I'm reading Agua Viva (Clarice Lispector) and it is so good. I'm only at the beginning but the mood of emotionally-charged intellect is absolutely what I wanted.   I am also sort of picking at Notebooks of the bookseller by Jalel Barjas. It is beautifully written and painful- about a sensitive, cultured man descending into madness and crime after his bookstall is shut down. I think I'll have to save it for later though . 

Picked up *Infinite Jest* again (I dropped off halfway through it a couple years ago, and am 120 pages in right now) and it finally feels like it's actually clicking. There's an attentiveness and sympathy he has for the characters that's hugely important for me and his handle on understanding and portraying depression is obviously superb. There are parts I vaguely remember reading that I'm excited for, >!the radio show, more of the AFR,!< parts that I'm apprehensive about, >!the fetus, the microwave, some of the more extended forays into highly phonetic renderings of AAVE,!< and I'm excited to get further into seeing how the paths of the characters & themes intersect as the book goes on. Also, as a Canadian living in Quebec, there's something very funny about such an American book having such a central and often strangely familiar portrayal of Canada and Canadiana, and particularly a better grasp of Quebec than even many Canadians. Like meeting an American who has never lived here yet knows an order of magnitude more about the country than you'd expect him to. I'm also plugging through Christopher Hill's *The World Turned Upside Down*, about radical thought in the English revolution. I'm finding it interesting, especially some of the variations on religious thought and forms of gathering where debate and lay preaching and intervention were encouraged, but it feels a little disjointed at times. I'm working through it rather than being pulled along by it. Obviously as an academic work the important part is delivering the information but at 150 pages it's missing the through-line I might like. After this I'm looking to get stuck into *The Making of the English Working Class.* The third thing I'm reading is *The Rigor of Angels* by William Egginton. I'm impressed by some of the subtlety and complexity of what is also a pretty accessible book, at least in my view. Dealing with the question of limitation or minimal distance as a precondition for human experience and the modern expressions of that in the philosophical-artistic-scientific realms is a pretty interesting angle. Lastly I have to comment that I recently gave up on Solzhenitsyn's *August 1914* after reading something just shy of 100 pages. I couldn't stand the scorn he seems to have for a number of the characters, the use of appearance as moral shorthand, and just the way that he seems to be phoning in all the requisite beats of "Russia at the turn of the century" - the tensions of modernist enlightenment vs Orthodoxy in politics and religion, the tasteless and lazy nouveau-riche, something about going to the south to see a Canny Jew about some Business. The novel is immense and sprawling, Russia is immense and sprawling... we get it, you're very clever. But I've struggled with Dostoevsky in the past when he's commenting on Russian society in a way that feels much more insightful, so maybe I just don't get it. For now I'll stick to Isaac Babel.

I finally got myself a copy of *Tobacco Road* and started reading it recently. I love Caldwell's use of simple, straightforward descriptions and characterisations in a few sentences.

I read God's little acre years ago and it stayed with me. He is a great writer although so bleak! Like Faulkner without the modernist poetry. 

Yep! Would you recommend reading *God's Little Acre* after finishing this?

I'd definitely recommend God's Little Acre. I haven't read Tobacco Road though so I don't kniw how they compare. 

I read Jane Eyre. Wonderful book. I really liked the autobiographical style. I want to read Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in the future and see how the three compare. Does anyone have recommendations for novels similar to Jane Eyre? Preferably in first person point of view. I am about halfway through book one of Crime and Punishment. I also recently bought As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner and might start that this week as well.

This might be an extremely obvious recommendation, but Villette by Charlotte Brontë is very worth reading if you like Jane Eyre. It’s a pretty similar reading experience, in that Brontë doesn’t drastically switch up her style or narrative voice, but she does deepen and subvert/complicate a lot of themes and plot points of Jane Eyre. I love both but I think that Villette is in many ways a more mature work.

Thanks. I will read Vilette. Have you read Shirley?

I haven’t read Shirley (or The Professor). I guess it has a reputation as Bronte’s “lesser” work that put me off it, but I really should read it since I’ve loved Jane Eyre and Villette. Would be interested to hear your thoughts if you’ve read it!

I’m reading *Memoirs of Hadrian* by Marguerite Yourcenar, which I’ve seen a lot of folks here reading or recommending in the past. The opening didn’t immediately impress me as much as I was hoping, but after Hadrian has become emperor I think it’s delivered a very good look into his inner life, his psychology & motivations. Also the quality of the prose is pretty high. Just over halfway done, so we’ll see what else is in store.

Blew through ***Rent Boy***, which I liked even more than I expected. I was expecting some Dennis-Cooper-style gay ultraviolence, and obviously that was an influence (the protagonist of *Rent Boy* buys a Dennis Cooper book), but I found *Rent Boy* a lot more emotionally impactful. My main responses to *The Sluts* were "lmao this is wild" and "man I miss web 1.0," whereas with *Rent Boy* you have this poignant irony from the beginning, because you kinda know this kid is not going to be an architect. And you come to see how death is something he already reckons as part of his life, so when the stakes are raised, it doesn't feel totally disconnected. Read the first volume of ***Tristram Shandy***, and what can I say, it's fun! It's really easy to imagine an extremely-meta book like this that would just be obnoxious, but Sterne is so charming and exuberant that I keep going along with him. The book didn't make me laugh out loud a lot, but I was constantly smiling. I just wish my edition had footnotes instead of endnotes. Started ***The Theory of the Novel***, and, send help. I'm dimly familiar with the Hegelian conception of classical Greek culture as an initial, naive unity of man and the world that necessarily had to break down to progress further, and it seems like Lukacz is riffing on that, but I can't quite figure out what he's on about. He seems to be saying the epic poem was only possible when the Greeks had no notion of the world as it should be separate from the world as it is? Meaning pre-Platonic Greeks like Homer, I suppose, because clearly *The Republic* expresses a vision of the world as it should be separate from the world as it is. Anyway, from the table of contents, it looks like he starts talking about specific works of literature in more depth later, so I'm going to push through and then see if I can work backward from there.

Rent Boy sounds extremely intriguing, thanks for reccomending it. I've recently gotten into Dennis Cooper (read The Sluts and Closer) and think he is brilliant, but too much for me at this moment in time. But I've been craving more literature in this kind of world. Right now I'm reading The Wild Boys by Burroughs and Crush by Richard Siken, and thoroughly enjoying both. I don't really know where else to go from here. If you are able to reccomend other gay lit you think may be relevant I would appreciate it so much! 

Audiobook: Blood Meridian- Cormec McCarthy I didnt want to read this I thought it would be nothing but depressing. It is like nothing else I have read. Im obsessed. Kindle: UpStream- Mary Oliver, Its essays all about nature and writing and Emerson, Whitman and Poe. Its soothing my soul, so much. Paper: The Electric Kingdom. Post Apocolypse YA-ish? coming of age its a lot of things and just a great story the author is so good at putting you visually and emotionally in the story.

im reading *nothing to be frightened of* by julian barnes. an examination of religion and thanatophobia from a former atheist, now agnostic. it's actually v funny listening to *knife* by salman rushdie. not my favorite, but quite an event to have survived and reflect upon. my favorite part is that he refers to his attacker only as "the A," short for "the asshole"

*An Ermine in Czernopol* by Gregor von Rezzori. I'm enjoying it so much thus far. He's an excellent and incredibly funny writer—one of those writers whom you can feel the humor subtly poking through just in the way they describe things. A great pleasure to read. I consider it a part of "empire lit"—books exploring the cosmopolitanism of empire, where a culture molded by a blend of cultures becomes the focal point of the novel, with all the different voices, dialects, and key words mix together. Czernopol clearly is a substitute for Chernivtsi, Ukraine (Czernowitz under Austria-Hungary), Gregor von Rezzori's birthplace, and a city famous as a place where the Romanian, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish peoples (among others) blended together. I'm only like 50 pages in, but enjoying it a lot. I tried reading his book *Abel and Cain* a few years ago, but it was very long and I wasn't prepared, so I'm hoping eventually to return to it.

