October 2009 Book Discussion

The Lies of Locke Lamora

Overall, the group liked this one. Below are the notes I was able to type during the discussion. Sorry, but I'm not a particularly fast/good typist so these notes are more than just a little rough.

Michele: Back-story used for world/society-building
Ian: society doesn't seem sustainable
Michele: thrill-ride goes down for quite a ways, hard to image
Mark: "until Jean comes"
Lindsey: is the confidence game really good or just billed that way?
Michele: Locke is smart thief, plans it out.
Lindsey: don't really care about the money
Michele: wants the money to complete the major con of the book
Mark: But only wants the money to help get revenge on whoever killed his friends
Michele: climbing down the outside the building on the ivy, another man climbs out...
Lindsey: liked how that wasn't wacky hi-jinks
Mark: disagreed, totally wacky hi-jinks
Lindsey: planning ahead impressive in how Locke anticipates broad specturm of things that could go wrong
Michelle: you don't mind the white, fluffy buns?
Ian: no, I can handle white, fluffy buns.
Michelle: "until Jean comes"
Ian: distracting # of characters being all named
Michele: all characters come back
Lindsey: Thiefmaker not important as a character, just sets the scene.
Michelle: Also not a lot of info on other characters (e.g. Bug just appears); did he even meet Father Chains?
Mark: No
Lindsey & Michele: Yes, maybe
Ian: something about beginning doesn't seem right
Mark: Locke being so bloody special so earlier
Ian: not much introspection, basically a "dis-go" book (dis-go here, dis-go there)
Lindesy: 2nd book has more introspection, wasn't sure she entirely liked that, used to previous book's voice
Ian: odd descriptions, doesn't go into details I want
Lindsey + Michele: he does but you haven't read far enough to get to it; almost too much description we frequentally skip over it
Ian: lot of description, hard time connecting & concept of Father Chains & temple
Lindsey: liked it better 2nd time, helped having a passing familiarity with it
Ian: felt like needed notebook to track who people are
Everybody else: not really
Ian: where's the tension?
Michele: in whether or not Locke will pull everything off
Mark: and the Grey King plot line that you haven't gotten to.