I finally admitted the book club moderator was right about slow pacing

Back in February, our moderator Sarah said Chapter 5 of 'The Stone Diaries' was meant to drag on purpose to mirror the main character's boredom. I argued it was just bad writing and almost quit the group. Turns out she was dead on - after finishing the book, that slow chapter made the later payoff hit harder. Anyone else had a club debate where you were totally wrong about a literary device?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamiesingh7h ago

Well, well, well, look who showed up to eat crow. "Bad writing" huh? I walked into my book club with the same energy last year about 'The Goldfinch' - told everyone the first 200 pages were a snooze fest. Turned out the whole point was making you feel as lost as the main character. Still had to sit through three meetings with that smug look on Maria's face every time she brought it up. Guess we both learned that sometimes the author's just playing 4D chess while we're still figuring out checkers.

andrew9164h ago

Oh man, I felt this in my bones. I mean, it's rough when you're sitting there thinking you've got the whole thing figured out and then it turns out you were just missing the point entirely. I've been there too, not with a book club, but with a movie my buddy swore was genius. I spent the whole first half texting him about how dumb it was, and then the ending flipped everything and I had to admit he was right. It's humbling for sure, but at least you can laugh about it now, right? And Maria sounds like she's not letting that one go anytime soon, which is honestly kind of hilarious.