang-that-never-was was going to be a huge distraction... but seven
chapters into it and I can see that it is done very horrorshow. It gives
the book a very "trendy" feel, but not one that would feel dated a week
from now.
Burgess does a very good job of creating a thoroughly inexcusable and
simultaneously sympathetic hero in Alex, which is no mean feat. While Alex
performs detestable actions and does not seem to have any goals or
ambitions (or any thoughts far beyond himself and his own appetites), he
seems to have developed highly refined ideas about what is and is not done
in the world (For instance, punching Dim in the face for being rude to the
singing girl in Chapter 3, pounding an old drunkard in Chapter 2 for making
intestinal noises, apologising for vomiting after having been beaten by the
police in Chapter 7). He seems to have almost a foppish concern for
appearances and the degree of offense he takes to body odours seems a bit
misplaced for a young hoodlum (His disgust with the police in Chapter 6
seems almost entirely centered on the way they smell, and it is Billyboy´s
smell and overweight appearance that sets him off in Chapter 2). Where
does Alex come by these "refined" sensibilities? He seems to be conscious
enough of his speech and mannerisms to be able to effect a "gentlemanly"
composure to disarm his victims (at the writer´s house and again at the old
cat lady´s house), so he must be perfectly conscious of his posturing. It
is just not made clear (so far) where that posturing comes from.
Actually, that question might be close to the heart of what the book seems
to be about. There is no "where it comes from". Chapter 4, in which Alex
is visited by Mr. P.R. Deltoid, asks this question fairly directly. "This
biting of their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns
me into a fine laughing malchick. They don´t go into what is the cause of
goodness..." A lot of proposed solutions are raised to be knocked down
again, including the laughable "Devil-made-me-do-it defense (which Burgess
correctly points out is a convenient excuse for any action in the world.
It doesn´t really ANSWER anything, it simply absolves anyone of any
personal responsibility).
Even someone unfamiliar with the book can see where the author´s sympathies
lay. In Chapter 2, The writer who is beaten and is forced to watch the
rape of his wife is conveniently writing an essay on this very issue. The
book, also titled "A Clockwork Orange", rails against "...impos(ing)...
laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation". Obviously,
Burgess is suggesting that it is better to be bad and to have free-will
than to be made into an automaton with no will, but this begs a question.
Does Alex have free-will to begin with? Alex states in Chapter 4 that he
does what he does because he likes to, but is it possible that he is
conditioned to like to do bad things?
This might very well be the case, as we see in Chapters 6 and 7 that the
"good guys" (police) also revel in violence. Actually, Burgess has not
presented the reader in part I with a single individual that we might be
able to call "good" without being forced to put a question mark in front of
it. Alex does not seem to be "evil", in so much as he enjoys inflicting
pain and suffering on thinking, feeling beings... he simply objectifies
everyone in the world and only views them as being there for his own
amusement. That might be why Alex is so uncomfortable when Mr. Deltoid
dehumanises him in the same way that he has done to everyone else in the
past in Chapter 6. "He looked at (Alex) with cold glazzies like (Alex) had
become a thing and was no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck".
That realisation might be Alex´s first steps into the realisation that he
is not the center of the world. We shall see. I am, I was, I will be
~Monolycus.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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Schizo
Extreme Fanatic Posts: 897 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 10/9/2005 at 05:43 AM |
You know, these discussions are starting to get kind of interesting, even
to someone who has not read the book. I think I just may go out and buy a
copy myself, just so I can justify joining in. I need a good mind-stretch. ____________________ "You can tell by the scars on my arms and the cracks in my hips and the
dents in my car and the blisters on my lips that I'm not the carefullest of
girls." - Dresden Dolls, "Girl Anachronism" |
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 9/9/2005 at 11:02 PM |
@W0rmW00d
I really don't think that F.Alexander swallows the idea that choice has
been curtailed, which is why I compared him to Sarte (although he would be
a manipulative, self-serving version of Sartre).
