The Cook and Book Club is a small Australian based book club combining their love for reading and cooking. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book

I took charge of the Cook & Book Club this month, so given my recent Tommy Wiseau fanboy phase I wanted to delve deeper into the abomination that is The Room – a 2003 drama film that was a trainwreck from start to finish. The Disaster Artist chronicles the strange friendship between director-actor-writer Tommy Wiseau and his co-star Greg Sestero, and reveals just how nightmarish it was to work on that film set.

Dinner

Tonight I dispensed with the formalities of entrée and dessert. After everyone saw what I would be serving up for the main course, I was sure they wouldn’t have the appetite for anything else anyway.

To quote Lisa from The Room, tonight’s meal was “Half Canadian bacon with pineapple, half artichoke with pesto, and light on the cheese”.

Understandably, no one wanted to be the first one to try it. But after taking the first bite and discovering my knack for making disgusting meals taste half-decent, I managed to convince the others to tuck in. Now that everyone’s expectations of the night had been sufficiently lowered, we launched into the discussion.

With the recent movie adaptation starring James Franco still fresh in our minds, we immediately drew comparisons between the film’s whimsical, childish portrayal of Wiseau and the book’s more tragic, obnoxious depiction. Not to say that Franco didn’t nail the impersonation, but the curtain obscuring Wiseau’s darker tendencies was not fully pulled back in the movie. In the novel however, Sestero goes to great lengths to pick apart Wiseau and figure out exactly what made him the way he is. This is not an easy feat, given how much personal information Wiseau refuses to divulge.

The little that Wiseau has disclosed though reveals some truly tough experiences, and it explains a lot about his personality now – his obsession with the American Dream, his paranoia, his loneliness. But then there are those mannerisms that are impossible to explain. Just tiny quirks that shouldn’t matter, but feel ever so slightly out of the ordinary. For example, in one section Sestero describes Wiseau’s strange habits while dining out:

“Whenever Tommy is in a restaurant, he always orders a glass of hot water. I’ve never seen a waiter or waitress do anything but balk at the order.”

And whenever Wiseau is questioned about his idiosyncrasies, he gets defensive and aggressive.

“Look, why you give me hard time? Do I speak Chinese? This is simple request, my God. Are you tipsy or something? And more bread with raisin stuff.”

As a result, the co-existence of Wiseau’s most comical qualities, unpleasant traits, and his tragic backstory create something of a paradox. We’re not sure if we should be laughing, sympathising, or baulking at his behaviour. It’s uncomfortable, but it also paints a more rounded picture of Wiseau than we have gotten in any other public portrayal of him.

The Disaster Artist is much more of a character study than a narrative, but over dinner Scott noted how much this was modified for the film adaptation. The novel’s structure alternates between the early days of Wiseau and Sestero’s friendship and their work together on The Room, but the movie takes a much more linear approach. It even wraps up the entire story with a moral at the end: that even if The Room isn’t taken seriously by audiences as a piece of art, it still has value in making people laugh.

The novel places less emphasis on this message, instead weaving it in more subtly throughout the story. Instead, Sestero’s decision to linger on Wiseau’s psyche and the way he influences the world around him feels more fitting for the book format.

Sestero aptly describes The Room as “a drama that is also a comedy that is also an existential cry for help that is finally a testament to human endurance”, and I couldn’t have put it better myself. There’s a reason The Room has become a demented kind of cultural icon all these years later, but that’s a whole other article. The story behind its creation is just as uncanny, and in The Disaster Artist Sestero does his best to lay out as much of the truth as he can. It’s a compelling, uncomfortable read, but it’s also a necessity for fans of The Room.

What do you think of The Disaster Artist? Tell us in the comments below!

The post The Cook & Book Club: The Disaster Artist appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Cook and Book Club is a small Australian based book club combining their love for reading and cooking. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book

Tonight the Cook & Book Club was hosted by Hannibal Lecter fanboy, Alec. So naturally, the book chosen for this month was Thomas Harris’ 1999 novel, Hannibal—the third instalment in the series featuring the eponymous cannibal and former psychiatrist.

For most of us, The Silence of the Lambs film proved to be a useful reference point going into Hannibal, and we touched on it several times in our conversation. But it was Lecter’s development in the series of novels that captured our imaginations and dominated our discussion for the night.

Dinner

While Alec was at first considering serving us lamb brains for dinner, he decided to be a little kinder with his meal choice, fattening us up with pork chops instead. This culinary reference to Mason Verger’s brutal fate at the hands of hungry, wild pigs opened up our talk of Hannibal this evening.

Unfortunately my personal experience with the book wasn’t the greatest, but this was not due to any fault of Thomas Harris himself. I decided to give the audiobook a shot, but quite soon into the story I lost interest due to Daniel Gerroll’s lacklustre narration failing to capture the story’s intensity. As a result the plot felt dull, and I occasionally found myself tuning out.