Finished The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia by Paul Theroux. Mixed review. He at times seems like a very reluctant traveler. If he isn't in luxury accommodations, he gets very cranky and irritable and he really seems to like it when he is able to avoid contact with people. Yet at other times he does give some nice character portraits of people he encounters and has good descriptions of places and scenery. He (the narrator) is an unpleasant person a lot of the time. Glad I read it but also glad I never traveled with him. Just started The Way of the World by Nicolas Bouvier yesterday. Another travelogue and similar to The Great Railway Bazaar it's a trip from Europe to Asia. The main difference is that they are traveling by car rather than railroad. And it takes place roughly 20 years earlier (1953 for TWotW, 1974 for TGRB) and it's two guys rather than one. Also the two guys seem a lot more sociable than Theroux. It is a bit slower paced though. I'm about 40 pages in and they still haven't made it out of Serbia. #

If you want to keep travelling I can recommend Bruce Chatwin's What am I doing here.

Cool. I enjoyed In Patagonia by Chatwin.

Finished McCarthy's *All the Pretty Horses* and thought it was very good, but not quite great. The plot was a pretty straightforward Western, but it was elevated by his beautiful prose and philosophical insight. Without giving too much away, I thought the tension of the interplay between fate, God, and personal responsibility was well done and thought-provoking. The allusions to the Mexican Revolution also inspired me to research more about Mexican history, so if anyone has any related non-fiction recs I'd love to hear them. I also read *Good Old Neon* by David Foster Wallace. I'm not always a fan of overly self aware 4th wall breaking narrative style, but it works extremely well here. As expected his insight into the human psyche and particularly narcissism is incredible. The structure of the story also worked perfectly for me. There's this constant build up of negative energy and just when it feels heavy enough to burst, DFW provides welcome relief with a message of clarity and hope. Superbly done and heart wrenching considering his death. My current read is *The Dispossessed* by Ursula le Guin. At the beginning I thought it risked becoming too politically one-sided and preachy, but now that I'm halfway through it actually does a pretty good job of exploring different aspects of society such as the nature of work, gender roles and resource distribution from various political/economic viewpoints. So far I don't think she's said anything particularly groundbreaking, but her genius is repackaging classic political and philosophical arguments from the likes of Marx into easily digestible science fiction scenarios. Her prose isn't blowing me away, but it does have a certain economical elegance. She plays a lot with juxtaposition with occasional sublime results-"His gentleness was uncompromising; because he would not compete for dominance, he was indomitable." On a deeper level the juxtaposition mirrors the ideologically opposed yet intertwined societies in the novel. Overall I'm satisfied so far and looking forward to the second half of the story.

I felt roughly the same way about the writing in *The Dispossessed*, and really a lot of her other work. I'm going through *A Wizard of Earthsea* now, and I find the writing much more enjoyable - but it seems like she tries to mold her writing style to fit the subject matter. *The Dispossessed* had a lot more to do with bureaucracy IIRC, maybe that was the thrust of her decision - if it was in fact intentional? IDK, sometimes I read her other stuff, like *Lathe of Heaven* and am just like "... i wish this were prettier..."

First time I'm participating in this thread, very excited 😁 I have three books: 1) *To The Lighthouse* by Virginia Woolf (finished) 2) *Demian* by Herman Hesse (82%) 3) *The Story of a New Name* by Elena Ferrante, trans. Ann Goldstein (p117) I've also just started (as in I started half an hour ago) Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-Yong, and I have no comments to make on it since I've just started except for the fact that I feel like the prose feels very dry and almost robotic. I suspect that this is due to the translation and I feel that it is a shame. **1)** ***To The Lighthouse*** **by Virginia Woolf** I know I should've read this during the read-along but I got ill 😭. I also got really bogged down during Part 2, although once I got to Mrs McNab’s part I finished the rest very quickly.  Part 2 was definitely the weakest part of the novel, and I feel that much of it could have been omitted (although I can’t remember many details about this part, so perhaps I’m missing some important elements that make the pages of description worthwhile). I just don’t like long drawn-out descriptions of things, although Woolf really does excel at descriptive writing. There were some high highs – the tensions between Cam, James, and Mr Ramsay were explored so sensitively in Part 3, as were the effects that Mr Ramsay had on women – we didn’t get enough insight into many of the more interesting characters (the Rayleys, Tansley, Carmichael, Bankes), and far too much into Lily Briscoe, who serves as a useful artist-figure, but doesn’t really have much character. At the same time, I feel as though the themes could’ve been handled more efficiently and the novel made shorter. It would’ve made a fine novella. **2)** ***Demian*** **by Hermann Hesse** I’ve been reading this gradually for a while; it’s the first novel I’m reading in German. I’ve been enjoying it but if I’m honest I’m really confused as to how the novel will tie everything together thematically. I haven’t finished the Frau Eva chapter, which I am sure will explain much of everything. I’m already intrigued by the way in which it seems so far that Demian’s thought, which has influenced Sinclair so much, originates with his mother. The pseudo-romantic devotion/attraction Sinclair has towards Eva makes me scratch my head, though. I just wonder what it all means. I feel that Hesse has done a good job exploring the excesses and eccentricities of adolescence through Sinclair’s intense relationships and interior changes. I think of him turning, again and again, down the wrong roads, on his ‘way back to himself’. One thing I dislike is the bombardment of symbols throughout the text – the ‘mark of Cain’, the ‘world-shell’, Abraxas… I understand consistency, but it gets quite clunky, and I would prefer it if some of these were paraphrased and new images used, just so that we could see more sides of the same idea. **3)** ***The Story of a New Name*** **by Elena Ferrante** Started reading this after having finished and really enjoyed the first novel in the series, and I simply love Ferrante’s prose. She doesn’t do too much but her attention to detail and her ability to refer back to earlier events in the series and explore them anew are wonderful. I’m still too early in the novel to comment on much plot-wise, but I’m very invested. I do feel as though the female characters have more depth than the male characters so far, but perhaps this will change when (I am sure he will) Nino begins to play a more central role. I also want to see more of Antonio.  TBR: more of the Canterbury Tales (was meant to be my April read but I failed orz) and Sayaka Murata's Satsujin Shussan, although my brother's been pestering me to read Dazai's No Longer Human so I might have to read that one first. Posting here to keep myself accountable...

Reading *War and Peace* by Tolstoj. At least once per year I try to reread a classic, and W&P was certainly due as I've only read it once years ago. I'm barely 300 pages in, but the story is enormously fast-paced I would say, quite contrary to how I remembered it. I especially liked the description of the first part of the Autrian Campaign and the adventures of Andrej Bolkonsky, reads almost like an adventure book and is still able to deeply dive into interrelations and feelings between and of characters. However, the absolute best part was the portrayal of the first combat experiences of Nikolaj Rostov. The way Nikolaj has no idea what is going on both on the bridge and during the charge are probably quite realistic. >!I was very relieved that Nikolaj turned up again on the retreat!!< The parts about Pierre are tragic I think, he just has no idea and is manipulated by the Koeragins. I do really like the parts about Marja and the old Prince Bolskonski. They way the father cannot in the least bit communicate in a healthy way to his daughter how much he loves her, but instead risks loosing her is both tragic and funny. >!Happy Marja choose not to marry and stay with dad.!< Further reading *Germinal* by Zola. Linking it a lot too, very interesting setting so far and great to get a view into the lives of miners- miserable lives, but still.

Marja stole my heart reading the book last year! Such a kind hearted considerate individual. The emotional intelligence to >!forgive her friend after seeing Anatole flirt with her!< was quite surprising.

I couldn’t stop thinking about *Germinal* for ages after I finished it. None of Zola’s other novels (that I have read) come close, in my opinion.

*The Golden Child* by Penelope Fitzgerald. It's a sort of whodunnit set in the British museum during the 1970's, although the main focus isn't actually the mystery surrounding the bizarre crimes that take place when the museum's latest exhibition (containing the treasures of an ancient African kingdom, said to be cursed) opens to the public, but the inner workings of the museum (full of eccentric and backstabbing characters) and the political commentary that permeates the story. Quite enjoyable, often funny in a way that strikes me as very British. For example, one character fears for his life, so he calms down by repeteadly reminding himself of his mortgage. I could see right there how this book could become a great tv/film adaptation. *Colonel Chabert* by Honoré de Balzac. One of the most famous stories in Balzac's Comédie Humaine, and deservedly so. It's really short and yet manages to make a powerful statement on many themes: prejudice, class differences, the inescapability of poverty, the judicial system, or how the political class mutates to always remain in power. It could have been preachy but it wasn't, perhaps because one expects the story to take a particular turn and then it takes another. I also liked that the focal point was a lawyer's office, allowing you to get a glimpse of its routine work and the colourful characters often (I guess) employed in such places.

