Tildes Book Club: Discussion topic for Roadside Picnic
This is the Discussion topic for all those who participated in Tildes Pop-up Book Club: Roadside Picnic, or for anyone who has previously read the book and wishes to join in.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
For all the latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.
My general thoughts, as they don't quite fit any of the more specific topics cfabbro posted.
I'll start with the things I enjoyed about the book. I liked the sort of 'jump in' story telling; there are no lengthy explanations or exposition at the beginning, the story just begins and you pick up the context along the way. I thought the progression around the zone was realistic, from people abandoning the areas around them out of fear to eventually being big hubs for the rich, fueled by the wealth of the zones. I liked the 'roadside picnic' explanation of extraterrestrial visitation, which is a flavor I don't think I've seen before.
I disliked the deep misogyny of the book. The decisions of women don't drive the plot, or have much influence on the world. Women aren't scientists, guards, merchants, doctors, or stalkers. They're sex workers. They're wives to be lied to and cheated on and to anxiously wait at home while the men do things. They're daughters to be fridged, because isn't that really oh so hard on the men? We never get the slightest clue about how the Monkey feels about anything at all that's happened to her; her entire story is told through Red or the effects it has on Red.
Nowhere is this more clear than Arthur and Dina. They're both the Vulture's children, beneficiaries of the same wish and raised in the same environment. The only clear difference between them is their gender. Arthur is maybe a bit of a twerp, in that way of the naive, overeager youth, but has a good heart as seen by his wish at the end. Dina though is debauched and empty and throws tantrums about how Red should've killed her father. Overall it's just very frustrating how common an issue this is in older works (and works today, honestly, but there has been some improvement).
I think it's worth pointing out that not only was this book published in 1972, but it was also published in the Soviet Union during a time when government censorship was still in full effect. That's not to defend the sexism portrayed in the book, detract from your perfectly valid (and totally justified) criticism, or to suggest that the Strugatsky brothers would have written the story drastically differently had they not had to worry about censorship, but it is worth pointing out for the sake of context. Which is also why I think the first part of the forward written by Ursula K. Le Guin is worth mentioning:
The rest of the forward (which was a copy of her old review) can be found here:
https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/12/leguin12.htm
And also worth mentioning is the afterword by Boris Strugatsky which goes into more details about the censorship:
p.s. You can see a list of all the changes that were forced on them by reading the full thing here:
https://simipress.com/on-censorship-in-the-soviet-union/
I read the second link to get a better idea of the changes. None of the listed ones relate to misogyny.
So there's a small moment in the book that stuck out to me. Redrick calls Guta when he's caught, telling her it'll be a quick 6 month stint in jail. He then immediately calls the sleezy capitalist to sell him the slime and says 2 or 3 years. It's just such a petty, cruel lie to tell to somebody you supposedly care about. To brace yourself for a bad situation, only to find out that it's going to be so much worse than you were told? That's not how you treat a partner, someone who's your equal. And what's the justification for it? There's no way Guta doesn't find out the truth, and extremely soon at that.
The censors took issue with the 'immoral behavior of the heroes'; I highly doubt they would've objected to him telling the truth. Either nobody cared about the lie, or the authors actively fought for its inclusion. And that's just one example.
Things were much different in 1972, and in the Soviet Union which is far from my neck of the woods. But I don't really buy the 'it was a different time' thing in this context. Misogyny being widespread and relatively unchallenged then doesn't make it more pleasant to read now. There are some situations I give it cachet though; cases like where an author earnestly tries for real inclusion, but the work falls short by modern standards even though it was revolutionary for its time. That's not really the case here. There's also the metrics by which we judge the creators of a work, and more academic discussions using the text as a lens into the past. I see those as different discussions from this specific one, but still potentially worth having here if people are interested.
The context about the publishing process and such is good and appreciated, but I think it would be better as it's own comment rather than a reply; none of it addresses the things I liked or disliked about the book, so it's rather tangential at best. I hope I'm not coming across too harshly; your comment is good, I just think it's misplaced overall. I guess I'd summarize my comment as this is a good discussion, but for a different thread.
Yeah, like I said, I wasn't trying to suggest that the Strugatsky brothers would have written the story drastically differently had they not had to worry about censorship, and your criticism is valid and justified. However, the novel was a product of its time and culture, so I do still think what I shared is relevant when it comes to framing certain criticisms of the work. I also suspect the Soviet censors likely would have taken issue with a more egalitarian portrayal of gender roles, so it still might have been a consideration for the authors when writing it. But I am no expert in Soviet era censorship, nor have I read much Soviet-era literature, so I could be completely wrong about all that. Although it should be noted that the Strugastky brothers held off on publishing a previous written work, The Doomed City, for fear of the repercussions, even going so far as to keep the novel's existence hidden from friends/family. So that sort of thing was clearly a very real concern for them.
