Saturday, November 14, 2015

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz


This is an inspirational book, and some of us were interested in maybe reading the Beatles book that the author also wrote. 

We had an enjoyable meal of Beef Bourguignon and discussed Julia Child, our favorite meals (one person “wins” with a whopper of a meal she had in Lenox, MA), and effort, as in how much effort Julia put forth in everything she wanted to learn from languages to cooking to writing.  Another person in the group  had just gone to a gluten-free cooking class and that also prompted more food conversation!

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella



We discussed The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella, published in 2007. 

SUMMARY FROM AMAZON
Livia Pertini, a beautiful young widow who leaves her family's destitute country osteria to try to find work in Naples. There, English Capt, James Gould has been assigned the task of discouraging British soldiers from marrying Italian women. At first Gould is a stickler for the rules, closing down restaurants and denying couples permission to marry. But when Angelo, the maitre d' at restaurant Zi'Teresa, tricks him into hiring Livia as the officers' cook, things loosen up considerably. Livia becomes the captain's cook, and her cuisine inexorably opens the door to his heart

Livia Pertini's misfortunes cascade on one another like lava flowing down the flanks of Vesuvius, but she defiantly guards her dignity and self-respect even as other girls in war-torn Naples resort to selling themselves to survive. Even losing a beauty competition to her cow leaves her unshaken. When she finally does fall for a persistent, handsome soldier, he is shipped off only to die on the Russian front. As the Allies retake Italy, Livia exercises the one skill that sets her apart: her talent in the kitchen, especially her knack for making outstanding burrata: fresh, rich, leaf-enrobed mozzarella.

FYI:  According to Wikipedia:
Vesuvius has erupted many times since 70AD and is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years. Today, it is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions. It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.

The eruption of April 7, 1906 killed over 100 people and ejected the most lava ever recorded from a Vesuvian eruption. Italian authorities were preparing to hold the 1908 Summer Olympics when Mount Vesuvius erupted, devastating the city of Naples. Funds were diverted to the reconstruction of Naples, so a new location for the Olympics was required. London was selected for the first time to hold the Games which were held at White City.

The last major eruption was in March 1944. It destroyed the villages of San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma, Ottaviano, and part of San Giorgio a Cremano. From March 18 to 23, 1944, lava flows appeared within the rim. There were outflows. Small explosions then occurred until the major explosion took place on March 18, 1944.

At the time of the eruption, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) 340th Bombardment Group was based at Pompeii Airfield near Terzigno, Italy, just a few kilometers from the eastern base of the mountain. The tephra and hot ash damaged the fabric control surfaces, the engines, the Plexiglas windshields and the gun turrets of the 340th's B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. Estimates ranged from 78 to 88 aircraft destroyed.   The eruption could be seen from Naples.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS – We did not use these, but I thought you might find them interesting, and I intermingled our conversations under related topics.

1. What aspects of Livia’s personality are illustrated in the novel’s opening scenes? What parts of her identity fade after Enzo leaves, and what aspects are intensified when she is on her own?
  The characters seemed like stereotypes – women as prostitutes, women as cooking and taking care of others, the gratuitous Italian “Mafioso,” men as chauvinists or exceptional romantics (virgins, even!)

2. Discuss the different types of hunger described in The Wedding Officer. Which ones are the most powerful—the hunger for companionship, food, or sex? In what way do James’s and Livia’s appetites change throughout the novel?
  The descriptions of food, cheese making, and mixing ingredients were an appealing sensory pleasure.
  The names of Capella’s other books (they are also novels of “culinary seduction”) are: The Food of Love, The Empress of Ice Cream, The Various Flavors of Coffee.

3. Chapter twenty-one ends with Livia feeling furious because of James’s apparent lack of interest. What do their different approaches to courtship say about their cultures?