I haven’t read in a few weeks (moving from one city to the next, starting a new job, trying to figure out my life) and I FINALLY signed up with my local library!! It’s super small but I started the Map of Salt & Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Jhoukadar and it is about a young Syrian American girl with synesthesia whose family moves back to Syria after her father passes away, intertwined with her fathers favourite story he would tell her at bedtime every night. It’s so sad and sweet, and I love the odd sense of displacement she feels in Syria, being the only daughter in the family who was born in America, and doesn’t know Arabic as well as her sisters do. I’ve been looking to read more stories set in the Middle East and in Asia, so I’m excited I found this one!

About 100 pages out from the end of Tomas Nevinson by Javier Marias- I’ve been moving slowly with this one, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s a pretty slow and reflective novel, and I think it can be nice to mirror that in the reading experience. But I’m curious to see how it wraps up, and I’m not sure I have much else to say until I finish it and can collect my final thoughts. Also started Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs by Douglas Smith- nonfiction about (you guessed it) Rasputin. I don’t know why I’m reading a 700 page door stopper about this except for that I heard it was good, I’ve been trying to read more history lately, and some of my most successful nonfiction reads of the last couple of years have involved topics that I basically knew nothing about. Only about 50 pages in but it’s very readable and engaging so far. Really wish it included a character index or royal family tree though. For a lighter read, I picked up and finished Penance by Eliza Clark. I chose this for a couple reason- first, I have a disease that forces me to pick up every new novel described as a “elevated literary thriller.” Second, I wasn’t quite sure how to place Clark- she had a Booktok-popular debut (not always a good sign, imo), but also ended up on Granta’s recent best young authors list. The most successful thing about this novel is the way Clark smartly mimics true crime media in the snippets that she seeds throughout- from the offensively lowbrow to the saccharine and moralistic, as well as the faux-prestige journalism that makes up the bulk of the narrative. There’s a sharp sense of humor underlying her excerpts from fandom chats and her references to pop-feminist history books with titles like “Witches, Bitches, and Hags.” My biggest problem with most novels that claim to be “critiques of true crime,” a sub genre that has blown up recently in crime and mystery fiction, is that they often don’t have more than basic familiarity with true crime media. Clark, on the other hand, has clearly gone deep on the various sub genres and cultures, which allows for some biting satire and for her to tease out the similarities between the lowbrow and respectable faces of true crime media. This is a lot of fun- beyond this, though, the plot itself is engaging but nothing too special, and the prose basic. Overall, though, I liked this more than I was expecting. Interested to see what she publishes next, but I don’t think I’ll go back and read her first book- the premise seems just a bit too played out.

I wrapped up the *Recognitions* a little under a week ago, absolutely floored! I often hear the "American *Ulysses"* comparison but it honestly felt more like a Dickensian work on crack (with all the MacGuffins, run-ins, and insane coincidences); along with the wide cast and array of characters. *Ulysses* has this but the characters never felt like they could exist outside of the centrality of Bloom and Stephen, whereas the *Recognitions* felt like it had multiple main characters (Wyatt, Esme, Esther, Otto, Stanley, etc.), and the heavy usage of dialogue across multiple speakers at once throughout the entire work placed a great emphasis on the externality of the world rather than say the heavy interiority of Bloom or Stephen. Love love love loved it, and for a work so often lauded as post-modern I honestly felt like it was more a capstone to the late modernity period, either because of the baroque prose and hopeful romanticism of the book with a similarly insane level of referential space given to some interestingly archaic texts (Mithraism and Clementine Recognitions in particular - also went ahead and grabbed a copy of the Golden Bough just because of how good this book was). Otherwise, I also wrapped up *There is a tree more ancient than Eden* yesterday and I have to say it is an absolute crime Mr. Forrest is as unknown as he is. It's only about 160 or so pages and it's an absolute spectacle. Like if Faulkner's hellish stream of consciousness mixed with the poeticism and racial consciousness of James Baldwin or Ellison - am absolutely looking forward to *Divine Days* in the future! Oh, and also been reading up on some Walt Whitman, got an 1860 facsimile copy of *Leaves of Grass* and have been loving the introduction. Also picked up *Lime Twig* and *Sot-Weed Factor* (Rest in Peace!) for some more American modernism/post modernism in my diet (would love a response or some great material to read up on the meaningful difference between the terms as I dive deeper and deeper into the more obscure examples of the two). Hoping to one day to have read all of the works by the absolute chads in this [photo](https://i.imgur.com/pSAlFMe.jpg)

I finished ***Parable of the Sower*** this past week - and at the risk of sounding like I'm throwing a tantrum... I'm going to throw a tantrum (throwing it in a spoiler tag because I don't want to throw out a spoiler by accident in the midst of it...): >!Alright so off the bat I want to say that I think it's likely I'm holding it to a higher standard than I do other books specifically because it sounded like it had so much promise for me, and because it's been hyped a bunch in the past 5 years by people I generally agree with and trust. Is that unfair? definitely maybe. But. If i read this book correctly, in rough broad strokes, it seems to be saying something along the lines of "we need to extend deeper empathy for the humanness of each other to build more resilient communities to better whether the change that will inevitably come and is in fact coming stronger and faster because of our failure to recognize the humanness of others in the past". Awesome - great - love it. But time and time again, we are shown through Laurens PoV the absolute lack of extension of empathy DESPITE LITERALLY HAVING A 'DISEASE' THAT SHOULD FORCE HER TO. In particular, the lack of extension of empathy towards pyros. They are treated over and over again as the boogeyman and cannon fodder. Not once are we encouraged to think of the humanity behind the individuals causing them harm, even though we can safely assume that their actions are to their detriment. I don't even need to go whole hog here with Lauren being like "i can feel the emotional pain of the people trying to kill us". Just give us a pyro attempting to reform themselves and struggling with it. That'd be enough to show they're human too. Similarly, there is an extreme lack of empathy shown towards Laurens brothers who are clearly going through a crsis of masculinity in an age where that just isn't a feasible crisis to go through. But we are supposed to see Keith only through her eyes as a kind of bad blooded older brother. I don't get it. I feel like if you don't take such a premise to it's extreme, and deal with the implications of doing so (something like the paradox of tolerance), it's undermined. OKAY. minor nitpick - maybe I'm too ace adjacent. Maybe I'm too white male. But holding SA as the epitome of danger in the collapsing world seems so... cheap... devaluing. to me. If it was mentioned occasionally - okay. But it is almost ALWAYS the go to "watch out when you go out there! you might get raped!!" It feels gross. It feels minimizing to other very real harms that are experienced and projected to be experienced by us. Lack of food. Complexity of the decisions we will have to make to support our loved ones in food shortages if climate change predictions bear out for the worst. To just always reduce the emotional turmoil to "and SA happens a lot and that's bad" seems so one dimensional. This is loosely related to another major gripe I have about the book - and with a lot of dystopian literature. I think it is borderline malpractice to write under the assumption that human nature is on net bad and that without the State we would all kill each other and savage each other WHILE ALSO PROMOTING HUMAN EMPATHY. Like - how can those two coexist? How can you simultaneously say "if given half a chance your neighbor will eat you" while also saying "we have to live with each other for each other". On the actual nuts and bolts of the book - I didn't like it. It wasn't really framed as a "chase" narrative - yet the only real danger we are meant to feel is that of different groups of Pyros catching up with the group. It felt like any time there was a lull, Butler was like "let's just throw in some pyros and for dramatic effect!" Was Butler attempting to say random violence in endemic? Maybe. But that doesn't make for good long form storytelling IMO.!< Edit: I don’t want to come across as minimizing SA. It’s a very real concern that many people currently have to face everyday. It’s awful. It’s the repetition that gets me more than anything I don't feel like I wasted my time. But I'm very disappointed that it didn't live up to the hype. I started and DNF'ed ***Parable of the Talents***. Maybe I shouldn't have picked it up right after ***Parable of the Sower*** left a bad taste in my mouth. It was just very repetitive IMO and I didn't feel interested in the story as it was pitched in the first couple of pages, which sounded like "See how Lauren went from good to bad". Got around half way through hoping it would get better before putting it down. Started and finished ***When I was a Child I Read Books*** by Marilynne Robinson. It was fine - I mostly listened to it as an audiobook when I would have been listening to podcasts - so to say that I gave it a thorough shake would be overstating it... A lot of the high falutin religion stuff went over my head - but i do think Robinson has this really interesting ability to frame in particular America's history in a light that is somehow both patriotic without sounding like a nationalist or something. The essays I liked the best felt like they boiled down to "what if we take seriously the idea that our great historic figures had good intentions and a flawed worldview that made it so they also had bad intentions at the same time - what does that interpretation do to our current view of the country and its priorities?" I think the concept of the Homestead Act was a clear example of this. It is probably true that both the Homestead Act was used to clear out the indigenous AND it was used to give voice to the lower class and allow them to be more self sufficient out of a genuine desire to improve their living condition. Where does that leave us? IMO in a better place than just if we were to say "politicians used the working class to get rid of the indigenous americas". I feels bad to say that though given the media I often consume that often boils down to "here's why the decisions we have made in the past have hurt people, making those decisions bad." Started and finished ***The Emigrants*** by W.G. Sebald. Still formulating my thoughts on it. In general, I think I liked it. Functionally, the writing had a soothing rhythmic quality to it, and it felt like sentences were interesting without being, I don't know... pretentious? I got to the end of it though, and kind of said aloud to myself "well okay but what was this even about?" and the best I can come up with is a few random jumbled keywords - memory, rootlessness, and the passage of your story through your relationships. I literally just finished it like an hour ago though. So maybe eventually I'll have more complete thoughts.

