Existentialist Book Club
The first meeting of the new existentialist book club happened last night. It was a much bigger success than the first time we tried it (that time Greg and I got totally smashed at Kadan’s happy hour while discussing the Brothers Karamazov and wearing all black). This time we picked a less ambitious book, The Stranger by Albert Camus, because it is shorter and already familiar to a lot of people.
We met at Hamilton’s Tavern, but there was a basketball game on, so it was far too loud and crowded to talk, we had a beer and then headed back to my place. Ten people showed up, which I was pretty surprised about (there should have been more but the change of venue confused things), and we had a great discussion. We all sat around on the floor drinking beer and talking about the book, existentialism, absurdism, and life in general. I was pretty surprised about some of my views about the book, the character of Meursault and life in general that came out while talking and thinking about it. It was great to hear my friends views on things, as well as meet new people. We weren’t too academic or intellectual, but I definitely learned things and had a great time.
Afterwards we picked the book for next week, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (which is actually a play). Rumor has it everyone that came last night will be there next week and even more people have expressed interest, so hopefully we’ll be able to have a really good discussion. If you’re interested in participating go out and get the book, read it before next Thursday at 7pm and email me and I’ll give you directions.
(Hopefully we’ll keep this going for a while, and hopefully we won’t only read existential books, thats just how it was conceived in the fall. Anything that lends itself to a good discussion is fair game).