After getting this off my chest to the group, Alec decided to balance out my negativity with an expression of his love for Hannibal as a character.

It was unanimous that we all found Hannibal Lecter’s appeal to stem from the odd, creepy balance of being both a disgusting monster and a polite gentleman. He is undoubtedly evil, manipulative, and sadistic. But for some reason, the fact that he only harms the characters we don’t like and respects the ones we do seems to make his actions almost forgivable.

Dessert

Eventually figs and ice cream were served up for dessert, and we finally got around to discussing Ridley Scott’s contentious movie adaptation.

Quite significantly towards the end of the book, Hannibal drugs and brainwashes Clarice into believing that he is her long-dead sister, Mischa. While in this malleable state of mind, Clarice is manipulated into eating the brain of a former colleague, before running off with Lecter and becoming his lover. This is where their story ends—disappearing from authorities, but living as partners in crime.

In the movie though, one tiny change was made that had huge ramifications on how we perceive both Clarice and Hannibal. While we were all here discussing the novel, Alec did not want to leave this contentious topic untouched.

To put it plainly, the brainwashing never happens in the film adaptation. When Clarice joins Hannibal in his devilish endeavors, she is completely in her right mind. It is easy to see then in this version of events how she always had a bit of that dark side in her. Conversely, it is also just as easy to see Hannibal’s absolute confidence that he could draw this out of her without the use of mind-altering drugs.

As Alec elucidated, these modifications to well-established characters caused a considerable amount of controversy when the movie was first released. Hannibal was always going to be a risky book-to-screen adaptation following the critical success that was The Silence of the Lambs, but unfortunately it was a risk that did not pay off.

After hearing from the rest of the book club how much they enjoyed Harris’ Hannibal, I decided that it is one that I would certainly like to revisit in the future—next time in hard copy format, rather than audiobook. Harris has such a knack for creating engaging, morally grey characters, it isn’t difficult to see why Hannibal Lecter has become such a famous literary icon.

Have you read Thomas Harris’ Hannibal? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

The post The Cook & Book Club: Hannibal by Thomas Harris appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Cook and Book Club is a small Australian based book club combining their love for reading and cooking. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book

Franz Kafka is one of those names that floats around in high school English classes, and yet his novels are rarely quoted or studied directly. Instead, he is more known for his legacy in Western literary culture, lending his surname to the term “Kafkaesque”, used to describe works that evoke the surreal, nightmarish worlds he created.

At tonight’s Cook & Book Club, we wanted to dig more into the context and intention behind Kafka’s famous novella The Metamorphosis. And as it turned out, our interpretations of its original meaning were more divisive than expected.

Dinner

Arriving at Cassie’s house we were met with a veal wiener schnitzel, served alongside a German-style potato salad. We kicked off the discussion by laying down the basics of Kafka’s style, particularly his integration of dark, fantastical elements with realistic settings. This is never clearer than in the opening line of The Metamorphosis:

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”

It isn’t very often you find the premise of an entire book right there in the opening line. Kafka is direct, his tone jarring, but we were all pulled right into the heart of the story.

One possible reading of Gregor’s transformation is that it is simply an absurdist tale about a man whose life suddenly becomes a lot more depressing. But it’s hard not to see this as a metaphor for something.

Alec interpreted it as a bleak allegory for disability, and how those affected often suffer the frustrated derision of their loved ones. I saw it as something a little broader though – instead of just disability, the transformation was Gregor’s collapse after years of hard work and suppressing individuality. The moment he no longer had anything worthwhile to contribute he was considered a burden and shunned from society, despite all he had done to keep his family afloat through tough times.

This could be seen through a filter of mental illness, where those who suffer often reach that point due to excessive responsibilities. But it could also be seen as an allegory for how we treat the elderly, pregnant, or anyone who suddenly finds themselves incapacitated.

Dessert

Cassie’s lemon buttermilk pudding was based on a Czechoslovakian recipe and provided a delicious accompaniment to the next stage of our discussion, as we moved onto the context and legacy of The Metamorphosis.

The story unfolds like a fable, ambiguous and didactic. I noted that the setting is vague enough for the tale to be imagined in any modern era – the 1910’s when it was written, the industrial 1950’s, or even the 21^st century. It is this timeless quality that makes Kafka’s work so frequently referenced over a century later.

Scott speculated that perhaps if The Metamorphosis was written today, it might have explored the concept as a body horror – much like the 1986 film The Fly, which is heavily inspired by Kafka’s work. But Kafka does not dwell on any paranormal horror or sci-fi elements. The Metamorphosis feels detached from real world events or popular genres, standing on its own as a reflection of a culture that degrades the individual in favour of the community.

Although the narrative isn’t always completely gripping, our entire book club could agree that The Metamorphosis is a pensive, stimulating read. A quick search online reveals as many interpretations of the novella as there are people who have read it. And so it is clear that as long as there are readers applying new contexts to it, The Metamorphosis will continue to remain relevant for a long time.

