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The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim I've never seen this talked about, and I read it in a very strange way. Having attempted to use the Kindle apps weird one word at a time thing to read it while I was on the treadmill. So I can't say that I have the strongest grasp on the work, but as I came home the story seemed to crystalize in my head as one investigating the idea of criticism and reproduction in literature. The opening talks of the differing receptions the first and second editions had, as well as the impact the different language versions had, and then the ending talks of the diffrent races projecting different things onto the titular, Al-Mu'tasim. So the sceneario is, the protagonist is some reader, he kills the Hindu man who the text represents as Al, but can also be seen as an author. Without that the man is lost and attempts to search for the meaning in people that resemble him, each holds a part but projects their own proclivities onto the work. The man can get imperceptibly close to the source of knowledge, but never pull back the curtain fully, it's titled the Approach after all not the meeting. What Borges seems to be saying is that each person will find their own meaning in a work, and be able to do so with the help of numerous other perspectives on the matter, but they'll never be able to fully Understand the work like the original author did, and likewise the printing and reprinting itself changes the work from it's original. Interestingly I think by replacing Author with God one can find the same lesson applies to real life.
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Jul 24, 2022 03:04
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Pierre Ménard, author of Don Quixote might be one of the most interesting, perplexing, and thought provoking short stories I've read. Gonna copy this text so I can paste it in for the rest of Borges work to I'm assuming.
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Jul 25, 2022 05:08
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I read Tlon a couple weeks ago and then started Foucault's Pendulum and I've already got a pretty good idea what's going on because of it.
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Jul 25, 2022 16:09
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I've never got that, The Road is such a hopeful work especially compared to Blood Meridian
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Aug 12, 2022 00:52
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Ada, or Ardor Possibly the most pleasing prose I've ever read. Reading it feels like slipping into a silk robe, pure luxury. But it matches the style with a cheeky intellectual exercise of trying to catch all the sneaky references that Nabokov slipped in. I'm sure I only caught a fraction but each one brought a smirk to my face. Its also quite intellectually and morally interesting, a highlight of which is the rumination on Augustinian time, a concept that feels like it's been chasing me since I first read Mr.Hippos account of years ago, near the end Highly recommended if you can deal with the subject matter
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Sep 10, 2022 20:59
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The Master and Margarita Fascinating as a look into that era of life in the Soviet Union and as a rumination on redemption and the role of evil in society.
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Oct 14, 2022 03:35
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Foucault's Pendulum I loved the opening parts, but ended up unexcited enough that I finished multiple books before coming back to it. Most of Brazil could've been well and truly excised and large portions end up feeling more like a shopping list of various conspiracies and conspiracy In jokes then anything particularly exciting. Really when you get down to it, if I'm buying a book about people falling into conspiracy delusions I've already bought that ticket. They don't need to sell me on them slowly steeping in the pot, just serve me the tea. The major themes also aren't all that interesting to me, people falling into their own ironic conspiracies was done quicker and better by Borges and the idea of having to create our own god out of meaningless was done better by the conversation with Morpheus in Deus Ex. Its an interesting and occasionally funny work that never manages to rise above the good level. Agliè is the man I aspire to be though.
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Oct 15, 2022 03:31
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Finished Emma, I'd read Pride and Prejudice back in school and did not at all care for it. Recently however I discovered the Director Walt Stillman and having enjoyed so much his films such as Metropolitan I decided to read the works influencing himself chiefly among those Austen. And it was a pretty good time, given the rigidity of society at the time the novel feels rather light and open for how reserved the characters are, that is however an illusion masking the incredible amount of things happening between the scenes. Near every event is misconstrued by Emma and her fellows and the reader must be constantly vigilant at understanding what an event might mean to the principles instead of just relying on the conjecture of Ms.Woodhouse. If I ever hear about Maple Grove again however I will probably flip poo poo.
