Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge (#RIPXII)
Completed
Slade House by David Mitchell
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Something from the Nightside by Simon Green
Lord of the Flies by WIlliam Golding (audio)
The Premonition by Christopher Bohjalian (audio)
Still in progress
Magicians Impossible by Brad Abraham
Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King (audio)
Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson
Scary Movies Watched
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (slow-paced, but chilling)
Slade House Readalong
Last month’s readalong of Slade House was organized by Andi of Estella’s Revenge.
Anyone looking for unusual, thought-provoking, often dark, fantastical literary fiction might want to check out Slade House or any of David Mitchell’s other puzzling novels, which all seem to be interconnected or tangential to each other. (The author calls the works taken together an “uber novel”. NOT a series!)
I’ve listened to some on audio (Slade House and The Bone Clocks) and read others in print. I recommend print or a combination of print and audio, because I kept wanting to flip back to early chapters while listening and that’s a pain to do with an audiobook. I’ve owned a copy of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Zoet for several years, but just found out that it has some connection to The Bone Clocks and Slade House. It has always seemed daunting because it seems to be historical fiction and that always takes me a while to warm up to, but looking for the connections to his other novels should finally push me to tackle it!
Spoiler Alert! Don’t read these discussion questions and answers unless you don’t mind some minor spoilers!
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I don’t remember where this comes in in the book or who says it. It’s a good example of the tone of the book — pointedly dark but with the possibility always there that good will win out over evil. Inside the heads of various characters at different times, readers hope each time that this character will survive the horrors of Slade House.
Nah. Too much of a stretch to feel sympathy towards them!
Nora and Jonah are immortal at the expense of other potentially immortal people, so I don’t think they can redeem themselves by doing good with their extended lives. (Not that those two “soul vampires” are interested in doing good!) I hope I would behave more selflessly than Nora and Jonah do, but having time and money to travel the world and live a multitude of different lives the way they do would be incredibly amazing. Although by the end of the book, Jonah seemed to be starting to feel that immortal life might not be worth the toll it was taking on him.
I’m waiting eagerly for the next book! I can’t wait for more about Marinus. There has to be more to the story of her/him and Nora…