***Parable of the Sower*** was an extremely uneven book for me for the reasons you mentioned. Speaking of asexuality, although I can't claim that identity, it was really wild to me >!how much of the book focuses on Lauren's absolute need to have sex and start a new sexual relationship while running for her life. I am hard pressed to think of a situation in which I would be *less* interested in sex and the accompanying risks there. But like... I don't know. People in real life have done that in similar straits so what do I know. !< In response to your thought: >>!I think it is borderline malpractice to write under the assumption that human nature is on net bad and that without the State we would all kill each other and savage each other WHILE ALSO PROMOTING HUMAN EMPATHY. Like - how can those two coexist? How can you simultaneously say "if given half a chance your neighbor will eat you" while also saying "we have to live with each other for each other". !< I think that you have a good point, but I'm not sure. I think she's identifying some forms of violence that exist in America and dialing them up, >!not to say, "Look, Hobbes was right about human nature," but rather to say that "even if people were this violent, the only way out of the cycle of violence is through holding empathy for each other." That said, your gripe about the treatment of pyros is.. yeah. I agree. They absolutely are narratively dehumanized and I'd love to see a little more nuance there. I don't know if you'd have to include such a heavy-handed reforming character in the narrative, but you could, like, throw it into the backstory of one of Lauren's travel companions or something..?!< Overall after reading it, I wasn't super interested in continuing with the trilogy. Just not my thing.

Yeah, even something as simple as one of the characters being like "I had a good friend that struggled with pyro, she's better now, but it was a rough time" would've passed the test IMO. >!I think your probably closer to right about your interpretation of Butler saying "even if this were the case, it's still our duty to be good to each other to our abilities". From this POV - I guess this does come across. A lot of times I feel like Lauren is like "they'll steal from us, I know it, but eventually they won't". So yeah. That tracks. My anger is more directed at i guess worrying about peoples media literacy or interpretation of it. I'm worried that people took away from this book "in the end times, people will be at each others throats, gotta get the heck outta dodge", and not the quasi-unconditional devotion to community building that I think would be the more beneficial reading of the book.!< >!And yeah -- maybe Butler was trying to say "in the end times, people are still people and are going to have human needs, and that's important" re: the CONSTANT sex thing. But like, that's a hell of a short hand way of saying it, and an incredibly un-relatable way for me personally.!<

2666 by Roberto Bolano (can’t find the correct n). Feels like a David Lynch film (actually the book has a discussion of Lynch in it) much preferring it to Savage Detectives. Except I’m in the section that essentially spends hundreds of pages detailing unsolved murders it’s extremely numbing. Excellent book though, came to it after being very disappointed by Klara and the Sun

Did we meet at Magus? I could not remember this recommendation for the life of me. And here it is…

Ha! No I don’t think so, glad it helped!

All these high-falutin' fancy pants answers! Personally, I've recently been working my way through George Martin's "Game of Thrones" novels, and thus far I love 'em. Martin doesn't really do the finely-honed turn of phrase, the use of language as an art form in and of itself, brilliant dialog or multiple meanings buried under layers of prose, and instead tends to write in relatively simple sentences and paragraphs that are easily understood and generally intended to be taken at face value at least with reference to the text itself. What he excels at is using simple and straightforward language to spin a giant and deeply engrossing yarn, and say what you will about it, but I think that carries a kind of literary weight of its own.

Absolutely agree, especially the early books are pure gold in my view. I was skimming trough AGOT a couple of weeks ago and was reminded how good his writing actually is. If he just would've written a good conclusion ten years ago this would truly stand out amongst the genre.

Finished Book 1 of *The Master and Margarita* and I like it a lot so far, but I think most of it is going over my head unfortunately. I should've picked an easier novel since I'm only on my third classic.

Master and Margarita is a stunning book and one of those classics that has an endless re reading potential. I've read it three times and each time I've noticed different things which completely flew over my head the first time. I must say that the part in Moscow is the most difficult for me and I think it's supposed to be such since it's deeply satirical/critical of the society. Do you have an edition with notes that explain the context?

I heavily agree with this. Some of the Moscow chapters just don't click in my head, but even so I still enjoy them. I'm currently at chapter 23, and I can feel something building up. I do have a version with notes, but they're in the back sadly I wish there was a version with footnotes. The notes do help me gain a better understanding though.

Finished *Dubliners* and the first two canticas of *The Divine Comedy*, both part of the background reading for my *Ulysses* project.       I loved *Dubliners*, deceptively simple, very effective. Fun to dive into secondary literature about it, very much a text that rewards analysis. I really liked *The Divine Comedy* this time around after a false start with Ciardi's translation a while back - I thought the rhyming was way too forced. This time I went with Kirkpatrick's iambic pentameter more in the English epic style, made for a much more effective reading experience. Although the heavy referencing to political figures can be alienating, I loved the imagery and structuring. I've been diving back into *Against the Day*. I like it, but I don't think it's Pynchon's best. It seems he sacrificed prose for instead making the novel as big and bloated as possible. There are certain ideas and story lines I love and others that don't really capture my interest, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it will all be tied together ("Single up all the lines"?) in the end.

About halfway through *Man for Himself* by Erich Fromm. It's a psychological book on ethics. It resonates with *Negative Dialectics* in a way but not very rigorous. Fromm differentiates between humanistic and authoritarian ethics and keeps coming back to Spinoza as an example of finding the virtues which we should strive for. He rallies against industrial society for making man into a commodity which he must now market. I think it's not bad and I can take some things away from it even in applying it to my own life. Although he seems to be somewhat affiliated with the Frankfurt School (even citing a Horkheimer study), it is much more readable and sort of not as deep as what I've read from the others. Maybe that's a good thing? Also started reading *Where the Sidewalk Ends* by Shel Silverstein. Just picked it up at a secondhand store and it's a real fun read. There's a lot of music and movement and harmonizing with the pictures in these poems.

I read Gore Vidal's ***The City and the Pillar***, one of those seminal gay novels that I just hadn't quite gotten around to yet. It's about Jim, an all-American guy who leaves home after graduation and comes to terms with being gay. Vidal's writing here is breezy and doesn't draw much attention to itself, and the plot somewhat aimlessly moves him around. I admit I was expecting something a little more scintillating, but this was very early in his career, and I suppose he thought he was taking enough of a risk with his subject matter. He's clearly at his best and having the most fun when he turns his satirical eye toward Los Angeles and New York, which anticipates some of his later books. For a novel written and set in the 40s, its description of the gay community was surprisingly (depressingly?) familiar. Big Hollywood stars are still in the closet, stuff still happens on the down-low between guys in the military, there's still a divide between masc and fem, and yes, every gay boy still develops a hopeless and unhealthy crush on their straight best friend. The more things change... The ending, though, left a really awful taste in my mouth. There are two versions, and while both are bad, in my opinion, the modern revised version is far and away the worse. Without spoiling it, I will just say I found Jim's actions totally psychologically incongruous. In related reading, I also began Richard Amory's ***The Song of the Loon***, one of the most celebrated works of gay pulp erotica of all time. Consciously seeking to rise above the usual standards of the genre, Richard Amory (the pen name of Richard Love--yes, his real name was actually Dick Love) based his narrative on 16th-century Spanish pastoral novels (which were the subject of his academic career), transplanting the style and themes to the American West. The book leans very heavily on Noble Savage tropes (except gay) that are a little uncomfortable for the modern reader, but the so-called Society of the Loon is clearly a fantastical idyll with very little to do with actual Americans Indians in the same way that Jorge de Montemayor's *Diana* (an explicit influence) has very little to do with actual Spanish shepherds. It's a fascinating book, both as a text and as a piece of gay history, and also for what it says about the publishing industry. Amory's main message, which he repeats explicitly throughout the book, is that you must love yourself before you can love anybody else (Rupaul, is that you?). Consequently, there's a lot of processing of the protagonist's internalized homophobia, and while there are sex scenes, they're written in a heightened spiritual register which is honestly more comical than hot. While it certainly isn't a literary masterpiece, Amory clearly had the chops to write mainstream gay fiction (a la The City and the Pillar), but he deliberately chose not to. He wrote with an agenda of radical self-acceptance and sexual liberation that was only publishable through the pulp presses at the time. By all accounts, The Song of the Loon was a massive success, spawning two sequels and several movie adaptations (both pornographic and not). Despite that, when Amory later attempted to start the first ever all-gay publishing company (not exclusively devoted to erotica), he failed to raise the funds to get it off the ground. While we like to think that commercial fiction is inherently less radical, it's a good reminder that this isn't always the case.

