.png)
The Big Book Project
The Big Book Project is a multi-venue reading experience for bibliophiles fascinated by long or dense works of fiction and interested in discussing them with others, one novel at a time.
The works selected will be capacious novels from the mid-nineteenth century through today that possess an abundant writing style or complexity in structure and themes.
The notion that reading need not be a solitary activity has special resonance with these novels given that there is much to discuss, elaborate upon and question in the authors’ expression of ideas. I like to think of these novels as abundant because I appreciate their richness and volume, characteristics bestow a sort of grace to luxuriate with the text.
The critic and scholar Alexander Nehamas writes that when a work of art beckons, it is because we do not fully understand it but feel the strong desire to do so. And it is this deliberative process, the journey, of trying to understand why a novel is extraordinary that I want to explore with fellow readers at The Big Book Project.
We discuss books like Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
The Big Book Project
The Kindly Ones: That Ending!
In this final conversation on The Kindly Ones, I’m joined again by Tom Flynn to explore the last chaotic stretch of Jonathan Littell’s massive and deeply unsettling novel.
We talk about the feverish pacing, the bizarre turns, and the chilling final scenes—from Max biting Hitler’s nose to the feral children in the woods. Does the book fall apart, or is it mirroring the collapse of the world it depicts? Is Thomas even real? Why does it end in a zoo?
This book is hard to read, hard to recommend—and impossible to forget. If you finished it with us this summer, thank you for sticking it out. We made it.
Highlights include:
- Max’s descent into madness—and memory
- The tonal split after he’s shot
- Murder, guilt, and the arrival of the Kindly Ones
- Incest, hallucination, and historical ambiguity
- What’s up with the zoo ending?
Links
🗞️ Join the newsletter & conversation: https://thebigbookproject.substack.com
📸 Follow along on Instagram: @thebigbookproject