Welcome to our June Book Discussion of Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. It looks like lots of you have read this book and are ready to chat about it with your fellow readers. I’ve been looking forward to having this discussion since I finished the book. Let’s dig in!
But first, let’s start with a few ground rules:
- Since we’re anticipating lots of conversation, please try your best to reply directly to each other, that way they are alerted and can keep discussing!
- Discussing is the important word. The goal around here is to have a conversation, so do try to keep the thoughts flowing and give your fellow readers something to respond to.
- Please reference the topic number you are responding to (if you are) so other Book Clubbers can hunt up the topics they want to discuss with you.
- Not that I’m expecting to need to, but be warned that I retain the right to delete any comments which go beyond the normal civil banter we have here at Cannonball Read. Consider yourselves warned.
There are also some additional topics that I’ll be putting up over at our Facebook Group, Cannonball Read Book Chat, throughout the course of the afternoon if you feel like chatting there as well. The guidelines above are in effect there too.
Here are our topics to begin our conversation:
- What are your impressions of how historians are going about the study of history in 2054? How do you feel about the addition of the scientific method?
- Bells are a constant in the book, both in 2054 and the 1300s. What meaning do they add to the narrative?
- What is Willis trying to tell us about compassion and suffering through Kivrin, Dunworthy, and Father Roche?
- Willis spent five years in the writing of this book and it won the Hugo and Nebula Awards. What elements of craft stood out to you, for better or worse?
- Kivrin is an admirable heroine, which is a change from the contemporary popularity of unreliable narrators. What does that lend or take away from the story?
- Religion is everywhere in this novel. How do you interpret the perceived differences between the religion of the past and that practiced in the future?
Or you can just tell us how you feel about the book. Remember, this is the second of FOUR Book Club Reads this year, we will be voting in July for our Young Adult Read September 1, so head over to the Cannonball Read Book Chat to tell me your suggestions since I believe in the power of crowdsourcing.
Okay, Cannonballers – have at it!
I loved Doomsday Book and I’ve been loving all the reviews, even the ones that didn’t love the book.
I was thinking about the sensory overload issue that Melanir brought up in her review. I think one of the things Willis explores in her books is the ways we misunderstand and misinterpret what is happening – whether its because of background noise or confusion. The confusion and noise is a constant in the world whether it’s the near future or the distant past.
Yes, I agree that the theme of misunderstanding is a big one in the book. It happens a couple of times where people interpret something they hear as something that they want to hear. Badri’s illness and the miscommunication that happens because of that is the biggest example. But there were little examples as well. Like when Kivrin wonders at Rosemund’s upset that Lord X (cannot remember his name) was visiting. I put that together right away, because I read books about the medieval era, but Kivrin never even thought about Rosemund being engaged, because she’s so young.
2, 3, and 6, ish: I think my main takeaway from the book was, as I quipped on Goodreads, a surprising amount of fatalism — the idea that that the more things change, the more they stay the same; we will always be taken aback and ill-equipped to handle circumstances out of our control, and there will always be people trying to explain the inexplicable in varyingly ludicrous ways. This being my first Willis book, I was kind of surprised by its bleakness, despite Kivrin getting rescued at the end. I think I was expecting a bit more stereotypically-British irreverence, and aside from the silly plot moppets, instead I got a pretty straightforward catastrophe (and two for the price of one!)
I do think Willis’ general thesis is that the more things change the more they stay the same. There’s something unchanged in humanity, both our ability to commit extraordinary acts of compassion in difficult times, but more often our penchant for finding someone to blame.
To Say Nothing of the Dog takes a more comedic look at the same thesis.
Yeah, it definitely didn’t have the rosy ending one might have been hoping for (against hope). I found Colin to be a sort of optimistic character. He’s young but has had to face some pretty tough situations re: his family and the outbreak. He’s responsible but still very kid-like, and in the end, he talks about wanting to become an historian and travel back to the Crusades. On one hand, I want to shake my head in despair that he would want to do that after what Kivrin’s been through. On the other, I think he represents the human spirit — the desire to know more. It’s like the space program in the ’60s — there were some horrible setbacks and deaths, but there were astronauts ready to get back on the launchpad and try again. That’s pretty optimistic an courageous.