For those unfamiliar with the doctrine underlying the statement "I am
condemned to be free" (and are also reading this... which narrows my
audience to around three of you), I'll try to sum up. Sartre's basic
argument is that the one thing we can never be free from is the freedom to
choose; and we have all in our younger days played the game about how
refusing to choose is a choice in itself. The "nausea" that Sartre talks
about stems from being overwhelmed with true responsibility of any and all
potential choices. One shouldn't throw oneself off a cliff or blow one's
brains out, but one knows that they could (and, by implication,
might ) do so at any moment. This basic knowledge (that freedom
exists not in the here and now... as all our actions are directed towards
result which are not now , and therefore do not really exist per se
and is therefore inescapable for us) is unbearable for most people. The
majority deny their own responsibility, but the few who are able to face up
to these facts are overcome with "nausea" and sickness at the scope of it.
Sartre's doctrine takes on an interesting twist in the works of
psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (specifically, Fromm's 1941 classic Escape
from Freedom) .
I think F. Alexander was banking on this. He realised not only that the
Ludovico technique could not possibly cause one to cease being free (since
freedom does not exist in the present, it can not be escaped), but also
that Alex would not be able (as most people aren't) to bear that freedom.
He was banking upon Alex's taking his own life when he realised that
despite what the government had done, he was only playing along with them
about how effective it was. If Alex were truly made into a "clockwork
orange" (or had been one all along), then he could not possibly make the
decision to become suicidal over what had been done to him, and F.
Alexander must have known that perfectly well.
The game was beneficial even to Alex, until it meant that he must endure
beatings rather than admit to himself that he still could make his own
decisions. That is when he became sick, overwhelmed and suicidal. As we
know, though, Alex did not kill himself (rather, he chose
not to kill himself); instead he chose to continue playing the game that he
was robbed of his ability to choose.
F. Alexander was ostensibly a vengeful creep with an axe to grind against
the government and would permit and even facilitate all of this, but as
literary creations in a single work are the product of a single mind, I
think this character is used to demonstrate Alex's (possibly unconscious)
knowledge that, try as he might, he was only playing the role of a pawn.
And he had made the decision to do so himself.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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W0rmW00d
Fanatic Posts: 355 Registered: 5/8/2004 Status: Offline
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posted on 9/9/2005 at 09:46 PM |
Upon further thought I do not see how F Alexander is any more of a heroic
figure than Alex. All that can qualify him as 'hero' is his social
responsibility because he does not feature enough to be called the major
character, but this apparent worthiness is counterpointed by his
vindictiveness and the self-serving nature of his desire to use Alex in
order to further his own political drives. This is without even mentioning
the vengeance he sought for the death of his wife, which he blames on Alex
using the shakiest of pretexts; the fact that she died, or gave up on life,
soon after the attack is merely his interpretation of the nature of her
illness (if memory serves). He is no more worthy a hero than Alex, the
Lodovico technicians, the chaplain or the social worker.
When Alex commits his crimes he often has a twisted, but coherent,
rationale behind his choices, for example striking Dim for his interfering
with Alex's enjoyment of the woman singing, or his disgust at the vulgarity
of the drunk man leading to a violent beating. F Alexander, on the other
hand, epitomises the hypocrisy of the liberal political view. That he seems
to consider the brutal means to his ends justifiable speaks volumes. he
finds the curtailment of choice an infringement on social liberty, however
driving someone to attempt suicide is allowable because it serves his
purposes. ____________________ Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.
And the third angel sounded, and a troll army did descend upon the world. |
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 7/9/2005 at 04:03 PM |
It's my position that the character of F. Alexander was simply used as a
counterpoint to the (confusingly named) protagonist Alex's presentation of
thoughtless victimhood. F. Alexander would represent Sartre's doctrine ("I
am condemned to be free") in stark contrast to Alex (the organic automaton,
or "clockwork orange").
Actually, Alex himself might have been struggling all along with an attempt
not to bear responsibility. When Alex suffers nausea, it is ostensibly
because he is prevented from making any choices or decisions. On the
contrary, Jean-Paul Sartre's famous nausea (from his 1943 book Being and
Nothingness ) stems from the overwhelming responsibility that comes
from absolute freedom of choice. From this perspective, F. Alexander
could easily represent that facet of Alex that knows that despite an
unhappy childhood, cultural oppression, race or class, or any other of the
things we conveniently use to blame for the state of ourselves, he still
does bear responsibility for his own actions.
