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Shammypants posted:The first half was a means to show scale, which we get quickly, and that we have unreliable narrator, which we also get quickly and which the length isn't necessary. The conversations with birds and introduction of statues and space have unclear meaning and are all, with the exception of one statue, entirely fictional. Going through them in such depth and frequency wasn't enjoyable as the interpretations are still debated and when something is that up for interpretation I lose interest. The pacing of the second half was quick, and the pacing of the first half was much too slow- in a nutshell, but it didn't have to be. This book gave me This is How You Lose the Time War vibes but the sense of enjoyment I got in Time War is what I only got in the second half of Piranesi. I feel like the first half is to endear us to Piranesi. That way the stakes are high for the weird resolution at the end. I also found it extremely effective and I only wish there were more books like the first half of Piranesi.
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Oct 16, 2023 21:07
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I've shared my thoughts on Piranesi before, but overall I agree that I wish there were more books with the same general ideas, if only for them to be executed better.
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Oct 16, 2023 22:33
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I actually really like how it’s so polarizing and enjoy the discussion when it comes up
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Oct 16, 2023 23:05
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tuyop posted:I feel like the first half is to endear us to Piranesi. That way the stakes are high for the weird resolution at the end.
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Oct 16, 2023 23:39
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mellonbread posted:I wonder if some people are annoyed by his character voice. I thought it was charming, but if I didn't think that I'd probably find it insipid. The character speaks like a child, so when you read “I believe I am 35 years old” you’re like, uhh ok heh.
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Oct 17, 2023 01:06
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tuyop posted:I feel like the first half is to endear us to Piranesi. Eww sounds like a children's book 
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Oct 17, 2023 06:04
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Piranesi posted:Today the man asked me what life was like in the House. I told him it was not easy being Piranesi
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Oct 17, 2023 16:21
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Just finished Moby Dick, as in roughly 20 minutes ago finished it. What a novel! Absolutely one of the all time greats and I'm so happy I read it and can only wish I read it sooner.
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Oct 17, 2023 18:42
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LurchinTard posted:Just finished Moby Dick, as in roughly 20 minutes ago finished it. What a novel! Absolutely one of the all time greats and I'm so happy I read it and can only wish I read it sooner. same. Really good book
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Oct 18, 2023 02:14
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FPyat posted:The Colour Out of Space and The Shadow Over Innsmouth are his longform stories that work. The Outsider, I think, is his masterpiece, partly because it’s wholly unburdened by racism. Read Dagon right before you read The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It works perfectly as an unofficial prologue to that larger story. The Shadow Out Of Time, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, The Whisperer In Darkness, and The Haunter Of The Dark are solid longform stories of his, too. And the “dreamlands” stories are underrated. The Silver Key, Nyarlathotep, The Outsider, etc. pack their own punch. It’s a shame The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath only had a first draft. The potential is all over it.
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Oct 18, 2023 18:29
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A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White: a mediocre thriller that follows Olivia (who is the sole survivor of a serial killer) trying to erase her past and leave it behind. Everyone thinks that the killer was caught and is dead except for one cop who won't let it go. This lone cop is right, though, and the killer resurfaces to finish the job (because the cop told him where Olivia was in order to lure him out of hiding). We're introduced to a prodigal son who falls in love with the traumatized Olivia and is a perfect journalist who uncovers her past quickly. They all end up on the same Canadian dude ranch during an impending snow storm and eventually brutally murder the serial killer. Come for the ho-hum characters but stay for the many detailed descriptions of fly fishing.
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Oct 24, 2023 21:54
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Good-Natured Filth posted:A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White: a mediocre thriller that follows Olivia (who is the sole survivor of a serial killer) trying to erase her past and leave it behind. Everyone thinks that the killer was caught and is dead except for one cop who won't let it go. This lone cop is right, though, and the killer resurfaces to finish the job (because the cop told him where Olivia was in order to lure him out of hiding). We're introduced to a prodigal son who falls in love with the traumatized Olivia and is a perfect journalist who uncovers her past quickly. They all end up on the same Canadian dude ranch during an impending snow storm and eventually brutally murder the serial killer. Come for the ho-hum characters but stay for the many detailed descriptions of fly fishing.
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Oct 24, 2023 23:47
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The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy This is an interesting one, like with most of what I read these days I go in blind, though in this case I liked the author so I knew to expect the interesting and somewhat tiring writing style along with a heaping dose of malaise. What I got was a bunch of philosophy written as a series of long character interactions wrapped around an extremely threadbare plot. I personally didn't find any particular revelations in there but the themes and the characters were interesting enough to keep me reading and it has definitely left me in a contemplative mood about the nature of our own autonomy which, according to my own amateur interpretation, was the central theme so in other words - I liked it.