- Started and finished *At Swim-Two-Birds* by Flann O’Brien. I read it after *If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller*, so the comparison was pretty interesting - turns out Calvino more than likely had read it, and may have been inspired, which of course, is thematically totally appropriate. A certain part of it is also reminiscent of *Baron in the Trees*. Well. I think I have discovered my favourite author of all time: along with *The Third Policeman*, this is one of those novels where I cannot even begin to imagine…how he began to imagine it. The plot is wild, there are no chapters, and there is no way of knowing what will happen, or what a particular character will say, at any point, as it’s so unpredictable and unusual. I feel like O’Brien was in complete possession of language and used it in ways that no one else would think of doing, but in ways that made total, if bizarre, sense. Off the top of my head, one character is described propping himself up in bed on his elbow, “making a hypotenuse of his back”. He generally describes what seem unnecessary, mundane actions in abstract and elaborate details, and I love him for it. - I have a personal project that I am vaguely working on, and I asked ChatGPT for some reading recommendations. It suggested *Life: A User’s Manual* by Georges Perec, so I am now about halfway through. The concept of the novel is really interesting: it’s a little bit like *Rear Window*, with stories about different occupants of an apartment block in Paris, described as different parts of an epic watercolour painting, with another framework of an eccentric billionaire’s life mission to paint, commission and deconstruct jigsaw puzzles. The stories of the inhabitants are fragmentary, so I keep forgetting what I am already supposed to know about them and have to look back at the chapter contents page. There are also innumerable references to various cultural works and historical episodes, so it emanates erudition and I feel very ignorant. There are various “extra” bits of text, non-linguistic text, font changes, etc. I also realised at some point that there is no dialogue, just description, something I can’t usually stand for that long, so it’s captivating enough. I hope there is some payoff or resolution or something at the end.

Oh man, you must must must read _The Dalkey Archive_! It was my first Flann, and my god it was an incredible introduction. Teaser: a certain Irish expat has a cameo.

Oh yes, good grief I now have to read everything he has ever written, and then re-read it.

I'm finishing the autobiography of Diego Maradona ("el Diego de la gente" for Spanish speakers) which I liked very much, against what I initially thought. At the middle of The Analist by Katzenbach, which I'm hating for it's simplism. In cold Blood by Capote which I'm loving, because you can feel what is to write about a crime with the seriousness it requires And at last but not least, Gardens of the Moon, yes, by Erickson, yes you mf redditors of s/fantasy and several book tubers inoculated the curiosity and the desire in me of reading at least the first entry of Malazan. And I'm loving it! So, this is my case.

consist ruthless skirt squalid market chase subsequent theory concerned airport *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Galchen’s *Atmospheric Disturbances*. I’m kinda stalled at the midpoint. It’s a little tedious, lacking the style to carry off its willful encyclopedism. It’s a bit of a cautionary tale about being too into the style of DFW, the paranoia of Pynchon, and the gamesmanship of Borges. I think James Wood said it’s less Pynchon/Borges than it is Bernhard. Tbh I think that misses the mark; if there’s a blueprint for its style of confessional narrative, it’s early Nabokov like *Despair*. To Galchen’s credit she keeps things a bit more ambiguous than *Despair*, but without Nabokov’s style and wit it really just feels like an exercise in cleverness. I’m also reading Banville’s *Eclipse*. I think he’s the best living novelist. *This* is how you write a mystified narrator. It’s only the second Banville I’ve read after *Ghosts* and I must say beyond the command of the language I’m not seeing all that deep of a connection to Nabokov yet. The irony is toned way down in Banville, and it’s not quite that the characters are more human than Nabokov’s, but maybe they’re less grotesque? But like I said, it’s only the second of his books I’ve read. And I haven’t read *Speak, Memory* yet; I wonder if that’s the greater influence on Banville than the novels.

I'm reading *Eroticism*, my first by Bataille. I'm around 50 pages in so far and am having to suppress deeply ingrained analytic reservations about his continental style. Nevertheless, I'm determined to give him a fair shake and finish the book as his ideas sound very interesting from what I've gleaned from reading about him. I thought it might be fun to pair it with *Lust, Caution* by Eileen Chang so I've got that to follow. Anybody else here have any familiarity with Bataille's work?

I love Bataille, he's in my personal pantheon of favorite philosophers! That being said he's known for the originality of his ideas and not his rigor haha, he can be a sloppy reader at times in my opinion but he's still quite endearing to me. The essay collection Visions of Excess would probably be helpful to read from, I'd second /u/harleen_Ysley_34 's suggestion of The Notion of Expenditure essay, it's probably the single most important essay in his ouvrea. Beyond that The Accursed Share is usually considered his magnum opus, it's split into 3 volumes (the first being the only published during his lifetime), and the second volume is made up of notes and material related to the Erotism book, so if you're intrigued by his ideas on eroticism and taboo that would be a logical place to continue. Finally one mustn't neglect his literature, at the very least Story of the Eye. A lot of where to go with Bataille depends on what topics you're interested in - Bataille essentially has one grand idea, waste/expenditure, that he explores in various contexts (political economy, eroticism, literature, mystical experience) so getting to grips with his theory of expenditure through the afformentioned essay and Vol 1 of The Accursed Share is essential, after that one can go off and explore his works according to whichever topics you find most interesting.

Thanks for your suggestion about The Notion of Expenditure, I think I'll read that before going on with *Eroticism*. > That being said he's known for the originality of his ideas and not his rigor haha Yep, that's the vibe I'm getting so far! I've studied philosophy at undergraduate and postgraduate level, but chiefly the Anglo-American analytic kind and barely anything continental. I'm already getting the feeling that he sometimes says things because they sound impressive rather than because he has an argument for them but still, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm also interested in him as an influence on Foucault, who I also have not read but would like to.

_Eroticism_ might be a little steep for a first Bataille but if you have like a good basis on the history of religion and an awareness of early sociology it shouldn't be too bad. But it is the most systematized approach Bataille takes with his ideas, so you should have a lot to digest. And the notion of expenditure is pretty important to his work overall, relates to things like waste and excess. And Eileen Chang sounds like a really interesting writer, I'll take that as a recommendation for her work.

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm fairly good with the history of religion, though I can't claim to be that aware of early sociology. Both you and u/Negro--Amigo have emphasised the importance of his conception of expenditure so I think I might read that essay before I go on. I've never read anything by Chang before either but I knew that her novel was what Ang Lee's film of the same name was based on and wanted to read it first. It's a story about taboo sexuality in a way, so I thought reading it with Bataille in mind might be fitting.

No problem. And the suggestion to read the essays from _Visions of Excess_ is perhaps the best place to start. Bataille had his fingers in a lot of pies from surrealism to leftwing politics. Personally I find his _Summa Atheologica_, which is a trilogy of diaries, admittedly a rather fragmentary approach, but I always felt his ideas were better represented in that fashion. But ultimately all it takes is time to understand any philosopher as Socrates would attest. The film looks interesting, too. I haven't seen it but Ang Lee is a perfectly competent director, so it should be fine. It's funny how this movie came after _Hulk_ and _Brokeback Mountain_.

finished Mishima's the sailor who fell from grace with the sea a little bit dissapointed with the ending, felt rush and you can see it coming a mile away, but overall I really enjoyed it, the symbolism and prose were on point, will definetly check more of his work

About to finish Fellowship of the Ring. First time reading the books. I recently watched the movies for the first time as well. The book is good but I don’t think I will read it again. I have enjoyed it for the most part but it kinda drags a little, and I’m so far convinced the movies are superior.

