Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat - Book Club July '11

Ha, she has her moments. (my mother that is, heh)

I'd asked you about the CP in our little chat Andrez, that's probably why you remember giving out a similar answer I wanted to ask about it again in this thread becuase I was wondering what others had thought of that part. I think it stands out as one of the more blatantly odd moments in the story.

Ah-hah! So that's where I'd bounced heads with it before; thought it was something related to here, recently, but otherwise my head's a bit like a sieve these days!

SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS

Anti-hero. Throughout the whole book he's kinda just being the hero because he feels obligated. Floyd also mentions a few times that he doesn't even know why he continues working as a seeker. After the conclusion revealing how he killed Deaps daughter and then kills Deaps regardless of this revelation to save his own ass and as a means of revenge is definitely an anti-hero move.

I was watching Inception today and thought of TSMG I really like Nolan but I can't think of anyone else more perfect than Frank Miller to direct and with his collaboration with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City I'm sure they would be able to capture the perfect duality of muddiness and technicolor. I think Zach Snyder would also be great to capture the visuals in the story but I wouldn't trust him with the awesome sci-fi/noir storyline. How could I forget the Wachowski Brothers!? Wachowski Brothers final answer. Throughout the book I had definite glimpses of the Matrix aside from the subtle references here and there and they also directed Speed Racer which I think I had mentioned in one of my previous posts. I think the Wachowski Bros. could definitely capture the grit,grime,gloom of the outside, while simultaneously capturing the plasticity, futuristic vibrancy of the Dome yet still manage to maintain the true nature of the storyline.

I just finished reading it. I've been to Melbourne a few times and I like how I can pretty much picture it all in my head. I quite like how Aussie it is, I was wondering how other people (not Aussie or Kiwi) would like it, especially with all the slang.

Kristopher Young wrote:
1) Floyd -- hero or anti-hero? Was his choice to become a Seeker ethically sound, or did he doom himself as soon as he signed up, regardless of how good of a reason he had?

Hero and anti hero? Hmmmm. I didn't think he had a choice to become a seeker. He was doomed from the moment his wife got sick and was labelled a "Dev". But then I did wonder if he could or would quit after she died. I guess he didn't care anymore, and there were perks like having some status and being one up on the cops, and the chance to get Laurel back too. He did try his best to avoid killing, and he felt remorse when he did (apart from Deaps).

Kristopher Young wrote:

3) What do you think of Floyd's solution at the end? Certainly at odds with his established behavior - he'd never intentionally killed anyone. Morally ambiguous, sure, but where do you stand?

I was suprised but glad he did it, epecially killing someone who so obviously deserved it. But then I kept thinking , maybe this is part of a whole other plan of someone else...

4) Did you learn any new slang?

I don't think so, a lot of it kiwis use too.

5) Gotta ask -- what did you think of the title? Did this change at all during the reading?

I loved the title, it's what got me keen to read it, that and it being set in Melbourne. I desperatly wanted that goat at the Deaps house to be wearing a dressing gown like the goat on the cover.

I'll contribute some more to the discussion a bit later, it's getting late for me now.

I have to say thanks for the great read Andrez.

Thanks for giving it a whirl, R - and for enjoying it too!

Yep, I think we share pretty much the same antipodean slang; the rest is lifted from old flicks from the 1940s-'50s, most of them noir (but not all).

This made my night - loved this movie (and also am a big fan of Christopher Nolan's concepts).

Thanks for the thought you both put into the discussion here too; it's fascinating to get a glimpse of other people's views of the novel like this, and the hero/anti-hero debate is shaping up in intriguing ways.

** SPOILER ALERT THINGY (imagine flashing Christmas lights)**

To be honest the killing of Deaps at the end wasn't always a given - it shaped up that way only since the 2007 rewrite.

In the '92 manuscript he's revealed to be a Dev and Relocated
on the second last page, while in the 2002 version he gets off scot-free.