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Oct 26, 2023 11:15
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abigserve posted:The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy Stella Maris I enjoyed more than The Passenger, so curious to hear your thoughts on that once you read it. It's a lot shorter and helps illuminate a lot of what was going on in The Passenger.
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Oct 26, 2023 16:16
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Mammoths at the Gates, the latest in the Singing Hills by Nghi Vo. A story about stories, barely over a hundred pages. I had read the first one, Empress of Salt and Fortune, but not the intervening two, and as promised by someone, that didn't matter, this could stand alone if need be. Quite fun, took no time at all. Still like the nonbinary protagonist.
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Oct 27, 2023 04:20
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escape artist posted:Stella Maris I enjoyed more than The Passenger, so curious to hear your thoughts on that once you read it. It's a lot shorter and helps illuminate a lot of what was going on in The Passenger. I read this last night! I liked it as well, I think I preferred it to the passenger because it got to the point more efficiently and Alicia is a compelling character as opposed to Bobby who is largely a blank slate - which, in fairness, I think is the point but its still not as interesting. I thought a while on it and I think, when taken together, the two books are ultimately an analogy (I don't think that's the right word) for the Observer Effect in physics, where the passenger is giving you the perspective of the observed system (Bobby) while Stella Maris is that of the observer (Alicia). To me the pair of books ultimately asks two questions. If you can change the state of something by observing it, then how much free will does that thing actually have, and secondly, if said thing were to cease to exist then what would be the matching effect on the observer? Makes ya think!
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Oct 27, 2023 23:58
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Just finished Pale Fire last night. The prose was sublime and I found the book as a whole quite enjoyable. I wish I knew poetry jargon better, but my ignorance didn't tangibly detract from the experience. I was pleasantly surprised with the way some things (e.g. queerness and prejudice) were handled, with respect to the time it was written. I didn't find it as emotionally impactful as Peace, by our boy Gene, but it will still leave a lasting impression. Has anyone here read Despair or Laughter in the Dark?
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Oct 29, 2023 18:39
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Finished Pynchon's V. after two weeks of reading. I don't have anything particularly intelligent to say about its ideas or themes, but it's a titanic book. Something about the mad nightmare of modern civilization. It did surprise me with how serious it managed to get, when Lot 49 and the first 270 pages of this trained me to think of Pynchon as a very silly writer. I can scarcely imagine what Gravity's Rainbow will be like, if it's considered to be an even greater achievement.
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Oct 30, 2023 10:27
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GR is sublime, but serious and very silly at times too. V. was like an early draft of ideas. Be sure to check out the discussion of V. from when it was the BotM too if you have not! I just finished the horror novella The World Below by David Peak, a really well written story of grudges, violence, lies, and betrayal wrapped up in a family feud-type story. Strongly recommended for spooky season!
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Oct 30, 2023 15:12
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Oh right, I completely forgot that it was a BOTM after seeing it in the list.
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Oct 30, 2023 15:38
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Finished with The Vagrants by Yi Yun Li, what a wonderful, raw, cruel, rewarding book. So unexpectedly good, I bought it on sale with other books years ago and it just sat there, until I had time to check it out this month. The rest of the books were trash, but this is a gem. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vagrants-yiyun-li/1100396209 NOT an easy read due to the rawness of every day human cruelty, but I still found it somehow less depressing than a Murakami. Maybe Murakami looks inward too much, and Li leans more into narrating events? Among the tragedy, good things happen... sometimes Reading the reviews, seems a lot of people were confused by the novel jumping from one character to another, but it seemed fine to me, like vignettes of daily life in little town on the edge of a totalitarian China, eventually you connect the stories. Great stuff, absolutely recommend, with the appropiate warnings for some hosed up poo poo caused by extreme poverty people eating trash, dog abuse, death, and uhh things happening to dead bodies, etc etc.
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Oct 30, 2023 21:37
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I didn't have time to follow along with the thread, but I finished A Night in the Lonesome October. I'm guessing it got overhyped to me because while it is a fine book, it didn't change my life like the internet says it should. What am I missing goons? I don't get the "perfect book" and "genius" and "this book was made for me drr drr" reviews. The only working theory I got is maybe it has to do with me not being deep into the fantasy genre?
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Oct 31, 2023 12:55
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I read My Disillusionment in Russia by Emma Goldman, written after several years spent in the closing period of the Russian Civil War. She talks both to Communist elites and forgotten ordinary people, trying to get a broad read on the nature of the new society being built. Amidst all the cruel, stupid bureaucrats and secret policemen, she encounters isolated pockets of kindness and open-heartedness, humane individuals struggling against the tide. The overall shape of the work has a curious resemblance to that Orwell would write some years later of his time in Spain.