I defer to your much more reasoned (and probably accurate) assessment of Colin, as my take on him is colored — to his detriment — by my own lack of patience for kids in stories who always seem to pop up and get in the way. This also describes Agnes, btw, so I roped them together as another piece of evidence in the “Everything is the same across time” motif: there are blisteringly precocious children in all eras!
My problem – and lord how I’ve waited to say this – is that Kivrin DOESN’T get stuck in the past. Willis had me with her on the fatalism/as things change they stay the same theme and then she goes and pulls the rug out from under her argument. Yes, people are always going to try to rescue others, but c’mon. I had just made peace with it!
Great point, and I had the same reaction. The end definitely wanted to have it both ways with the rescue being successful. I wasn’t THAT bothered by it, but I definitely noticed the tonal shift between “Everyone dies!” and “Yay we did it!”
I hated this book. It was boring. There is virtually no characterization for any of the modern day characters. It’s probably because no one knows what’s going on, so they all spend time trying to figure that out instead of actually interacting and revealing character.
Some of the medieval characters get some attention, which makes those parts of the book a real relief. I would say because Kivrin has some knowledge of what’s going on (and the communicator issues? That was bad), she can actually describe and interact with the people she meets. I did like that reveal with Father Roche towards the end of the book. But even so, that wasn’t enough to redeem this book.
This was my big hang-up. I just didn’t care about anyone, and wasn’t interested in anyone but Kivrin. Every time she cut to the future world, I was utterly indifferent to the story.
Which was very disappointing, because this seemed like a book I should like.
I may have been swung purely on affection for Father Roche and his faith.
I never even made it that far.
I even tried the audiobook, but didn’t like the reader, so I couldn’t get into it.
I played it at 1.5 speed because the reader was not great. The more we chat about this, the more I’m thinking of downgrading this book to a 3 (on my already rather lenient scale).
Bad readers can absolutely ruin books. I bet you guys would have liked it better if you’d done the hard copy.
Was anybody else convinced that Father Roche was really Basingame? I thought instead of sneaking away to fish in Scotland, he was actually vacationing in the Middle Ages, and that’s why no one could find him. She harped so much about Basingame, and things were so weird about Roche, I figured there was more meat to those stories.
WOW I didn’t think that, but what a great twist that would have been.
I was convinced that Roche was from the future and “praying” into a recorder like Kivrin.
Ditto! Kept waiting for that reveal. Maybe he had a smallpox scar lol
I was thinking that Basingame was a god-like figure: everyone believes in his power and thinks he will be on their side, and no one can actually find him. In fact, we never know what happened to Basingame.
I like this take on it! Even the scientists have a god, they just don’t see it that way.
I was really leaning into the idea that the search for Basingame was meant to make us realize that looking for rescue or authority outside of ourselves could be fruitless.
Oh, I like that. Quite a bit. Though do you feel that idea is countered by Roache’s determination that Kivrin was sent by God to see that small village through the crisis?
I thought of Roche’s certainty in God was reflected in Dunworthy’s certainty in Basingame.
Roche believed his God would never fully forsaken the flock, and therefore sent “St.” Katherine to look after them at their time of need. Dunworthy wastes time trying to get to an unanswering/unfindable Basingame who would certainly put things to rights.
Right. But Roche’s belief was validated by the presence of Kivrin, whereas Dunworthy never reached Basingame. Roche got his answer because Kivrin WAS present, whether sent by God or not. He was never ‘abandoned’. But Dunworthy was left to figure it out on his own, he never got an answer from his figure of authority.
Which I think may make the comparison stronger? Except that it highlights the different types of beliefs between the Medieval era and now.
That all makes a lot of sense. I did wonder what poor Kivrin would do when she got home, though. She got rescued by one authority figure (Dunworthy), but she also got thoroughly abandoned by the other (God), as she watched all these people she had come to care for die horribly. There is no college credit that’s going to make up for that. I hope Dunworthy arranges for LOTS of therapy for all of them, Badri and Colin included.
Yes, hopefully they will not go the Dumbledore route of “Oh, you’ve had a traumatic experience? Let’s leave you by yourself. And absolutely no therapy for you!”
I run into trouble with the idea of Kivrin being abandoned by God, because something floating through my head over and over had to do with the fact that in 2054 they even still believed in a very traditional Judeo-Christian God. There’s something about the way that they referred to contemps in the past as having outdated ideas that made it hard for not just to think “you’re tomorrow’s contemps.”
