AGS Book Club September: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

[Snarky]

As suggested by Stupot+, we're trying an AGS book club. The first pick is the 2012 mystery/thriller Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which we'll be reading in September and discussing as we go along.

                  GONE GIRL

               
                Amazon

                    Who are you?
What have we done to each other?

Nick and Amy are a seemingly perfect couple, until the day Amy disappears, and Nick becomes the number-one suspect in whatever has happened to her. Told in alternating points of view and possibly unreliable flashbacks (with excerpts from Amy's diary telling her side), this thriller explores a marriage where the cracks were growing long before it shattered so dramatically.

Some background:



Gone Girl is the third novel by Gillian Flynn, after Sharp Objects (2006) and Dark Places (2009). Each of her books is a standalone mystery/thriller, and each touches on some wider issues: self-cutting and factory farming (descriptions of which made me a vegetarian for some 4 years) in Sharp Objects, the 80s Satanic ritual abuse hysteria in Dark Places (apparently; I haven't read it), and marriage and gender roles in Gone Girl. All of her books have been successful, particularly this latest one, which was a big 2012 hit. They've all been optioned as movies, with David Fincher mentioned to direct Gone Girl.

Flynn (b. 1971) earned her masters degree in journalism from Northwestern. After giving up the idea of becoming a crime reporter, she was a film and TV writer and critic for Entertainment Weekly (I recently came across her negative review of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia; she really liked The Wire, though, so we're good) for ten years before getting laid off. (Sources: Wikipedia, gilllian-flynn.com)

[Snarky]

OK, it's September, let's get going! As discussed in the other thread, there'll be a separate thread for each part of the book, so for now we're only talking about the first part:

PART ONE:
BOY LOSES GIRL

Also, so that people can read the thread without spoilers, even if they haven't read the whole part yet, we're dividing it into three sections. Please keep discussion of the second and third sections behind an appropriately labeled spoiler tag ([hide]). In addition, you're encouraged to split your comments about each section into separate posts; don't worry about double/triple-posting as a result of this.

Section 1 from
Nick Dunne â€" The Day Of
"When I think of my wife, I always think of her head."
(p. 3 in my ~450 pp. edition)

Section 2 from
Amy Elliott Dunne â€" July 5, 2008
"I am fat with love!"
(p. 43 in my edition)

Section 3 from
Amy Elliott Dunne â€" April 28, 2011
"Just got to keep on keeping on…"
(p. 157 in my edition)

[Snarky]

So to start off...

Section 1:
These first four-five chapters are pretty much setup, before the investigation really gets under way. The cross-cutting between the "falling in love" times of the past and the unhappy present brings to mind movies like Blue Valentine and (500) Days of Summer; I'm sure it's been used many times before as well, since it provides instant pathos. I quite like this setup, because it makes me wonder how they got from there to here. When I first read it, though, I remember wondering if/how Flynn was going to keep the alternating-chapters structure going for the whole book.

Nick's opening line is pretty creepy, and there are a number of suspicious comments as well as unexplained gaps in his narrative. Even if every part of his narration is true (which we can't necessarily assume), it's clearly possible that he killed his wife. After all, he does end this section by saying he'd told the cops five lies.

Not much to say about Amy at this stage. I find her writing style (what with the little quizzes and so on) a bit too cutesy, but I'll cut her some slack since she's supposed to be writing her journal. Some suspension of disbelief about this literary device is probably required, but that doesn't really bother me.

Whenever I read a mystery novel, I'm always looking for clues and possible ways the author might be trying to trick me. Here, it's pretty obvious that either Nick, Amy or both might be unreliable narrators who're omitting things or outright lying. Anything else so far?

[Stupot]

Part 1 - Section 1

All I really want to know is what happened on page 8 after okay go.  I don't think Nick killed or abducted Amy, but something important definitely happened here.

I'm also a bit dubious about Amy's diary style. The writing is good, but it doesn't need to be in diary form (does it?) and if we're to assume that she writes in her diary regularly then we automatically know we're not getting the whole story because there is a gap of some nine months just between the first two entries.