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Oct 31, 2023 15:40
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It was slow going but I finished the Children of Time trilogy (Children of Ruin & Children of Memory) by Adrian Tchaikovsky. An absolutely stellar set of books and must-reads if you remotely enjoy sci-fi. The evolutionary world building of the first two books is so incredibly developed that it seems feasible it'll eventually happen (though we'll definitely kill ourselves out first lol), and Tchaikovsky's writing through the whole series feels effortless with how beautifully diverse his use of language flows through each book. I really appreciate how well each subsequent book built upon the last, with the final book reading more like a very good Star Trek episode than a sci-fi epic (not a bad thing), primarily due to having established the peak of the characters, settings and technologies. The endings in each book are positive, impactful and touching. I really hope he continues the series.
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Oct 31, 2023 16:25
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Louisgod posted:It was slow going but I finished the Children of Time trilogy (Children of Ruin & Children of Memory) by Adrian Tchaikovsky. An absolutely stellar set of books and must-reads if you remotely enjoy sci-fi. The evolutionary world building of the first two books is so incredibly developed that it seems feasible it'll eventually happen (though we'll definitely kill ourselves out first lol), and Tchaikovsky's writing through the whole series feels effortless with how beautifully diverse his use of language flows through each book. I really appreciate how well each subsequent book built upon the last, with the final book reading more like a very good Star Trek episode than a sci-fi epic (not a bad thing), primarily due to having established the peak of the characters, settings and technologies. The endings in each book are positive, impactful and touching. I really hope he continues the series. Oh sweet, I just rounded the corner on Memory. Have you read his Final Architecture books at all? Really different from the Children of series and a nice, fun space opera kind of thing.
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Oct 31, 2023 20:11
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tuyop posted:Oh sweet, I just rounded the corner on Memory. Have you read his Final Architecture books at all? Really different from the Children of series and a nice, fun space opera kind of thing. I haven't but I absolutely want to eventually dive into some of his other works. A friend wants me to read My Best Friend's Exorcism and from there I need to catch up on the Sanderson secret projects but want to have more Tchaikovsky ready for me in the future. I'll definitely check them out.
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Oct 31, 2023 20:28
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Turbinosamente posted:I didn't have time to follow along with the thread, but I finished A Night in the Lonesome October. I'm guessing it got overhyped to me because while it is a fine book, it didn't change my life like the internet says it should. What am I missing goons? I don't get the "perfect book" and "genius" and "this book was made for me drr drr" reviews. The only working theory I got is maybe it has to do with me not being deep into the fantasy genre? Who the hell was saying that lol. It's a fun book, that's it for me.
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Oct 31, 2023 21:28
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Mr. Nemo posted:Who the hell was saying that lol. It's a fun book, that's it for me. Mostly Goodreads reviews to be fair. Though there's at least a few goons who've talked it up but they are less hyperbolic about it and mostly in the context of it being their Halloween/October tradition. Which is perfectly fine, I can't fault that, but I will likely not reread it myself. Edit: That and the whole "you gotta read it!" when ever it comes up, I guess I'm remembering the fans that are more militant about it. Turbinosamente fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Nov 1, 2023 11:39
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Just finished Doctor Zhivago and I have to say it was rough. I had a hard time at the beginning because going in I didn't realize that Russian naming conventions attached relationship/status to the names like Japenese does. So I was extremely confused by that, along with why everyone was always being referred to by full name. Once I figured that out though it was much less confusing, but there so very long sections of story that were diatribes on various philosophical, religious, and political subjects, some of which ended up impacting the course of the whole story and others that were seemingly irrelevant in the scope of the book as a whole. I had asked a friend about this book after I started it and they said that it was one of the few stories where the movie is better than the book, and I can totally see why, as the movie would eliminate a lot the exhausting extra info. There is a very interesting love story (stories?) buried here between Yuri, Tonia, Lara, and Pasha, along with commentary on the Russian Revolution and the general state of the country during that time, but I found it very dry and tough to get through. I have been meaning to read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Solzhenitsyn for a while now, but if they're anything like this book I'm not sure I'll be able to handle it. How do they compare?
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Nov 1, 2023 14:48
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My memory is that Solzhenitsyn was absolutely readable and even well-written and that the style of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky was a bit aged, in the way that (say) some 18th century authors might read a bit old and formal, but were otherwise fine. Of course, the translation is going to make a huge difference.