4. Discuss the issue of language as it plays out in the novel. How does it help and hinder the characters to have limitations in their ability to communicate? In what ways is food a universal language? What did James’s “food language,” which forbade things like garlic and emphasized potatoes over pasta, say about his personality?
  It seemed (obvious) that the book was written by a man since there was a quality in the topics that might appeal to a 14 year-old’s interest – war, women, sex, food.  Many of Livia’s mispronounced words were made into sexual jokes.
 Some folks thought it was interesting to read the Italian words.

5. How familiar were you with Italy’s experience with the war, and the rise of Mussolini? What aspects of history and culture in The Wedding Officer surprised you?
  It was interesting to learn about this historical event which we did not know.

6. In chapter thirty, James is exasperated to discover that Livia doesn’t measure any of her ingredients. What turning points does this scene capture? What do they eventually teach each other about intuition and rules?

7. Livia deeply resents the Allies. What does her story demonstrate about the role of liberators in a foreign land?
  Some folks liked how Livia joined the resistance army and others did not like this turn of her character, feeling like it was another book.

8. Would you have given in to Alberto’s demands if you had been in Livia’s position? Was the survival of her family always the top priority in her life?
  We recognized that women did what they had to do in order to survive.

Other Thoughts
  Some thought the writing was poor quality, others thought some of the writing was appealing, like the descriptions of scenery and meals.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman and John Shiffman

  • The author seemed full of himself, or like Grandpa after dinner telling war stories.
  • The book expanded my knowledge of the FBI, art world, and Boston/Gardener Heist.
  • Antiques and art go in and out of style and they are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them.
  • When being undercover, you need to be someone’s friend and then betray them.
  • When being undercover, you need to tell as few lies as possible, like keeping your first name and accurate number of your children.
  • We talked about NAGPRA (Nov. 1990) and how difficult it is for Native Americans to get back artifacts – realize they are gone, figure out where they are, go through legal paperwork to get them back.
  • We made connections to other museums, their collections, what’s hidden away and not seen, how much is probably a forgery anyway (based on the other book we read).
  • Art is not so well protected in schools, personal collections, colleges
  • There is so much art that gets donated to museums, but who can curate all that? 
  •  The author made it seem like it was easy to take things from museums, when you work there and have access.  The first assumption is that it is an inside job.
  • We made some links to other books and movies about art:
o   Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore
o   The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
o   The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
o   The Movie:  Woman in Gold
o   The Movie:  The Monuments Men

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn


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500 Questions answered by Daniel Quinn
 
No one had finished the book and we didn’t get passed the first question.  Since the questions are merely “food for thought” and help guide us when the conversation might slow down, it doesn’t matter how many questions we do or don’t get to!  Sometimes, when we have an eclectic conversation, I later fit the comments I remember into the question format just for organizational purposes, but this time, I just left thoughts under question #1 (below).

What we DID do, which was kind of fun, was go to the website with the 500 (more like 700) questions asked of Daniel Quinn. We randomly chose a number and read his answers.  That got us talking and laughing for quite a while.  Some of his answers are blunt and irreverent.

If you were given the chance to leave “Taker” civilization and become a “Leaver,” would you do it? Why, or why not?
  • “Takers” are humans, and everyone else is a “Leaver.” 
  • Civilized vs. Primitive
  • I have the map, you don’t need to memorize it, it’s the journey that matters, the journey will change you
  • Mother culture has given you an explanation of how things came to be this way – assembled from a million bits of information (not as a chronology)
  • A story is a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods
  • To enact a story is to live so as to make the story a reality (to make a story come true)
  • A culture is a people enacting a story

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

The Mother's Recompense by Edith Wharton



As the novel opens just after the end of World War I, she is a woman in her mid-40s who is wandering around Europe, skimping by on a small allowance. It’s an aimless, meaningless life of leisure, spent with other aimless, purposeless souls awaiting…well, not really anything. This is a kind of anteroom to hell, and Kate and her circle of acquaintances are biding their time, biding their lives away.

Her allowance comes from the family in New York that she abandoned nearly twenty years earlier to go off with Hylton Davies, a man with a yacht whom she didn’t love and didn’t stay with. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to be with him, but to get away from the household of her husband John Clephane and his mother.