I'm not quite sure what motivated the change. Deaps always did deserve his comeuppance, but I didn't think Floyd would go that far in spite of how hard he's pushed. But a part of me always felt like Floyd needs to bite the bullet (excuse the pun) and put an end to this madness, if just the Deaps part of it.

That, and it's a thinly veiled reference to what Elliott Gould's Marlowe does at the very end of Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye.

I agree with Rosie's take on the character. I saw Floyd as a reluctant hero, yes, but I wouldn't quite go so far as to call him anti-.

Dude was trapped in his job, like Bill Macy in The Cooler. Even once his debt was paid, there was no way he could ever leave without sleeping with one eye open the rest of his life.

As for the ending, I think having Deaps relocated would've been too predictable, given genre conventions. It also helped complete Floyd's arc, the confidence/faithlessness he was gaining up to that point.

The quirkiness of the title definitely got my attention, though if I hadn't known specifically what it was about, the genre of book it actually was, I probably would've pushed it further down my to-read stack. But that thing's always subject to whim and in flux at any given moment.

Thanks for the insight, furleyguy. And I know what you mean about "whim and in flux"!

I picked up The Maltese Falcon today for 25cents. The book itself looks like it belonged to Floyd.

I do believe you just made a phonetic pun!

Doh! Is that where he misplaced it?

Loved reading this little aside. And 25c? Bargain!

Ha Ha Ha... did I? Must have been deliriously accidental. Quoted you this morning at around 6:30am just after I woke up - and it was 27°C with 80% humidity here in Tokyo. Yeesh! No wonder there are unintended puns afly!

Problem is everyone's conserving on their aircon here (which is a good thing, I guess!) due to possible power outages related to the shut down of a majority of the nuclear reactors in Japan.

If it were raining, and things looked a bit more monochrome or at least tinged with sepia, I'd feel like I was in Floyd's Melbourne!

Need a cold drink. Now.

BTW, this is the George Sanders record that Floyd and Laurel vague out to on pg. 62:

This guy's good fortune kills me. $1.00?!
http://notoncd.blogspot.com/20​11/03/george-sanders-touch-195​8.html

Still. You can tune in to a couple of the suave numbers here.

Just finished reading the book and read through the forum. It's funny that I arrived right at the point of George Sanders. I was instantly reminded of George Saunders' CivilWarLand In Bad Decline. It's been about ten years since I've read it but, from what I remember, the tone and setting felt similar--bringing me back to Saunders whenever Sanders was mentioned.

That was a bad start. Let me try again:

SPOILERS

I liked Floyd being a reluctant hero. This really made the end of the book for me. Throughout the story, Floyd was very opinionated but always seemed to go with the flow. In the end, he actually took a stand. I liked that he didn't take the easy road that Deaps laid out for him and that he didn't take credit (or responsibility) for his actions at the end.

I really liked the setting outside the dome--very raw and vivid. I could picture each of the scenes outside the dome.

I also like the comic relief. The CPs have already been mentioned so I'll bring up the dome security baiting. I actually laughed at this--reminded me of messing with buck privates while on security details in the military (also, the Daleck shaped egg-timer is a great image).

Finally, I liked the relationship between Floyd and Dot. It seems very genuine--actually reminded me of my relationship with my own sister. The restaurant scene (Audrey's right) felt like deja vu.

Just wanted to quickly throw out my two cents--I have people coming over and pizza to pick up but the whole 'George Sanders' thing felt like a sign. I hope I didn't ramble.

Thanks for reading, dbdurden - and cool to take in your comments above. I actually haven't read George Saunders in general or CivilWarLand In Bad Decline in particular, but it looks like fun so I think I'll check it out - ta for the tip-off!

I'm glad you dug Floyd's role, plus his interaction with Dorothy. Not having a sister myself - and having a pretty shoddy relationship with my older brother - I was flying blind with that, so I'm grateful to hear it comes across as realistic!

And the comic stuff, as mentioned, was important to me as a relief from the severity of everything else, but great to hear that it actually works.