We might be talking about the same guy here. ____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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W0rmW00d
Fanatic Posts: 355 Registered: 5/8/2004 Status: Offline
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posted on 31/8/2005 at 05:55 PM |
You seem to be mistaking the term 'hero', as regards someone to whom one
must look up and show respect, with 'hero' as protagonist. ____________________ Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.
And the third angel sounded, and a troll army did descend upon the world. |
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shadow_hunter
Coward Posts: 2 Registered: 12/8/2005 Status: Offline
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posted on 19/8/2005 at 12:45 PM |
i believe i gave you all enough time to think about the answer to my
previous post. now it's the time for what you all have been waiting for.
F. ALEXANDER, was the true hero of the
story.for those of you who don't remember, he was the writer that was
trying to stop the government that was in office from getting elected for
another term |
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 18/8/2005 at 01:03 PM |
quote: A lot of you who have
read this book believe Alex is the hero of the story,but no he wasn't,
guess again.
We tend as a rule to be unimpressed with cryptic know-it-allism here. If
you have an insight, feel free to share it. If you don't, I'd very much
appreciate it if you didn't pretend as though you did. ____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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shadow_hunter
Coward Posts: 2 Registered: 12/8/2005 Status: Offline
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posted on 17/8/2005 at 02:52 AM |
A lot of you who have read this book believe Alex is the hero of the
story,but no he wasn't, guess again.
[Edited on 17/8/2005 by shadow_hunter] |
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W0rmW00d
Fanatic Posts: 355 Registered: 5/8/2004 Status: Offline
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posted on 14/12/2004 at 09:15 PM |
In my eyes there is a sense of the breakdown of the old-young divide
demonstrated several times in this book, rather than the possible clashes
of the social mores of the generations.
The violent boy of yesterday becomes the same violent man of today when
Alex reaches manhood, only he is now struggling with the responsibility
that adults of his own age are often avoiding, as seen when the old gang
rivalries flair up leading to Alex's beating by the police but similar
rivalries, but at a more 'adult' level lead to far greater ill. The party
political struggles, which lead to the near suicide of our hero through
systematic abuse of him n the name of one-upmanship on the crime issue, are
simply a scaled up version of the gang wars of his younger days. On the one
hand authoritarian against agressively non-authoritarian, on the other
suave and 'polite' against uncouth, smelly and overweight.
On the other hand there is the alternative displayed with the familial
bliss which leads our Alex into his own reflections of his arriving
maturity.
Sorry if there are any foolish gaps in my argument, I cannot find my copy
of the book. ____________________ Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.
And the third angel sounded, and a troll army did descend upon the world. |
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nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
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posted on 11/12/2004 at 08:32 PM |
I agree with the idea that alex and his group acted as a kind of mirror for
the brutality of the society in which they lived, that they were
reflecting/reinacting the violence of the police etc who brutalised them
and so brutalised those lower in the pecking order. Also, off the top of my
head, you could argue that youth is a society apart. That it has it's own
hierarchy, do's and don'ts and it's own forms of social conditioning. I'll
away sleep on it. ____________________
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 11/12/2004 at 08:20 PM |
NFI: No apologies about "jumping the gun on the sections thing"... as long
as you are actually discussing the text itself, I could give a shit about
which part of it you are discussing. One of the sorest spots I have had as
a community member here was about people's apparent inability to do
something like read and discuss a book even after vocalising that it is
what they wanted to do.
I honestly have no idea why the final chapter was expurgated from the
American version. it seems to be a marketing decision, but, if so, it is an
especially crappy one and makes the book a bit pointless and voyeuristic
("Hey, look! He's violent, but if we make him un-violent, he gets
victimised!"). Seems like something a Disney exec would decide to do.