But if you truly feel my reply was a bit too tangential/offtopic from your own, I can delete it and redo it as another top-level comment if you would prefer.
Edit: I am genuinely sorry to hear you found it so uncomfortable, and unpleasant to read. The blatant sexism in it was something I had unfortunately not considered when I made the recommendation. I read a lot of old scifi, so that sort of thing is something I guess I have simply grown accustomed to seeing. But it is something I will try to keep in mind in the future when selecting Book Club books. And if you have any suggestions for how to better handle issues like this going forwards, I am all ears.
The official Soviet ideology was very much about total gender equality, so the censorship would not have had any ideological issues with a more equal portrayal of gender roles. However, reality did not quite live up to the ideology, just like the rest of communism. Society was almost entirely male-dominated, women had to do all the housework (in addition to working in the factories), there were double standards, etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_Russia#Feminism_in_Soviet_society for a brief summary.
The Strugatsky brothers' views and experience with women were typical for their society. While their books were progressive and subversive in pointing out flaws in the Soviet political system, I don't think they ever even realized gender issues existed. In that regard, their books are not much different than most of the American sci-fi classics.
I've also read a lot of old sci-fi and I'm fairly used to it, but I had a similar reaction as the original commenter after rereading Frederik Pohl's Gateway recently. When I read it as a kid years ago I didn't notice all the sexism in it, but today it makes me cringe. It was still an interesting book, but I had to read through some unpleasant parts to get there. I think that's unavoidable; when reading the classics, you have to read around the parts that don't work any more and focus on the ideas that are still relevant.
Having thought about it more, you can forget about the whole new topic thing. Sometimes I go overboard on getting everything squared away just so. But actual conversations tend to wander rather than staying in neat little boxes, and trying to make it otherwise is harmful to the conversation. You've made some good points, I just got a bit tunnel-visiony about things.
Diving into the culture is interesting. In a small, tangential thing from your earlier article, I do find it interesting where he mentions that the censors weren't doing this for bureaucratic reasons; it was because they actually believed it. I find this similar to a type of puritanical moral crusader in the USA (though I vaguely associate the exact flavor a bit more with the past; things like the Hays Code). I find it interesting because in the US, it's typically strongly associated with Christianity whereas IIRC the Soviet Union took a dim view on religions at best. The same sort of person in the same sort of role arising in a place without the underlying religious element is just kinda neat to consider.
I do appreciate the apology, but feel it's not warranted in my case. While I don't know that I'll pick up Roadside Picnic again, I also didn't stop reading it. You shared it because it was a work you had enjoyed, and wanted to share that, which is part of what makes a community a community. But sometimes, things go a bit awry. I've been in the position where I revisit a work I remember fondly and find in it flaws I didn't recognize before. It's a deeply uncomfortable experience, and can even deal an emotional blow if it's one that was particularly close. But I thought it was still important to bring up the sexism issue, one of the reasons being that it so often goes unnoticed. It's a dynamic that spills over into the real world, where marginalized groups have to fight for the issues that affect them to get the recognition they deserve. I think we all want Tildes to be an inclusive space, and I think an important part of that is to be aware of those things.
But the change in the relationship with a work doesn't mean we have to lose it. There are a lot of good things about the book as well. No media is perfect. How we feel about a work is often a matter of balance, of if, to us, the pros outweigh the cons. I think it's important to be aware of the flaws of a work, but that doesn't mean you can't also appreciate its virtues. My goal with all this isn't to make anyone stop enjoying Roadside Picnic; it's just to make them aware of why some people might not.
Going forwards, I think including a content advisory (if there's something that would make somebody hesitate to recommend the book to a certain group of people, make it known) would be a good idea for a couple reasons. The first is it allows anyone that the content is a deal breaker for to avoid it with a minimum of hassle. The second is that by deliberating taking note of the issues makes it harder to unintentionally make a pattern of them. One book having a problematic element is one thing, but having a consecutive run of them with the same problem can cause people to drift away entirely.
I find the misogyny angle very intriguing because I would not have thought this was a misogynistic story at all without reading your comment.
I want to comment on this but I also respect that perhaps you wouldn't want to have to defend a perfectly legitimate reading of it, and I definitely want to steer clear of any possible controversy.
I just wonder if I am perhaps blind to it in general or if I have a very different interpretation for "strength" and "positively portrayed character"
I finished this a while ago, and I returned my library copy so I can't refer back to it for specifics or even to refresh my memory, so here's a scattered list of thoughts and what stuck with me.
Oooh how interesting. If you wish there are online full text copies....