Hope the pizza was excellent - thanks, mate.

This is a damn tragedy.

Page not found
Sorry, the page you were looking for in the blog Not On CD does not exist.

Downright weird - must be a hyper-sensitive, temperamental link!
I checked out the website for March 2011, and rediscovered it:
http://notoncd.blogspot.com/2011/03/george-sanders-touch-1958.html

If in doubt, just hit up the website itself and back-scroll to the March 21 entry.

BTW, insider teaser #101...

There's a chapter in the book that references classic '60s Star Trek - names and some muzak.

And did anyone happen to pick up on the nods to Edgar Allan Poe? Trivial breadcrumbs in the grand scheme of things and nothing to advance the storyline itself at all, but just curious.

Oh wow - Lenore - I didn't even twig on that, but now you mention it, I like it!

The bird on the mantelpiece is actually homage to The Maltese Falcon in particular, and bric-à-brac in general, tho' The Raven did occur to me too.

I guess they're both black birds.

Take a peek at pgs. 125-126.

Yea, I love me that Maltese Falcon at the end.

NOTE -- if any of you live in, or visit, Portland, there's an amazing movie rental place (world famous, really) called Movie Madness. In addition to having pretty much everything ever released, they have a mini-museum worth of props and such. They have Humphrey Bogart's personal Maltese Falcon statuette (made from the original mold).

Actually, i found it online:
http://www.moviemadnessvideo.com/museum/props/maltese/display.htm

But heck, I'd travel to portland just to see it in person if i were you.

In terms of structure, where chapter 1 is, in many ways, a direct homage to The Third Man, the final chapter (while not as direct) has many references to The Maltese Falcon. They bookend the book, if you will.

---

Oh -- re: actors. once Audreythirten mentioned Rorschach, I can't get Jackie Earle Haley out of my mind as a fantasy casting for Floyd. Love his acting (he nailed Rorschach, one of my most beloved literary figures of all time), and he's already got that beat down, acid-rain look. Before I'd ever thought of him, though, I've actually always wondered what Brad Pitt (seriously) would do with the role. I almost laugh thinking of him as our boy Floyd... but then... yea, I think he might pull it off.

RE: the Cricket Police. Whew!!! So glad you guys like that section. It's odd, right? But it's in there because we all loved it, though it took some re-engineering to keep it. It was originally written as a separate short story and a bit jammed in to the manuscript. That chapter, actually, in manuscript form was my second least favorite part of the novel (my least favorite section no longer being in the novel). Andrez got a little loose (cough) with the cricket terminology at one point. But now? I love that section. I imagine various parts of the book as seen through different directors eyes, and that section is one of the Terry Gilliam sections (as is anything at Seeker Branch offices).

I don't remember what I said...was this in chat?

That is downright brilliant, K. Wow!

Surprisingly, for being a rabid comic book buff when I was a kid (even now I do English lessons here that revolve around 1960s American comics), I came to the movie version of Watchmen somewhat virginal - I'd never read the comic.

Then again, I was mostly Marvel rather than DC, and while I do indeed dig Alan Moore's writing, I never was a fan of Dave Gibbons' art.

Anyway, yeah, I too really enjoyed what Jackie Earle Haley did with Rorschach - though recently I've seen him in Human Target on TV and that kind of put me off a little.

I've always had a soft-spot for Brad Pitt too. He can play it leftfield, like what he did with Jesse James and in Twelve Monkeys.

Ha Ha Ha - was that least favourite section the cricket match-slash-Rollerball homage in which Ant gets conked on the head? Suitably excised!

Thanks again, K - Gilliam is definitely a direct influence - the guy fried my grey matter when I first saw Brazil.

Speaking of the Cricketing Police section, I'll let you in a badly-kept secret: much of the latter half of the 2007/2008 version of the book was reinvented and hammered out within the three-month period after Another Sky said they wanted to read more than the first three chapters.