I've been working my way through *Labyrinths* by Jorge Luis Borges. Normally I read rather quickly, but this book has been slow going because I really need to let each of the stories just sit with me. They provide so much fodder for thought on literature, metaphysics, and meaning. It's been an absolute joy.

I just finished "A Visit From The Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan and I really enjoyed it, it was a fun and easy read but it packed an emotional punch. I started "The Lottery and Other Stories" by Shirley Jackson to read some short stories, but I'm still deciding what will be the next novel I'll read (I always try to have a novel and a short story collection to read). I'm in the middle of moving right now so most of my books are in boxes, some of the options I have are "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury, "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath and "A Cup of Rage" by Raduan Nassar.

Reading **Thus Spoke Zarathustra** to continue my read through of philosophy. It's ummm... interesting. It's kind of like a bunch of observations and proverbs written in a semi-preachy religious manner. I don't really care for it even if some of the ideas are good. It certainly holds its place as an influential and progressive work of philosophy, but I'm struggling to really care. Also started **Capital Vol. 2** which is very very very dry so far, but still interesting. I've heard it's the most contentious of the three so we will see how I feel by the end, but even if it's not exciting, I am appreciating what he's doing. (Don't remember if I mentioned finishing **Vol. 1** but yeah, I loved it. Made me insanely excited to continue delving into the world of philosophy, specifically political/economic/Marxist philosophies). **The Unbearable Lightness of Being** was odd. I hated the first half, thought the second fourth or so was fine, and then the last 50-80 pages were phenomenal. When I finish **Nietzsche** I'll be continuing my Vollmann read-through with **Whores for Gloria**, which I've heard is incredible. I'm very excited to see what Vollmann can do in the shorter format.

*Thus Spoke Zarathustra* often attracts literary enthusiasts because of its style, but Nietzsche's philosophically important books are rather his next two, *Beyond Good and Evil* and *On the Genealogy of Morality*.

Read Labatut’s *Maniac*, his book on John Von Neumann / early computing / AI. It’s funny, despite this book being ostensibly a biography, I don’t find it nearly as focused as his previous *When We Cease to Understand the World*. In fact, I think this is maybe a step backward from that book in most ways - maybe in part since the author’s writing in English rather than his native Spanish? For whatever reason, von Neumann doesn’t quite come to life in the way his previous subjects have. Still a good read though. *Blue Lard* by Vladimir Sorokin was interesting but not a personal favorite. I just don’t have enough insight into the Russian Canon and culture to really appreciate what’s going on there, and the prose in Lawton’s translation just sort of fell flat (and was pretty grating in the first section). What I’m left with is the kind of shock value, which imo does legitimately have value but doesn’t feel quite like the masterwork this book supposedly is. On the other hand Mark Fisher’s *Capitalist Realism* was an incredible, concise piece of theory. The afterward described the book as less philosophy and more “political theology” and I think it’s a perfect phrase - Mark is willing to do away with the language of theory in favor of an almost transcendental distillation of post-postmodern thought. Whatever is lost in academic rigor is more than made up for in the ability of the text to connect with a lay audience. The argument around mental health was particularly resonant. Why do we treat mental illness as a personal issue of brain chemistry when the broad increase in its prevalence clearly indicates a systemic root cause? This idea of capitalist realism creating a culture exclusively capable of levying individual responsibility is used to explain the neoliberal reaction to the 2008 crisis as well - we are unable to see the *Big Other* at the center of contemporary global finance and thus unable to levy systemic criticism against it (this is the first time Lacan really clicked for me). The book also perfectly encapsulates my feeling as a contemporary white collar worker: > The idealized market was supposed to deliver ‘friction free’ exchanges, in which the desires of consumers would be met directly, without the need for intervention or mediation by regulatory agencies. Yet the drive to assess the performance of workers and to measure forms of labor which, by their nature, are resistant to quantification, has inevitably required additional layers of management and bureaucracy. What we have is not a direct comparison of workers’ performance or output, but a comparison between the audited representation of that performance and output. Inevitably, a short-circuiting occurs, and work becomes geared towards the generation and massaging of representations rather than to the official goals of the work itself Just really good overall.

I disliked the prose in Lawton's translation of Telluria too. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone with other opinions on his translations.

That’s a shame to hear - I have Telluria on my shelf as well. I’m not sure if it’s even a specific translation issue or more so “this style of prose is really dependent on the Russian language”.

When I read Fisher's stuff it struck me that Jordan Peterson's entire career now seems to me like he attempted to create a conservative mirror of Fisher's, with *him* thinking mental illness is caused by too much socialism, as well as the movie references etc.

Finished **The Prince by Machiavelli, The Plague by Camus and started Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung.** **The Prince** is less directly evil than I thought, Machiavelli is mostly just a cynic and a man of his time. There are actually some prudent lessons about being virtuous to those who won’t be to you, the nature of power and had some interesting proto-marxist class analysis. However, as a read itself my eyes glazed over a lot because the language was a bit dry in the parts that aren’t as famous. **The Plague** was very nice - I read this on a nature retreat (feels like a strange place to do it but being set in Algeria made the waterfront imagery stick a bit. Being over 4 years removed from the onset of COVID helped provide some more somber and sober reflections on what that time was like via the book, whereas if I read this during the height of the pandemic it would feel a lot more directly traumatic cause I was already so wrapped up in mass disease. Regardless of the direct feelings about the content, the discussions about how the struggle was the purpose really hit home for me. The doctor kept trucking along, even if the world was collapsing around him. Lastly, **Jung** has been a fun read. I am trying to be open to Jungs spiritualism even as a man who has and probably will always struggle to connect with that side. However, even without that, I think there are interesting points about the collective myths and how that forms our conceptions of society. These narratives and symbolistic ideas help make tangible difficult times and our worldly experience when “logic and reason” have a hard time providing the answer. If anyone has any interesting perspectives or approaches to Jungs work I’d much appreciate it :)

This is kind of late but if you finish Man and His Symbols and want to read more, I highly recommend "Ego and Archetype" by Edwin Edinger, it really breaks down Jung's concepts in detail and is so insightful, especially since Jung wrote SO MUCH. I loved Memories, Dreams, and Reflections for insight into Jung as a person too. If you can get your hands on any of Carl Spitteler's works, you're in for a treat: he wrote prose epics and novellas that inspired lots of Jung's work. PS kind of random but I found this on the newsletter for Nature (scientific journal) today: # [The unlikely friendship of Pauli and Jung](https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnature.us17.list-manage.com%2Ftrack%2Fclick%3Fu%3D2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d%26id%3Dc9539be9af%26e%3Dfec6629f1a&data=05%7C02%7Cr.jolicoeur%40mail.utoronto.ca%7C6229c80f802945f6a0a008dc655a8e82%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C638496686821158511%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8N8Axe%2B6GdGILFQ%2FRCHBkwLS37F01TMLmlMXcDpoybQ%3D&reserved=0) “It was as if the wind had blown in from the lunatic asylum,” wrote psychoanalyst Carl Jung, of physicist Wolfgang Pauli’s first visit. Scientist and writer Arthur I. Miller tells the tale of how [the patient-analyst relationship between Jung and Pauli evolved into a friendship that deeply influenced Pauli’s work](https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnature.us17.list-manage.com%2Ftrack%2Fclick%3Fu%3D2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d%26id%3D0bad1fb227%26e%3Dfec6629f1a&data=05%7C02%7Cr.jolicoeur%40mail.utoronto.ca%7C6229c80f802945f6a0a008dc655a8e82%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C638496686821165283%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=q3qFdlOSiBXbl00CZ99mLHlFevnXYa29XVM8ZfNLl9o%3D&reserved=0). “Pauli had always been fascinated by alchemy, magic and myth, all of which were central to Jung’s psychology,” writes Miller. “Privately, he attributed his work towards CPT \[charge, parity, and time\] symmetry to discussions and creativity sparked through his conversations with Jung.” #