I really think that was on purpose. I also liked trying to parse out all the different “modern” religious sects.
I see a stronger parallel between Roche/God and Kivrin/Dunworthy. WHenever Kivrin records her experiences, she says she imagines she is talking to Dunworthy and has faith he will eventually hear her words. She even has to hold her hands in a prayer-like position to activate the recording device. I believe Roche would’ve continued in his faith even if he hadn’t seen Kivrin’s arrival. I found it very moving that both Roche and Kivrin were not shaken in their faith even in the face of death.
Yes! This was my interpretation – Basingame was the God-figure for the future who could fix everything, but was unfindable.
I hadn’t thought that, but I kind of love the idea. Plus, Gilchrist would be so mad when he found out (you know, if he hadn’t died from that pesky virus and all).
I know! I expected Gilchrist to get his comeuppance, but jeez. He died without even getting yelled at! Coward.
I was so glad when I found out he died. The jerk.
DAMN. I love that theory. I also loved Roche, so I might be biased…
OMG, THIS BOOK IS SO BORING. I’m not finished yet (according to Audible* I’m 81% through) but I’m determined to finish so I can write a proper scathing review.
My main problems with the book are twofold. First, as CoffeeShopReader mentioned, the characters have no personalities. At best they have one defining characteristic. Dunworth and Finch are worried, Colin is cheerful, Kivrin is…stubborn? Roche is kind, Agnes is whiny. It made it very hard to actually care about anybody.
Secondly, SO REPETITIVE OMG. I get that “while technology has advanced basic human nature remains more or less unchanged” is a major theme in the book but to go through one set of plot points in the present and then to go through an almost identical set of plot points** in the past got really tedious, really fast. And that doesn’t even cover the things the characters just WON’T SHUT UP ABOUT. Kivrin, “I must find the drop point.” Dunworthy, “I must get the fix read.” Finch, “I must get more lavatory paper.” Mrs. Gadstone, “My son is so sickly and also you’re going to hell.” Imeyne, “You’re all going to hell.” Agnes, “I want to ring my bell.” SHUT UP, I HATE YOU ALL SO MUCH.
So, yeah, boring characters and repetitive plot mean I am not a fan of this book and will likely not be reading any other books my Connie Willis
*Which, by the way, this is one of the worst audiobooks I’ve heard in years. The reader is terrible. Every time Agnes whines I feel like a spike is being driven through my head. And Agnes whines a lot.
**4. Though I will admit that we seem to be at a point of divergence right now, with the present able to cure their epidemic thanks to advances in medicine while in the past it becomes more and more clear that there is no hope. That is a good bit of writing.
as bonnie mentioned over on goodreads, this book could easily have lost 150 pages or about 4 hours of audio.
There was so much potential that I felt wasn’t properly explored for the length of the book. I thought for it being so long, it would have had a much more complex plot.
Absolutely agree.
So as I said in my review, I had a hard time with this novel. I think it’s very well written, but it also aggravated my anxiety issues. Which is a doubly annoying because reading is one of my coping mechanisms.
1. So the historians in general bugged me a lot. They seemed to have this idea that people in the past were somehow different then modern people, which isn’t true. And while I think it’s a good way for Willis to show how people in general are the same throughout time, it bothered me as I don’t actually know many historians who would think that way. I did find the obsession with statistics among the historians a bit amusing though.
2. So this was one of the things I brought up in my review. The bells and general noise of the novel bothered me on a personal level, but I do think they added to the chaos Willis is trying to convey. They were very effectively deployed to show how chaotic things get in times of crisis. I do love the irony that they were in general religious bells, something people would think to take comfort from, and yet they were a source of distress for me personally.
4. I really admire the crafting that went into the novel. The fact that Willis could give me sensory overload simply using words on a page is definitely a tribute to the effectiveness of her writing. That I didn’t enjoy the effect it had on me doesn’t mean I can’t admire the crafting of the effect.
#4 is the question that I’m still mulling over. I honestly did not like the writing in the book. I thought that Willis had a genuinely interesting concept that got completely lost in the morass of her plotting. So much telephoning and searching and running around FOR NOTHING! And what was up with the cow begging to be milked? I wonder if it was supposed to be funny–because I thought it was a distracting element from a very serious and quite tragic episode in the book.