Buy Now: Book Depository | Amazon

Have you read The Metamorphosis? Tell us in the comments below!

The post The Cook & Book Club: The Metamorphosis appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Cook and Book Club is a small Australian based book club combining their love for reading and cooking. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book

Coming into the New Year with a new name for our book club (changed simply due to the fact we weren’t reviewing movies as much as we thought we would), we were ready to tackle the classic murder mystery genre. In particular, we delved deeply into Agatha Christie’s iconic novel ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’, featuring the equally iconic fictional detective, Hercule Poirot. But first, Scott was serving up the themed dinner for the night.

Dinner

Possibly due to a lapse in memory of our last meeting of 2017, Scott provided the same meal that we discussed Orwell’s essays over—the traditional English meal of bangers, mash and onion gravy. Nevertheless, it was still a delicious accompaniment to our discussion of Agatha Christie’s detective novel. If you’ve read this far but don’t want major spoilers for ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’, turn back now. Because, as is the case with all murder mysteries, the fun lies in the final reveal, and so naturally this is what we wanted to get to talking about straight away.

In the final pages of the novel, Doctor Sheppard, our first person narrator, is revealed to be not so reliable after all. After a long-winded series of events full of red herrings, Poirot exposes the doctor as being the true killer of Roger Ackroyd. The reveal is a huge twist, turning everything we thought we knew about the course of events on its head. But of course, the clues were there from the beginning—the small gaps in Sheppard’s story, the scarce details of his own personal life, and eventually the dawning realisation that he could have been the only character to have feasibly pulled it off.

Alec and I weren’t completely caught off guard by the reveal though. Knowing that Agatha Christie’s most famous mysteries often have twist endings, I assumed that this wouldn’t be too different. However, it is important to note that given the novel was published early on in Christie’s writing career in the 1920’s, this twist would have once been considered completely unexpected. Since then, the unreliable narrator trope has taken off in mainstream film and literature.

Scott and Cassie took a more passive approach to the novel, experiencing the story as it unfolded rather than choosing to theorise potential endings. Even though the reveal was a much bigger surprise for them, I found that actively searching for the solution did not detract from the experience of the story. If anything, it felt more like we were a part of the case, working alongside Poirot to determine Roger Ackroyd’s murderer.

As a group of Sherlock fans, we made a point of comparing how Agatha Christie’s detective fiction holds up to that of her predecessor, Arthur Conan Doyle. Where Christie’s mysteries often revolve around an intricate web of relationships between standalone characters, Conan Doyle largely focuses on developing the idiosyncrasies and personal lives of Sherlock and Watson.

Poirot is also a much less abrasive and more charming detective than Holmes, and so his final deductions are presented in much more low-key fashions. This is clear in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd whereby the reveal comes in the form of a one-on-one conversation, Poirot gently urging the Doctor Sheppard to give himself up quietly. Compare this to Conan Doyle’s action-packed resolutions which play out more like dramatic confrontations, and it is clear how Agatha Christie carved out her own style within the mystery genre.

Dessert??

We were so caught in our discussion that it wasn’t until after we left that Scott realised he had forgotten to serve the French cheesecake, representing Poirot’s own appreciation of fine European food. But that’s okay—the night’s discussion had been particularly interesting. The murder mystery genre is one that I had wanted to look more closely at for a long time.

Although Poirot is the leading male character in many of her novels, Christie isn’t restricted by the patriarchal attitudes of her era. The dichotomy of relentless logic and empathy is broken down in Poirot’s creation, demonstrating that intelligent male characters do not necessarily need to be slaves to their own ego. Christie also takes this a step further, developing her secondary characters into more than just subjects for the male detective to show off to. Consequently, Agatha Christie’s legacy has lasted for good reason, with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd setting a standard for mystery fiction that writers today often try to emulate.

Have you read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

The post The Cook & Book Club: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Book Cook Look Club is a small Australian based book club combining three much-loved activities: reading, cooking and films. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month.
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book.
LOOK | We compare the film adaptation to its source material.

There are few political writers of the 20th century so well recognised as George Orwell. It only takes a mention of Big Brother or talking pigs to send anyone reeling into flashbacks of high school English. But while 1984 and Animal Farm are fine novels, they are simply fictional expressions of the ideas he first expressed in essay form.

These essays were hugely influential in my own formative years as a teenager. Some of his ideas were articulations of half-formed ideas in my mind; others were completely new concepts that changed my perspective of politics, society, and culture. Both were equally valuable, and were reason enough for me to bring his essays to the book club this month.

Dinner

As the group settled down to the tunes of Glenn Miller, we tucked into a meal of bangers and mash fit for a proletariat. Due to the sheer number of essays written by Orwell, I chose a few for the book club to read so that we all had a common understanding of the subject matter.

