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Bookish Quotes
"If a writer has to rob his mother he will not hesitate; the ODE ON A GRECIAN URN is worth any number of old ladies."
The House Gun
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The House Gun
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This Book is Currently in the Wild!
5 journalers for this copy...
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Journal Entry 2 by 
I am very much looking forward to reading this one--- got it from justabookhound at the december meetup this morning. Thanks for passing it along! :)
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Journal Entry 3 by
Am in the process of reading this book. I like the writing-- quite stream of consciousness/flowing---- very nice. But so far the story is not doing much for me.... we shall see....
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Journal Entry 4 by
Well, i tried my darndest, i promise! I am about 2/3 the way through and am just not interested in spending any more time on this book. The story, for me, plods a lot, mainly because most of it deals, not with action or plot unravelling, but on the emotional turmoil and upheaval of Duncan's parents. I admit, though this a valid and potentially interesting narrative topic, is just not keeping me engaged or entertained, nor it is making me think or challenge me in any way. In short, it isn't doing it for me.And so i reluctantly give up, and will move on to greener literary pastures. Thanks, justabookhound, for passing it on to me. As a nobel prize winner, it had great promise, but it just isn't my thing. I am always surprised when people don't like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a fellow Nobel prize winner as well, but, as this book has shown me, just because a book has won a big fancy prize does not mean you are guaranteed to like it. To each their own--- and this is not mine. :) |
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Journal Entry 5 by
Released on Sunday, January 11, 2004 at Second Cup, Spring Garden in Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada.Ashes to ashes.... will be bringing this back to the meetup today at 11am to see if anyone else will find this book more captivating than I... :) |
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Thanks very much to KunsangJones for mailing this book to me (a swap for The Secret Life of Bees). I've enjoyed several of Nadine Gordimer's other novels, and I'm really looking forward to reading this one. Best wishes from British Columbia!
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Just a quick note to let everyone know The House Gun is still travelling. I started it this evening on a five hour flight from Vancouver -> Ottawa, and I'm finding it very engaging so far (reading the previous journal entries for this book, it seems I may be the first Gordimer fan to touch this copy!). I'll post a short review in the next few days. Thanks again, KunsangJones and previous readers, for making this book available to me.
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Nadine Gordimer's 1998 novel The House Gun tells the story of twenty-seven year old Duncan Lindgard, an architect in post-apartheid South Africa. As the novel begins, Duncan's 50-something physician mother and businessman father are contacted by a friend of their son's bearing startling news: Duncan has just been arrested and charged with the murder of his roommate, Carl Jesperson.In short order, Duncan's parents -- Claudia and Harald -- must come to grips with the realization that Duncan has not denied responsibility for Jesperson's murder. They look for others to blame, if only indirectly -- Duncan's housemates, his girlfriend Natalie ("that little bitch who shacked up with Duncan"), and each other. "Someone must be to blame". Together with Duncan's lawyer, the formerly exiled Hamilton Motsamai, they explore the possibility that some unhappy occurrence in Duncan's childhood may have been responsible. However it soon becomes clear that an easy answer will not be forthcoming. The year is 1996, and South Africa is still in transition from repression to democracy. Even the lawyers are still getting acquainted with the new constitution, and uncertainty with respect to the legal status of the death penalty casts a shadow over Duncan's trial for the murder of Jesperson. Witnesses at the trial will include psychiatrists, Natalie, Duncan's friend and housemate Khulu and Duncan himself. The issues will include the casual manner in which the "house gun" was treated ("like a house cat"), and the court's ability to separate moral judgments of sexual mores within the home shared by Duncan and his friends from the question of Duncan's guilt. I enjoyed the trial scene and the build-up of suspense in the last quarter of the novel, as we wait to see what the court will make of Duncan's case. The House Gun is Nadine Gordimer's 12th novel. Her others include The Lying Days, A World of Strangers, July's People, The Conservationist, and The Pickup. Nadine Gordimer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. You can read Salon's review of The House Gun here, and the Denver Post's here. |
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