What she did do well was character. I really liked the family that Kivrin landed with and got attached to them. And oh, my stars, FATHER ROCHE. I fell completely in love with him. The ending was hard for me for that reason alone. faintingviolet mentioned him, as well. There’s something about the way Willis reverses stereotypes through his character that really grabbed me. In short: this was a solid 2-star book for me, which receives an upgrade for character development.
Also, faintingviolet, doesn’t Roche remind you of Emilio Sandoz from The Sparrow? [Too soon?]
I remember liking that cow detail. Cows need to be milked every day or they get sick from it, right? I just thought it was a reminder that the plague had devastated the community, and there were all these remnants of their lives floating around in the ruins.
Yes, cows must be milked. An unmilked cow will be in a great deal of pain and will eventually get an infection of the udder, mastitis (which nursing moms can also get), which will then eventually lead to death for the animal. The cow to me was the expression of Kivrin’s being absolutely overwhelmed by what was happening around her. She’s the type of character who would care for the animal if she could.
I think we feel more for the cow because we work with cows.
its true! I kept seeing Calico’s face whenever the cow was mentioned.
I get it about the cow, but I could have gotten it with, oh, say, 10 fewer mentions about it? Applies also to most everything else in the book!
There were lots of things I could have seen mentioned less, but during part three when everything is finally coming to a head, the fact that this cow was abandoned helped me as the reader sink in to the lack of time, but I am admittedly biased to animals in general and cows in specific.
Ugh, all the telephoning! Though part of my irritation with all the telephoning was the Ms. Willis incorrectly predicted which technology would be used in the future and that SO MANY problems in the book could have been solved by people having cell phones and I knew that it wasn’t really Ms. Willis fault that she didn’t predict the prevalence of cell phones so I tried not to be irritated about that, but it was difficult.
There were a lot of things in the book that had me going, “Was that supposed to be funny?” Mrs. Gadstone was one of those things. I think she’s supposed to be comical but she really is very irritating. It did occur to me after I posted my comment that there were a lot of similarties between Mrs. Gadstone and Lady Imeyne (they were both very, “I know what is best,”) and that that was well done on Ms. Willis part, making them so similar without overlapping too much.
I thought that the five years spent led to a lot of overwriting on Willis’ part. She seems to have decided to show us every detail, and as Amanda mentions, she was not as great at being prescriptive in the “future”.
And bonnie, YES, Roche and Sandoz are of the same cloth and I may have wept at his endgame. (always too soon, but we should decide when we want to read the next book, Children of God, I need a buddy.) I see a lot of people thought that the characterization didn’t show up, but I thought Willis did a good job of crafting in small details that brought the characters to life for me, particularly Finch and the bells.
Oh, yeah, I forgot that part. It’s definitely always too soon to bring up The Sparrow. Oh my god, my heart, ow.
“Overwriting” is absolutely the correct word for it. I think some careful editing could have guided the story a bit and sped up some of the day-to-day bits.
Also, I’m game this year for Children of God. Summer always works better for super heavy books, because then I can bounce back more quickly with a “fun” and happy book.
I’m thinking July?
July sounds good! Let’s do it.
I really have to highly recommend The Company series by Kage Baker. https://www.goodreads.com/series/41665-the-company
Also a time travel scenario – quoting from someone’s review :
“In the twenty-fourth century, a cabal of scientists discovers time travel and forms a company named Dr. Zeus, whose mission is to plunder the past for profit in the present. They have limitations, however, in that it is impossible to modify the known past, so the Company must operate in the shadow of the known timeline and acquire its products (such as rare plants and works of art, etc.) behind the scenes.”
I read this book last year and liked it a lot, but I decided not to re-read for book club because it emotionally exhausted me last time, and I don’t know if reading it is an experience I will ever want again.
Part of the reason it affected me that way is because I think Willis is really good at creating atmosphere. Other people seem to be reading this part of it as “boring” (or in the case of Melanir, oppressive and panic-inducing) but I love immersive writing that can give you the actual feelings experienced by the characters. She is really hyper-focused on using the details of her settings to convey that experience to the reader, and isn’t overly concerned about plot or character interactions. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that style, but I can see how other people might dislike it.
Like other people, I was bothered by the disconnect between Willis’ version of the future and ours, notably the lack of cell phones, and the way that increased all those instances of people trying to find and communicate with one another. I do think it was on purpose, though, even if it didn’t work for people (it even annoyed me after a while, and I was otherwise fine with the book). It felt like a deliberate parallel between their inability to connect with Kivrin in the past, and the powerless that resulted from that. (Possibly what triggered you, melanir?) It was very stressful.
