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Post by wireman on Jul 29, 2020 14:09:14 GMT
We are discussing Rain by Joe Hill today from the book Strange Weather
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 29, 2020 14:42:47 GMT
Uh oh...the subject line says Rain, but the thread description says we're discussing Aloft...?
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Post by wireman on Jul 29, 2020 14:49:36 GMT
Uh oh...the subject line says Rain, but the thread description says we're discussing Aloft...?  Thanks. |
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 29, 2020 14:53:14 GMT
Uh oh...the subject line says Rain, but the thread description says we're discussing Aloft...? No problem.  |
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 29, 2020 15:02:49 GMT
Well, I'll jump right in and say that about 2/3 of the way through, I started to worry that there was no real point to this story, and that it was just a lot of random violence and sadness.
And then Marc DeSpot entered the scene and everything changed. He kind of restored my faith in fictional humanity--and that was a nice surprise.
What an interesting assortment of characters.
It almost felt like Honeysuckle, Yolanda, Martina, Andropov ,the kooky cult members, Templeton Blake & his mother all could have lived in the same apartment building like the one in Hitchcock's Rear Window.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2020 18:16:10 GMT
I liked this one. Full with strange but believable characters. Both friends and foes. Honeysuckles wanderings are relatively short and limited but the story and the characters she meet makes me wonder if Hill is trying to give us a picture of america as a whole. Both the good and bad parts.
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 29, 2020 18:24:32 GMT
I liked it, but I was hoping for more of a supernatural explanation for the "strange weather".
One of the characters remarked that since it was raining nails, maybe the next thing would be ghosts that came out of the mist. Or maybe the wind would start to blow "pure sadness".
I kinda wanted the story to take another weird, unexplainable turn like that.
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Post by spideyman on Jul 29, 2020 20:02:11 GMT
Enjoyed this story, which touched upon many current issues. Good characters . Story showed how they respond to each other in this situation. Resilience and adaptability.
Joe touched on climate change and global warming. "The chemists and the geologists couldn’t come up with any natural process that could account for what happened – which meant it had to be the result of an unnatural process. Someone had figured out how to poison the sky.”
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 29, 2020 20:15:01 GMT
Enjoyed this story, which touched upon many current issues. Good characters . Story showed how they respond to each other in this situation. Resilience and adaptability.
Joe touched on climate change and global warming. "The chemists and the geologists couldn’t come up with any natural process that could account for what happened – which meant it had to be the result of an unnatural process. Someone had figured out how to poison the sky.”
Yeah, Joe really packed this with social commentary.He touched on everything from environmental issues to politics, religion, sexuality and I thought he even hinted slightly at immigration. If not for the happy-ish ending, it might have been too much for me. I did end up liking it,though. |
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Post by neesy on Jul 29, 2020 23:26:59 GMT
Just got that copy of Strange Weather about an hour ago - so I have quite a bit of catching up to do!
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Post by wireman on Jul 30, 2020 12:25:47 GMT
My internet went down last night so I couldn't comment until now.
I enjoyed reading this but I'm not sure what Joe was trying to do here. I think he was attempting a Vonnegut type story. The novel Cat's Cradle featured a substance called ICE-9 (Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature and becomes a seed crystal in contact with any liquid water, causing that liquid water to instantly transform into more ice-nine - quoted from wikipedia) that sounds similar to the substance in Rain. Vonnegut is even mentioned in the story. In most of Vonnegut's stories, he uses humor with absurd characters and situations that make the death and destruction going on in those novels kind of cartoonist and easy to take. Vonnegut then hammers home social commentary in that framework. Vonnegut does have a couple of novels that have a much more serious tone (still with a lot of humor), Slaughterhouse Five and Mother Night, where death and destruction are deadly serious. Joe seems to be in between those to types of stories here. I did like this story quite a lot but I think that the humor and absurdity either needed to be dialed up to be more Vonnegut like or toned down.
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 30, 2020 14:46:37 GMT
My internet went down last night so I couldn't comment until now.
I enjoyed reading this but I'm not sure what Joe was trying to do here. I think he was attempting a Vonnegut type story. The novel Cat's Cradle featured a substance called ICE-9 (Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature and becomes a seed crystal in contact with any liquid water, causing that liquid water to instantly transform into more ice-nine - quoted from wikipedia) that sounds similar to the substance in Rain. Vonnegut is even mentioned in the story. In most of Vonnegut's stories, he uses humor with absurd characters and situations that make the death and destruction going on in those novels kind of cartoonist and easy to take. Vonnegut then hammers home social commentary in that framework. Vonnegut does have a couple of novels that have a much more serious tone (still with a lot of humor), Slaughterhouse Five and Mother Night, where death and destruction are deadly serious. Joe seems to be in between those to types of stories here. I did like this story quite a lot but I think that the humor and absurdity either needed to be dialed up to be more Vonnegut like or toned down.
