Logan Square Book Club

Friday, February 08, 2008

The Next Book

The Smiths have announced the next book, and the date: March 8, for Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Upcoming meetings

To summarize recent activity,

The Smiths have offered to host in March, date and book TBA. Note that this is an update; originally Barbara Steinbeigle had offered to host March.

Kris and Chuck have proposed to host a play reading for April. The play will be something by George Kaufman and Moss Hart---most likely The Man Who Came To Dinner or You Can't Take It With You. Which play and proposed dates will be circulated as we get closer. It is especially important that people RSVP for this event so we can assign parts for the reading.

Kerouac, On the Road: Nihilism?

In the interest of hopefully revitalizing this blog, I'm copying here the recent e-mail discussion started with Alan Johnson's comments here; Richard's response is in a comment.

Alan wrote:

Jon did break out the hard stuff Pastika(sp?) (Pernod) and we like dug it
the most. We had continued conversations on 'time and space' as Bill so
stated. I also continued my defense of the nihilist term. Jon said
regarding why I was so vigorous in my defense, "Like, don't back the man rat
into a corner". I can dig that. In the interest of keeping a lively
topic alive I have the following with regard to the book. I may not be
right but something seems to match in that rejection of morality.

From Wikipedia: "In the domain of ethics, nihilist or nihilistic is often
used as a derogatory term referring to a complete rejection of all systems of
authority, morality, and normativity, or one who purportedly makes such a
rejection. Either through the rejection of previously accepted bases of
belief or through extreme relativism or skepticism, the moral nihilist is
construed as one who believes that none of these claims to power are
valid. Nihilism not only dismisses received moral values, but rejects
'morality' outright."