I wasn't satisfied with the way in which the 2002 version of the manuscript wound things up, and I had a million ideas for new settings/characters/concepts that I wanted to insert into the mix, so I debunked the old version - aside from some key scenes - and set about the rewrite.

At the time I had a two-year-old kid and was working a wad of jobs just to cover the cost of the rent here in Tokyo - so the only time I had available really to write was overnight.

This meant little or no sleep for several weeks, I lost a lot of weight, became delirious, and started seeing somewhat dizzying things between the lines.

Hence it seemed like a grand crack at the time - when I penned the sequence between Floyd, Ant and Colman at the Ruritania (pg. 96 on) - to pepper into the dialogue obscure references to fencing - as in the sport rather than the thing that goes around your house. You know, words like "parry", but most of 'em in French, liberally sprinkled around non-standard dialogue tags.

Probably it was the childhood adoration of Zorro coming to the fore, set off by all the hussar iconography that graces the walls of the Ruritania - itself named after the fictional country where The Prisoner of Zenda takes place.

Anyway, Kristopher pulled me up on this in his first go through, and while I initially clung to the silly concept, he wisely straightened me out and we removed the guff.

Not only here!

Earlier in the post where (I'm paraphrasing) you stated the book read like a movie and you thought of the chapters as scenes.

That's amazing. After work, hanging out/taking care of a 2-year-old, exercising, getting ready for work the next day, reading... I feel that I have no time for my writing. I am envious/jealous of your work ethic.

Haley will always be that kid from The Bad News Bears to me. But I like him. Other characters in the book describe Floyd as handsome, so he probably wouldn't get invited to the casting office.

Yup. I love that place, and that statuette is part of the reason. I so want one.

have you read it since? If not, whap on the knuckles with a ruler, get thee to a comic book store and buy both V for Vendetta and Watchmen.

I seriously think he's just able to watch another actor and sort of become them. See: Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse now, and compare that to 12 Monkeys. So, sit him in a room and force him to watch noir for a day...

Nope, it was a section in the beginning -- for those here with us, the beginning used to be a bit longer before things got rolling. The opening bar scene with Laurel was basically told twice -- once from Floyd's perspective, and once from Laurels. There was some genius in this idea -- it created sort of a 'Rashomon' (Akira Kurosawa) type feel, but it also unfortunately lost me as a reader/editor.

It extended the introduction to the novel significantly, and also distanced the reader (in this case, me) from the actual narrator, Floyd (who I loved dearly from the get go). Thankfully, a simple nudge and Andrez agreed to excise the entire section. We pulled the best lines into the existing (and now only) version of events - Floyd's - and deleted the rest wholesale.

the end result was worth all of it, though!

Ha Ha Ha - or lack of work ethic in my case; more like an insane mania to finish off the beast (finally) which was encouraged by Messrs. Young. Luckily my daughter (and wife) are forgiving. I just have to hold off starting the next tome for a bit so we can make up for lost time!

Yeah, a few of my friends have said pretty much the same thing as you and Kristopher, and I have had it in the back of my mind to finally get around to reading Watchmen - at some stage soon, I hope! That's something I do share with Floyd - an inclination for the cinematic side of things. Sometimes I need to force myself off my lazy backside to read the original written (and drawn) source material. Sometimes.

Tho' I have indeed read V for Vendetta. After seeing the flick.

Ha Ha Ha... that's right!!

Oh, and thanks for the Rashomon reference, Kris... I think you prob'ly know by now that I'm such an Akira Kurosawa fan! But you were 100% right to stick to your guns and get me to remove that scene.

I had others littered through the 2002 version of the novel, from Laurel's perspective and Dorothy's, but the bar-scene one you mentioned above was the last of 'em since I wanted to abide more with Floyd's take on events.

Luckily I ironed most of them out by the time you got it!

I'm bored and there's a typhoon puttering about outside, so we're stuck in the apartment.

Today's two words: Siamese vodka.

Ha Ha Ha - oh yeah, I guess it could be read as such! Sorry, A, the typhoon is an inadvertent red herring. Just a comment on what's afoot today.