Realising five minutes before dinner that Scott hadn’t read any of them yet, I threw my book at him and told him to read The Sporting Spirit, a nice quick essay suitable for light reading. It really did feel like high school all over again—cramming right before an exam, committing key ideas to short-term memory. And to top this off, Scott spoke about it quite impressively, as if he had been preparing his analysis for weeks when it had in fact been minutes.

In this essay, Orwell’s focus is on the brand of nationalism that divides humans, rather than unites them. Orwell’s definition of nationalism goes beyond state borders and races. It encompasses culture, religion, class, politics, and yes, even sporting teams.

His opinion of sporting events is pretty scathing, but he certainly has a point. Our passion for sport is so ingrained in our culture that we are reluctant to criticise it—but that’s exactly the point. When we get so caught up in the heat of a great sporting rivalry, our primary desire is to see one side triumph over the other, often at the expense of rational thought. If there is a tough call for a referee to make, the crowd will invariably side with whatever decision benefits their team, regardless of rules or logic. We prioritise our own pride over any attempts to unite opposing teams in friendly competition.

This is where we left the sport discussion, and we hadn’t even started to touch on the violent behaviour that often comes as a result of sporting rivalries.

So if people’s passion for conflict can arise from something as arbitrary as a sports team, then how savage can we get when divided by something more culturally significant—politics, for example?

There are infinite examples of this from modern society that could demonstrate this, but Jillian touched on just one: the national anthem protests in American football games. What started as one man’s protest against racial inequality snowballed into a movement that has even further polarised the left and right wings of American politics. What one side interprets as a stand for social justice, the other views as a degradation of core American values. And a lot of this can be attributed to political discourse—that is, how we take completely different meanings from a common symbol.

Dessert

As our main meal started to wrap up, I brought out a bread and butter pudding, a British dessert popular among the working class for its use of basic ingredients. During this course I wanted to segue into the more linguistic side of Orwell’s work through Politics and the English Language.

One of Orwell’s central ideas in Politics is very reassuring: if you have ever read a wordy, pretentious piece of writing and do not understand it, don’t feel stupid. There is a high chance that is probably just bad writing. It is often the case that when an author has no solid point to stand on they will hide this fact with long words and confusing phrases.

Being dedicated book lovers, we were careful to clarify here that Orwell isn’t just trashing fancy words for the fun of it. He is simply stating that the function of writing is to communicate an idea from one person to another. So if the intended reader can’t understand what you have written, what exactly is its purpose? Sure, be liberal and original with your writing, but don’t try to cover up a weak idea with unnecessarily long words and clichéd idioms. Get to the point, and be succinct.

Having said that, don’t feel guilty for enjoying books that aren’t of an astounding literary quality. I wanted to highlight this to the rest of the book club, because Orwell makes it his focus in Good Bad Books, as a counter to his more perfectionist tendencies.

As special as the Harry Potter series is to me, J.K. Rowling’s writing is objectively less elegant than that of Victor Hugo’s in Les Miserables. Despite this, Orwell argues that this doesn’t mean books like Harry Potter shouldn’t hold cultural and sentimental value. Instead, we should learn to understand the merits of both escapist fiction and literary masterpieces.

This is the essence of Orwell. He appreciates quality literature and the need for rational thinking in this political age, but he also has a realistic understanding of human nature with all its flaws. Rather than seeing his “rules of writing” as restrictions, they should instead be used as tools to combat ignorance and encourage freethinking. Orwell doesn’t speak for a single culture or time period; he speaks for humanity and its entire course of history.

Have you read any essays by Orwell? What are your thoughts? Sound off in the comments below!

The post Book Cook Look Club: The Essays of George Orwell appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Book Cook Look Club is a small Australian based book club combining three much-loved activities: reading, cooking and films. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month.
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book.
LOOK | We compare the film adaptation to its source material.

There are few topics so frequently explored in twentieth century American literature than the American Dream. It is an idea that evolved throughout history, but its peak came during the Great Depression when more Americans than usual were clinging to aspirations of wealth and liberty.

Perhaps this is why it has become such a popular setting for novels like ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ that deal with its existence. In this category we can also fit Saul Bellow’s ‘The Adventures of Augie March’ – a novel that garnered critical appraise in its time, but failed to receive as positive a response at this month’s Book Cook Look Club.

Main

Alec’s choice of meal tonight was genuine Chicago-style hot dogs, garnished with mustard, raw onion, gherkin relish, pickle, chilli, tomato, and celery salt. Appropriately invented during the Great Depression with low-cost ingredients, it was a wonderfully American way to launch our discussion.

Alec’s decision to choose ‘The Adventures of Augie March’ was mostly driven by his admiration of Saul Bellow’s other works, particularly ‘Henderson, The Rain King’. For him, ‘Augie March’ didn’t quite measure up to his expectations set by Henderson – but before getting into personal opinions, we first got stuck into the narrative structure.