I get the feeling Nick just can't help lying.  It doesn't specify what each of the five lies were (it would be fun to go through again and try to work out what they were) but the one lie that is specified - that he had booked a reservation at Houston's - just goes to show that he would rather make himself out to be a good husband, who treats his wife to a posh dinner on their fifth anniversary, than tell the truth to the police investigating his wife's disappearance.

In fact, he seems obsessed with how he comes across to other people.  Most people (you'd think) would be focused on trying to find their missing spouse, for Nick, that seems to be a secondary concern.  He's more worried about coming across as patronizing by using the word hifalutin to the people he clearly sees as beneath him.

To his credit, He does say that he just wants the police to go out and search for his fucking wife, but that he doesn't say it out loud because he has a tendency to bottle things like that up.  I can kind of relate to that.  I don't always say what I want to say and end up coming across as indifferent.  If he's not careful this could reflect badly on him.

[Snarky]

So is anyone else reading the book?

[nihilyst]

I've ordered it, but it hasn't been shipped yet.

[Stupot]

Part 1 - Sections 2+3

Is anyone else in?
I've finished part 1 now so I'll just put what I have to say in spoiler tags.

Spoiler

I don't really have a lot to say that I didn't say after secion 1.  Nick's Sister Go basically tells Nick exactly what I said earlier about his caring more about how he comes across than just telling the truth once in a while.

It's hard to know at this point whether Nick is actually a bad person or not.  It seems Amy is painting a rather dark picture of him for her diary, and for the neighbour Noelle.  I do wonder if she is guilty of a little exaggeration or embellishment for the extra dose of sympathy.

Not that Nick is necessarily the victim here.  Cheating on her is not tolerable. Shoving her the way he did is not tolerable.  But the way she starts painting herself as a sufferer of domestic abuse and goes out to buy a gun is a little dramatic.  How she goes from that one shove to thinking he is going to kill her is just paranoia... unless of course, there are more stories of violence in her other diary entries that we are not privvy to.

If there's one thing we can know at this point, it's that we don't really know anything yet.

[close]

[Myinah]

I'm reading it on my kindle which makes the page numbers redundant but I still have the chapters.

I too dislike the cutesy writing style the author has chosen for Amy. It feels like a man writing as what he thinks a woman would sound like, which is strange as the author is actually female. She's supposed to be 30 at the time of writing, a successful woman raised in New York, who went to Harvard and got a Psychology degree, yet she seems almost teenage in her journal entries. It just a little too fluffy for the character in my opinion. Reading on she seems to be sly in her own way, too intelligent for such girlish rambles. There is a coldness about her. She doesn't form deep friendships and she manipulates men to keep them on the hook. The two main female characters, Go and Amy both seem to dislike other women. Amy judges her friends for being "typical women" in her journal, and Nick describes Go as not at all girly. I'm not flicking back through my kindle to quote it though lol!

Before he enters the house and realises Amy is missing Nick recalls the butterfly picture on the window of his former neighbour who lost her home. He remembers seeing a bearded face he didnt know and leaving a sandwich out for the man who he assumed is a squatter. I wondered if this was important. If this person had been staking out their home, watching Amy? If Nick didn't do it, which would be a twist seeing as he seems genuinely shocked at Amy disappearing, then could this man have something to do with it?

I get the sense Nick was considering ending the marriage so it will be interesting to see how this continues to develop.

Edit: Sentence didn't make sense!

[Snarky]

Ah, cool!

I too dislike the cutesy writing style the author has chosen for Amy. It feels like a man writing as what he thinks a woman would sound like, which is strange as the author is actually female. She's supposed to be 30 at the time of writing, a successful woman raised in New York, who went to Harvard and got a Psychology degree, yet she seems almost teenage in her journal entries. It just a little too fluffy for the character in my opinion.