A hard man to stay home with John Clephane would have been a hard man to stay home with. One character describes him as “always a slave of anything he’d once said. Once he’d found a phrase for a thing, the phrase ruled him.”  Kate herself recalls “the thick atmosphere of self-approval and unperceivingness which emanated from John Clephane like coal-gas from a leaking furnace.”

In the first years of her marriage there had been the continual vain attempt to adapt herself to her husband’s point of view, to her mother-in-law’s standards, to all the unintelligible ritual with which they barricaded themselves against the alarming business of living.  To escape, however, Kate had to leave behind her three-year-old daughter Anne.

For better or worse, Kate is living with that decision and with the life she had made on her own — lonely as it is and frugal and with few prospects. Since her quick departure from the man with the yacht, she has enjoyed flirtations (although fewer as she has aged) and treasures the memory of only one affair, with a younger man named Chris Fenno.

Still, she doesn’t complain. She faces her life with a forthrightness that is admirable.  She is not exactly self-aware, but she is trying. She understands some things — such as the fatuousness of many of those she spends her time with — and tries, in her imperfect way, to understand the rest of her life.

And then she gets the telegrams: Her mother-in-law who has ruled the family home since John Clephane’s death has died, and Kate’s daughter, now a young woman — a rich and strong-headed young woman — invites her to move back into that home. To move back and resume, after so much time, the role of mother.

So she does.  And it’s wonderful. Kate and Anne are pals. “You two were made for each other,” someone says. Anne promotes her mother among her friends and the broader society. No mention is made of the past. It is as if it never happened.   Yet, even as this is happening, events that will shatter the fragile peace Kate has found are beginning, and the people behind those events are starting to come forward.

In the unfolding of the drama, no character is completely alert to what’s happening. All of them, to one extent or another, are moving through the emotions of life with only a vague understanding of how circumstances and their own decisions have set events into inexorable motion.

1.  What limitations existed for women in the past? 
This is the time period where women took off corset, cut their hair, and got the vote.

Why did she refuse Fred at the end.  She ran away once because she didn’t want to be stifled again.  But he accepted her. She was comfortable with him, but didn’t love him.  Her passion was with Chris.

She didn’t stop loving her daughter.  She wanted out of the marriage, and wanted her daughter back after she left, but men with power and means always got there way.

“Yes; that was it. It was necessary for her pride and dignity, for her moral safety almost, that what people like Enid Drover would have called her "past" should remain unidentified, unembodied—or at least not embodied in Chris Fenno. Yet to know—to know!”

We might want to consider watching the movies Ethan Fromme or The Graduate.

2.  How did those "limits" create scandal and shame?  
She was disillusioned with society.  When she came back to NYC, she felt the same rules which stifled her weren’t there anymore, and should have been.

“And it was to escape from reality and durability that one plunged into cards, gossip, flirtation, and all the artificial excitements which society so lavishly provides for people who want to forget.”

“She simply could not talk to Anne about Chris—not yet. It was not that she regarded that episode in her life as a thing to be in itself ashamed of. She was not going, even now, to deny or disown it; she wanted only to deny and disown Chris. Quite conceivably, she might have said to her daughter: "Yes, I loved once—and the man I loved was not your father." But to say it about Chris! To see the slow look of wonder in those inscrutable depths of Anne's eyes: a look that said, not "I blame you", or even "I disapprove you", but, so much more scathingly, just: "You, mother—and Chris?”

Decisions have consequences.

3.  Where were there brief glimpses of happiness?
“This new resolve gave her a sort of light-headed self-confidence: when she left the dinner-table she felt so easy and careless that she was surprised to see that the glass of champagne beside her plate was untouched. She felt as if all its sparkles were whirling through her.”

We might want to visit her home in Lenox, MA.

Wharton made relationships very deep.

