Kurvitz Summary

What we enjoyed about the book:

Weird fiction vibe
Postmodernism
Vibe in general, atmosphere
Fragmented narration, like a spiral
Good crime story
Mystery done well
Interesting pitfalls
Clues leading to other places
Fascinating world-building
Investigation to an erratic treasure hunt
You understand the beginning once you finish the book
Vibe of book and game are similar à world development can be seen in the works of Kurvitz
Surreal moments
Moments of silliness in a very dark and gloomy world
Glimpse in a giant world
Film Noir / Nordic Noir / Nordic crime
Hard to describe many parts of the book
Political dimension fascinating (Post-Soviet? Communism? Loss of ideals? Nihilism?)
Reading experience interesting
Book might be great when reading it for a second time (or reading a summary first)
ZA/UM: name choice for company wow, thought extracting device
Nostalgia?
Blade Runner vibes?
Tries to be highbrow literature?
Desperation in book form
Book very short
The Pale wow
Ending wild
Life is Strange vibes?
Zigi story told completely (wanted to know more)
Multiple languages great

What we discussed:

Sad that there is no official translation
Hard to get into, immersion not possible
Pacing off at the beginning
Glossary vital, otherwise world building totally confusing
Tries too hard to be highbrow literature?
Book too short and fragmented to cover all the contents
Lacks playfulness
More moments like the robot scene on the platform
More artwork would have been nice
SO much unused potential drowned in sheer mass and lack of execution and depth
A lot like other weird fiction novels: VanderMeer, Miéville,…
Sexual abuse and male gaze problematic
Sexualisation of women bad, no female focalisers
Paedophilia
Stereotypes annoying, also in connection to gender
Game handles many things way better, including playing stereotypes
Book would have better in another medium?
Ending underwhelming, easy way out
Hero / antihero meh
Drug abuse & gender meh
Jesper problematic and remains too enigmatic, does not make sense
Treatment of the girls and the obsession of the boys (stalking etc) problematic
Weird that you need a summary or read it once before you can read it for real to enjoy it
We are disappointed because of all the unused potential, lol. “Write it again, do a second draft, you can get so much more out of that”

Ratings:

4 out of 0 missing Lunde girls
“My rating disappeared into The Pale”
Enthusiasm vs. Scepticism à hard to rate
3/5: too many flaws to be perfect, “but it has given me something that I needed”
3/5 reality destroying Pale-ness: “because I liked the ideas more than reading the book”
Book better to analyse, not to read
Translation per se fine but an official one would be better to also support the author

Disco Elysium (Game):

Art has to suffer under capitalism
Immense game
Ludology aspects fascinating
Reader involvement vital, cannot be turned into a series
Visually impeccable
Soundtrack amazing by Sea Power (record on Spotify)
Art & concepts amazing
Game mechanics fascinating
Marthe ‘completed’ the game in 12 minutes (her cop quit), needs to play again now à super interesting experience
Could be played again and again, so many possibilities
One of the best games from the past few years
D&D vibes great
No fighting, brilliant
Just go with the vibe
Playthroughs do not really work with this game, try it out yourself (available for Switch, PC etc.)
First version vs. final cut version
Incredible voice actors
Tom recommendation when playing: “Make your way into the last corner of the haunted commercial area”, “I loved it to bits, it’s just a small thing”

Some links:

Published by MSH