This isn’t something that can be brushed over, because ‘Augie March’ falls into a small sect of stories that reject the traditional three act structure and instead employs an episodic stream of consciousness. For what it’s worth, this is effective in what it is portraying – a protagonist who wanders through life, chases after an elusive vision of the American Dream, and never quite gets anywhere.

I made the point that in this way it isn’t unlike other novels with similar themes, such as ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. But where Holden Caulfield questions the American Dream and projects his angsty cynicism onto the world, Augie March takes a step into the backseat and lets life pull him in whatever directions it sees fit. In my mind, this is the key point that divides these two books.

Dessert 

Apple pie and ice cream was served up for the crux of our discussion, and usually the most controversial part – personal opinions.

The lack of introspection in ‘The Adventures of Augie March’  was a dealbreaker for me. Augie’s unwavering belief in the American Dream paired with his lack of drive is an incredibly frustrating combination of characteristics. Not only this, but the lack of introspection made for a tedious and exceedingly dense style of narration.

I was confronted over these views by a slightly offended Alec. He asked me how I could go against the National Book Foundation, Time magazine, and the Modern Library Board – all entities that have all critically acclaimed the book. But just because I didn’t enjoy the book on a personal level doesn’t mean it doesn’t hold value. I can appreciate its legacy, and I can certainly appreciate Saul Bellow’s intent behind it.

After all that, it turned out the rest of the club wasn’t all too thrilled with the book either anyway. In fact, I was the only one who got through it all.

Here’s the thing: when you’re reading a book or watching a movie that is considered a classic, you are allowed to not enjoy it. Opinions like these are the reason we have book clubs and discussions. But at least give it a chance, and understand the reasons why you don’t like it. Older novels might not hold up easily to today’s standards of popular fiction, but the real gems of the literary history were absolutely essential to the formation of the literary culture we have today.

Have you read The Adventures of Augie March? What did you think? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Book Cook Look Club: The Adventures of Augie March appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Book Cook Look Club is a small Australian based book club combining three much-loved activities: reading, cooking and films. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month.
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book.
LOOK | We compare the film adaptation to its source material.

If a life amounts to nothing more than one drop in a limitless ocean, then what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

This is the concept that David Mitchell draws out and examines in Cloud Atlas. Each character is the centre of their own story, and yet every other person they meet is living a life just as incredibly detailed and complex as their own. In the book club’s discussion, our focus was not only on the weaving of this metanarrative, but what exactly defines this style of writing.

Entrée

After a month off and a few people having to pull out last-minute, the group felt noticeably smaller tonight. But Cassie’s intricate meal plan for the night did not go unappreciated. With three courses, and Cloud Atlas having six main storylines, the maths worked out to be two storyline references per course.

First up: California sushi rolls and pineapple juice.

This entrée was intended to integrate elements of Luisa Rey’s 1970’s Californian mystery-thriller, and Zachry’s Hawaiian post-apocalyptic story.

Cassie, being an aspiring writer, ranks Cloud Atlas as one of her favourite books of all time, and after some dissection the reasons for this became obvious. The premise is that six different people, each living in different periods of history, are reincarnations of each other.

On the surface, they are as unalike as they could possibly be; the witty English bohemian of the 40’s is a far cry from the Korean slave of the future. And yet, while all six reincarnations are vastly different people, they are bound by one simple, overarching desire—to make a mark on the world.

David Mitchell’s ambition to tackle six stories of completely different genres and his success in weaving them all together are essentially what made this book so memorable for Cassie. As we starting to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, our main course was served.

Main

The Korean fried chicken burgers were a manifestation of Somni’s Korean, dystopian fast food occupation. On the side, Cassie’s serving of snow peas referenced one of Timothy Cavendish’s meals in his modern-day British farce.

The direct links between narratives were established through each character pondering the story of their predecessor—whether through a journal, a manuscript, or a film. They consider the main themes and developments of the story they have just perceived, making the exact same assessments that we as readers just made.

This is postmodernism in its purest form. If you have read the club’s previous discussion of Haruki Murakami, you would know that I’m a sucker for this sort of thing. Anything that experiments with conventional narrative structure and pulls it off in a significant, engaging way is absolutely worth putting time into.

Despite each character having their own individual story, they are bound by a singular human experience. Rebellion, secrets, betrayal, love, greed, joy—to address so many general concepts in any meaningful way would seem nearly impossible. But by justifying and exploring each within different contexts, Mitchell paradoxically suggests that the human experience is both incredibly broad and insignificantly tiny.

And then, up came the topic of the film adaptation, just in time for dessert.

Dessert

Banana pastry, drizzled with Belgian chocolate. These alluded to the 19^th century Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, and the letters of Robert Frobisher during his trip to Belgium.

In 2012, Cloud Atlas was turned into a blockbuster film in 2012, directed by the Wachowskis. It was hugely divisive amongst critics, and for good reason.

As Alec dug into the pastry, he expressed his inability to fully invest in any of the stories in the movie, simply because its constant jumping around never allowed enough time to flesh out a single one. It felt like every second scene was a montage, blending together each of the main characters’ narratives in a way that constantly ruined the pacing.