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Nov 13, 2022 03:44
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Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte A much darker work than I would have expected, given I tend to lump all the Victorian Novels together into a kind of Austenian mishmash, something I always knew was false to do, but I simply couldn’t tolerate most of the writing enough to learn to differentiate it barring some exceptions primarily in the genre space. That is to say, gently caress Charles Dickens I shall not be reading you. The romance in the novel is most interesting, romance in fiction tends to fall into two categories. Logical romances where people who spend time together and think generally alike tend to fall into each other, and the passionate romance where two people whom may not even like each other fall into a tempest of emotions when together. Bronte’s managed to fuse the two of them together with the romance between Heathcliff and Catherine. Her initial scorn to the child is quickly replaced by a sense of camaraderie and respect for him, and it’s to the novels credit that you can see the relationship grow, but get almost no specifics of how it did so beyond them spending time together and the very brief excerpt from Catherine’s diary. When the illusion of logical romance ends up cracking between the windows of Lintons and shattering when Heathcliff overhears part of the conversation between Nelly and Catherine, the only respite for both of them, who in their hearts lean far more into the passionate side of the dichotomy than the logical, is to fling themselves fully into that tempest to absolutely disastrous results for their families. Heathcliff shapes his love for Catherine into a sword to strike out at those who wronged him, and in his mind kept him from her. Catherine keeps up the appearance of civility, but her illusions that being married to Linton she could uplift Heathcliff is both offensive and reeks of a deep self deception. After all the abuse that Heathcliff has had to suffer at the hands of her brother and family, her idea of helping him being to abandon him so she can marry a man who won’t cause people to turn up their nose at her like they do her and she can scrape a few scraps from her plate for him is disgusting. Interestingly we do see a sort of reverse gendered version of the story in Hindely’s Marriage, a woman who is clearly not his “equal” in social standings but yet he loves and he nor anyone else brings up her own status in the novel directly. Regardless, Heathcliff’s rage at how he’s been treated by the Earnshaw’s is at least 75% justified, his subsequent actions are not. Him proving that he could move into that level of social class of his own merits and then taking control of the Heights is revenge enough. Entrapping Isabella, his foster ship of Hareton, the way he treats the Lintons, Catherine, and Nelly are incredibly reprehensible. Although I do think we have enough evidence in the text to see that Nelly herself is far from the most trusted source, she lies multiple times and withholds information from people that lead to horrible things, and she takes responsibility for nothing despite being one of the most active participants of the story. Compare that to the impression Lockwood has of the Heights, a man ignorant enough of all circumstance to be relatively unbiased. Cathy, the daughter, comes off as incredibly haughty and downright rude to Zina and the later accounts make her seem hardly the angel Nelly would have her to be. Likewise, Lockwood is given bed and board without much fuss by Heathcliff despite him rather he not stay there, so it hardly seems Heathcliff is this walking malevolence that Nelly would have him be in her first account of the story before Lockwoods return. Nelly would also have us think that Hareton’s love of Heathcliff is of sheer ignorance when given his true father’s complete degradation into alcoholism, despite Heathcliff deliberately keeping him ignorant and giving him servant work, his feelings for him do seem genuine. Heathcliff is his father for all intents and purpose’s. Psychologically Heathcliff might also think that he’s doing Hareton a favor, it really was the uplifitng and then falling into deprivation again that broke much of Heathcliffs mind. He might think it a kindness to keep him as a somewhat wild child who cares not for society, which is really nothing but vice and hypocrisy in Heathcliff’s mind, and instead raise him as a happy simpleton content with his lot. There’s a clear dichotomy between the Heights and Grange, the natural world and the civilized, and Hareton, someone who knows not of writing or social class but loves to hunt and be outside, and Cathy, a girl who lives in a literal walled garden and spends much of the novel speaking entirely in letters and outright scorns those not of her class, these two are a distillation of the natural and civilized, and the end with them forming synthesis of the two is a suiting end for the tale of the two houses. I’d also like to think of Catherine and Heathcliff’s endings as being like the Master and Margarita, they may not have found eternal paradise, but they do find some peace amongst the moors. Heart of the Dog Mikhail Bulgakov More than the Master and Margarita, I feel I missed a lot of the more Russian or Soviet aspects of the novel. That said it was still funny as hell, and still managed to be a pretty biting criticism both of the Soviet’s desire to reshape society from the basic personal level and the failings they achieved and of the bourgeoisie whom manage to even in a socialist society, manage to take up too much space and spend all their time in an utterly pointless job protected by friends and their social capital. Polygraph Polygraphovich might have a pointless makework job strangling cats, but is that any different from the Professor’s obsession with transplanting animal organs into humans. Specifically, I think he was putting animal testicles into a man to make them more virile? I wasn’t fully sure what was going on in that scene. Regardless, I think we can fully enshrine Bulgakov in the shrine of authors who make human/animals funny instead of sad like Wells did.