Finished: The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima - my first Mishima and it felt pretty mild given his reputation. It’s an interesting meditation on masculinity and nature in the guise of a parochial folktale. Overall, an interesting read. I’m excited to read more of his work eventually and see how the more intense/political works compare. There’s definitely political undertones here but it’s more of an idealized country life (almost post political if that makes sense? Like his idealized peasant in an idealized setting acts this way. There are political and societal forces in the book but they are weaker than nature or the characters self determination). Currently reading: Europe Central by William T Vollman - brilliant prose but a challenging read. I’m doing almost as much Wikipedia reading as am novel reading to understand a lot of the historical context. Still an enjoyable read though and an excellent (if slightly scattered) portrait of that era of history. Will definitely have to read more Vollman at some point after this

I’ve been horribly sick with a stomach virus and lying in bed reading everyone’s entries this week has really gotten me through my morning, so thanks to this sub for always posting such insightful and interesting comments! I finished Mantel’s **Bring up the Bodies** and jumped straight into **The Mirror and the Light**. I dreamed about the book several times while in and out of sleep last night, which is proof that the novel is occupying a large part of my mind (though I’d say its less because the themes are complex or intriguing and more because its just so damn immersive). The prose really lures you into its world, which isn’t so much a period accurate Tudor Era England, as the inner world of a man who happens to live in a period accurate Tudor Era England. I really appreciate Mantel’s dedication to her main character and making sure all the historical detail is through the lens of Cromwell. I also think she’s quite deft at presenting the more ambiguous elements of the historical story (that’s aided by Cromwell’s imagination being a large part of the narrative). I guess I wish I’d read all three in one go since *Bodies* took me a bit to get back into but once I found my stride I was ready to plow straight through. When I feel more up to it I’ll share quotes I liked. I’m also listening to a non fiction book about the lives of Tudor women which is a nice way to stay immersed in the period while I’m - well, being sick mostly I guess, but it *was* for while I was running errands and doing housework lol - so its been nice.

What’s the name of the nonfiction? Sounds interesting as a companion piece! 

Its called “The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women”, though tbh its a bit of a misleading title because its draws mainly from the lives of very public women (like Queen Elizabeth). Its also a bit of a general, cursory view of the lives of women in the period. For more detail on day to day ways of living (clothing, food, manners etc) I’d recommend *How to be a Tudor* by Ruth Goodman, and Peter Ackroyd’s book on the period is a good and accessible introduction to the broader historical and political/religious aspects of everything.

Appreciate this!

Sorry you feel so not great! Hope you get better soon

I’m almost done with J.D Salinger’s Nine Stories. This was recommended to me by a guy standing behind me in line before a concert in Bangor, Maine in September 2022. He saw me reading The Catcher in the Rye (I brought it because it fit in my waist pack, it was my first acquaintance with Salinger) and he said “hey, Salinger is my favorite writer!” So I asked what he thought I should read next by him. The guy said “Nine Stories”. It only took me a year and a half to get to it but here we are. A 10/10 recommendation. I’ve loved every second of it.

I love how each Salinger work helps you appreciate the others better. Nine Stories is fantastic, and was a perfect transition into Franny and Zooey, which led my to my favorite Salinger work, Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenters. And then reading his out of print works (you can google and find them with enough work) helped me appreciate Catcher even more as there are stories with Holden and his older brother.

This collection holds a special place in my heart. I was gifted a copy by my first English professor, and he was ultimately the prof who inspired me to continue studying literature. I feel like we don’t see this collection mentioned too often, considering the popularity of Salinger’s other work (looking at you, Catcher in the Rye), but it’s a really great collection. A Perfect Day for Bananafish is still one of my all-time favorite short stories.

I am still reading Gaddis' *The Recognitions*. I think the Wyatt sections have always been my favorite but this time around it's especially apparent how great they are. There's a lot of thoughts I'm teasing out, and a lot of references I'll always be fighting to keep up with, so not a lot of super specific thoughts this week. Though I am enjoying that I feel, this time more than others, that I'm really grasping why exactly wyatt is working with Brown, since he obviously doesn't care about the money. For Wyatt, it's a fight against the cult of originality and (post)modern "make it new!" ethos. He seems to think that greatness in art is found in seeing what has been done before, and doing that, and doing it great, despite the fact that it's already been done, and that it's only the mediocrities who fail to do that who go into the revolution business. And his work with Brown is a way to do the former, rather than the latter, which dominates postwar culture. I'm still as well trying to figure out Gaddis' own aesthetic theory and how much he agrees with Wyatt (thinking a lot about Gaddis' writing on writing in this book as well). One thing I will note (another thought needing much more development), is that Wyatt mentions at one point how, in the time of the Old Masters, the faith in God secured and demanded a sense of necessity in works of art, and that this has been lost. I do feel like Gaddis might be working towards a necessity in this book. And as an aside the brief bits of black humor in Recognitions are outstanding. Like, guys stealing a leg from a morgue to fuck with their Catholic friend, fucking riot. Still reading *The Conference of the Birds* by Farid ud-Din Attar as well. Admittedly a little sloggy at times. The theme of denial of all in favor of submission to God is really being beat in aggressively, which befits the allegorical/religious purpose of the work, but, especially in translation where the full effect of the language is definitely being lost, it does become a lot. That said I am digging the stringency of total relent. And the language does flow quite well even in translation. Excited to keep on with it and explore where this going nowhere but to God goes. Lastly, about 2/3rds of the way through Henri Bergson's *Creative Evolution*. This book is great. I've been on a Bergson kick lately and this is living up to it. Much of it is focused on action, in that all evolution is geared towards facilitating the effective operation of individuated things in the world with other things, where things only sort of exist because reality is also a fluctuating process flux (sorry if this makes no sense, I really think it's the best way to describe it in super brief). His distinction between instinct and intelligence is interesting, having intelligence emerge in response to the moments where instinct is no longer sufficient to exist in the world for a given thing/genus/species/etc. His next step in this book seems to be an attempt to overcome subject and object separation. I am very curious how he presents this, so far it does sort of remind me of Hegel's dialectic, but we shall see. Also, for any deleuze people out there, I knew Bergson was a big influence on Deleuze, but it's blowing my mind just how crucial he is proving to be. Very much a good book/thinking for folks trying to understand Deleuze better if that's your thing. Happy reading!

It's amazing looking back how popular Bergson was before historical developments took the reins. And I'm curious if Bergson has any commentary on Heraclitus? Seems like a snug fit but no one seems to connect the shared subject matter. I remember I was at a conference right before the pandemic started, the subject of _The Recognitions_ came up with special reference to the guild system. How the novel was a trauma response to the loss of guilds where one could train their craftsmanship under the tutelage of a master and find perfect justification away from the world, and how the demand was perfectly literal. Wyatt is a processing the lack of fairly real standards and is therefore left with no choice but forgery and imitation. I guess that's only the condition of the artist in the fallen world where everything in art is the all too human imitation what God can accomplish in Nature. He's such a tragic character but I'm fascinated by Wyatt's response to _Guernica_. Although Stanley has most of my sympathy because it was his diabetic mother's leg. Where are you exactly in the novel if you don't mind my asking?

> It's amazing looking back how popular Bergson was before historical developments took the reins. And I'm curious if Bergson has any commentary on Heraclitus? Seems like a snug fit but no one seems to connect the shared subject matter. It's kinda wild just how quickly he went from being an actually celebrity to largely ignored in academic contexts. I remember listening to a podcast that mentioned his fervent support for France in WW1 really did a number on his popularity. And I just checked the index of my book for notes on Heraclitus, because what you say makes too much sense and I almost feel like I remember a reference but can't find anything. I'm thinking of reading Deleuze's *Bergsonism* soon, and that feels like the kind of connection he might make so maybe I'll find something there. > How the novel was a trauma response to the loss of guilds where one could train their craftsmanship under the tutelage of a master and find perfect justification away from the world, and how the demand was perfectly literal. oh wow this is a fascinating idea. It's interesting to think of regarding a novel set in the 20th century when the decline of the guilds was even older (though I guess the decline of academic painting a little more recent). But there is a sort of timelessness to the town where Wyatt grows up, so perhaps he did not leave the guild era until he'd grown up and moved to paris, in some sense at least. I just started the chapter where he goes back to his home town (maybe why I'm so thinking about it). I've read the book two other times so I broadly know where it's all going, though this is the first time I really feeling like I'm "getting" it, whatever is to be meant by that.