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Nov 2, 2023 22:28
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nonathlon posted:My memory is that Solzhenitsyn was absolutely readable and even well-written and that the style of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky was a bit aged, in the way that (say) some 18th century authors might read a bit old and formal, but were otherwise fine. Solzhenitsyn is eminently readable (at least the translation, I don't read Russian at all). Gorki is the best Russian classic writer.
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Nov 3, 2023 09:17
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The White Album is a collected of Joan Didion's essays and articles, on everything from the Black Panthers to Doris Lessing to living with frequent migraines. She shares with me a fascination for the engineering or economic processes that go into everyday things, like aqueduct systems and shopping malls. I learned quite a bit about what Los Angeles is like - it's a city I don't really know much about, despite how much pop culture is set there.
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Nov 4, 2023 09:31
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Middlemarch imagine being stuck in the worlds worst social function imaginable and everytime you get a glimpse of someone who you think could save you they've slipped your sight before you could reach them and your left stuck with another group of tedious busy bodies giving you their opinions on the British Parliament and some ecclesiastical matter you can't even begin to pretend to give a poo poo about. Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann it never hits the highs that Goethe's Faust does nor is it as simple and elegant as Marlowe. It does offer an incredible portrait of what the coming of Nazi Germany was like for the people on the ground, the fairweather fans, the diehards, and the opposed who thought it was all a joke until it was too late. All of the musical theory went right over my head, but it was still effective at conveying the metaphor of Germany as it prepared its self immolation. The Kreutzer Sonata it's hilarious that despite being a curmudgeon, a cynic, a recluse, and a syphilitic that Flaubert was so much kinder to women than his contemporary writer of adulterous women.
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Nov 5, 2023 23:38
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Just finished Don Quixote. The hype is real.
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Nov 6, 2023 00:35
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Just finished up Things We Lost In The Fire, a short story collection by Mariana Enriquez. There were a couple of great stories in there, most of them were pretty solid. I might check out Our Share of Night next
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Nov 6, 2023 23:02
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Just finished Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and it loving ruled
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Nov 6, 2023 23:50
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I just finished reading Starfish by Peter Watts and it was like someone put a bunch of sci-fi authors I knew into a blender, then strained out all the good parts. I should not have listened to whoever told me that this was the good Peter Watts book. Also rarely have I read a book which gave me such a strong feeling that the author lived to murder sealife. So much gratuitous animal killing.
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Nov 7, 2023 00:06
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The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Based on the book's pitch on the jacket, I was expecting interweaving narratives in the vein of something like Cloud Atlas, but what I got was much closer to Millennium Actress, though its tone is much more jaundiced. There's basically four strands of narrative here: main character Iris dealing with the twilight years of a life full of regrets; Iris recounting the story of her life with her neurodivergent sister Laura, who died young and is known in the present day for writing a controversial bestselling novel; excerpts from that novel, a seedy, tragic romance between a wealthy woman and a fugitive who writes pulp sci-fi; and fragments of the pulp sci-fi stories the lovers pitch to each other in the bedroom. Most of the book works out fine. There's a strong sense of tragedy in Iris and Laura's life; they were dealt a bad hand in life, Laura especially, and Iris never learned how to take control of her situation until it was too late. What sticks out to me more than anything is that the sci-fi elements feel tacked-on. While they fit the time period -- they're classic pulp of the sort published in the Depression and pre-WW2 era of Iris and Laura's adolescence -- they don't present a clear parallel to the sisters' inner lives the way the rest of the novel-within-the-novel does. I've heard a few fans of genre fiction regard Atwood poorly, one outright calling her a "carpetbagger," and I'm starting to get a good idea why. The Blind Assassin still ends up being a pretty decent book, but readers should adjust their expectations accordingly.
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Nov 7, 2023 14:29
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The Final Empire and The Well Of Ascension both by Brandon Sanderson. Both really good, I think the second one has better characterization but the first has a more engaging story. Really looking forward to Hero Of Ages!
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Nov 8, 2023 01:00
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I skimmed through the last 150 pages of Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smil because it didn't seem to have much new to teach me. Nevertheless, the first 330 pages are well worth it, charting the central role of power sources in both living and nonliving forms across all of history, from changes in digestion and feeding early in human evolution to the modern solar panel. I got a much greater understanding of what preindustrial farming is like from the first third, the poverty and exhaustion of sustaining crops with no mechanical help. Also enlightening was coming to see the sheer hunger of people for fuel, which made deforestation a perennial difficulty for all civilizations. The focus of the second third is unsurprisingly all about fossil fuels and massive expansion of the energy available for use on a per capita basis, making people richer and more mobile. With many other tidbits and revelations, this is one of the better books I've read that profess to be about the entirety of human history.
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Nov 8, 2023 15:32
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