4.  Ageing happens.  How is desolation her primary identity, even when in love with Chris?
“She no longer thought of herself as an object of curiosity to any of these careless self-engrossed young people; she had learned that a woman of her age, however conspicuous her past, and whatever her present claims to notice, is fated to pass unremarked in a society where youth so undisputedly rules.”

“Kate was frightened, sometimes, by its likeness to that other isolated and devouring emotion which her love for Chris had been. Everything might have been different, she thought, if she had had more to do, or more friends of her own to occupy her.”

She was self-centered. She couldn’t find a comfortable spot.  She didn’t fit in wherever she was. 

She pondered everything.   She didn’t have anything else to think about.  She didn’t learn a skill or go to college.  She was just a socialite from the upper class with gossip and lunch.

While the opening Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822; his second wife Mary Shelley is the author of Frankenstein.) quote, “Desolation is a delicate thing” uses the word “desolation,” it’s interesting to note that the word is never used anywhere else in the novel.  Here is a poem inspired by the same quote:

Desolation Is a Delicate Thing
Sorrow lay upon my breast more heavily than winter clay
Lying ponderable upon the unmoving bosom of the dead;
Yet it was dissolved like a thin snowfall; it was softly withered away;
Presently like a single drop of dew it had trembled and fled.

This sorrow, which seemed heavier than a shovelful of loam,
Was gone like water, like a web of delicate frost;
It was silent and vanishing like smoke; it was scattered like foam;
Though my mind should desire to preserve it, nevertheless it is lost.

This sorrow was not like sorrow; it was shining and brief;
Even as I waked and was aware of its going, it was past and gone;
It was not earth; it was no more than a light leaf,
Or a snowflake in spring, which perishes upon stone.

This sorrow was small and vulnerable and short-lived;
It was neither earth nor stone; it was silver snow
Fallen from heaven, perhaps; it has not survived
An hour of the sun; it is sad it should be so.

This sorrow, which I believed a gravestone over my heart,
Is gone like a cloud; it eluded me as I woke;
Its crystal dust is suddenly broken and blown apart;
It was not my heart; it was this poor sorrow alone which broke.

5.  Most of us agreed she had great language and was an excellent writer with words – though some sentences were very, very long.
“The last lame horse had probably long since gone to the knacker's yard, and no link of sound was left between the Niagara-roar of the day and the hush before dawn.”

““scramble up hill through the whitening gray of the garden, flicked by scented shrubs, caught on perfidious prickles, up to the shuttered villa askew on its heat-soaked rock—and then, at the door, in the laurustinus-shade that smelt of honey, that unexpected kiss (well honestly, yes, unexpected, since it had long been settled that one was to remain "just friends"); and the pulling away from an insistent arm, and the one more pressure on hers of lips young enough to be fresh after a night of drinking and play and more drinking. ”

6. How was “mothering” an important part of her life and identity, even though she didn’t get to do it for 20 years?
Respected that Anne wanted to do her own thing (time in studio)

“This business of setting up a studio, now; Anne's so pleased that you approve. She had a struggle with her grandmother about it; but poor mother wouldn't give in. She was too horrified. She thought paint so messy—and then how could she have got up all those stairs?”

“Mothers and daughters are part of each other's consciousness, in different degrees and in a different way, but still with the mutual sense of something which has always been there. A real mother is just a habit of thought to her children.”

“But Anne's establishment, which had been her grandmother's, still travelled smoothly enough on its own momentum, and though the girl insisted that her mother was now the head of the house, the headship involved little more than ordering dinner, and talking over linen and carpets and curtains with old Mrs. Clephane's housekeeper.”

“Then, as to friends—was it because she was too much engrossed in her daughter to make any? Or because her life had been too incommunicably different from that of her bustling middle-aged contemporaries, absorbed by local and domestic questions she had no part in? Or had she been too suddenly changed from a self-centred woman, insatiable for personal excitements, into that new being, a mother, her centre of gravity in a life not hers?”