Despite this, I found that the constant cutting between storylines still achieved what the Wachowskis set out to do: to emphasise the parallels between the main characters and their human experiences. Even the casting of actors in similar roles across stories holds some symbolic meaning, with Hugo Weaving generally being the antagonist and Jim Sturgess playing the revolutionary leader across time.

But then there’s the race problem. Even if there was some intention behind the transracial casting, the yellowface is still incredibly jarring and undoubtedly problematic.

We concluded as a group that Cloud Atlas is a metanarrative intended to be read. The overarching questions of life that are so wonderfully fleshed out in those pages cannot be crammed into a movie without losing some of its original impact. The sheer scale of the metanarrative is impressive on its own; the fact that Mitchell pulled this off in such an insightful, humorous, and suspenseful way makes it even more so.

Metanarratives have formed the backbone of culture throughout history. From the Bible to Homer’s Iliad, these are the stories that address our consciousness, free will, and mortality. Ultimately, it is in its examination of humanity within a postmodern age that Cloud Atlas sets itself apart from its ancestors.

Did you enjoy the novel or the film? Tell us your thoughts on either in the comments below!

The post Book Cook Look Club: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Entrée

As we arrived at Scott’s place for the meeting, we were graced by a platter of fairy bread—a childhood favourite with obvious ties to Artemis Fowl’s magical underworld of mythical creatures.

As you may recall, back in April when we discussed Stephen King’s The Eyes of the Dragon, Scott publicly declared his love for high fantasy fiction such as The Lord of the Rings. But this discussion got him thinking, and he realised that one of his favourite fantasy books as a kid—Artemis Fowl—was actually low fantasy.

It holds a premise that quite obviously appeals to older children and teenagers, helping it become the award-winning series that it is. Artemis Fowl himself is a criminal child prodigy who has discovered the existence of fairies, kidnapped one, and now demands a wealthy sum of gold, threatening that he will reveal their existence to humans if it is not delivered. It essentially becomes a heist story, with the magical forces of elves, goblins and centaurs teaming up to rescue the abducted Captain Holly Short.

As a clear-cut low fantasy novel, Scott wanted to see why exactly he enjoyed this book so much. It’s not The Lord of the Rings, so what was it that drew him to it?

Main

After a brief kitchen disaster involving an unreliable cooking pot, our main course arrived and we started to get some answers. Over a dish of Irish chicken with cabbage, potatoes, bacon and onion, we psycho-analysed Scott’s childhood. Unlike other young adult novels like Harry Potter or Divergent, there is no “chosen one” character who is destined to save the world in Artemis Fowl. Morality is ambiguous, as the narrator follows both sides of the story without judgement. For a teenage boy attending a conservative school where Harry Potter was banned for its depiction of witchcraft, this was the sort of story that helped him realise that the world is not simply split into good and bad people.

This was a book that my year 5 teacher also read to my class quite a few years ago, and even though I enjoyed it back then, it was not a story that I remembered very well over the years. Looking back on it, it is surprisingly complex for a book aimed at a younger audience; it has environmental themes in its portrayal of the druidic, nature-loving fairies, and there is no clear-cut villain to be brought down.

In spite of its brilliant world-building and thematic material, Cassie had some complaints regarding this character setup. For her, Artemis was not empathetic enough to even fulfill the role of the anti-hero, and in the end she decidedly felt more on the side of the fairies.

I had to agree a little here, as I personally didn’t care for the subplot regarding Artemis’ sick mother. It felt unnaturally inserted into the story for the sake of making Artemis not seem like a completely despicable person. There were also certain parts of the story that were stretching the limits of believability and breached into simplistic, rushed explanations—most noticeably, Artemis’ solution to survive the blue rinse.

This bio-bomb is set up as being an all-powerful, last-resort weapon, and so the simple explanation of falling asleep to survive it felt like it did little more than cheapen the impact that the blue rinse was expected to have.

Alec made a fair point regarding Artemis’ relationship with his mum; his character projects the typical cunning bad boy image, but balancing this with a soft spot for his mother is perhaps a significant reason why the book series is so popular with young boys. Like Artemis, they may want to prove their coolness to their friends, but deeper down they harbour a strong desire for parental love.

Dessert

We started to wrap up our discussion while feasting on sticky date pudding, moving onto the topic of what a film version of Artemis Fowl might look like. As it so happens there is one currently in the works with Disney and The Weinstein Company, directed by Kenneth Branagh. The fact that an Irish director has been chosen to lead the way with this project made all of us immensely happy, as the story’s inherent Irishness underlies Artemis Fowl’s character and the magical mythology of the fictional world.

Scott reckoned that many of the fight sequences would translate to the silver screen even better than they were portrayed in the book, and considering the nature of these action sequences, I have to agree with him on this. With the unique assortment of monsters and spells, there is a lot of potential for visually engaging special effects and stunt choreography in a feature film of Artemis Fowl.