It’s been over a year since I read the book, though, so many details escape me.
I also liked the immersive atmosphere. I thought the constant focus on the banal details of life in a crisis grounded me in the experience of the characters. For whatever reason, people are cut off and isolated. For all the technology we have (even if she got it wrong) we are often as isolated and powerless as we were without technology.
That sounds pretty likely. The constant depictions of trying to reach someone and not getting them, or going to meet another person and just missing them, really triggered a couple of my social anxiety issues. It’s funny because I don’t mind making calls and having to leave a message (I prefer it to actually talking sometimes), so yea I suspect it was the powerlessness that resulted from these missed communications that hit off those particular brain chemical reactions.
And I really admire Willis’s ability to write such an immersive atmosphere. She’s the only writer I’ve ever read who has been able to push those particular brain buttons. I do think she’s an excellent writer, but maybe not one for me.
Wow. This is what happens when CBR book club falls when I am absolutely buried in work. I’ve been reading the whole thread and am really enjoying everyone’s observations.
Because I am likely to perish while still grading essays at this point (or so it feels), I have not yet been able to post my review. Nor am I likely to have time to do it for another two weeks. End of term essays suck, that’s all I’m saying.
I liked quite a lot of the book, especially the history parts, but as a historian who specialised in Medieval European History, that’s not really surprising. I found a lot of the 2054 bits incredibly tedious (as I have to believe they were supposed to be) with people frantically calling around and not getting hold of one another. By the third time Finch went on about the toilet paper, I wanted to strangle him. While I generally liked Dunworthy, it was actually his stupid mother hen anxiety that led to the feverish Badri panicking and not trusting the original tech’s coordinates – so he was in fact responsible for Kivrin being sent to the wrong place, not Gilchrist (who was the worst. There was NO nuance to him – I’m glad he died). I really liked Mary and was sad when she died. My views on Colin fluctuated. I thought he was a bit of an annoying plot moppet to begin with (as was Agnes, but she had the excuse of being FIVE. Five-year-olds are always annoying), but he got better as the book went on. I did like his insistence on taking care of Dunworthy after Mary died.
While they were slow, and I absolutely agree that the book was overwritten (they could have cut a LOT of phone calls, and annoyed bellringers and whatshisface’s (who slept with every available female, apparently)’s mother and Finch stressing about toilet paper – they could also have cut quite a bit of Kivrin worrying about the damn drop point and rather a lot of Agnes’ “delightful” childish antics. Add me to the camp that found the pushy cow annoying. I still really liked the atmosphere created and the attention to detail.
Then of course everyone started dying and it became a relentless slog towards the end. Even though it was obvious he wasn’t going to be spared, I was absolutely gutted when Father Roche succumbed. Not fair, you guys. Also, all that lancing of buboes – urgh! Too much detail for me, really.
I loved the concept of time travel as a historical research tool and how completely incorrect they were about Kivrin’s outfit and and her lack of callouses and so forth. I forget who quoted Monty Python in the title of their review – that film really does do a remarkable job of portraying the Middle Ages. Never forget that several of the Pythons had history degrees. The Middle Ages were full of dirt and squalor and you could tell which one was the king because he wasn’t all covered in muck.
I am totally with you on your take on Kivrin, Agnes, Colin, and the cow. And Gilchrist, the ass.
I was also devastated by Mary. Oh, man.
Very nice point about Monty Python. And your other points, too.
Okay, I finished the book last night and I will admit that the ending was not unaffecting. It was actually really heartbreaking. Rosemond’s death and Roche ringing the bell for her once because she was a child, in particular. Roche’s illness and death also really got to me, as did Kivrin’s determination to ring the bell for Roche, as he had for every other person in the village.
I still absolutely found the first 90% of the book dull and repetitive, but based on the strength of the ending, I would now be willing to give another Connie Willis book a try.
I finished it last night, too — blew through the last 100 pages and the ending crushed me. I did not expect both kids AND Roche to die. I figured Willis would sacrifice maybe one. Very affecting, IMO. And poor Aunt Mary!
Roche and Aunt Mary… I was emotionally manipulated at the hands of Connie Willis. I just wanted Roche to live, is that so wrong? I am such a marshmallow.