I also appreciate the brevity of the novella: it reads like a multi part Nebula award short story. The choppiness also makes me extra sad for The Monkey: the first time readers meet her, she seems bright and loving and making the best of her condition, and I had hoped that with Red's effort to help her socialize with the other children, that the next time we meet she'll have grown up into a happy young lady, beating the odds of the Zone. I was so, so, so sad when the butcher declared her as no longer human.....my only solace is that perhaps she's able to communicate fluently with Grandpa in ways humans don't understand, but that she's full of laughter in her way and in better health than humans could ever hope to achieve.......the unsettling incident where they "vocalize" might, in her world, be a wonderful non human experience.....
I'm very surprised to hear about the misogyny angle? Do you find description of women in "limited circumstances" to be misogynistic? Is it Red's attitude towards Dina? How much can or should readers excuse the attitudes of characters as "in character"?
Re: Arthur being the key. Does the original Russian language also support this dual meaning? I like your insight very much and hope that it is the case in Russian, or intended by the translators adaptation as well.
Latecomer to this discussion, but to your point 7, I wanted to offer an alternative perspective. Is it fair to exclude it from recommendation to other women? I certainly don't speak for all women in any of the following personal opinions, but I enjoyed the story for what it was. Sure, I noticed the lack of women in working positions, the treatments toward Guta and Dina (which I attributed to 'the times', and also Red's character).
Personally, I didn't find these so egregious as to tarnish other aspects of the story I did like (there have been books in which the treatment of women/minorities has bothered me).
People are capable of dialectical thinking. Maybe cage your suggestion with a minor heads-up that the writing of women is reflective of older attitudes, and let the women in your life decide for themselves if it's a book they'd like to check out.
When this kind of situation crops up, I usually just include a caveat to my recommendation depending on the person. A related example is I find some of Blade Runner problematic despite really loving that movie. To some people, that kind of thing can ruin the experience, while other folks can "see past it" to still enjoy the strengths. Overall, I'd still recommend Roadside Picnic, but yeah, I'd potentially mention its regressive treatment of woman – but then again a lot of classic science-fiction suffers from this so anyone I'm recommending this book to likely already has thick skin on the subject if they still like sci-fi.
What did you think of the ending? Do you enjoy ambiguous endings, or do you prefer more definitive ones?
Is it really ambiguous? Granted, we don't know if the "Wish" is a real thing but we know for certain what he wished for, at the end.
I don't think the aftermath is as important as his journey, both the physical travel and psychological development of the character.
I personally felt it was pretty ambiguous, since it was a pretty ambiguously worded wish, and given the monkey's paw nature of the golden sphere, who knows what that wish actually resulted in. I agree that the journey was the more important part though.
For me, whether the golden sphere grants the wish is not important at all. The point of the ending is that Red realizes that doesn't know what to wish for. The golden sphere can make anything come true but all the things he thought he would wish for are petty and insignificant:
Red desperately wants to think of something bigger, something more universal to wish for, but he can't. In the end he fall back to Arthur naive and childish words, even though he knows they are meaningless. The last paragraph of the book:
Here is a quote from an interview with Boris Strugatsky from 2000 (Google Translated from http://www.rusf.ru/abs/int_t13.htm):
My interpretation is that the ending is a rejection of the Soviet communist ideology, which was based on the idea that there is one uniform ideal that must satisfy everyone.
For historical context: by the 1970s the Strugatsky brothers had become completely disillusioned with the Soviet system. It is also important to remember that Roadside Picnic was written at same time as The Doomed City, which was so explicitly political and anti-Soviet that they had to keep it secret and unpublished until the late 80s. The subversive ideas in Roadside Picnic were much more subtle, but they are there.
Ditto. The ending being a rejection of Soviet ideology was my interpretation as well. I hinted as much in the original Book Club topic (and like you, I even mentioned The Doomed City too). I had never read that interview before though, so thanks for sharing that!
I found the ambiguity of the ending perfect for the story. Even if we got some kind of answer to what happened with Red and his wish, there are still so many questions that remain unanswered. The setup of the story is that we have no clue who the visitors are and what all the stuff they left behind is really for. An incredible amount of explaining would have to be done for a satisfying definitive ending.
The title "Roadside Picnic" plays into this really well too, we as readers of the book only get a tiny part of the full story. We don't get to see the beginning of how it all went down, the first chapter begins with the zones having appeared years ago. And we don't get to see the end, do they figure out how the eternal batteries work, or why Kirill died so suddenly, that silver cobweb Red was so paranoid about seemed awfully related? Just a quick stop on the side of the road, nothing more.
In the context of this book, I liked the ambiguous ending: just way way way more questions than answers, and even knowing one thing just means you dont know anything at all, just like how using a battery doesn't mean they understand it at all.
Did he get his wish? Does the sphere actually grant wishes? What about Arthur's wish: does it always chew up one person per wish? What made Red "suddenly" forget his wish, for good human health and happiness for the Monkey and Dad?