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Dec 8, 2022 04:31
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I've now finished three of the four Sea of Fertility novels by Mishima. Spring Snow is the most interesting managing to blend romance and melancholy in equal measures, the effect is capturing a feeling of the period that reflects Kyoaki's own life short and beautiful but tinged with regrets and sadness. Runaway horses manages to capture teenage angst in such a pure form the same way that Catcher in the Rye does. Not just the main characters actions are stopped, but his ideals are constantly being desecrated by the adult characters trying to look out for him. Could there be any greater insult to a revolutionary willing to die for their cause to hear that others agree with you, but their hands are simply tied and you should just grow up and moderate yourself. Temple of Dawn is quite possibly the most disgusting look at a society that I've ever seen. Honda fully transforms himself from a sidekick to a voyeur in the bombed out ruins of WWII Japan. Using his learning of Buddhism to justify his perverted tendencies. And in the post war we see a Japan that is economically recovering and morally and spiritually bankrupt beyond belief. The same prince that the Matsugae's and Ayakura's went to ruinous lengths to try to fool about the Sakoto situation is now hocking other royalties trinkets in a pawnshop. The former judge who sacrificed his position to save Isao's life now creeps parks watching young couples making love. Honda's own pathetic attempt at capturing some of the beauty of the affair Kiyoaki had is the most repulsive thing I've read. For two reasons, one the simple fact that a fat 57 year old man lusting after a 20 year old transfer student is gross, but secondly so because he enjoys the voyeuristic and humiliation of the event more than even the idea of sleeping with her. The worst part is is that this is the first chance he had at actually being able to save Kiyoaki's soul. Isao and Kiyoaki were too driven emotionally and politically for him to save them, Ying Chan however seemed just fine being a normal young lady. If he had simply given the esoteric knowledge of the Anti Snake charm to her instead of only using mysticism to further justify lusting after the unobtainable then she would have survived. I can only assume that Decay of the Angel will be even more apocalyptic in it's vision of modern Japan.
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Dec 25, 2022 02:07
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rich thick and creamy posted:Decay of the Angel gets a lot of criticism for feeling rushed. Which is valid considering what Mishima had planned in his personal life: The ending itself is some of the most beautiful and transcendent writing I've seen. But the idea that it lacks some connective tissue is true, but even what's there is great. Honda rotting morally and literally as he ages, decaying from someone who'd give up a judgeship to someone who hopes to take an orphan under his wings only to siphon off what youthful energy he can and watch him die. Keiko destroying Toru at the party, forcing him to realize that no matter how much abuse he throws at Honda, he will either die at twenty letting Honda get that satisfaction once again, or live on which will only confirm his status as "nonspecial". Even some of the smaller bits like coke machines being everywhere, and Keiko becoming so far astray from her own nation's culture that she more resembles a tourist than an Elderly Japanese woman of means. If you asked me to rank them I'd put Decay above Temple easily, that novel while good slipped far too often into meandering melodrama.
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Jan 5, 2023 01:05
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East of Eden Great work, the first half with Adam and Caleb I was pretty iffy on, I didn't feel that either felt wholly like real people. Nor their father, the back half with Sam, Lee, the two boys and Abra really changed my opinion. Characters like Cyrus gain depth when Adam finally admits that his father was embezzling funds, Adam complete inability to function as a parent or to see that Kate despised him perfectly shows the folly of the idea of perfectly good people being unable to function without accepting darkness of the human soul. The character he reminds me most of in fiction is Patera Silk from Long Sun. Aron was honestly boring, you feel exactly what person he is and how he'll be broken long before he comes face to face with Kate. Caleb makes up for it by being incredibly compelling, man is Augustine walking down a road filled with Pear Trees. Lee is simply based. I coulda done without a lot of the Kate/Joe plot and some of the Hamiltonian digressions, but aside from that the novel was great.
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Jan 17, 2023 00:58
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Many such cases
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Feb 10, 2023 20:41
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Journey to the end of night I feel like I should've been depressed about the novel, but I found it all very positive and generally uplifting. As a bonus it's extremely readable, even in English it flows well enough to carry you along with zero resistance.
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Feb 19, 2023 06:29
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Mumbo Jumbo Really cool novel, you can see all the things that Pynchon lifted from it for his own work. But it also always manages to keep itself tight and focused despite covering a drastically longer timeframe than any Pynchon novel. The only problem I have with it is the Digital Edition, the cross media appeal really doesn't work when the picture quality is so low that I cannot make out anything happening in them and worse than that the climax of the novel is a letter that the main character receives, handwritten, scanned in; I could not read said letter and just had to guess at what it said from context, not ideal. If you're interested in an Afrofuturist Foucalt's Pendulum check it out, but grab the physical novel.