The "free will" question is really unanswerable, but if one hasn't already
had the internal debate, I think it is high time that they did. Obviously,
we do not have unlimited "free will" ("why don't you just "decide" that you
want to walk upside down on the ceiling, smart ass?"), but we should learn
to recognise the extent to which we are conditioned (as far as that is
recognisable).
Another factor in this equation is that Alex and his group were in
ostensible violation of explicit social mores and thought they
were "pushing the envelope" (as the youthful like to imagine they do), so
how is this behaving in accordance with social conditioning? I propose that
the irony (real irony, not Alanis Marmoset irony) is that violence was
tacitly incorporated into the social mores of which Alex & co were
allegedly in violation. This is illustrated by the authority figures such
as the police being as brutal and objective to their victims as the street
punks were to theirs. From this standpoint, Alex & co were more upright
conformists to their world than the writer in Chapter 2, who was a
provocateur and a destabilising factor.
~M. ____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
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posted on 11/12/2004 at 07:16 PM |
M: I like your point about free will and social conditioning. I would agree
that all of our choices areaffected or controlled by our social
conditioning, but this raises something of a conceptual difficulty. it is
hard (if not impossible) to imagine any type of choice or free will being
exercised outside of some kind of social structure and so the whole idea of
freedom of choice becomes something of a moot point. Without some kind of
structure in which to make choices, can will be exercised at all? The book
does explore the fact that society affects ALL of our choices, but I think
Burgess was also trying to say that this was not always a bad thing, that
there are degrees of freedom within a society, freedom that comes partly
from 'insight and common sense'.
Anyway, I would quite like to discuss the book if anyone is interested?
Sorry if i jumped the gun on the sections thing Mono, am quite happy to go
back to the beginning. But I probably won't have much to say until next
weekend as i have exams at the mo, plus i'd quite like to reread the book
as it's been a while.
Why was the final chapter missing from the American version? I knew the
film ending had been cut, presumably because Mr Kubrick felt it was too
nicey nicey. ____________________
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 11/12/2004 at 05:59 PM |
Devin: I was aware of that, actually, but it is a good thing to mention
again. It should have been mentioned before now, but I had been waiting for
the discussion to "catch up" to that point per the original agreement to
discuss the book in sections (which I still think would be the most
beneficial way to do things... provided people actually wanted to
discuss anything). Wasn't the final chapter posted here on Shmeng at one
time? If so, this could be a good place to re-link it.
Without the final chapter, the book doesn't really have much of a message
in my opinion. It could still be argued that Alex's "choices" about
settling down when he is older are the result of social conditioning, just
as his youthful "choices" were not really, in the final analysis, within
his control. He does not come across as a wiser character in the final
chapter (to me), but he does read as a more mature one.
This still begs the question regarding free will. Older people make
different "choices" than younger people, to be sure. Often, the decisions
of older people are seen as being more informed due to their experiences
and insights. But (and I am straying from the text itself and into its
implications now), if older people make uniform choices and younger people
uniform choices (within statistical parameters, of course), what proof do
we have that these differences have any more to do with insight and the
exercise of sense? Could it not also be possible that older people are
simply conditioned to make a different set of "decisions" and it is only an
illusion that they are more free of social conditioning than their younger
counterparts?
NFI: Thank you for that background context. I hadn't heard it before. I
don't see A Clockwork Orange as a book about Totalitarianism in
the same sense as Orwell's 1984 , but the germ of it is there. As
for the ridiculousness of the rumour regarding Burgess' involvement in the
CIA... I agree that it is entirely unlikely that the author had anything to
do with that organisation. That the CIA engaged in experiments involving
"mind control" and behavioural modification, however, is a matter of public
record. They were ordered to pay restitution by the US Supreme Court for
their "MK ULTRA" series of experiments.
~M. ____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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Devin
Administrator Posts: 317 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Online
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posted on 11/12/2004 at 04:47 PM |
I'm not sure if it's common knowledge, but there are two versions of the
book. The american version leaves out the last chapter. ____________________ So Sayeth Me |
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nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
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posted on 11/12/2004 at 01:23 PM |
The story about him being beaten up comes from a period in the late 50s
early 60s when Burgess was visiting the USSR. The sailors were causing
trouble outisde his hotel, but when he went to leave they let him pass. It
turned out they were waiting for someone else and not planning on attacking
the corrupt capitalist. Another inexplicably popula (and slightly more
ridiculous)r myth is that he had some involvement in some top secret CIA
dehumanisation programme.