Rereading childhood books often feels like an entirely different experience to reading them for the first time. You tend not to get as swept up in the emotion of it, giving you a better sense of analytical judgement. Sometimes your childhood is ruined; sometimes you can appreciate it more. Fortunately in the case of Artemis Fowl, it certainly paid off.

Have you read Artemis Fowl? Tell us your thoughts on the novel in the comments below!

The Book Cook Look Club is a small Australian based book club combining three much-loved activities: reading, cooking and films. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month.
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book.
LOOK | We compare the film adaptation to its source material.

The post Book Cook Look Club: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Book Cook Look Club is a small Australian based book club combining three much-loved activities: reading, cooking and films. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month.
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book.
LOOK | We compare the film adaptation to its source material.

1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 – many consider these the trilogy of prophetic political dystopian novels for the twentieth century. Each author (Orwell, Huxley and Bradbury) takes a different angle of the future, and each of their works are gradually becoming increasingly relevant to modern society.

ENTREE
The time came for me to host the book club for the month, and when it came to my cooking I aimed to impress. I ran with the theme of fire and smoke, so as the guests arrived I served smoked oysters on crackers for hors d’oeuvres and tomato soup for entrée.

I began the discussion explaining that the reason I chose the book stemmed from my love for Orwell’s 1984. My recent delving into Huxley’s Brave New World also renewed my interest in the political dystopian novels of the twentieth century. While science fiction is often the recognised genre for making technological predictions about the future, these novels are prophetic on a more social and cultural level.

Rather than purely looking at the impact of human technology in the future (although this is certainly an aspect of their novels), these writers examine historical patterns to make educated predictions on three main topics:

1. How people will interact within social contexts
2. The role of education and intellectualism in society
3. The distinction between superficial and profound happiness

DINNER
After getting my spiel out of the way, I brought dinner into the dining room: smoked salmon pasta, served on a bain-marie with live flames beneath to keep it warm.

We also started to delve into the imagery of Fahrenheit 451. Sarah brought up the Salamander as an interesting point of contention, finding the symbolism a little heavy-handed. Within mythology, salamanders typically have an affinity with fire, and so giving their name to the fire engine is a natural connection to make. This isn’t the only animal symbolism to be found – the mechanical hound is reminiscent of the mythological hellhound, once again bringing fire imagery to mind.

Despite Sarah’s point about the metaphors being a little forced, I wanted to give Bradbury credit where it’s due as he certainly worked in some subtle imagery into the book as well. For example, Montag’s submersion in the river towards the end signals a significant new step in his life – one that moves away from the pure, destructive energy of fire and towards the cool, calming presence of water and knowledge.

I was, however, a little confused about Mildred’s attempted suicide, which was brushed over so quickly it was barely noticeable. Sarah reasoned that this is a reflection of the setting itself – take a pill, and no more troubles. Happiness and satisfaction is overvalued to the point of self-deterioration, and death seems to be the easy way out for those struggling with vaguely upsetting issues.

This is a common theme in political dystopian fiction. If faced with an unfamiliar or uncomfortable problem, block it out with drugs, meaningless platitudes, and anything that will distract you from thinking. But more so than this, it reflects a scary precedent in modern society where blissful escapism is given infinitely more value than confronting reality.

DESSERT
I stepped out of the dining room for a little while to prepare dessert – a caramelised, rum-infused banana flambé. When I returned, the group was discussing Bradbury’s historical context. Enter Alec with his controversial opinion of the month, which apparently has now become such a frequent occurrence it is heralded by its very own theme song.

Alec noted that Bradbury is strongly against modern forms of media that aren’t books, with this perhaps being one of the novel’s biggest weaknesses. At times it does come across as a little didactic and narrow-minded with Bradbury’s completely pessimistic attitude towards television and film.

Sarah countered this, stating that Bradbury was simply a man of his time. The world of multimedia was a new and frightening thing, especially with the threat of televisions in every household seemingly removing the need for books. Historical context is truly integral to grasping the author’s full intentions.

Dystopian texts today tend to be aimed more towards young adult audiences, with their social commentary revolving around more contemporary issues such as prejudice or climate change. On a more general level, the genre is intended to reflect the very real concerns held by the people of the era by imagining a future where the worst possible scenario has taken place.

Fahrenheit 451 achieves this by criticising the rising wave of anti-intellectualism brought about by McCarthyism of the 1950’s, and yet at the same time it holds an important message that resonates within many other contexts too. It is an area of fiction not intended for fun, whimsical reading, but one definitely worth dipping into if you are up for serious contemplation and staying up at night stressing about the state of the world.

What are your thoughts on Fahrenheit 451? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Book Cook Look Club: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Book Cook Look Club is a small Australian based book club combining three much-loved activities: reading, cooking and films. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!

BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month.
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book.
LOOK | We compare the film adaptation to its source material.

