Be Excellent To Each Other

After hearing a rather good story about Hitler the other day, I think it might be interesting to start a "book club". They wouldn't really be books, and it isn't really a club, but there you go.

So, here it is: Summer in Paris, Light from the Sky
The actual story starts 3minutes and 13 seconds into the podcast, and lasts for 40 minutes.

There is also a written version, if you are so inclined.

[edit]Well, they could be real books, I guess.

So, a podcast club?

Can I 'be' Richard? Who wants to 'be' Judy?

Escapepod is ace.

I guess. It could work with books too, if we've all got the same one.

Is anyone listening or planning to listen? Or is this a rubbish idea?

I've got the Vagina Monologues.

Frankly, it stinks.

Go on then, count me in.

That was ace.

Yeah, I'd already downloaded it when you mentioned it the other day. Will give it a listen over the weekend if I get a chance.

It's got legs, don't fret Grimmy Dots.

I'll give it a go, but not until next week as I'm busy this weekend.

I'm downloading the podcast onto my phone as I type. I'm up for this sort of thing.

why we don't discuss about 1984? It's the last book i read.

Is it available without DRM?

Ah, that reminds be of that fabulous story about Fahrenheit 451 being banned from a school's reading list because parents complained about some of the content. ZOMG TEH IRONING etc.

I'm in.

i've read lots and lots of books, and many classics. But damn, nothing has been so depressing to me as 1984. Although we was deeply influenced by Stalin's regime, the Big Brother and it's regime had even more in common with Mao and Communist china during the 60s, which was after the book was written. Just that, and the fact that all of that doesn't seem that impossible to happen left me blue.

Listening now. It's very good.

listening to what?

Read the opening post.

for some reason i read that the reading of the story would take 3 min. There's no way i'm going to hear someone telling a story, unless it's my mom, and i'm laying on the bed.

How long is this story?

I shall have to see if these people take submissions, as I will shortly be seeking publishers for my awesome stories.

Forty minutes.

it's about an hour in audio.

edit: so much for guess-timates.

Oh.

I don't have forty minutes to spare.

Unlucky, podcast!

40 MINS SRSLY?

The story isn't called "See Jack Run".

Is there a written version? I could read it in about 15 mins.

Turns out there is.

Then we're onto a winner!

I'll read it then. I dislike audio books, and tend to use my commuting time to listen to music and either read or ponder new ideas for stories of my own.

Every time i saw audio books on sale, i thought those were aimed at blind people.

Bloody hell, it's very good.

It bored me, so I stopped reading it shortly after he had met Chaplin and Hemmingway.

Err, that's the very start, isn't it?

BeeX. Insightful literary criticism since 2009.

Yup. Good going, Curio

Heh, when it comes to literature I'm no critic; I'm purely a consumer.

I'm a critic. The opening 'chapter' genuinely bored me. Once you're past the initial "OMG! It's Hitler!" moment, and the author describes away the change that made him a nice guy instead of an evil person, the rest I had little interest in. Meeting up with non-famous celebrities did little/nothing for me, and seemed very contrived. Equally, the writing was decent, but certainly not gripping or anything that overly impressed me.

Maybe it picks up as it goes along. I'm aware that I haven't read much of it, but I was expecting more given the build-up it received. I shall, perhaps, see if anything happens in the second chapter...

I read to the end, and it's okay. Some of it is written well. It's just too gimmicky for my liking. Would the writing and story have stood up to scrutiny were the story about anyone other than (OMG!) Hitler? Would it have worked had any flagging interest been revitalised by knowledge of Hemmingway, Chaplin, Kennedy et al? I don't think it would have done, at least not to the same extent, and that is what sours it a little for me. It's relying on the shock factor to try to reel people in. I'd rather be entertained or made to think by something different from the fifty different ways in which everyone loves Hitler.

Not to mention the slightly dodgy moral ground that the story covers. If we're merely the sum of our experiences and anyone (even Hitler) can become a good man and a hero, then that just obviates any responsibility for our actions. If I do something wrong it's just because I didn't have the right things happen to me as a kid. It's taking determinism further than I think is correct to do so.

Not to mention that there's an uprising against the Jews despite the lack of The Bad Hitler. Perhaps my knowledge of history is lacking here, but it implies to my mind at least that no matter who had been in power, there would have been mass persecution of Jews during this time, with the same sort of results as Hitler had. Which is surely an anti-Semitic sentiment. I'll let that slide on the grounds that my lack of detailed historical knowledge prevents me from knowing if widespread and public persecution of Jews was closely related to the Nazis or not.

Anyway, those are just some things that flitted through my mind while I read it.

It's not bad, but just not my kettle of monkeys, I guess.

I think that's the entire crux of the piece. I don't really see how it's anti-semetic. Brave, but not anti-semetic.

I think the point is that humans will always be shitty to each other, especially if they are different.

As I mentioned, it depends on whether there was already a massive hatred for the Jewish people around those places already in flow, and whether Hitler acted as a conduit and had little control over their persecution, or if he was the architect.

If he was the architect, then imagining that had Hitler been a nice guy then at the same time then someone else would, coincidentally, have started to exterminate the exact same race of people gives the very clear implication that there's something wrong with those people.

I thought that too. The fact that Hitler would be the one to stop it became a bit obvious about half-way through, but it does give rise to the question 'would the world be a worse place if it wasn't for WWII'?

No WWII?

I think a second European conflict was inevitable anyway. If not the Nazis then probably from the Russians expanding the USSR into central and Western europe.

FTFY

IIRC there was a lot of anti-semetic feeling washing round Germany at that time. You have to remember that Germany was absolutely fucked after WWI, with Mugabe-esque levels of inflation. Well, not quite that bad, but still 'oh, you're going to buy a loaf of bread? better take a wheelbarrow full of cash, then' sort of inflation.

The Jews were better off than most Germans, there were still plenty of Jewish people in the banking industry, and they all looked out for each other (like any people would). Of course, this led to resentment, which was channelled by Hitler and his cronies.

You also have to remember that the National Socialist German Worker's Party wasn't pulled out of Hitler's silly moustache. It was formed in 1919, and Hitler was only made leader in '33. And they were always hard-core racist bastards.

It's impossible to tell what would have happened if Hitler had been a good-guy. I think that unless something drastic happened, Germany was going down the shitter, and in that sort of situations, the hardliners get the support they need. I also think there were enough nutcases hanging round the Nazis that some form of ethnic cleansing would be inevitable.

It's the old 'Time Machine? Lets go kill Hitler!' thing. Would you take the risk that whatever happened without him would be worse?

I hope you read / listen to the story Pundy. Your view on the issues raised will be interesting.

Or that there have been some very persistent, groundless hatreds of "those people" sloshing around since time immemorial. Or that there's something wrong with Germans.