And even if that wish got granted magically by the sphere, it doesn't change the fact that somehow he was ready to be out of the game, but circumstances pull them back in: not just him but the other zone emigrants. If the Monkey always stayed a happy little girl who understands them and can communicate, Red might..... probably have just rolled with it and just sort of be glad his dad is around in a way. But if the zone takes interests in human desires: if the sphere understands human desires, then perhaps it actively draws people in and messes with them.
An abandoned banana is one thing, but a weird food station that understands what the wildlife wants and dispenses it, but that which kills most animals that comes close is much more sinister than just a food baited wild life cam.
Like some kind of galactic Takeshi's Castle.
For one kind of definitive ending, in the style of old trek episodes, the mom of some energy being might come along and say oh how naughty, and restore everything and leave with the child.
I normally don't like ambiguous endings, or open ended plot points for that matter, but you are right in that it is a fitting ending to the book. There are so many things throughout the story that are never fully explained, leaving the reader to use their own imaginations to finish those story lines, so why should the ending be any different.
I thought the cobweb was such a perfect introduction to the Zone. It showed Red's fear and carefulness without ever really explaining it. It let us know that this place is serious business, and that anything, however small, poses a very serious threat.
Why did Kirill die? Because the Zone got him. That's all. The specifics don't matter. Red made a mistake, and Kirill paid the price.
Red was never one of the eggheads. He doesn't try to understand the "why" of the Zone. As much as we the reader would love an insight into what that cobweb did, or where it came from, there'll be no explanation. Redrick wasn't interested in such things.
I agree it was ambiguous. There's reason to believe that the sphere was real. The Vulture had great success, which he attributed to the sphere. And Red and Arthur both felt its pull, suggesting it to be a powerful artefact at the very least.
But does it grant wishes? I'll avoid the cop-out of just claiming there is no answer, because I think it's more interesting to speculate. And my personal feeling is that no, it does not.
Despite all the breaking of laws of physics, there was a branch of almost-science established previously. Everything from infinite energy, to gravimetric disturbances, to reanimated corpses can at least be explained away as advanced technology. But wishes? There is no explanation that I can imagine.
The Vulture was a scoundrel, and his success can be attributed to his willingness to step on others to get ahead. He would beg, lie, and cheat to get what he wanted. His was willing to sacrifice his own son to get his legs back. We know there were plenty of bad actors that paid good money for the nastiest of Zone swag, and Vulture was just the kind of guy to deliver them.
The other reason I feel this is not a wish-giving artefact is for the simple reason that the Zone is cruel. Nothing was left for the betterment of humans. Some leftover crumbs in a discarded chip bag may seem a feast for ants, but the other 99% of it is toxic plastics.
Really, it just seems entirely too human to imagine a wish-granting sphere. Maybe it does serve as an approximation of such, but we're only seeing the crumbs - the part that makes sense to us, that we think is good for us. It's that other 99% that left a trail of deaths in the Vulture's path. A path which now includes Arthur, and possibly, Red too.
I thought the ending was ambiguous, and though I was hoping for more to the ending, I was satisfied with it. I talked with my husband afterwards, and he said it wasn't ambiguous, that he had wished to be the person the kind of person who wish for good for everyone, and that wish was granted. I did not like that take, and thinking of it that way made me kind of sad.
I don't know if I have a preference for endings. Sometimes the more definitive ones can seem too tidy, but then the more ambiguous ones can seem too lazy. It really depends on the author. Om this story, I think an ambiguous ending is fine, I could hope for him (until hubby inserted his two cents).
Ugh I don't like that explanation of ending, that his wish was granted but in a genie in a bottle way. I didn't play the games but I think the wish in the game was like that too: some kind of twisted gotcha that wasn't ever good.
But it would be kind of tidy though. Clever. But sad.
A question I had while reading it was on the format. Typically books are consistent with perspectives, and this is the first professional book I've read that's had mixed first- and third-person narratives from the same character without pattern. Red's first chapter is in first person but the following chapters of his are third person. My speculation is that it could be because:
Obviously I prefer the last option because it makes the book more interesting. If it is deliberate, then my interpretation is that at the beginning Red's primary focus and motivations were about himself, but at the end of the chapter when he realized he was about to have a child and that he wanted to support Guta, he had to look beyond himself.
I never noticed it before, thanks for pointing this out! It's not a translation issue, and it's not a normal convention in other books, so I think it's definitely a stylistic choice. I am not sure if it was planned from the beginning, or the authors decided to switch after the first chapter, but the effect is definitely interesting.
I only finished the book yesterday evening, so these are more like first impressions than nuanced arguments.
Like others, I really liked the show-don't-tell approach to describing the Zone. If it's important to understand, it'll be explained, but so much doesn't get that treatment. It suits the theme of lacking understanding nicely. I was a bit put off by the rambly style of prose, but I figure that's to do with the translation. Either way, it suits the dingy matter-of-fact vibe well enough.