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Feb 25, 2023 02:02
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HEAT 2 If you like the film Heat you need to read this. If you're like me you understand that Heat is one of the best plotted and executed films in history, managing to weave together dozens of character's stories on both sides of the law into one of the most pulse pounding can't-take-your-eyes-off-it-experiences in film. This novel also does that, and it does it around the film. Before the film in Chicago with Hanna following a murder robbery case and the crew busting the vault of the outfit, in Mexico where the crew hit a cartel counthouse, in Paraguay where post film Chris has to reinvent himself; going from a street soldier looking to take scores into a modern criminal using the tristerian side of the internet to hock black market defense software to pariah states. The novel captures the tone and voice of Mann and his character's perfectly, when Hanna is screaming at a fence for information, you hear Pacino. And the new characters that link the prequel and sequel parts of the novel slide right in with only the slightest sense of contrivance. And like the film, the book does not let off the gas for a second. You are wading through tension for every second your eyes scan the page. The wry banter, encroaching loneliness suffocating the actors, the methodical skill being put to good or ill use, all can end in exploding viscera and rent flesh in an instance. It's fantastic.
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Mar 6, 2023 03:32
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Cannery Row super chill read with just enough melancholy to keep it grounded. Recommended if you're the kind of person who uses terms like cozy unironically.
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Mar 9, 2023 06:41
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Life For Sale Incredibly pulpy and obviously serialized. This ain't great Mishima, but the cat still knows how to turn a phrase or ruminate on death even when he's doing it in-service of nothing more than some fat stacks of cash. Really made me rethink the way I've been living until now, drive deep down into my heart and finally come to terms with how much I want a hot vampire mommy gf Bartleby the Scrivner give me 1 reason this isn't Melville's masterwork instead of Moby Dick.
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Mar 18, 2023 04:16
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If he'd done that he'd have saved himself a lot of trouble
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Mar 18, 2023 18:00
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There's a sequel?
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Mar 21, 2023 05:12
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The Club Dumas I feel like saying that this feels more like an adventure novel than a work of literature is going to get me Gotcha'd by the author, regardless the statement holds. It makes nods at interesting ideas, but never pursues them longer than it needs for you to get your head in that psuedo-intellectual mode you need to be in to appreciate a novel about book forgery and binding. I would propose a theory of the novel. Half of it is something of a forgery itself In that everything, or most of what went on with Borja and Irene is fictional. I think that what happened is The Club Dumas plot happened mostly as planned, and that Corso was brought in as a kind of protagonist to their own foundational tale, but the disappointing reception at the club got them thinking that the tale was missing something. They thought they already had enough action with Milady and Rochefort, but it lacked the drama and conspiracy that the modern audience needs. Then, like how Dumas fleshed out Maquet's and the historical accounts with his own genius, filling the work with life. They too added and embellished the facts to drive the drama and intrigue to the stratosphere. A fictional devilry work is created, and an enigmatic satanist who wants it, a book collector who died is turned into a agoraphobic madman, a controversial author turned into a wiccan nazi, they invent a beautiful young woman, perhaps demonic, to guide the second part of the plot; one who only acts once against any real character, and it's the one whose an actor being paid by the club. It's a fun theory, and more interesting than the straight narrative, but as it is I really wish the novel had either been entirely about art forgery and a secret Dumas manuscript, or had been about the Ninth Gate of Hell. Trying to tie the two together makes the Dumas part feel dull, and the Ninth Gate feel too outlandish. One of the few times I can say a film probably did a better job. Invisible Cities Got Recced this after talking bout Borges. The only problem I have with it, is that I prefer Borges in his approach. That is to say, if Borges had the same materiel he'd have spoken of one of the city concepts in such depth I would be left slack jawed on the floor, ready to fully reconstruct my knowledge of what knowledge is. Calvino it's more of a "Huh, yeah that's a way of thinking about that". Cool, but not sublimely illuminating. The talk between the cities between Kublai and Marco was far more interesting on that front.
