Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Pierre roundup



So let's get the ball rolling on this Pierre business.

To recap: I'm going to be reading Herman Melville's novel Pierre and inviting the general Internet public to join me. Let's call it a book club or a Let's Read.

Every week we'll be reading roughly fifty pages. On Sundays I'll post some reactions, thoughts, reflections, etc., and invite discussion in the comments section. Anybody is welcome to contribute whatever they want to, even if it's just "I'm really liking this" or "I'm really not liking this at all."

We'll begin reading on Sunday, August 12. (That should give everyone time to get a copy of the book, I hope.) I'll toss up the first discussion post on Sunday, August 19, and we'll just see what happens from there.

Here's what the discussion calendar will be looking like, then....

August 19: Books I and II
September 26: Books III and IV
September 2: Books V and VI
September 9: Books VII through IX
September 16: Books X through XIV
September 23: Books XV through XVII
September 30: Books XVIII through XXII
October 7: Books XXIII through XXVI

Nice and manageable!

If you're planning on joining me, please leave a comment saying so. I'd like to have an idea of the headcount so I can know in advance how much hand wringing I should be doing over this.



The pic up top is from the French film Pola X, which is based on Pierre. (The title is an acronym of Pierre ou les ambiguïtés.) I'd never heard about it until just now. Its Wikipedia page says nothing about its critical reception, though the site has it indexed in its list of mainstream movies with unsimulated sex. Hrm.

12 comments:

  1. I'm in. I'm guessing you mean VII through IX for September 9th instead of arbitrary skipping VIII?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm in. Never read Melville before. This'll be fun.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm in as well, looking forward to it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. (before you get too excited about that sex scene, I'm pretty sure it revolves around a very important plot point that I can't explain for the sake of spoilers, but...well, let's just say it makes the whole premise much less appealing)

    I'm in and as far as I know a friend of mine is planning on joining as well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'll keep up, but I doubt if I'll be able to contribute much

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, just stumbled across this. I'd like to take part. Will be grabbing a copy shortly!

    ReplyDelete