“She did not know; she felt only that she no longer had time for anything but motherhood, and must be content to bridge over, as best she could, the unoccupied intervals. And, after all, the intervals were not many. Her daughter never appeared without instantly filling up every crevice of the present, and overflowing into the past and the future, so that, even in the mother's rare lapses into despondency, life without Anne, like life before Anne, had become unthinkable”

“Fool that she was, not to have foreseen the consequences of such a slip! She sat before her daughter like a criminal under cross-examination, feeling that whatever word she chose would fatally lead her deeper into the slough of avowal.”

7.  We learned some new words
A “walker” is an escort without the baggage; an escort minus the sex.
https://wordofthegay.wordpress.com/tag/slang/
“Walker” describes the man in this equation; a young gay man that provides company for older women for the purposes of keeping her company, giving her advice, and escorting her to social events – in lieu of a husband or boyfriend.  A walker will usually accompany a widow or unmarried woman, and act as both company and a sort of handler or aide.  Since the woman is usually “of a certain age” the term also has a double-meaning, which refers to a walker, which is a device used to assist with standing and/or walking.
This term should not be confused either “beard” or “frock,” which both describe individuals (bread-female, frock-male) who are romantically linked to either a gay man (beard) or a lesbian (frock) in order to keep their sexual orientation hidden.  Walkers are not necessarily in (or out of) the closet.

Reaction attachment disorder
Reactive attachment disorder is a rare but serious condition in which an infant or young child doesn't establish healthy attachments with parents or caregivers. Reactive attachment disorder may develop if the child's basic needs for comfort, affection and nurturing aren't met and loving, caring, stable attachments with others are not established.  With treatment, children with reactive attachment disorder may develop more stable and healthy relationships with caregivers and others. Treatments for reactive attachment disorder include positive child and caregiver interactions, a stable, nurturing environment, psychological counseling, and parent or caregiver education.  (Mayo Clinic)

8. Edith Wharton’s Background
Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones on Jan. 24, 1862. Her father was George Frederick Jones; her mother was the former Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander, and back of each were Colonial and Revolutionary ancestors. When she was 4 the family went abroad in pursuit of culture, health and economy, for her father's inherited funds had not increased during the Civil War that was just ended.
Her early impressions were the international--New York and Newport, Rome, Paris and Madrid. Added to this was a vivid imagination, which found outlet in story telling even before she could read. In keeping with the sheltered life of the time, she was never sent to school, but was taught at home. She began writing short stories in her early teens, but they were never about "real people." Little happened to the real people she knew; what did "happen" was generally not talked about.

It was from this background that Mrs. Wharton was to inherit the belief from which she never departed, that "any one gifted with the least creative faculty knows the absurdity of such a charge" as that of "putting flesh-and-blood people into books." Later critics were to say that in this was her greatest lack.
The young author wrote her first efforts on brown paper salvaged from parcels. She was not encouraged. "In the eyes of our provincial society," she was later to say, "authorship was still regarded as something between a black art and a form of manual labor." Each was equally despised in her social level. Her first acceptance was three poems which she sent to the editor with her calling card attached.

In her autobiography Mrs. Wharton gives a picture of her literary beginnings along with a picture of her life. Her first novel, written when she as 11, began: "'Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Brown?' said Mrs. Tompkins. 'If only I had known you were going to call I should have tidied up the drawing room.'" The little girl showed it to her mother, whose icy comment was: "Drawing rooms are always tidy."

But it was Henry James who was her closest friend and most worth-while advocate. She was always his respectful disciple and, although in their many meetings he disguised the severity of his judgments with his usual elaborate verbal courtesies, he managed to convey the meaning of his criticism. He remained her close friend until his death.

Until 1906 Mrs. Wharton had divided her time between New York and her Summer home at Lenox, Mass. In that year she went to live in France, in Summer at Saint Brice and in Winter at Hyeres in Provence.