Interesting thoughts. I agree she comes across as immature. Do you think the fact that she's supposed to be a contributor to one of those girls' magazines (I'm guessing something like Cosmo) could have something to do with it?

Section 2:

Spoiler

Any thoughts on the treasure hunt? I find it an interestingly ambiguous activity, since I can see how it could be a really great, fun, romantic couple's activity, but also how it could be this terrible, demanding test of your partner. The distinction would be really subtle and subjective, and it would be almost impossible for an outsider to determine who was at fault if the whole thing turned ugly. (Is Nick a terrible boyfriend/husband who doesn't pay any attention to the things that matter to Amy, or is she a terrible girlfriend/wife who requires him to be a mind-reader?)

It also brings up one of the themes of the book: that you can be with someone without really having the faintest idea of who they are, what's going on under the surface. That's always been one of the things that attracted me to reading, and which I don't think any other art form does nearly as well: the opportunity to see things from someone else's perspective, to observe them from the inside. Maybe we haven't gotten close enough to do that with Nick or Amy yet, but I think we're starting to see a little...

I also think of this section of the book as the adventure game part. Following clues, sometimes finding important objects, advancing the story... Could Gone Girl work as an adventure game at all?

I don't really have a lot to say that I didn't say after secion 1.  Nick's Sister Go basically tells Nick exactly what I said earlier about his caring more about how he comes across than just telling the truth once in a while.

Yeah, I was impressed you spotted that so early on. It causes him some problems, like when dealing with that clingy woman during the search. He says he's not like the douchey frat guy his face makes him look like, but his behavior hasn't really established that. BTW, I read that Ben Affleck has been cast as Nick for the film version. Sounds about right!

[close]

Section 3:

Spoiler

Not that Nick is necessarily the victim here.  Cheating on her is not tolerable. Shoving her the way he did is not tolerable.  But the way she starts painting herself as a sufferer of domestic abuse and goes out to buy a gun is a little dramatic.  How she goes from that one shove to thinking he is going to kill her is just paranoia... unless of course, there are more stories of violence in her other diary entries that we are not privvy to.

If there's one thing we can know at this point, it's that we don't really know anything yet.

I think Dan Savage might say the cheating is excusable under the circumstances. On the other hand, if a partner is violent once, it's not unreasonable to think they'll be violent in the future. OK, one (violent!) shove to "next time he'll kill me" is a bit of a leap, but in general it would be very wise of her to be afraid.

[close]

[Andail]

I just picked up this book and started reading some nights ago, but I have virtually no time so it'll probably take a while.

After the first few chapters I really think the language is good, it's authentic and evocative, although it's still pretty conventional.

I'm a bit bothered by the stereotypical gender roles, but perhaps that's a deliberate direction, and something that will change - I mean how Nick doesn't care about anniversaries and can't remember dates, and Amy is chatty and focused on their relationship, and so on.

[Myinah]

Yeah probably is the cosmo thing. Just couldn't see a Harvard Psychology graduate being that fluffy for whatever reason. Seemed out of character, but I probably read to much into it.

So, combining what I have read of 2 and 3.

Spoiler

I was most unhappy about the cheating. Especially as Amy's diary seems to portray her as trying very hard to work on the marriage. Although, at this point I trust no one, not her or him. I think both their versions of events are twisted. I'm still not thinking it's Nick, but I did not like his statement about lying by omission. I think as people have said he works very hard to keep his good guy mask up, and it is oddly gratifying to see it slipping even if he is innocent. I think Amy probably has a similar mask.

The homeless guy in the house I alluded to before is probably unimportant, related to the blue book boys. The gun purchase was an interesting discovery. No gun was found by the police or evidence of fire so wonder where it is if she bought it.

The other thing I keep going back to is Nick's father and his relationship with Amy. His escape from the nursing home and his remarks to Amy, I think there could be more to it than dementia. Maybe he witnessed something, maybe she reminds him of something significant.

[close]

I dont know it's all speculation at this point. I've nearly finished section 3 and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the book!