Ninety percent of the time when you hear the name “Stephen King”, your next thought would likely be The Shining, Carrie, It, Misery, or any number of his other famous pieces of horror/thriller fiction. Perhaps lesser known, but still quite popular, are his fantasy novels – namely The Dark Tower series, or as we discussed tonight, the medieval fantasy story The Eyes of the Dragon.

ENTREE
As I entered the dining room tonight, I was greeted by perhaps the most elaborately themed evening yet. The entire table and surrounding furniture was decked out in medieval decorations – a deep red tablecloth, goblets, candles, and even a looped video of a roaring fire playing on the television. Traditional spiced mead was the drink of choice tonight, and Richard served up pomegranate salad with haloumi and walnuts as our entrée.

It took us a while to settle into the discussion as we were pretty blown away with the remarkable effort that Richard had put into the night. Alec led the way, smoothly shifting into our discussion on The Eyes of the Dragon.

This mead is lovely… just like the potion Flagg made.

Subtle. Not an entirely accurate comment considering that Flagg’s poison led to King Roland’s horrible, torturous death, but at least now we were on track.

Speaking of Flagg, I had to raise a point that had really been bothering me for a while. This month, for the first time ever, I decided to listen to an audiobook to see how it would impact my experience of the novel. It’s certainly something I would try again for other books as it helped me get through it a lot faster than I would have otherwise, and Bronson Pinchot’s reading was invested and engaging. But I just could not get past his voice for Flagg, which sounded like Voldemort and Snape eloped and produced an evil hissing, droning wizard. This was particularly distracting and, at times, even incoherent.

MAIN
It wasn’t long until we had a roast lamb with peas, potatoes and pumpkin served in front of us. A very traditional meal, but one that often appears as the king’s choice of dinner in medieval settings.

We started to broach upon personal opinions of the book as a whole, and Alec was vocal in his distaste for the book’s slow pace. Cassie similarly disliked King’s over-explanation of simple details, although she also told us that this is one of her common gripes about his writing in general.

On the other side of the table we had Jillian, Richard, and Heath, who all read the book when they were younger and were huge fans of King’s world building. The Eyes of the Dragon is partially connected to The Dark Tower series with some common characters and locations, and there was a near-unanimous agreement that King’s ability to construct a fantasy world in just this one, single book was very impressive.

Alec even went so far as to throw out yet another controversial opinion that caused a bit of tension:

In terms of world-building, I would have to say that The Eyes of the Dragon is richer than the Harry Potter series.

Whoooooaaaa, hold up there buddy. As a millennial, Harry Potter is of course always going to be close to my heart. In spite of its flaws, it is a phenomenal book series with a richly detailed world that I personally think The Eyes of the Dragon can’t hold a light to.

I found The Eyes of the Dragon to be simplistic in its narrative structure, playing off medieval fantasy stereotypes. It dwelled too long on Peter’s plot of weaving the napkin threads, and I never really grasped a sense of the entire world that was being set up. I can’t speak for The Dark Tower series, but I just didn’t feel like The Eyes of the Dragon lived up to its hype.

Richard told us that he chose this book for similar reasons to why I couldn’t get into it. It was part of his childhood, and he appreciated the traditional approach of telling a medieval fantasy story.

DESSERT
Finally, dessert arrived. A hot blackberry tart, with some ice cream on the side. There is no current film adaptation of The Eyes of the Dragon, so we started to branch out into a broader discussion of high vs low fantasy. For the sake of convenient definitions:

High Fantasy: Set in completely a different world or universe with its own laws and monsters, mainly focusing on an epic adventure or battle (eg The Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, Eragon)
Low Fantasy: Set in a seemingly rational world where supernatural or magic forces are not supposed to exist, and mainly focusing on personal struggles (eg Harry Potter, The Mortal Instruments, Supernatural)

The Eyes of the Dragon, like Game of Thrones, seems to blend the two a little. It is not a completely familiar world, but it still largely resembles life in medieval society.

Scott chimed in and expressed his love for high fantasy – a sub-genre I can appreciate, but not one that I ever got into as much as I did with low fantasy. I find that low fantasy often makes a comment on our society and is easier to connect to, whereas high fantasy is a wholly immersive experience that requires complete suspension of disbelief. Stephen King strikes a balance between the two of these in The Eyes of the Dragon, although I felt like he didn’t end up adding anything new to either sub-genre.

Don’t just listen to me though. Perhaps my opinion is heavily flawed, and you shouldn’t let that stop you from reading Stephen King’s fantasy writing if you are genuinely interested in it. Sarah and Richard’s love for his world building was well justified, and it is likely their familiarity with The Dark Tower series added greatly to their experience of the book. However, this did affirm in my mind that sometimes it is better to ease into a new style of writing than to jump in headfirst.

What are your thoughts on The Eyes of the Dragon? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Book Cook Look Club: The Eyes of the Dragon appeared first on The Nerd Daily.