9. Books Written by Wharton
Iron & Silk by Mark Salzman
The Touchstone, 1900 (novella)
The Valley of Decision, 1902
Sanctuary, 1903 (novella)
Madame de Treymes, 1907 (novella)
Ethan Frome, 1911 (novella)
The Reef, 1912
Bunner Sisters, 1916 (novella)
Summer, 1917
The Marne, 1918
A Son at the Front, 1923
Old New York: False Dawn, The Old Maid, The Spark, New Year's Day, 1924 (novellas)
The Mother's Recompense, 1925
Twilight Sleep, 1927
The Children, 1928
Hudson River Bracketed, 1929
The Gods Arrive, 1932
The Buccaneers, 1938 (unfinished)
Fast and Loose: A Novelette, 1938 (written in 1876–1877)

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Ready, Player, One by Ernest Cline

Characters: Wade/Parzival, Nolan Sorrento, Art3mis's, creator, James Halliday/Anorak, Og, Aech, the samurai Daito and Shoto, and the Sixers

QUESTIONS (Issued by publisher.)
1. The OASIS becomes a part of daily life for users around the globe. What virtual realms do you depend on? What is at stake in the war against IOI, the Internet service provider that wants to overturn Halliday’s affordable, open-source approach? Is it dangerous to mix profit and dependence on technology?
- We depend on Google, Facebook, iPhone and so much more
- The radio was oen source in the past

2. What do the characters’ avatars tell us about their desires and their insecurities? In reality, does our physical appearance give false clues about who we really are? How does Parzival, transformed into a celebrity gunter, become Wade’s true self?
- We use Avatars in our Facebook games, and some of our communications that are not games
- In our experience, many people make Avatars look like themselves

3. Would you have given Art3mis the tip about playing on the left side to defeat the lich (page 99, chapter ten)? Did you predict that she would turn out to be a friend or a foe?
- Maybe.
- We were mixed on whether of not Art3mis was be good or not

4. How does public school in the OASIS compare to your experience in school? Has author Ernest Cline created a solution to classroom overcrowding, student apathy, and school violence?
- Some of us felt that it created access for folks who were disabled or bullied.
- Some felt that it would affect social skills
- Some felt that some courses couldn’t really have the same effect, especially if they required hands on experiences
- Others knew that learning styles (the need to talk and interact) would make on line learning not a good choice
- The benefit of being able to simulate “being” in a virtual historical world might be extraordinary

5. Wade’s OASIS pass phrase is revealed on page 199, at the end of chapter nineteen: “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.” What does this philosophy mean to him at that point in his life?
- You are not hungry, so you don’t push
- Answered and unanswered prayer
- Keep going, strive
- Sometimes the hunt (journey) is really what’s beautiful

6. How is the novel shaped by the 1980s backdrop, featuring John Hughes films, suburban shows like Family Ties, a techno-beat soundtrack, and of course, a slew of early video games? Did Halliday grow up in a utopia? Were there any 80’s things that were a surprise or unknown to you?  Did you wish something was there?
- Cyndi Lauper was missing
- Some folks might be too young to understand the 80’s, though it is an opportunity to learn
- for some folks, they were too busy (career, family) to notice the 80’s

7. Wade doesn’t depend on religion to make moral decisions or overcome life-threatening challenges. What does the novel say about humanity’s relationship to religion? What sort of god is Halliday, creator of the OASIS universe?
- Why did “god” reach in and help everyone?  It seemed to cheat the characters of their ending.
- They could’ve done it themselves
- Gamers like to build in “back doors” to the games they create, so this is like real life

8. Despite their introverted nature, the book’s characters thrive on friendship. Discuss the level of trust enjoyed by Halliday and Og, and among Wade, Aech, Art3mis, Daito, and Shoto. How is true power achieved in Ready Player One?
even while working individually, you work together
they were a clan
Real life forums are built around the game so people can communicate about ways to get to the next level

9. In the closing scenes, Halliday’s reward proves to be greater than mere wealth. What is Halliday’s ultimate prize? How did the rules of Halliday’s game help him determine the type of player who would likely win?
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ending J

10. In his quest for the three keys, Wade is required to inhabit many imaginary worlds, including movies, video games, and a simulation of Halliday’s childhood home. Which of these virtual realities appealed to you the most? What sort of virtual reality is provided by a novel?
- The book is its own world (and my favorite video game)
- We liked the War Games model where you had to interact with virtual characters just like in the movie

Here is an interesting “take” on translating the book into a movie – It’s about copyright and royalties!

