Joyce Z. led the meeting, using some questions she had prepared. She first asked us whether we thought the book was unusual, and there was some agreement as to the book starting off in an unusually exciting manner! Simple Genius, by David Baldacci, was actually the third book in a series of three. Ken read the first in the series, in which Michelle is an “in-charge” kind of person, having gotten a lot of upper-body strength from rowing boats to the point of being reminiscent of the level of The Boys in the Boat, which we recently discussed. Then, in this third book, Simple Genius, Michelle falls apart psychologically. Reading the trilogy of books could have enhanced the reading experience, but we were able to get a good story and get to know the characters by reading the third book alone.
Joyce asked whether we thought the murders were surprising,
based on the setting of an enclave of physicists, mathematicians, and a young
girl with a brilliant mind and probable Asperger’s syndrome. Carla said that murder
and mayhem would be expected in any book by Baldacci. Ken said that normally
one would expect “an environment of computer nerds, quantum physics geeks and
cryptographers would be a boring safe place, but instead it was infested with
murder, espionage, and drug dealing.”
Noted characters included Viggie as a favorite (Cindy T., Carla,
Claudia), Alecia as surprising (Joyce Z. & Flo), Victoria as surprising
(Flo), and South Freeman as interesting (Ken).
There was some discussion about Michelle’s psychoanalysis
and her recovery from the breakdown she had at the beginning of the book. We
also discussed the excitement and turnarounds of events in the book.
Guest Linda asked the group whether we thought the book would
be better read in the sequence of three books rather than as a standalone, as most
of us had read it. This question inspired a lot of comments about the variety of
characters in the book.
We discussed Baldacci as a formulaic writer; as Dennis said,
one who “cranks ‘em out.” Linda compared the author to James Patterson and Tom
Clancy.
There was further discussion about some of the potential
powers of cryptography, the original Alan Turing, and the “Enigma Code” that
was broken in World War II. Cindy T. mentioned the movie “The Imitation Game,”
starring Benedict Cumberbatch (who also played the great literary detective, Sherlock
Homes, in a previous production). Lydia said that Alan Turing is famous in
Great Britain and was treated very badly (perhaps an interesting topic to research).
Then, she asked why the character in the book was named Turing. Dennis said
that several characters in the book were named with the same names as historic
cryptographers. Flo said her book had a list and explanation about the author’s
choices of the names of some of the characters. Dennis mentioned a PBS show
about a woman who helped crack important codes during World War II: “The
Codebreaker.“
The question arose, “What is quantum physics?” Dennis tried
to explain. I think we all agreed with Dennis when he said that it becomes
harder to understand the more you read about it.
Joyce Z. summed up the remainder of the discussion, saying that the book showed “what everyday
life is NOT like for us.”
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