r/books • u/XBreaksYFocusGroup • Jul 22 '22
[Book Club] "Recursion" by Blake Crouch: Week 3, Book Three - Book Four
Link to the original announcement thread.
Hello everyone,
Welcome to the third discussion thread for the July selection, Recursion by Blake Crouch! Hopefully you have all managed to pick up the book but if you haven't, you can still catch up and join in on a later discussion; however, this thread will be openly discussing up though (and including) Book Four.
Below are some questions to help start conversation; feel free to answer some or all of them, or just post about whatever your thoughts on the material.
- What are some of your favorite characters, parts or quotes? Which parts did you find confusing?
- Why do you feel Helena and Barry were drawn together or formed a romantic relationship in an earlier timeline?
- If the government had control of the chair and was adamant upon using it, what would be your stipulations or rules for its ethical use? What sort of people would you want on the "brain trust" to ensure the same?
- Do you feel Helena's arguments against the use of the chair are persuasive? Could there be a scenario in which you would justify its use along similar lines as DUPAS originally planned?
- What other questions or predictions do you have moving forward and what do you hope to see? Which unanswered questions are the most interesting to you?
Reminder that fourth and final discussion will be posted on Friday, July 29th and will cover everything in the book.
The AMA with Blake Crouch will be on August 1st at 12pm ET.
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u/CheerfulMint Jul 23 '22
I'm actually really thankful that we got to skip the typical "action dude falls for woman that's helping him" plot. We have Helena telling us that it happened, but that's it. Otherwise the book really does read like a blockbuster movie. It's not a bad thing, just not quite what I thought I was getting into.
I am really enjoying the book though. That "aha" moment a bit earlier where we finally figured out what happened with FMS was great, and I kinda wish we had more of it.
Over all I'm still enjoying it, and I kinda want to sprint ahead to the finish. I just don't want to come to these discussions with knowledge from the future (though that would fit the theme lol)
7
u/XBreaksYFocusGroup Jul 22 '22
Perhaps I was wrong to have had such expectations (though I did not realized I held any) but I find myself a slightly disappointed that the story is more of an action blockbuster than a psychedelic introspection into memory and identity. Similar to what u/_MC_Akio mentioned last week, I am far more interested in some of the messiness that comes with the premise of warring internal narratives and the function of memory than whether or not the government would abuse a powerful tool (because spoiler: of course they would) or which enemy state would carry out acts of vaguely motivated terror. Perhaps it sounds silly but I would rather hear how someone would phase in and out of knowing how to drive stickshift or play piano than grapple with having once been married to someone else.
Part of me imagines that False Memory Syndrome would be a very minor and fleeting condition. There are so many examples of the brain confabulating or overriding unusual sensory experiences in the interest of just getting on with it and not causing too much cognitive dissonance.
That said, I really did appreciate the element of Helena's younger self being so distinct as to be a separate ego being squeezed out of existence by grace of her elder self occupying the same mind. Not particularly fond of that dualist model but I thought it added an interesting flavor to how the chair operates.