Warner Brothers will have to work hard to make this movie accessible for everyone, even if it means watering down certain story elements and going with pop culture references that are more universally understood.

And, their summary is the bomb:  If you’ve read the book, then you know: Ready Player One’s story is huge! Even though the novel is slightly under 400 pages, there is plenty that goes on and it’s safe to assume that the film won't have a run time on par with The Lord of the Rings. There’s a lot of ground to cover: quite a few characters to introduce, a love story, multiple (and lengthy) quests steeped in ‘80s pop culture, conflict with the main villain, main character’s self-discovery (plenty of that), the epic final battle, etc. Pretending that Ready Player One was forced to be divided into two or three separate movies, the performance of the first decides if it merits a sequel and other subsequent installments. And if this is the case, part one would really have to bring its A-game if wants to see its story completely told—and earn moviegoers’ hard-earned dollars.

Here’s another summary: The hero wins the game, defeats the big bad corporation, inherits bajillions of dollars, gets the girl, and learns a life lesson: you can't live your life in virtual reality. Could it get more perfect? It's just like your favorite '80s movie, you know, the one with the geeky guy against impossible odds, but it all works out in the end and he even gets the dream girl? Yeah, that one.

Interesting words: bajillions, wackadoodle, OASIS, Shmoopers

The Steps in the Game
The prologue consists of our as-yet-unnamed narrator telling us about the death of James Halliday, an eccentric billionaire.  When Halliday died Howard Hughes-style (friendless, single, and insane), he left a digital video of him planning his own funeral. His faux funeral is attended by digital copies of celebrities like Winona Ryder (to older Shmoopers: Lydia Deetz, to younger Shmoopers: Spock's mom) and other 1980s icons.

Welcome to the OASIS, a hyper-realistic, 3D, videogame paradise. It's 2045, and pretty much everyone logs in to the OASIS daily to escape their terrible lives, lives affected by overpopulation, unemployment, and energy shortages.  Halliday invented OASIS, an immersive, online, multiplayer game that changed the world at a time when Earth was in catastrophic peril: climate change, energy shortages, widespread disease and war. No wonder everyone wanted to escape to virtual reality.

Halliday tells the world that he's hidden an Easter egg, a well-concealed videogame secret first made famous in the Atari game Adventure, inside OASIS. Whoever finds it first will inherit Halliday's entire fortune.  In order to find the egg, users must first find the three keys of copper, jade, and crystal, and unlock their corresponding gates. Eighteen-year-old Wade Watts he has a mission: to find an Easter egg hidden inside the OASIS.

Included with the video is a downloadable document: Anorak's Almanac, named after Halliday's avatar, Anorak, and including over a thousand pages of details about Halliday's favorite things.  People trying to find the egg start calling themselves egg hunters, or "gunters" for short. Almost five years pass, and still, no one has found the Copper Key. The narrator tells us that he found it on February 11, 2045 and he's about to tell us his story.

In order to get to the egg, a player must first find three keys and unlock three gates. Wade—playing as his avatar, Parzival—finds the first key, the Copper Key, inside the Tomb of Horrors. There he also meets Art3mis, a young blogger with a sexy, shapely avatar that catches Wade's eye. Ooh-la-la the flirtmance begins. Wade handily unlocks the First Gate by re-enacting the entire movie WarGames. He gets a hint to the location of the second key, the Jade Key.

Back in the real world, Wade meets Art3mis (for real) for the first time. She's as beautiful as he had imagined. He tells her he loves her (she doesn't respond in kind, but he doesn't notice), and together they ponder what to do with their newfound fortune. An eternity of leisure and videogames, or world peace?