I've read some of the other comments about the elements of the book that are subversive to Soviet communism, and I see that, but my own reading was rather different. The descriptions of the gentrification - for lack of a better term - of the zone by artifact brokers (e.g., the territorial mafia-esque behavior of Noonan after learning the Vulture is still getting his hands on artifacts) while stalkers do the actual dangerous work, and of automating their jobs away with "robo-stalkers", brought to my mind contemporary critiques of capitalism. Maybe this is just a point in the book's favor, that these things are relevant across time and economic architectures, but that's an argument for someone smarter than me to make.
As for Red's development... I'm not convinced that there was any? The big deal at the end is that his wish is Arthur's wish, happiness for all - and he makes a point of saying that he doesn't even know what that is, but he's human and so his desire can't be bad. This comes moments after he does nothing to keep Arthur from skipping straight into spaghettification and spends much of the chapter calling him a key, just a means to an end.
I think Red does develop significantly. Arthur and Kirill have an important similarity: they're both idealists who dream of a better world. In the beginning, Red goes out of his way to take on a dangerous mission to try and help Kirill. By the end, he's deliberately throwing Arthur to the grinder. My memory's a bit fuzzy, but IIRC his reason for taking Arthur specifically instead of one of the other novice stalkers was to get back at the Vulture, a man he previously saved. I wouldn't call it a positive development, but he is meaningfully different from the person he was at the beginning.
I'm late to the party but thanks for introducing me to an excellent book. I appreciated the precise word choice and the noir-ish tone. The cities where the stalkers and scientists and law enforcement operated reminded me of what I know of mining towns in the american west. There was legal and illegal extraction industry. There were bars and brothels. It is clearly a temporary environment. Red works really well as a hard bitten character. The author takes a concept and imagines thoroughly what it would do to characters and society.
The repeated exctraction expeditions were excellent interludes of survival/horror that reminded me of the best writing I've read about combat but with very wierd elements. The role of intuition as well as sensory acuity in surviving (or failing to survive) those missions was really convincingly portrayed. I wonder whether the author had military experience. The ecological destruction and deadly 'natural' phenomena are convincingly described.
The author definitely didn't give his women characters much room in the story for other than stereotypical roles. But he did portray affection which is more than some early science fiction writers did. It's kind of a low bar.
I thought the relationship between Red and his fence was very carefully and skillfully drawn. Overall I found the bluntness and openness about economic resentment and exploitation refreshing to read. Also the way he was useful to the scientists was an economic-sociological focus to the story that I'm not sure is common in the American science fiction I have read. Falling Free by edit Lois Bujold would be one example, but I haven't seen many.
This book isn't Crime and Punishment, but it is a psychological, interior, reflective novel. I think it's very well done on many levels. As science fiction it's a great exploration of ramifications of an alien encounter. The description of how the government reacted to the visit, both immediately and over time felt true to life. The scientists were convincing and sympathetic. The ending fits the subject matter artistically imho.
YVW! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it, and I really appreciate you taking the time to write such a thoughtful review of it. :)
I am another late comer to the party. But I am really glad that had read Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers. And by reading the Afterword that one of the brothers had written in 2012, it gave a lot more in sight into how the Soviet sensor boards had dealt with books and novels. And why the characters were different from the other main characters from novels in the same genre, like in the Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chinghiz Aitmatov (really a slice of life novel with a sci-fi subplot), whose main character does fit the perfect character that the Soviet Leadership had liked.
The relationship that Red and the other Stalkers has with the Zone is interesting. What I mean is that the Stalkers, like Red and the Vulture, can not live without the Zone, even through they know that it will lead them to being imprisoned, dead or worse. Such as leaving their companions to die on their own to save their own skins, like the Vulture did, or the lost of limbs like Vulture had happened to him in his trip with Red. And the effects that it has on their children, especially Red's daughter was interesting to see and why Guta's mother wanted her to get an abortion. But what this shows us is that the Zone holds a really special relationship with the Stalkers because of this mutation. And despite this and the other dangers in the Zone, the Stalkers, including Red, and not live without it, despite the fact that Red wanted to get out of the game while he was in prison, going as far as emigrating out of the area before the ban. And someone had pointed out here is that the Golden Sphere might be the cause of the fascination that the Stalkers have with the Zone, like the Holy Grail equivalent of relics. Mostly because no one really knows if it exists or not, what would be the purpose of it and why does it keep calling out to the Stalkers drawing them back into the Zone.
It is one of the best sci-fi works that I had read in recent times, and one that had influenced so many different pop culture things, from video games to book series. And after reading it, it makes sense why it had a lasting impact on pop culture as a whole.
Hi. No pressure, but is there a time table for selecting another book? : )
Baldur's Gate 3 has consumed my life! I ain't got time to read a book while I still have a Mind Flayer parasite stuck in my brain! :P
After I am done playing BG3 I will try to find time to create another book club event though. :)
How do you think the book compared to the movie, Stalker by Andrey Tarkovsky? Did it do the book justice? Did the movie handle the concept better?