Thank you--that was very informative! I've never read anything by Vonnegut, so I never would have made that connection. There were some little attempts at humor here and there in Rain. For example, Elder Bent is referred to as the "monk of madness" which I really liked. Also, when Martina & Andropov were fighting, Joe tried to insert a little humor with their dialogue--Martina calling him a "filthy, horrible soft-dick man", which could be funny or just sad depending on the way the reader imagines the scene. In general, I don't think Joe's sense of humor worked very well in this story. It was much more effective in Snapshot, which was my favorite story in this collection. |
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Post by wireman on Jul 30, 2020 15:06:16 GMT
My internet went down last night so I couldn't comment until now.
I enjoyed reading this but I'm not sure what Joe was trying to do here. I think he was attempting a Vonnegut type story. The novel Cat's Cradle featured a substance called ICE-9 (Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature and becomes a seed crystal in contact with any liquid water, causing that liquid water to instantly transform into more ice-nine - quoted from wikipedia) that sounds similar to the substance in Rain. Vonnegut is even mentioned in the story. In most of Vonnegut's stories, he uses humor with absurd characters and situations that make the death and destruction going on in those novels kind of cartoonist and easy to take. Vonnegut then hammers home social commentary in that framework. Vonnegut does have a couple of novels that have a much more serious tone (still with a lot of humor), Slaughterhouse Five and Mother Night, where death and destruction are deadly serious. Joe seems to be in between those to types of stories here. I did like this story quite a lot but I think that the humor and absurdity either needed to be dialed up to be more Vonnegut like or toned down.
Thank you--that was very informative! I've never read anything by Vonnegut, so I never would have made that connection. There were some little attempts at humor here and there in Rain. For example, Elder Bent is referred to as the "monk of madness" which I really liked. Also, when Martina & Andropov were fighting, Joe tried to insert a little humor with their dialogue--Martina calling him a "filthy, horrible soft-d**k man", which could be funny or just sad depending on the way the reader imagines the scene. In general, I don't think Joe's sense of humor worked very well in this story. It was much more effective in Snapshot, which was my favorite story in this collection. |
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Post by wireman on Jul 30, 2020 16:20:58 GMT
Next Wednesday we will discuss Autopsy Room 4 by Stephen King from the book Everything's Eventual
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 30, 2020 22:28:49 GMT
Just got that copy of Strange Weather about an hour ago - so I have quite a bit of catching up to do!
I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on the stories, neesy. Also, I just remembered the SK story Rainy Season--when it rains toads once a year during the tourist season in a small town. And I was thinking--If you had to pick one, would you rather have to deal with raining toads or raining nails? For me, it depends on whether or not there's any advance warning. If we get a warning, I'll stay inside and risk the nails. If it has to come as a surprise, I guess I'd take the toads....even though they'd probably give me a heart attack. |
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Post by neesy on Jul 30, 2020 22:54:55 GMT
Just got that copy of Strange Weather about an hour ago - so I have quite a bit of catching up to do!
I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on the stories, neesy . Also, I just remembered the SK story Rainy Season--when it rains toads once a year during the tourist season in a small town. And I was thinking-- If you had to pick one, would you rather have to deal with raining toads or raining nails?For me, it depends on whether or not there's any advance warning. If we get a warning, I'll stay inside and risk the nails. If it has to come as a surprise, I guess I'd take the toads....even though they'd probably give me a heart attack. I'll take the toads - as long as I have my friend Rocket Raccoon with me (apparently raccoons eat toads)
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Post by morgan on Aug 3, 2020 0:17:55 GMT
Well, this sure was an unabashedly over-the-top wackadoodle (he used that word in the story - I say it all the time and probably got it from an SK book) story. So improbable that the crazy actually works and you can roll with the punches. It was my favorite in the collection.
I had this weird feeling that Joe had the details of the story before he had the Honeysuckle character. I imagined him knowing his main character would have to wear boots to walk through the needles, and then going through a mental list of possibilities. Not sure why I felt that way, and I'm probably wrong. Maybe it's because I wasn't thoroughly convinced of her authenticity. But then again, everything was so "out there" that it worked for me.
I didn't think there would be an explanation for the rain. So I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. And I didn't see it coming. Had a feeling there was more to the bat kid's story about flying every night, but didn't give it much thought. It was nice to get caught up in the story. Could've definitely done without all the "animal stuff." Sigh.
There were a few sentences that resonated with me. Don't have the book with me right now, so will have to add them later.
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Post by morgan on Aug 3, 2020 0:29:43 GMT
Very interesting insights about Vonnegut wireman. It's been over fifteen years since I read any of his work. Loved Slaughterhouse-Five.
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Post by wireman on Aug 4, 2020 17:26:00 GMT
Bump
Tomorrow we will discuss the touching story, Autopsy Room 4 by Stephen King from the book Everything's Eventual |
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Post by neesy on Aug 4, 2020 18:34:07 GMT
Bump
Tomorrow we will discuss the touching story, Autopsy Room 4 by Stephen King from the book Everything's Eventual Thanks!
In case anyone can't find their copy of this book (Like me!) - here is a PDF I found online:
I could swear I own this book - I will probably find it once the discussion is over (Murphy's Law)
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Thanks.