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Apr 4, 2023 01:06
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Book of Imaginary Beings Was not expecting 2 from C.S.Lewis to make the list, and doubly surprised they were both from Perelandra and not one of the races from Out of the Silent Planet. Gonna pick up a copy of The Temptation of St. Anthony as well, I suppose anything Borges goes to the well twice for in a novel has got to be good. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out what animals I would put in an imaginary zoology book. It should be somewhat easier given the glut of fictional monster encyclopedias we have in fiction now. Pokémon, DND, Megaten, Even works like HP. But filling your work with monsters themselves that have already been collected is so much less interesting than the free assossication Borges does with Mythological, Literary, and Religiously Mystic. The effect of collecting them all together Implicitly puts equal weight on all them to be equally unreal; a fascinating effect that probably wouldn't work if there was a Pikachu sitting in there. Actually typing it out, perhaps the reason it doesn't work with Pikachu is less the popularity so much as the over commercialization. It's hard to view Pikachu in a mythic context when you're so inundated with marketing that you can't divorce it from it's brand image baggage.
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Apr 10, 2023 16:20
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pmchem posted:The last three books I’ve finished are Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest, The Glass Key, and The Thin Man. You owe it to yourself to watch the film. Myrna Loy and William Powell together is possibly the best actor pairing of all time. https://youtu.be/ZSKHq1EjvL4
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Jun 28, 2023 02:01
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Flipping Pages back and forth, it's like a tennis match. Sorry you can't appreciate brilliance.
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Jul 10, 2023 05:06
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I'd say you should probably reread the books yourself before you go looking for other's opinions. It will likely cement certain ideas into your head that you'll find hard to shake if you see contrary evidence. That said there is no lack for material Botns writing. The above, the Rereading Wolfe Podcast which has some people who've been around the block and have good knowledge about the old mailing list crowd and Shelved by Genre whom just started and have a mix of people who've read the work over many times and a novice who never finished the work; it's been refreshingly interesting and insightful compared to some other podcasts with similar conceits. If you want text there's a collection on https://ultan.org.uk/ A bunch of stuff archived http://www.urth.net/ And you can also go out and look for write ups by Marc Aramini and Driussi out there on Reddit and the like.
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Jul 14, 2023 00:53
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StumblyWumbly posted:I just finished Nine Princes in Amber. Did not like. The first part where he has no memory was ok, but the writing quickly became mechanical and lazy, like someone describing their D&D games but without any interesting characters. Maybe I'm just too old for this type of fantasy book? As someone who finished the first half of the series I can assure you the quality only gets worse. All the allusions the backstabbing and secret alliances gets flattened into a nonsense apocalypse Story filled with characters who only flatten the more you see them in the narrative. The second half of the series trues to regain some of that lost momentum from the Bourne adjacent parts of the first but ends up quickly becoming comical; no less than three people from our world reveal that they know the protagonist is secretly a wizard from amber before either dying or loving off without actually revealing anything to him except that he's in danger. A fact he is already well aware of. Also he's a wizard hacker who does computers so hard he invents an ai that can control shadows. Just absolute nonsense.
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Aug 6, 2023 15:28
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That game system sound dope as hell
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Aug 7, 2023 03:35
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The King in Yellow I've read the yellow mythos connected stories separately before, It is however my first time reading the rest of the short stories. As hilarious as it is to see the back cover call it ten horrifying tales when a full half of them are melancholy at best and all of the back half are romantic, you shouldn't discount the back half. Chambers shows just as much talent in writing weird tales as he does in writing drama, The Street of the First Shell and Rue Barrée stand out as blending romantic interests with grounded dramatic events, whereas The Mask blends the romance with the weird in a satisfying way. The Demoiselle d'Ys is the most discordant of all the stories in tone but Is still suitably poignant, especially if you look at the stories less as a weird tale collection or romance collection and take it as an artist's lament at the perceived collapse of art in the wake of modernization during his lifetime, Chambers is nothing if not a classic Romanticist. Only The Court of the Dragon, aimless and not very scary although it has a great ending, and The Prophets' Paradise, too formless, fail to rank as entertainment.
