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Thread: Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)

  1. #26
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    Just bought this one for Jen. I really want to get her reading again.

  2. #27
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
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    Started this today when the library finally got in a copy for me; about 60 pages in right now. Technically I'm aware of the narrative switch halfway through since Sarah mentioned it to me when she read the book late last year. Still, I'm intrigued by how Flynn incorporates the MASH theme and the Murakami book, texts that are all about absence and listlessness. Now to see how Nick ends up embroiled in the investigation since the father's linguistic idiosyncrasies are surely gonna play a part soon.
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  3. #28
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
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    So I just got to page 250, past the big reveal. I'm excited because now shit's about to get real and I don't know what's coming.

    Flynn has a great control of voice in both the Amy's Diary sequences and in Nick's coverage as well. Hope it lands its third act!
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  4. #29
    I'm in the milk... Mara's Avatar
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    I listened to the book on audio and the voice actors was great. Amy especially had to play at least two different "characters" and really nailed it.
    ...and the milk's in me.

  5. #30
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
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    Finished this out yesterday. Ultimately, the plotting is some of the best in mainstream fiction, with Flynn developing a credible indictment on how a patriarchal-minded media has instructed women to sublimate their desires, leaving women like Amy existing as such artifice that she feels her whole life is a lie. On some level, that made me wish that Flynn had found a way to engineer the text so that the woman isn't then responsible for the text's transgressions--enabling us to valorize Nick as hero when he's himself culpable--but I have to forego some of the layers of gender representation here.

    I like how the text concludes, where fatherhood (after the loss of the father) is what normalizes this couple. The regeneration of a false normalcy is nicely integrated, where we understand what anchors Nick to Amy after all. And yes, she does get the last word. That said, the third act shortchanges Go in ways that I hadn't expected--she felt quite dynamic in the first half and towards the end she is cut out of the main drama. That reduces some of the human element, and leaves me wanting more reaction from the outside circle.

    This novel felt more lived-in and fully developed than Flynn's Sharp Objects. Kinda curious to start her second novel, too. Was rather surprised that the bungalow characters never reappeared.
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  6. #31
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Glad you liked it. I lent my copy off to someone else in hopes they dug it a ton. I haven't been enamored by a novel like that for a while.

    I really hope Fincher uses the Diary entries as flashbacks in the movie version. I can't think of a better director that suits the book more then him.

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  7. #32
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
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    My biggest fear with any film adaptation is that the denouement needs the proper length to justify the reversals and undercutting of the pregnancy, and I worry that producers will demand that Fincher, et al, compartmentalize the length so that it's "quicker." If that happens, then the naturalness will fade completely away.

    This book, incidentally, would teach impeccably well in a gender studies class, analyzing how women perceive themselves and what Amy believes she sacrifices in order to receive male attention. In a more general literature class, sadly, it's a little too barren of themes for its length.
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  8. #33
    Producer Lucky's Avatar
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    I completely agree with the gender studies class. It loses a bit of its edge in that regard during the second half though.

  9. #34
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Lucky (view post)
    I completely agree with the gender studies class. It loses a bit of its edge in that regard during the second half though.
    I think it switches in that case, and becomes more about how men perceive women's "wants and needs in life."

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  10. #35
    Finished this yesterday. Still letting it sink in a bit. Trying to decide how I feel about that ending.

    Quote Quoting Lucky (view post)
    I completely agree with the gender studies class. It loses a bit of its edge in that regard during the second half though.
    And this is the most disappointing thing about the book. It is so keen on depicting the quiet sexual warfare that goes on in relationships, in the media, etc. It's by far the most interesting thing about the story and it is ultimately back-burnered in the second half in favor of the thriller twists and turns. There is still social commentary (Desi fulfilling his white night fantasy, Nick with a now valid excuse to let his learned scorn toward women boil to the surface), but any perspective shed on the sexual politics is white-washed when it becomes clear that Amy is a certifiable sociopath. It would have been much more satisfying an ending if it had been difficult for the reader to take a side. Nick is the suffering victim in the end, albeit a spineless simp but there is no impression he has any option but to either acquiesce or kill her. I would have preferred the author depicted Amy not as a woman with a hidden mental illness but as a woman who could be any female who gets pushed to the edge of conformity and decides to say "fuck it" and leap off the edge, selectively pressured to do bad things because of the way she's had to squeeze into a box built by a male-dominated society.

    Very engaging book though. Had a lot of fun with it.

  11. #36
    Too much responsibility Kurosawa Fan's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Lucky (view post)
    I completely agree with the gender studies class. It loses a bit of its edge in that regard during the second half though.
    Finally read this. I think the second half is what makes it so compelling for a gender studies class. The book was a very fun read. Am I being too blurb-y if I call it deliciously evil? I mean, the narrative is silly and really thin, and some of the themes fall deader than Desi (connecting this particular story to the recession and financial wealth as overtly as she did was a head scratcher), but it was completely absorbing, tons of fun, and sort of fascinating in the way it handled Nick's emasculation vs Amy's rising power. Nick becomes sort of a comic battered wife, staying in the relationship because he's afraid of what will happen to him if he tries to leave, and finally sticking around for the sake of the child. I'm kind of excited to see what Fincher does with this material. Plus, I'm such a sucker for Rosamund Pike.

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