"We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."
I love this first line! It sets the tone for the novel right away. Without reading any further we know:
- this must be sci-fi;
- our narrator is sort of disenchanted and surly, most likely young, and will be addressing us with a conversational tone; and
- when we add the title of the chapter, "your face is not an organ," into the mix, we get the feeling things might get dark. Or sarcastic. Or both.
Published in 2001, Feed gives us a look at a world that's not all that far into the future, a world in which internet connections and IM apps stream directly through our consciousness. If you look around, it's easy to see that we've quickly become a society of people more or less attached to our devices, but what if those devices were internal?
Google Glass is definitely a step in that direction, and people are excited about it. But should they be?
How much technology is too much technology?
Is there even such a thing as too much technology?
When technology allows us to do so many cool things, how can we determine where to draw lines or create boundaries?
It's a brave new world, indeed, and Feed certainly pays homage to our last title. It is, however, a YA book, and you'll recall (or maybe you won't, but I'll remind you) that in one of our first meetings I said that one of the qualities of a YA novel is that it tends to be more hopeful than other adult or classic literature. So that's one thing I want you to think about for our next meeting:
Come ready to discuss - and possibly even debate - the statements, "Feed is ultimately a hopeful novel," and, "Feed ends on a more hopeful note than Brave New World."
See you on December 16th! Happy reading.
It's a brave new world, indeed, and Feed certainly pays homage to our last title. It is, however, a YA book, and you'll recall (or maybe you won't, but I'll remind you) that in one of our first meetings I said that one of the qualities of a YA novel is that it tends to be more hopeful than other adult or classic literature. So that's one thing I want you to think about for our next meeting:
- Is Feed a hopeful book?
- Does it have a hopeful ending? Why or why not?
- Between Feed and Brave New World, which book do you think has a more hopeful ending?
Come ready to discuss - and possibly even debate - the statements, "Feed is ultimately a hopeful novel," and, "Feed ends on a more hopeful note than Brave New World."
See you on December 16th! Happy reading.