While trying to find the Jade Key, Wade investigates the planet Archaide. There, he plays a perfect game of Pac-Man and wins a quarter. Not even a real quarter—it's an item for his inventory, and it doesn't appear to have any practical use whatsoever.

Art3mis finds the Jade Key first, followed by Aech, the samurai Daito and Shoto, and the Sixers, employees of IOI, an Internet Service Provider putting all its resources into finding the egg so that they can control the OASIS. Things are getting dicey. Aech gives Wade a clue to the key's location, sending him to the planet Frobozz, a recreation of the classic computer game Zork. Wade gets the key no problem, and proceeds to unlock the Second Gate and grab the Crystal Key with little effort, heading through worlds that re-enact Blade Runner, the game Black Tiger, and the Rush album.

But there's a problem: the Sixers already have the Crystal Key. The good news is that they have no clue how to unlock the Third Gate, so the game ain't over yet. Thanks to their knowledge of Schoolhouse Rock! Wade and the gang know how to unlock the Gate: they need the power of three.

After an epic giant robot versus Mechagodzilla battle, Parzival, Aech, and Art3mis unlock the Third Gate just as the Sixers set off the Cataclyst, killing everyone instantly. Thankfully, the quarter Wade received after his perfect game of Pac-Man serves as an extra life. Parzival survives. He enters the final gate, triumphs over its challenges—a game of Tempest followed by a recreation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail—and finds himself in Halliday's office. There, he meets Anorak, Halliday's avatar, and is awarded digital immortality and Halliday's billions of dollars in assets. Bonus!

In the end, Wade learns that reality is "the only place where you can find true happiness" (38.48), and that leads Wade to say he "had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS" (39.53). It pretty much tells us that Wade now thinks virtual reality is all a sham.

If Wade really thinks that now, we wish he had learned that lesson a little sooner. Like, maybe before he prompted Nolan Sorrento to detonate a bomb—a real-life bomb—that killed dozens of people—real people—in Wade's hometown, just to save the integrity of a virtual reality video game that Wade couldn't care less about anymore.

It's like killing your family to save your favorite toy from being thrown away, and then throwing the toy away yourself when something better comes along. It's not just immature and dangerous. It's borderline sociopathic, suggesting that Wade somehow thinks life is a game and he's in control. Let's hope for Art3mis's sake that a prettier, geekier girl doesn't come along, because there are no extra lives in the real world.

THEMES
Versions of Reality
Everyone needs an escape. Whether it's movies, television, books, or something else, everybody has their own method of getting away from reality for a while.
 

Identity
The concept of identity has always been a bit complicated. As Popeye always said, "I yam what I yam and tha's all what I am."
 

Appearances
People put a lot of time, effort, and money into their physical appearance. Aging celebrities have made entire second careers out of it.
 

Competition
Video game competitions are a big deal, sometimes offering thousands—even millions—of dollars in prizes. And that's just for mastering one game. 


Friendship
If you think of video games as a solo affair, you couldn't be more wrong. As the pastime has grown and evolved, it's becoming more and more about teamwork.


Perseverance
Any contest is ultimately about perseverance. Whether it's training for 18 hours a day to be an Olympic gymnast or buying lottery tickets twice a week for 20 years, the moral is the same.

Dissatisfaction
They say that necessity is the mother of invention. If this is true, then dissatisfaction must be necessity's step-sister. Sick of getting up to turn off the lights? Buy the Clapper. 


Immortality
Videogame characters have it easy. Sure, they might get shot in the head, dropped into boiling lava, or squished by falling blocks, but they always come back. 


The Home
A home isn't necessarily a house—it's just where you feel the most comfortable. Just as Harry Potter felt Hogwarts was more of a home than the Dursleys' house ever was.


Dreams, Hopes, and Plans
Some people dream of becoming billionaires. Some people dream of saving the world. Some people dream of being the best video game player the world has ever seen. In Ready Player.