It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the 6 Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is the book for April 2021. Shuggie Bain won the Booker Prize for its portrayal of alcoholism and addiction, and its impact on working-class families in 1980s United Kingdom.
The first book on addiction that I ever read was The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. It had a rather sensationalist depiction of opium addiction and its associated stigma of moral failure.
A second case is Pinocchio, whose addiction to lying results in many a mishap and a nose that just keeps growing longer. The only way out is for Pinocchio to do a good deed and become a “real boy”.
The third book that Shuggie Bain reminds me of is Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. As an erstwhile fanfiction-addict myself, I sympathized heartily with Cath who was unable to put a closure to her fanlove/ fanfiction addiction.
The fourth book is Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Helen is on the run from an abusive and alcoholic husband. Here, alcoholism is depicted as an inescapable marital problem in the 1840s.
Fifth in the chain is the Downside Ghosts series by Stacia Kane. Drug-addict witch Chess Putnam discovers that recovering from addiction is all about finding — and nurturing — a good support system.
Finally, we come to Christina Rosetti’s poem, Goblin Market. Laura succumbs to the lure of the goblins’ marketing song, both craving and detesting the fruit. But luckily, she has her loyal sister to rescue her.
26 replies on “Shuggie Bain & Six Degrees of Slavish Fixation”
Well, I’m addicted to this monthly meme, so… HELL yeah, I’m participating (in fact, I’ve already written and scheduled my chain for May 1, as of like, five minutes ago). Great chain here!
Haha, yes, just visited your post. 🙂
That is a whole lot of addiction! I’ve read The Moonstone, which I enjoyed, but with my abysmal memory, I only vaguely recall, how opium plays a role. I love chains which revolve around a single theme and I guess addiction was an obvious choice given the starting book.
I can only ever do this chain on themes. The wordplay with titles, or hopping with book places, is always very difficult for me.
That is one of the great things about Six Degrees – everyone seems to do it differently!
Oh, neat link Lex to The Moonstone.
Interestingly, just last weekend I saw a new Australian musical called Fangirls, about fans of boybands. It was interesting and fun.
Ooh, thanks, I am going to look up Fangirls. Might remind me of my own addiction to Harry Potter fanfiction 😂
Fascinating chain, and I’d echo Davida’s coment. I’m also a Six Degrees addict!
I love the sound of this monthly meme. Sometime I might participate! Maybe not this month but I’ll look into it for future reading!
It’s immensely popular, almost as much as Top 10 Tuesday. Hope you join in!
Oh, great connections. I didn’t even think about addiction as a unifying theme.
What a great chain! I love The Moonstone but would never have thought of linking it to Shuggie Bain through the addiction theme. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is another of my favourite Victorian novels.
Those Brontes really knew how to create masterpieces!
What an interesting chain!! I think yours may be the most interesting of this month. Congratulations. I love the “real” Pinocchio. I read it aloud after dinner when my kids were 14 and 13. They still talk about it.
I started with the Disney version of Pinocchio, can’t say I liked the story the first time (found it very bleak) — but over time, I’ve come to appreciate it more. 🙂
I always love seeing where these kinds of posts go. 🙂 And I loved Fangirl! I wish we had more books like that that explore both fandoms and the experience of starting university.
Once upon a time, I almost ruined myself with Harry Potter fanfiction, it was/ is such a huge sea out there. So, I can now look back and laugh… but in many ways, Fangirl was like reading a mini-horror story about myself. You’re right, we do need more books like Fangirl to set things in perspective.
What a great idea for your chain! I’m ashamed never to have read The Moonstone, and I wonder how many of us have read the actual original Collodi story of Pinocchio. Not me … so far. All of these are definitely TBR.
Moonstone probably hasn’t aged well, there are many problematic cultural references. But it has a BBC televised version too, which wasn’t so bad in my opinion — give it a try to see if you want to read the book too!
That is an eclectic list!
Love the addiction and, as others have said, we are addicted to 6Degrees. I am wondering how many of these I actually read. Have I really read the original Pinocchio? I think I liked Fangirl the best of the ones I have read.
I do like Christina Rosetti but am not sure I know Goblin Market. Poetry Month seems a good time to investigate!
My first introduction to Pinocchio was the Disney movie, but I can’t say I liked it much. It seemed too sad and bleak, poor little wooden boy falling into scrapes one after the other. Came to know about the original story much later on.
And yes, Poetry Month is here! Looking forward to all the good verses!
I wish I had thought of sticking to a theme! – I found this month’s starter book so difficult to link to (finally got there yesterday.) Yours is a brilliant chain.
We did The Moonstone at school, and I have to admit I can’t remember that much about it, even though I did watch the BBC adaptation more recently. I’ve just been reading Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia for another book challenge. It was written in 1936, so well after The Moonstone, but it’s still full of snobbery, racism, sexism, and every other ‘ism’ – it’s always difficult to know what to do about things like this, isn’t it? I suppose if the story is good, we just have to accept that the attitudes came from a different time.
Very well said. It’s always challenging to read a books with such -isms and still appreciate the plotting for what it must have been like, back when “genres” will still new. The Moonstone has similar issues, and sorry to hear Murder in Mesopotamia too suffers from this!
Great connections! I really want to read Shuggie Bain but imagine it’s quite sad. I missed out doing this meme again this month. Maybe I should start working on the May prompt now! 🙂
Haha, I always have to schedule posts months in advance, else I end up giving in to blogging/ reading slump, and missing deadlines. The next prompt is a fun, nostalgic one, hope you join in!