The Siamese vodka, tho', and Floyd's absolute distaste for the drop, is something I loved slipping into the novel. I think Kristopher got into the vibe of it too.

Thing is, does it exist?

If anyone has time to kill, nothing on their plates, and a couple of other over-used time-related idioms that shall not be mentioned, here's a bit of a silly time-waster to indulge in.

Most of the numbers referred to in TSMG have some ulterior meaning outside the novel - a mini-homage or two to some of the influences behind it.

No prizes - but if you wanna go intuitive, play detective online, and/or don't mind a bit of deluded wandering à la The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, go ahead.

Here're the numbers I remember:

* The “half-obliterated sign on the door beside me that reads 15 Stiftgasse” (pg. 4).

* Floyd’s apartment # 1001.

* Mitt-Mate 1187 Hand PC (pg. 16).

* Wolram Deaps’ address - 12C in the Alexandria (pg. 187).

* Fergus MacDonell’s phone number (pg. 207): 052794–072388.

* “The storefront has the number 7244 printed on a faded tin sign.” (pg. 87)

BTW, that typhoon I mentioned above seems to have fizzled out. Anti-climatic, but Japan probably needs one less disaster at the moment.

I know 15 Stiftgasse due to the editing process. And I know 1187 flat just because. The rest are mysteries to me, I think, though 12c feels like i should know it. 12C or not 12C...

Somebody post what they think of the numbers!

I would but I feel like I would have to be a movie buff to know what they mean. I miss out on a lot of details when I watch movies and I have a horrible memory...I guess I could start googling.

Figured I'd add this in now, since it's coming up to this season here in Japan: Obon.

You may remember that Floyd and Laurel head off to the Bon Odori (pg. 67 on) where there's the yagura (wooden tower), lots of traditional dancing and taiko drumming, and Laurel's dusty grandpa.

Anyway, to give you a better idea, this is a perennial favourite at Bon Odori: 'Tokyo Ondo' (東京音頭); just imagine the song with dancers clad in summer yukata and jinbei, and a lot of drumming atop:

Bon Odori song

This will be happening here at the beginning of August and I love the festival to death (kind of appropriate, since it's all about dearly departed souls returning to this mortal coil)... but unfortunately this year I'm going to miss it since I'll be back in Melbourne launching the novel.

I'm getting nostalgic already!

Oh I also forgot to mention that I had a dream of a bunch of laurels in a room. I don't remember what happened but I just remember a bunch of exotic looking ladies wearing long black gloves, reading, and smoking.

Thanks, A - so glad you enjoyed the Obon bit; it's something that clicked with me too, for the same reason, plus it personalizes Laurel a bit more and gives us a break from the relentlessness out there.

It's a relatively new inclusion into the novel, from the '97 version on, and has its beginnings in an article I wrote about Obon for Geek Monthly magazine - the description of bon odori is pretty much taken verbatim from that, although Kristopher p'raps wisely culled my claim that the yagura was a dead-ringer for the ever-tumbling watch-tower in '60s cavalry TV series F Troop.

Now THAT is bizarre, but what a damned cool dream! And not just one, but a swag of 'em? Zounds. Big question... can you remember what exactly she looked like? I'm curious!

My dream last night was some weird apocalyptic zombie number, which is why I woke up early (it's 6:05am here). I dislike zombie movies, so I'm not particularly partial to the dreams either.

BTW, I forgot to say that I will give the answers to these at the end o' the month, in case anyone's curious.

Hey all - sizzlingly hot day in Tokyo, and I'm off to work. It's actually my favourite job every Monday morning, teaching English... through movies. Perfection!

Anyway, I'm going to do something here (now) that I wasn't planning to do until the end of the month as a "thank you" gesture for locking TSMG in as the book of the month, for reading it, and for all being so damned cool and curious about the novel.

It might also answer some questions, or at least provide a bit of fodder for mirth. Hopefully it doesn't come across as self-important - the exercise wasn't planned that way!

