Book Club~ Of Mice and Men

[the.games]

Voting has been open for the last week, and the results are in. This weeks discussion will be based around:

http://Habbox.com/text/got_frog/Of+Mice%20and%20Men

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green...

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What do you think of the story?

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Discussion is now closed.

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Mathew; has been nominated as the Book Club Member of the Month due to his contribution in this thread, and he will compete against the other nominee's for this months title.

Well done! :)

[hamheyelliot]

A really good book for the curriculum if you ask me, I'd read about 3 books in my entire life until we picked this up for GCSE English Literature.

It's pretty much the solid foundation for picking up reading after secondary school too, it instils a bit of maturity in you as Lennie goes around hurting everyone he tries to love. Puppies, Curley's Wife, Curley's hand... it's pretty brutal. That's sort of why I liked it, it has some mature stuff in there and that one bit of racially offensive language - but it's exactly how certain people treated the delicate matter of race in that period and the story needs to be respected that way.

I think we all know the ending, but you could really tell that Lennie's murder was a sign of genuine love and protection from George, which really pleased me once I realised. I hadn't thought about storytelling in that way until I read it and that's why it's pretty much an essential read.

[the.games]

BUMP- Remember to keep discussing :)

[the.games]

This Book will continue to be our Book of the Week until next week due to lack of replies.

[Mathew]

"of Mice and Men" is an amazing book and I found myself being constantly surprised about how it's so cleverly written. I studied it for GCSE Literature and it's just crazy how much thought has been put into it. The foreshadowing in particular was brilliant, and it just never dawned on me how much everything helps to create one perfect plot. Candy's dog was shot because it was getting "old and smelly"... it was having a negative impact on the rest of the men and that's exactly why Lennie was shot in the end. When I first read the ending I was thinking.. "NOO THAT IS SO CRUEL HOW COULD THEY DO THIS?"... but then when you discuss it and consider the context, it was probably the done thing.. :(.

I don't know if anyone has read any other books by John Steinbeck, but I've read Grapes of Wrath aswell and it's probably one of my favourite books of all time. Grapes of Wrath follows the life of Tom Joad as he and his family move West during the Great Depression in the 1930s. It's a fantastic piece of work and the ending, again, really makes you think about what life must have been like for them. I really do recommend reading it. Fantastic author and one of the true gems in American Literature.

[Inseriousity.]

Problem with studying it is that you take away all the fun of the book and start talking about the symbolism of the colour red that Curley's wife always wears and how it means sexy, dangerous, femme fatale (I laughed at this one lesson and thinking I was being immature my teacher said 'what are you laughing at?' She was wearing red...). This book helped me get an A for English literature though so woo for that.

The book itself, I really enjoyed it. Shocking ending and it's still sad that Lennie never gets to 'live off the fatta the land' (or w/e it is). :(

[Kardan]

I'm not a fan personally. We studied this at GCSE, before dropping it for A view from the bridge, which I found more engaging. This book just didn't really capture me, I find with books you need to be interested within the first few chapters to actually finish the book - and I just wasn't interested, although I did read it all, but only because it was in the curriculum.

Much better books out there.

[Alex3213]

Problem with studying it is that you take away all the fun of the book and start talking about the symbolism of the colour red that Curley's wife always wears and how it means sexy, dangerous, femme fatale (I laughed at this one lesson and thinking I was being immature my teacher said 'what are you laughing at?' She was wearing red...). This book helped me get an A for English literature though so woo for that.

The book itself, I really enjoyed it. Shocking ending and it's still sad that Lennie never gets to 'live off the fatta the land' (or w/e it is). :(

I think this is the thing with this book when studied in it. I remember a couple of years ago I went into a shop and under the 'Bookkeeper's Favourites" or whatever it was it had something like "...despite this book being murdered by schools". So when I studied it I actually didn't enjoy it. However I've read it since and enjoyed the book, although I don't think the ending was as shocking as you say. I wasn't too surprised because like Matt said "it probably was the done thing"... maybe that's just me being quite cynical though. :P

Having said that I love the ending description of the book, it really sums up how things have changed for George, especially, between the beginning of the story and the end of it. It's written very well and has some great description.

[Mathew]

I remember a couple of years ago I went into a shop and under the 'Bookkeeper's Favourites" or whatever it was it had something like "...despite this book being murdered by schools"
I think one reason I did slightly worse in AS Literature was because I refused to accept a lot of the things I was reading. My classmates were looking for themes, symbols, and different connections in books that just weren't there in my opinion. I let my common sense overrule my imagination, and that was my downfall. It took me a few months to fully understand what Literature was about (and indeed how it differed so much from GCSE Literature). For example, apparently the green light by Daisy's dock, in The Great Gatsby, symbolises the envy that Gatsby has for Tom. It just seems like teachers were finding things to talk about, completely disregarding how ridiculous it may seem when you use common sense. A red light may have symbolised Daisy's devious personality, a blue light may have symbolised Tom's ice-cold, strict nature. Literature is all about speculation (I've never used the word "perhaps" so much in my life :P) but whether or not there's actually any substance to the argument in the actual novel is another matter.

Indeed, when you look at it like that... I do think a lot of good books are "murdered" by schools when you tear them to shreds in an attempt to find things that shouldn't be there. Is the author really on the same wavelength as our teachers, or are they just trying to make a good story? Perhaps it's just nothing more than the stitching of ideas, putting various thoughts together to create a piece of art. Regardless though, I found the subject interesting.

[Sloths]

I haven't read this of yet but I really want to it's top on my need to read books. On the point of 'English taking away all the fun' I totally agree with that, some of the books I've studied it's really wrecked them when I ever want to read them again. Just have my English teachers voice in my head the entire time, the same with English film studies.

[santa-my-nana]

It's a very good book, I studied this book for part of my GCSE English and it is an amazing book, the way everything is portrayed is like what it was back then, then what happens in the end is the best bit in my opinion as it was gripping and you did not think it would happen, Plus there dream of where they wanted to live was really the american dream at that time which was so good to read.