Although Stalin's purges and the Red Terror were past by the time Burgess
visited Leningrad these are not something that a people would forget
quickly and undoubtly the scars were fresh in minds and hearts and still
plain to see. It seems likely to me that a lot of the inspiration for his
books about totalitarian regimes came from his visit to Russia.
At the very end of the book, when alex is reflecting on his past exploits,
he talks about being too ignorant in his youth to make any real choices.
At some point he asks himself something like, would God prefer a man who
chose violence over a man who had goodness imposed upon him. He is
obviously struggling to excuse his violence and the statement seems to
contradict the idea that he had no choice but to do violence. Although he
may have had some superficial freedom compared to the period after his
conditioning he feels in some ways he 'knew no better'.
However, in the final chapter, he makes what is probably the only positive
choice he makes in the whole book-to get married have children etc. Alex
seems to view this as the first real choice he has ever made, and perhaps
suggests that he has finally found some personal freedom and respite from
the harsh society in which he lives and from his violent past.
[Edited on 11/12/2004 by nostalgiaforinfinity] ____________________
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 11/12/2004 at 01:22 AM |
The story that I have heard regarding the use of the Russian slang is that
Anthony Burgess (né Jon Anthony Burgess Wilson, AKA Joseph Kell) was beaten
by three drunken Russian sailors one evening when he allowed them into his
home... and this incident was the entire basis for the novel. Might be
apocryphal, but makes entirely more sense than his having a dig at
Stalinism... esepcially since Khruschev was premiere of the Soviet Union at
the time the novel was published (1962).
What is it in the text that makes you feel that Alex is incapable of making
meaningful choices before being subjected to the Ludovico Treatment, and
why do you feel he was capable of meaningful decisions after he was
"reconditioned"...? Wasn't he always, at some point or another, a
Clockwork Orange?
~M. ____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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nostalgiaforinfinity
Occasional Poster Posts: 33 Registered: 5/12/2004 Status: Offline
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posted on 10/12/2004 at 03:56 PM |
The main theme behind A Clockwork Orange is freedom of choice. Alex does
not really have or exercise any freedom of choice until the very end of the
book when he feels he has matured into someone capable of making meaningful
choices having shaken off the shackles of violence and the conditioning
imposed upon him by society- discuss. what confused me slightly here was
whether or not alex did have freedom of choice at the start of the book? At
the end he talks about how he was too immature at that point to make any
real choices. And how society had 'wound him up' like the object of the
title. Do people agree with this? Or did he perhaps have more choice in the
matter than he would like to admit? Is he just trying to excuse his
violence by saying that society had left him no real alternatives?
Also, on the translation thing, how does the title translate? Does it
retain it's english connotations of an organic being turned automaton?
And why do you think Burgess used a russian basis for the slang in the
book? Perhaps having a dig at the dictatorial regimes of Stalin etc and
their attempts at dehumanising?
[Edited on 10/12/2004 by nostalgiaforinfinity] ____________________
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SindelChaos
Occasional Poster Posts: 46 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 10/12/2004 at 02:42 PM |
quote: A two year wait before a
brief announcement that someone has read it wasn't exactly the calibre of
discussion I was hoping for here. I've read it, too. Was there anything
about it that you actually wanted to discuss, appraise or critique apart
from mentioning that it was "good"?
~M.
Yeah, I wasn't aware of the date until after I posted it. It's sad how
long it takes for a new topic to be put up on this forum. You would think
people would be more active on the site. I read the book two years ago. |
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Monolycus
Fanatic Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 8/12/2004 at 03:40 PM |
A two year wait before a brief announcement that someone has read it wasn't
exactly the calibre of discussion I was hoping for here. I've read it,
too. Was there anything about it that you actually wanted to discuss,
appraise or critique apart from mentioning that it was "good"?
~M. ____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again." |
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