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Aug 9, 2023 00:18
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King, Queen, Knave weaker than Mary Nabokov's preceding novel, the second novel he wrote tears itself away from his preoccupation with the emigres community and instead manages a explicitly humors and implicitly terrifying view of the mindset that would lead to the terrors of the Nazi regime. Granted, he heavily edited the book when he and his son had it translated into English, but seeing as I dont read Russian I cannot divorce his few inserted comments about Franz's future complicity with the previous text that already is explicit in how a weak willed man is seduced into terrible crimes through the total destruction of his higher mental faculties. Although this novel has a much more positive outcome with that same lobotomization being the cause of the lobotomizers death. Much of the references to works outside the text, to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina are funny but not significant and his try at in universe symbology with the King,Queen, Knave play feels amateurish compared to the double and triple entendre references of Nabokov's later works. Surprisingly though I felt very touched with Dreyer, his melancholy at being unable to connect with his wife in matters that aren't purely material, his realization that his wealth is by chance not skill, that he doesn't feel made for business but rather acting but cannot divorce himself of his cash growing operations lest he lose what little of himself his wife loves. In all, it's a good sophomore effort, emphasis sophomore rather than good. The Leopard A heartbreaking account of a man, and a class being left behind in the dustbin of history. Tancredi being the only one to truly miss Fabrizio, when he and his class are the ones who put the final nail in the coffin of the aristocracy. Better to die with at least a sham prestige like The Leopard did rather than trying to cling onto hollow titles and ancient accomplishments. Novel does suffer from not having Alain Delon's beautiful blue eyes to gaze into.
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Sep 10, 2023 21:08
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Pouring one out for the dog man
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Oct 4, 2023 02:07
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Naw Time Machine is goated scifi.
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Oct 5, 2023 02:59
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The Tatami Galaxy One of the few times an adaption outshines it's source, see also The Shining. The novel is a humorous tale of a young college junior who feels he's wasted his school life, joined the wrong clubs, failed to find a partner, is nearly failing all his classes, and his only friend is wretch who looks like a yokai. The novel goes over the four different paths he could've taken through school, with all of them ending with him in mostly the same spot before he finally grasps his chance to escape the hamster wheel he is on. It's a rather short and easy read, and the repetition that seems annoying at first manages to hit at the end when it's turned on its head. That said, the anime adaption is directed by Yuasa, the most interesting and talented man in Japanese Animation. And as far as I'm concerned is not only superior to the novel, it is also a must watch for anyone who is in the least interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ax2FIa_cM
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Oct 13, 2023 02:09
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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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David Wong pretending to be Asian for a decade is funnier than the novel ever was.
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Nov 17, 2023 10:38
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You must be thinking of Man in the Iron Mask. Dantès was locked up in the Château d'If
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Nov 25, 2023 06:13
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Notes on Cinematography by Robert Bresson. Fascinating work, likely not useful in the least for making films, but interesting to see into the mind of someone who made such powerful works that were also so sparse and distinct from every other art movement of the time and today.
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Jan 5, 2024 04:06
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I finished Augustus by Williams the last week and that was also quite good. Very interesting take on Julia the Elder
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Jan 13, 2024 02:55
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Ohtori Akio posted:Yesterday I read Star, by Mishima, in translation by Sam Bett. That's my first Mishima and it left a wonderful impression on me. I think I'm going back for more. I've not read Star but every other work of his I've read has been either great, as in actually awe inspiring, or at least a lot of fun. Sailor and Temple of the Golden Pavilion get a lot of love but don't skip his Sea of Fertility Tetralogy. He finished the last right before his suicide so you can tell the whole series meant a lot to him. It's the most incisive and damning account I've seen of Japan from the Taisho to Showa eras i've seen put down to paper. A series haunted in bloodstained beauty. The fourth novel falls off a bit, but the ending is absolutely incredible. One of those works you put down with the spine still cracked because you can't quite grasp the immensity of what you've just read.
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Jan 23, 2024 01:07
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Dradin in Love never read any of Vandermeer's fantasy so I decided to give his first Ambergris story a shot. Not a real fan of it at all. The two central mysteries or plot points were obvious from the get go so I spent most of the story wondering when we were going to get to the meat of the work but unfortunately Vandermeer spends almost the entire time either setting up or painting pictures of the background. Neither of which are all that compelling when our protagonist, antagonist, and love interest are so mannequin like. He's a good prose writer and he has interesting and compelling ideas but with this and some of the weaker sections of his Area X series I feel he has trouble synthesizing his skills together to get his ideas out in the way he sees them in his mind. I feel like I'm reading the shadow play version of the work he has in his mind's eye. If you read the work and would like something that touches on similar themes, but in a more interesting yet elusive way check out Gene Wolfe's There Are Doors.
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Feb 6, 2024 20:29
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 17:29 |
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Pendulum does have a lot of high intellectual concepts about symbols and how humans define themselves with them and try to make sense of the randomness of the universe by threading them all together into something we can grasp. It is also just as much a fun conspiracy theory free association exercise that pretty quickly sucks you in and makes you understand why people would get so consumed by something that is so obviously insane when looked at objectively.
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Mar 6, 2024 20:47
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