When We Cease to Understand the World - Book Group June 2021 discussion thread

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McGoohan Jun 2021 2:04pm, 1 Jun 2021 49,566 posts	0 McGoohan When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut is the June 2021 chozz as chozzed by Chrisull. Load your literary twelve-bore and pepper the thread below with your mind-shot, much as Prince Charles would a grouse's hind-quarters.
McGoohan Jun 2021 2:08pm, 1 Jun 2021 49,567 posts	0 McGoohan Mr Neil A Higgins 1.0 out of 5 stars Lame, disingenuous, misleading, pointless Reviewed in Australia on 13 May 2021 Possum 2.0 out of 5 stars Pointless Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 December 2020 Verified Purchase I didn’t enjoy this pointless book as I thought it was pointless making up pointless stories about the historic people mentioned in the book!
Chrisull Jun 2021 3:41pm, 4 Jun 2021 17,766 posts	0 Chrisull Interesting I think - Possum misrepresents it, the stories are true... it's the narrative/inner life that is fictional. In fact the first section Prussian Blue (which I have just finished) according to the author contains only one fictional paragraph - which one reviewer guesses is the last one, the one where Haber regrets his actions. That's the trouble with 1 star reviews, I'd love to see a great dissection of much of literature with proper critical analysis on why a particular book is lame, but it usually ends up being I didn't like this book boo-hoo. It usually says more about the reviewers then the book.
McGoohan Jun 2021 4:00pm, 4 Jun 2021 49,597 posts	0 McGoohan To be serious, I rarely think 1-star reviews are justified. people seem to be unable to find shades of grey between 'awesome' and 'abyssmal'. As such, I think most 5-star reviews are unjustified too...
McGoohan Jun 2021 2:15pm, 10 Jun 2021 49,616 posts	0 McGoohan Right, finished this lunchtime. I am giving this Schrodinger's score. Until we look in the box, we can't know what my score is, if anything.
McGoohan Jun 2021 9:59am, 13 Jun 2021 49,629 posts	0 McGoohan This was just about the perfect book for me. Very much down the Eric Vuillard/Laurent Binet rue. Odd fiction/non-fic crossover? Check. Translated into English? Check. Twisty tales of the dark side of science? Right up my street. I liked how there were connections and callbacks to earlier 'stories' as we went on too. The cat is out of the box. I gave it a 9. Thanks Chrisull for choosing this.
Columba Jun 2021 10:27pm, 14 Jun 2021 21,123 posts	0 Columba What an odd book. I found it interesting, but odd. The first section seemed to be about one thing (chemicals) and the others about physics/maths/quantum theory. Apart from the short final chapter. When I'd finished I flicked back to the beginning again and realised there was a kind of link of the two ends, i.e. a woman trying to hang herself from an oak tree (different women, different oak trees; one succeeds, one doesn't).
Columba Jun 2021 10:29pm, 14 Jun 2021 21,124 posts	0 Columba I kept waiting for Schrodinger's cat to be mentioned, but it wasn't. Or was it and I missed it?
McGoohan Jun 2021 10:38pm, 14 Jun 2021 49,638 posts	0 McGoohan Well it's either there or it isn't and only by looking in the box... maybe that joke has got tired before I even finish it...? So instead: It's on page 170 Columba
Chrisull Jun 2021 10:45pm, 14 Jun 2021 17,819 posts	0 Chrisull I have finished it, will review in full course, but yes it was a little disjointed, and it was fairly easy to see the fictional and non-fictional bits. Definitely glad I chose it, turned out better than the Leopard!