Sunday, November 2, 2014

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan


Robin Sloan grew up near Detroit and now splits his time between San Francisco and the internet. He graduated from Michigan State with a degree in economics and, from 2002 to 2012, worked at Poynter, Current TV, and Twitter. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is his first novel.

In Blip Magazine, George Saunders called Penumbra "a real tour-de-force, a beautiful fable that is given legs by the author’s bravado use of the real (Google is in there, for instance, the actual campus) to sell us on a shadow world of the unreal and the speculative."

Great Website:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/10/robin_sloan_s_novel_mr_penumbra_s_24_hour_bookstore_reviewed_.html

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (sampled from LitLovers online resource).  I added quotes from the book, along with comments from our discussion.

1. What were your initial theories about the bookstore’s mysterious patrons and their project? What did you predict Manutius’s message would be?

We loved the idea of OK and TK – Old/Scientific knowledge and Traditional/Legend/Word of Mouth Knowledge are both important.

We had no idea the puzzle would end with a picture and found the characters who were already “questing” when Clay got his job interesting.  It was actual helpful, and an interesting literary device, to have Clay record how everyone looked.  We got a great visual!

“Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines -- it's hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.”

“He asked <...> Rosemary, why do you love books so much?
And I said, Well, I don't know <...> I suppose I love them because they're quiet, and I can take them to the park.”

“I've never listened to an audiobook before, and I have to say it's a totally different experience. When you read a book, the story definitely takes place in your head. When you listen, it seems to happen in a little cloud all around it, like a fuzzy knit cap pulled down over your eyes”

2. Discuss Clay’s pursuit of love. What makes Kat attractive to him? What does it take to win her over?

Of all the characters, Kat seemed the least developed to us.  We liked that she wore the same t-shirt each day, though, and maybe that said something about her one-dimensional character, too.

“Kat bought a New York Times but couldn’t figure out how to operate it, so now she’s fiddling with her phone.”

“This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends (girl- and otherwise) and the highest compliment I can pay. I've tried many times to figure out exactly what ignites it -- what cocktail of characteristics come together in the cold, dark cosmos to form a star. I know it's mostly in the face -- not just the eyes, but the brow, the cheeks, the mouth, and the micromuscles that connect them all.

3. The characters remind us that fifteenth-century technologies of the book—from punch-cutting to typesetting—were met with fear and resistance, as well as with entrepreneurial competition and the need to teach new skills. How does this compare to the launch of e-books? If you try to picture what literacy will look like five hundred years from now, what do you see?

The way books are “read” may change, but they haven’t been replaced by television or movies yet.  If you read a lot of Science Fiction, then you have seen “futures” where books are burned, gone, etc.  However, in almost all SciFi, there is a magic about the person who can read and write, the keeper of the written word.  It will always be an important skill.

“After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this:
A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.”

4. If you were to file a codex vitae, capturing all you’ve learned throughout your life, what would it contain?

“Neel takes a sharp breath and I know exactly what it means. It means: I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf.”

“If this sounds impressive to you, you’re over thirty.”

5. As Clay and the team of Google decoders take on the same challenge, what do they discover about the relative strengths of the human brain and technology?

“You know, I'm really starting to think the whole world is just a patchwork quilt of crazy little cults, all with their own secret spaces, their own records, their own rules.”

6. Neel’s financial backing makes it possible for Clay to outwit Corvina and the Festina Lente Company, despite its many lucrative enterprises. In this novel, what can money buy, and what are the limitations of wealth?

“Let me give you some advice: make friends with a millionaire when he's a friendless sixth-grader.”

7. Clay’s literary idol, Clark Moffat, was forced to make a choice between the Unbroken Spine project and his commercially successful fiction. If you had been Moffat, which path would you have chosen?

We did not come to a uniform conclusion on this topic, but we did talk about how difficult it might be to choose.  Money/Fame vs. Secret Society/living forever?

8. Are Penumbra and his colleagues motivated only by a quest for immortality? If not, what are the other rewards of their labor-intensive work? Can books give their authors immortality?

“Some of them are working very hard indeed. “What are they doing?” “My boy!” he said, eyebrows raised. As if nothing could be more obvious. “They are reading!”

9. How did you react to Gerritszoon’s “message to eternity,” revealed in the closing passages? How can his wisdom apply to your life?

“There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care. All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight. It takes forty-one seconds to climb a ladder three stories tall. It's not easy to imagine the year 3012, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. We have new capabilities now—strange powers we're still getting used to. The mountains are a message from Aldrag the Wyrm-Father. Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in.”

 “All the secrets of the world worth knowing are hiding in plain site.”

10.  What did you think about the “quest” and “Dungeons and Dragon” themes?

The wizard (Google user), rogue (rich guy), and a warrior (bookstore clerk) on a quest was a great way to bring role-play games into the modern world.  A warrior with words?

“...this is exactly the kind of store that makes you want to buy a book about a teenage wizard. This is the kind of store that makes you want to be a teenage wizard.”

“Why does the typical adventuring group consist of a wizard, a warrior, and a rogue, anyway? It should really be a wizard, a warrior, and a rich guy. Otherwise who's going to pay for all the swords and spells and hotel rooms?”

“So I guess you could say Neel owes me a few favors, except that so many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just a bright haze of loyalty. Our friendship is a nebula. (p.34)”

FINAL THOUGHTS
Charlotte came across a novella by the author.  She thinks it was written before Mr. Penumbra's Bookstore, but does not think it was published prior to it.   Title: Ajax Penumbra, 1969.   About Mr. Penumbra finding the bookstore. Available as ebook for $2.99 ... about 65 pages