How do you think the book compared to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games? Did they do the book justice? Did the games handle the concept better?
The chapters in Roadside Picnic where they're in the zone were very reminiscent of the games. In the games you are never outside the zone, so that permanent feeling of needing to pay close attention to your surroundings and make sure you're not about to step into something ready to obliterate you, came through very much in the book. The chapter where Red, Kirill and Tender go into the garage reminded me so much of going into Lab X-18 for the first time in Shadow of Chernobyl.
However the parts not particularly represented in the games are when we see Red & Co. outside the zone, living their lives and figuring out real-life shit. The games don't completely lack it, there are settlements and safe areas, but they're all filled with people doing stuff in the zone. Nothing but stalkers aligned to various factions.
Knowing the perspective of people outside the zones was something I had always wondered when playing the games, so getting it through the book was really nice. It made the story a lot more grounded and realistic. It's easy to forget that the zones left by the mysterious picnickers are (in total) only a small part of the world.
I've had a chance to watch it now. Strange movie! I went in blind so I didn't realize it was an art film, or that it was nearly three hours long.
I've been trying to put together an overview of my thoughts, but I haven't really figured it out yet. I don't think I enjoyed the film, but I also don't think enjoyment was the point. It was there to tell a story, and I was there to listen.
My first instinct was to compare it to the book, of course. The characters were vaguely connected (a stalker, a barman, a changed daughter). But they weren't really the same characters. I decided to stop making direct comparisons and try to consider them in their own context.
The Zone itself was different too. The rules were similar, but not the same. In the book, the safest route was to go back exactly the way you came. In the movie, the opposite was true, and there was no going back.
This for me taps into the biggest message of the film, or at least my takeaway from it: You can only move forward in life. Change is inevitable, and if you try to fight it, you will lose.
Like with the golden sphere, the mystery room in the film acts as a macguffin. It's there to drive the characters, but doesn't see any use or directly influence the story. Is it real? We don't know, and that probably isn't the point.
The writer believed it to be real. I appreciated his commentary about not letting it peer into the darkness of his soul, lest he cause undue harm on the world. That felt profound to me. It also showed how his experience in the Zone had changed him, that he was no longer willing to complete the task he set out to.
The stalker's pained reaction to the revelations of these two men also shows the differences between them. I think this too connects to change. The stalker cannot imagine a life without the Zone. It has shaped him, become him. The idea of losing it is too painful for him to bear. He still sees it as a miracle, despite the damage it has done. Despite the ways it has harmed his marriage, and disabled his daughter, it still gives him hope for a better future.
He insists he will not go back. Redrick claimed the same in the books and quickly broke that promise, but we must remember that these are different characters. I think movie stalker has a better chance, for he has something that Red didn't have: a kindly black german shepherd.
I spent a while trying to understand the dog during the film. Was he a companion of Porcupine's? Is this a connection to the past? I now think the dog represents the Zone itself. He is a piece of the Zone that the stalker can give affection to, and receive affection from. A fragment of something good.
We saw when the stalker first arrived in the Zone, how close he felt to it. He laid in its grasses, felt insects upon him. Now that he has a piece of it that he can take with him, maybe it will be enough to bring him comfort.
I'd like to mention the stalker's wife. She made a comment that she'd rather know bittersweet happiness than live a grey, uneventful life. I must mention at this point that the colors were dramatically different between the verdant flora in the Zone, and the drab, sepia backdrop of their home in communist Russia. Maybe this is post-hoc justification, but it's hard not to read this as political commentary.
Finally, in the end, we see that while monkey has lost the use of her legs (likely a throwback to Vulture), she has also gained telekinetic abilities. Again we come back to the theme of change. Like the ever-changing paths in the Zone, this is a change for the human race, and you can never go back.
That's totally fair. I did actually enjoy it, and have watched it several times over the years, but the enjoyment came more from the experience rather than the enjoyment watching a traditional film might make me feel. I find the pacing almost meditative, and the cinematography absolutely stunningly beautiful, a lot like Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi (which I also highly recommend!). But I am fully aware those sort of films are not for everyone.
Additional question:
The Burbridge Children were described as "zone-granted", beautiful human "wished up" rather than born to him, that Burbridge "finagled" "out of the Zone".
Is Red just exaggerating that the Zone's wealth granted family to Burbridge, or did he make two wishes at the Sphere for them? They're physically perfect, even if one of them seems to be shallow and vapid. What does it mean for the story world if they were regular humans vs wished for humans?
