Comments on: lost book club

By: deserted island reads (lost book club update) | walking paper

deserted island reads (lost book club update) | walking paper — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:10:44 +0000

[...] a comment on my post about the Lost Book Club, Beth Tribe from the Howard County Library tells us about the “Lost” related book [...]

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:54:16 +0000

@mlibrarianus –
“However, if you don’t like mysteries, beautiful locations (Hawaii), witty writing, great cast then you won’t like this show.” Oh, no, not me. I hate all of these things! :P Thanks for the comment, I’m going to blog about it.

By: mlibrarianus

mlibrarianus — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:53:14 +0000

If you haven’t watched it I warn you it will suck you in. However, if you don’t like mysteries, beautiful locations (Hawaii), witty writing, great cast then you won’t like this show. I love the literary references on the show either via scenes or dialog.

I loved the idea of the Lost book club so much I used it as my first display – http://notatech.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/deserted-island-reads/. The books as well as the DVDs flew off this display at an alarming rate. I had to restock it constantly which was a good thing.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:26:50 +0000

Do yourself a favour, go an hire/buy season 1 of Lost. You wont regret it

By: caleb

caleb — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:03:15 +0000

Lost is brilliant, with the book clubs, the ARG aspects, and if nothing else, I think you would be interested in the idea that the show producers reacted to online chatter about the show to direct the storyline. It’s not the only instance, but what a phenomenon.

Lost is television as literature and we should be all over it like Bludgers on Harry Potter.

The whole idea of ‘story’ is central to the show, as each episode weaves (or ignores) multiple simultaneous storylines. This is a trend in television that I think we owe to ‘Twin Peaks’ in germ, but ‘The Sopranos’ in fruition and Lost does it really well.

Producers have described the show as finite, and marked out each season as part of the beginning, the middle or the end. Each season also has a central non-human character – the island, the “hatch”, and the community of “the others”.

To be sure, it is not always great tv, and the first half of season 2 was especially excruciating for me. There are way too many loose ends (though some get tied up if you watch long enough), and of all the disbelief you have to suspend, pretending that any of the three central characters might die is first and foremost.

The books characters are reading, and other literary and cultural references. Several characters are named for philosophers, and in a favorite line of mine, the female lead asks the womanizing anti-hero, ‘You call it little house?’, implying that boys don’t usually know or use the colloquial title for the popular children’s series.

I think all of it is proof-positive (and possibly even commentary) that recent and emerging modes of literacy need to be taken seriously.

In other words, you don’t have to read books to enjoy this show, but you can read this show like you read books and you *will*.

Which reminds me to go place a hold for season 4. 177th – not so bad.