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That book club fight about unreliable narrators blew up our group last month
We had 12 people show up to discuss 'The Goldfinch' and half of them argued Theo was just a traumatized kid making bad choices. The other half said he was a straight up liar and we couldnt trust anything he said. It got so heated that Margaret literally stood up and said 'you are missing the whole point of fiction' and walked out. I ended up playing mediator for 45 minutes before we agreed to disagree. Has anyone else had a debate over narrator trustworthiness totally wreck a book club meeting?
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oscar_hunt6128d ago
Got caught in something like this with "The Girl on the Train" - half the group wanted to believe Rachel was just a sad drunk, the other half was convinced she was a flat-out liar. What really got me is nobody stopped to think about how the narrator lying to herself might be the most honest thing in the book.
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@oscar_hunt61 that "lying to herself might be the most honest thing" line really hits home. I once convinced my crew I could finish a big paint job in two days when I knew it'd take four. That's basically the same thing as being an unreliable narrator, right? My wife still brings it up every time I say "I'll be home by five." But seriously, book club fights about narrators are brutal because it's not just about the book anymore. It's about whether you trust people or not in real life. Margaret walking out sounds like a power move honestly.
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