Quotes on Dina
Arthur
I don't think the implication was that Burbridge's children were wished up totally out of thin air, and not born naturally, merely that they were born healthy and exceedingly attractive because of his wish. At least that's how I read it. And considering that most other stalker's kids end up mutated like Red's daughter, it makes sense why Red would assume that their looks were the result of a wish, although Burbridge never openly admits as such, AFAIK.
p.s. Their mother is actually mentioned at one point in Red's narration:
I interpreted this exact part as the hint that the children were wished up by Burbridge. It was important enough to mention twice in one paragraph that the children didn't look like either one of their parents. Whether that means they came to be out of thin air or the wish was just to be born as some idealized idea by Burbridge, there's no way to know and frankly it probably doesn't matter. Not to mention that Burbridge is the one that gave him the map to the Sphere.
Is this book the origin of the anomalous, forbidden zone trope?
Prior to this book club I was vaguely familiar with the book's existence and had assumed that it was a post-Chernobyl meltdown story (probably because my first point of reference for it was the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series). It wasn't until I saw the publication date when I picked it up to read it that I realized the book was written well before that event, which makes the whole threatening exclusion zone idea of the book even more compelling, as it now seems like it was ahead of its time.
It also reminded me of Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, which has a similar setup.
Do we have Roadside Picnic to thank for this idea? Also, what other media uses the trope well?
I don't think Roadside Picnic originated the concept of a forbidden zone, since I can think of at least one prior example... Planet of the Apes (1968) has an area actually directly referred to as "the forbidden zone", although it was merely irradiated, and not full of anomalies. @Algernon_Asimov is our resident golden age scifi expert though, so he may be able to answer that more definitively, and perhaps provide us with an even earlier example.
TV Tropes likely has plenty of other examples, if you feel like digging into it:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForbiddenZone
(you unfortunately can't sort by date though, AFAIK)
I'm not sure you need me, given you already posted that TV Tropes link, and @chocobean helpfully quoted sections of it. I feel kind of redundant.
In fact, the very first example I thought of is already on that TV Tropes page: Earth in Isaac Asimov's 'Pebble in the Sky'. I'm not going to try to compete with an online encyclopaedia! :)
Also... without having read the book you're all discussing here, I'm not sure what type of Forbidden Zone this is. Is it forbidden because of cultural taboo, or because of danger, or because the inhabitants have put up "Keep Out" signs?
Another "Forbidden Zone" example I thought of was the planet Arisia in E.E. Smith's Lensman series - because the Arisians wanted to keep out tourists and lookie-loos, while they waited for the Chosen Ones to self-select and come to them. And that's from the 1940s! But I don't know if that's the type of Forbidden Zone that you're discussing here.
So, I'm not sure I can really help you. You've got an online reference at your fingertips, and I don't know what you're discussing. Thanks, anyway.
I started writing a brief summary, but Ursula LeGuin's foreword to the book already had a far better description:
Even though the book was written before Chernobyl, its description of the Zone almost perfectly matches the Chernobyl exclusion zone: a decaying post-apocalyptic industrial area full of invisible dangers and mutilated nature. The developers of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game combined the two to great effect.
cc @kfwyre
Just quickly from your TV tropes link:
Feels like forbidden zones must have been a thing ever since the first crone told youngsters stories around the first fire, dunnit?
Who was your favorite supporting character, and why? Who was your least favorite, and why?
Valentine Pillman. I liked him from the opening pages. His scientific perspective offered a great contrast to the survival-minded stalkers. He also had a bit of a mischievous streak, I thought, that I found endearing.
His conversation with Richard Noonan at the bar was very interesting, and felt like the book's most direct political and philosophical commentary. I particularly enjoyed their discussion of different definitions of "reason", ultimately deciding "All right, the hell with reason. Obviously, it's a real quagmire".
This is of course the same conversation where the phrase Roadside Picnic makes its appearance. After hearing the full explanation of the theory, Noonan responds: "Damn you scientists. Where do you get this disdain for man? Why do you constantly need to put him down?".
It made me think of the scientific move towards the heliocentric theory. Humankind needed to come to terms with no longer being the center of the solar system. Here, the dynamic has shifted again, and they need to reevaluate what it even means to be an intelligent life.
Understandably, Pillman the physicist and Noonan the engineer would have very different feelings about this.
I completely agree. For me, Valentine helped draw all the different threads of the story together. The first 2 chapters seemed a bit haphazard to me, with so many different pieces of a puzzle that I couldn't quite fit together. Then, here comes Valentine, spelling out the different theories for the things brought out of the zone and leading the reader to explore the different philosophical explanations for the visit in the first place.
I absolutely love that interaction too. Noonan getting Pillman liquored up and the renowned physicist finally just bluntly stating all his opinions on everything felt like a real mask-off moment for the authors too. Through him they related their own pessimistic beliefs about humanity as a whole and the nature of scientific discoveries. And it makes me wonder what they would have to say about so many of our modern technological developments had they lived to see them.
If you were the author, what would you have done differently, or changed about the book?
If the zones were a real thing, could you see yourself becoming a Stalker? If so what tactics would you use to navigate the zone? What artifacts (with real or imagined powers) would you hope to find?
