Brain Pain discussion

This is our planned reading schedule for 2015.

Our main project, “The Spine 2015” consists of seventeen books beginning with Virginia Woolf’s Orlando in January and ending with Gilbert Sorrentino’s Mulligan Stew in December.

Within these seventeen books are two sets of similarly-themed books; one group that could be called “existential angst” and a second that could be called “creativity and the uncanny”. These two groups of books will each have a “foundation” book to set the stage for the group. For the “existential angst” group, we will read Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, and for the “creativity and the uncanny” group, we will read Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny. These two “foundation” books can provide a kind of theoretical context for comparing the books in the two groups.

“Existential Angst” – Pessoa, Dostoevsky, Buzzati, Camus, Sábato, and Fox

“Creativity and the Uncanny” – Freud, Filloy, O’Brien, Calvino, and Sorrentino


There are also four paired readings that will run in parallel with the main schedule. The first pair is Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr in January and February. Sterne’s book is considered to be proto-modernist and proto-postmodernist by many scholars. Hoffmann, who was a great admirer of Sterne, paid homage to his predecessor by writing a meta-version of Tristram Shandy. We’re talking layers here, folks….

The second pair is our read/reread of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, preceded by a two-week discussion of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This paired reading will begin in March and run through the end of May. Those of you who might not already be familiar with Hamlet should consider looking at The Three Theban Plays: Antigone / Oedipus the King / Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles - Oedipus the King (also called Oedipus Rex), Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. We don’t have time to discuss Sophocles this year, but if you can read him before we begin Hamlet, you’ll be glad you did!

The third pair is a continuation of our reading of William T. Vollmann’s works. We will read his novel, The Rifles, in May, and will read his newest novel, The Dying Grass, in September if it is released next summer as promised by the publisher.

The last pair is a Halloween-inspired bloodbath in October. First, Shakespeare’s Macbeth followed by Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. (Some theme music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW9cz... ) Blood Meridian is considered to be one of McCarthy’s best works and sounds like a good fit for the Brain Pain group. BTW, fans of Vollmann’s Seven Dreams series might consider reading Blood Meridian as another look at the clash between white American settlers and the Native Americans they killed and displaced.


Here is the Master Schedule organized by calendar date:

January 5 – 18, 2015 - Virginia Woolf – Orlando– 1928 – England

January 19 – February 15, 2015 - Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy – 1767 - Ireland

January 26 – February 8, 2015 - Clarice Lispector – Near to the Wild Heart – 1943 – Brazil

February 9 – 15, 2015 - Clarice Lispector – Água Viva – 1973 – Brazil

February 16 – March 15, 2015 - E.T.A. Hoffmann – The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr – 1820-22 – Germany

February 23 – March 15, 2015 - Le Comte de Lautréamont – The Songs of Maldoror – 1869 – France

March 2 – 15, 2015 - William Shakespeare – Hamlet – circa 1600 - England

March 16 – May 24, 2015 - David Foster Wallace – Infinite Jest – 1996 – USA

March 30 – July 5, 2015 - Fernando Pessoa – The Book of Disquiet – 1930’s - Portugal

April 6 – 19, 2015 - Fyodor Dostoevsky – Notes from Underground – 1864 – Russia

April 20 – May 10, 2015 - Dino Buzzati – The Tartar Steppe – 1945 – Italy

May 11 – June 7, 2015 - William T. Vollmann – The Rifles - 1994 - USA

May 18 – June 7, 2015 - Albert Camus – The Plague – 1947 – France

June 8 – 21, 2015 - Ernesto Sábato – The Tunnel – 1948 – Argentina

June 22 – July 5, 2015 - Paula Fox – Desperate Characters – 1970 – USA

July 6 – August 23, 2015 - Thomas Pynchon – Mason & Dixon – 1997 – USA

August 31 – September 13, 2015 - Nicholas Mosley – Impossible Object – 1968 – England

August 31 – October 11, 2015 - William T. Vollmann – The Dying Grass - 2015 - USA

September 21 – December 27, 2015 - Sigmund Freud – The Uncanny - ~1900 – Austria

September 28 – October 11, 2015 – Shakespeare – Macbeth – circa 1600 - England

October 5 – 25, 2015 - Juan Filloy – Op Oloop – 1934 – Argentina

October 12 – November 1, 2015 - Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West – 1985 – USA

October 26 – November 8, 2015 - Flann O’Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds – 1939 – Ireland

November 9 – 29, 2015 - Italo Calvino – If on a Winter's Night a Traveller – 1979 – Italy

November 30 – December 27, 2015 - Gilbert Sorrentino – Mulligan Stew – 1979 – USA