So what the heck am I talking up?

Just as Kristopher and I were winding down the bigger-than-Ben-Hur editing cycle earlier this year, after some three years of cooking, I got motivated to get up off my Mac-bound bum and do a bit an "influences" tome about the whole experience.

Mostly it was for Kristopher as a way of saying thanks, and so he could stick it on a coffee table and say "finished - thank bloody christ". But also I wanted to pass on something to my mum and dad and my daughter Cocoa when she gets older. Plus I'll admit it - it made me happy making this bugger.

There's lots of background material, scrawled notes from the novel, the old cover and excerpts from the earlier editions of TSMG. Plus some uncleared archival photos (shhh!) of famous people and movies that inspired the whole caboodle.

I did it online through Lulu, though the print-on-demand thing clocks in at $30+, so I decided to send you guys the gratis PDF version.

If you're curious at all you can download it here, at least until the end of this month - and I hope you enjoy the silly ride:

TSMG INFLUENCES

i absolutely love my copy. it's epic, really.

i'm curious -- have any of you watched The Third Man, or any noir in general, as a direct result of either TSMG itself or this thread? Did your viewings affect your reading of TSMG in any way?

That's awesome Andrez. I might just have to fork out the 30 bucks for this. I really love experiencing an artist's thinking process and looking over notes and the like. This was my first ever book club discussion and I had a lot of fun. Thanks to you and Kristopher for leading it.

Thanks, audreythirteen - it was my first experience of the book club thing too, and I was a wee bit apprehensive at the start - but everyone here has been really welcoming and I've felt completely at home, so it's been a lot of fun! And cheers to you too for being one of the leading such cool people!

So glad you liked it, K!

Interesting question. I deliberately resisted watching The Third Man and The Maltese Falcon over the past couple of years (surely a record for me!) so as to avoid being too "close" to both; I'm going to make up for this by watching them with my mum when I head back to Melbourne to launch the book next month.

Methinks a nice bottle of red will go down well with the ride.

Andrez that little book is really cool, some interesting little snippets in there for sure. The samples of the older version in particular were a nice feature.

Have to say I find your openness about the whole journey fascinating. Inspiring even. Between the stuff in this thread, conducting an interview with you and Kristopher, and then this influences book, it really feels like I got to see some behind-the-scenes action for this one. Certainly the book will stick in memory for a long time.

It shows how much time has gone into his project, and it seems that you are getting your reward. Quite rightly so - kudos, man.

Just wanted to say that's a damn sweet little value-added, Andrez, and thank you for linking it. I've only had a chance to page through it at the moment, but I look forward to taking a deeper dive when time permits.

Martin, thank YOU for the cool words (above), as well as the support and interest via the Solarcide aside and your comments along the way.

It's quite funny that you mention the openness thing, as I wasn't quite sure precisely how 'open' I should be - ie. too much being just plain annoying and/or uncool. The issue being that I love gas-bagging, esp. in written form... so I threw self-limitations out the window and hoped it was OK.

If we somehow inspire a single person to follow through with their passion - written word or any other kind of art - then fantastic!

Thanks, matey!!

Chuffed you dig it, Gordon - thanks! Also now glad now I took the time to throw it together - and include it for people here.

BTW, thanks to you for the sweet review!!

Hi guys,

Celebrating 10 years in Tokyo today. A decade - bloody hard to believe; the time's flashed by!

Only a few days left for this book month, sad to say - it's been a LOT of fun as I mentioned above. Before we finish up I'm going to resolve a few small queries I mentioned previously (the little red herrings about names/addresses), so stay tuned.

BTW, in case you're still curious there's an extensive interview up today about the development of the novel (and my hack musical asides as well) on the very cool UPSTART site; big thanks to the writer, Radhika, for making it an interesting exercise - and for reigning me in and making sense out of my waffling:

http://www.upstart.net.au/2011/07/27/once-a-little-nobody/