Editing an old comment doesn't bump the topic, and edited comments will still remain collapsed by the "Collapse old comments" feature when people revisit the topic, since they won't count as being new. So I would strongly recommend just making a new top-level comment when you're ready, and not editing this one.
Yeah, not sure what I was thinking there.
No worries. :P
Offtopic/Meta Discussion
Please keep all offtopic/meta discussions confined as replies to this comment, instead of making new top-level comments for them. Please label this comment "Offtopic".
Pinging all the participants, and users who expressed interest in the Pop-up Book Club discussion:
@NoblePath, @Wes, @Mulligan, @kfwyre, @Bauke, @mundane_and_naive, @HenryWong327, @thefactthat, @chocobean, @probodyne, @MementoMori, @indyK1ng, @mikkok, @jarnicotonbleu, @Morosemango, @scituselectrum, @PnkNBlck71817, @arctanh, @Khalypso, @mycketforvirrad, @DanBC, @Aksamit, @Jaqosaurus, @kyotja, @lou, @Happy_Shredder, @WeAreWaves, @boxer_dogs_dance, @meatrocket, @monarda, @No-Exit-4, @TheD00d
Wow, that's a lot more people than last time! I'm not quite finished, since I was timing finishing with roughly the 28th (one month since last post). My memory is poor and I didn't want to lose the details. But it shouldn't take me too long.
Thanks for the ping, and following up on this. I hope to post my thoughts soon(ish).
Ah, yeah I probably should have posted this on the 28th... but I just went with a flat 4 weeks instead. No worries though, everyone can just join in whenever they finish reading it. :)
Not done reading yet … but I love it. Clearly inspired a number of works.
There has already been some talk in the previous topic about how to decide on the next book. I am currently leaning towards making two new topics (once this discussion fizzles out), one for taking suggestions, and then one for polling. But I am open to other ideas. So feel free to share them here.
Any general advice/suggestions on how to run the Book Club is also welcome.
I thought a bit about this since I last asked.
There's an elegance to trying to keep the book decision happening on-site and not having to duck out to a Google Form or whatnot.
There's a practicality to having a Google Form or something with a slight bit of barrier/friction to it so that the decision is made primarily by people with stake in the book club and not just the wider community popping in to vote on stuff.
I was going back and forth between which of these was better, when it occurred to me that the Book Club doesn't -- and probably won't ever -- have a formal membership. People are going to drop in and out as they see fit, including whether or not they like the book selection for a given month, and we have no definitive roster of who is "in" for a given month.
With that in mind, I actually think keeping it on-site and letting everyone vote is the best option, because even if we do get "drive-by" voters, those are actually potential participants. Also, I don't think we have to worry about trolls manipulating the vote here and forcing the choice to be, say, a Chuck Tingle book or something like that.
Basically, this is a long way of endorsing your current plan: solicit suggestions in one thread, then put up a voting thread in the next. I think it's important to separate them because it's important for the titles to all go up at the same time, so that earlier titles don't get more votes just by nature of being up longer.
The only other procedural question I have would be: do we want to put limits on suggestions? Like, is this a sci-fi book club and that's the focus we go with? Or do we just do open nominations and anyone can suggest anything? Or perhaps we do rotating categories (but then we'd have to have a selection process for categories, which just makes this even messier!).
For me, I "signed up" when I expressed interest in reading Roadside Picnic after your original explanation of the premise. I was happy to read along and contribute on this one. But I do want to clarify that I'm not expecting to participate in the future.
I'm not the fastest reader (or listener, oftentimes), so I'm afraid I'd not get through my own personal backlog in addition to the suggested material. I could suggest some of these novels as candidates because I'd probably enjoy discussing them, but that also feels a little self-interested. Plus many of them are a part of longer series (Sanderson, Tolkien, Joe Abercrombie), which likely do not work well in a book club setting.
So probably best if I just opt-out. But if you happen to land on a book that's in my backlog, I might just move it up so I can participate as well.
Thanks again for organizing this pop-up event, and I hope it continues to run well!
YVW, and thanks for the wellwishes! Also, don't worry, I wasn't planning on pinging everyone again when it comes to the next recommendation and voting topics. I was just going to let them occur naturally. So if you see the next one and want to join in, awesome, if not, no biggie. :)
Glad to see this conversation because I've been thinking about reading the book. Watched the movie and it didn't click for me. Will be interesting to know what people see in it.
Way late to the discussion here - but just finished Roadside Picnic. Really enjoyed this story suggestion, discussion questions, and reading the group comments! Thank you. Will try and jump on the next book quicker.
YVW, and no worries. That's one of the best things about Tildes, IMO. Even when Topics are weeks, months or even years old they can still be revived by someone making a new comment in them. So discussions like this can go on for as long as people are still interested in participating. :)
Hi. I am also an oak fan. Nice username. : )