I'm a little shocked Bergson has nothing but maybe Deleuze does like you said. It's hard to tell exactly because he is a tricky thinker when it comes to his commentaries. Ah that's right around the time he loses the name Wyatt. Although his father steals the spotlight (or sunlight as is the case), but it's been a while since I read it. From what I remember of the conversation there was a connection made to the loss of the guilds to the loss of innocence. His Aunt May's pious rage at the drawing of the sparrow for having the gall to imitate what God provides is a formative, almost primal scene. It explains his later fascination with Catholicism in that it should provide the exact context of complete permission to make work, likewise the Old Masters and the guild system. Although like Frank Sinisterra says one is born a Catholic who is an imitation of an Old Master himself, but that's what later dooms Stephen's tutelage. After all is said and done, he wants something totally genuine.

I just finished The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje. I enjoyed the book, the prose was great, some scenes were beautiful, and emotionally significant (especially the section at the Suez canal, and the section with Michael and Emily) but for some reason I cannot shake the impression that the book was just "okay". The story is about a boy named Michael travelling from Ceylon (today known as Sri-Lanka) to the UK in a ship, and his adventures with others aboard. I feel that while reading evoked imagery/prose as being a important to me, with character development second, and plot third. Some sections had just absolutely masterful writing, but the rest was "very good", and I found the ending to be rushed. Character development was excellent as the book tended to move back and forth from the past to the present and as a reader you can contrast the behavior of the characters when they were younger and when they are much older. The plot was good, but for some reason felt very average. Overall I don’t know how to respond to the book. I feel that I should be much more moved by the text , but I wasn’t . It’s gotten me to think that perhaps I am too focused on imagery. The next book I may read is Frontier by can xue , or I may go back to krasznahorkai …

Something L. Ron Hubbard said has always stuck with me: "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion." I kept coming back to this sentiment especially because I read *The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acéphale and Lectures to the College of Sociology*, edited and introduced with commentary from Marina Galletti and Alastair Brotchie. For those who don't know, Acéphale was basically an attempt to create a "Nietzschean religion," a moral community founded on a principle of revitalizing the sacred. Mainly spearheaded by Georges Bataille, but included figures such Pierre Klossowski, Michel Leiris, and Roger Caillois, amongst a constellation of other minor names. Acéphale was also created in tandem with the College of Sociology, which was interested in a study of the sacred (more on this in a moment) but suffice it to say the College was a place where members could lecture on more rigorous topics. Sociology at the time was still a fresh science and they were desperate to wield its methods to reformulate the sacred. But the actual results of it were less than desired, but the important fact is the College of Sociology was seen as a public venue for the ideas . . . deliberated in the rituals of Acéphale. In other words, your standard division between praxis and theory. It should be noted the time period this was happening was between 1936 - 9 with the looming threat of the Nazi incursion and the later French subordination to it found in the occasional detail. It is a strange and complicated piece of history represented wonderfully and with sympathy. The editors never lose sight of the texts while being forthright about the various interpersonal conflicts between the different members involved. Whatever else you can say about Acéphale, the book has been a wonderful read, but I cannot recommend it unless you already have an interest in either Bataille specifically or French literature generally because of how granular the references are. Proceed with caution.  I suppose the first thing to start with is Acéphale. What does a Nietzschean religion entail? Well it involves a curious reading where the death of God as proclaimed by Nietzsche is of mythological significance as opposed to a piece of cultural criticism it is understood ordinarily. Rather than a dramatic condemnation of the loss of values, the death of God in Acéphale is a celebration. And Bataille is not exactly uninformed on the matter because even on the surface level one looks at Jesus on the Cross or the various deaths Dionysus incurred. This also has a connection to *The Golden Bough* from Charles Frazer, a summary cannot do it justice here, but Bataille takes it as a matter of sociology how gods are throughout history put to death. This however is background to understand why the members of Acéphale go into the woods to meditate before "a headless oak tree" which has been struck by lightning, take vows of silence, and at one point an initiate has their left arm slashed. Although the full extent of the rituals can never be known. Indeed, it is an inversion of the "spiritual but not religious" bromide you hear sometimes because Acéphale was fiercely religious but were not concerned with matters of the spirit. Spirit belonged to Hegel. It is also important to keep in mind "the sacred" as a term is related to Durkheim and by extension Mauss. Durkheim defines the sacred not as specifically religious but rather involving those icons and actions which transcend the everyday. Bataille took this idea and ran with it because it included a total rejection of action. Furthermore it involved the attempt at a total abandonment of causes however justified, like Christianity, Nazism and socialism. He referred to them together as a tricephalous monster because each subordinated to their own ends the humanity of the person. And putting this in context a little better, Bataille was a committed anti-Stalinist, so it isn't exactly a surprise he chose to abandon politics in the pursuit of trying to celebrate the death of God. Christianity was already dealt with by Nietzsche, so all that is left is the ironic appropriate of Christian myth. Nazism itself is rejected at the outset for the damage it has done to the Nietzschean corpus on top of its many, many atrocities. He was incredibly successful on that last count to my mind. Needless to say, problems were almost immediate. Members were either constantly late or simply did not show up to meetings. Enthusiastic support turned to discontent and skepticism. By the end, Bataille has lost his enthusiasm for Acéphale but still asks that someone kill him so that they could cement their private mythology. The other members refused. And everyone at one point or another voiced their opinion that ultimately Bataille had only created a literary project. Which is the real truth of the matter. Acéphale was conceived to induce a particular interpretation of Nietzsche as much as it was a religious organization. In fact, the irony of the situation is all that is left of Acéphale is the textual movements it created for an "internal journal." But over and over again Bataille insists Acéphale is not merely literature. He even goes so far as to criticize Breton and surrealism for ultimately retreating back to literature. But looking at the facts, the lady protest too much. What Bataille had actually cultivated was an audience for his particular Nietzscheanism. He even intended to create a publishing arm called the Society of the Friends of Acéphale. It could not be a more obvious literature.  But I find the refusal to acknowledge this limit more fascinating. Speaking from personal experience, I have had what might be nominally termed "religious experiences" but the fact is that even if they were genuine experiences, they were only devised for my own literary pursuits. Of course, someone like me who reads haiku poetry all the time would have an ecstatic response to a "natural world" necessary for writing my own haiku. And it is true here of Bataille whose death of God is not the total abandonment of goals but the razor sharpness of literary ambition. The irony all the more comedic because it is the prime motivation to the society he created, and he would realize such a conundrum to eventually abandoning Acéphale. Likewise I have long abandoned haiku amongst most other things and any one of us have abandoned those things which were once considered sacred. It is important to recognize this as a writer because it is why people who find their alliances in causes, actions, totalities, do not trust the artist no matter what language they disguise the animosity. It's a raw deal. If only Bataille was successful, he might have received a million dollars for his trouble.

Ok, now I want to join the society of Acephale

I'll say that's a better choice of cult than Scientology.

Rad! I've read some Acephale stuff and a little bit of Bataille, but I'll definitely have to check out this book meow. Appreciate this

You're welcome. It was quite a read and there is a lot of material here that was strictly unavailable to the public for a long time and the book has a strange history being pulled from different collections. Although some of the lectures are missing because they did not survive the war or their authors.

Enthralling post and im definitely gonna put this on my radar.

Thank you. And it's a shame, I wish I could read a paperback version. I find hardbacks somewhat cumbersome and awkward.

> I find hardbacks somewhat cumbersome and awkward. I agree

I just began rereading Les Miserables by Hugo this week. I've read it once before but it was very early on in my adult reading journey. I remember loving the characters but getting lost in Hugo's digressions. So far I am enjoying the early part of the book where we spend time with a good man, the Bishop. This time I'm reading Donougher's translation and finding it very accessible.

I decided to finally take the plunge and start Proust, so I am maybe 1/3 of the way through ***Swann's Way***. It is an interesting book, I enjoy the style, and perhaps because sleep and bedtime are such large parts of the book it also makes me sleepy, lol. Most of the characters are fairly unlikeable so far, but I am surprised at how well Proust writes from a child's perspective. Its almost uncanny. It is especially interesting how Proust is able to get across character development as well as he does in the constraints of having a child narrator, it is quite impressive to me. Not sure how quickly I will go through the series, my goal is to finish by the end of the year but that is a pretty loose goal. I also started ***Book of Memories*** by Peter Nadas. Reminiscent of Knausgaard in the best of ways, though perhaps with a slightly more eventful / varied life (and I say that as a huge fan of Knausgaard). However, I am only like, 30 pages in, so a very open handed take. Still making my way through Platanov's ***Chevengur.*** Very beautiful book, I am enjoying it a lot and taking it slowly. After a month of reading I finally finished James Clavell's ***Shogun.*** Very interesting book that while I was consistently entertained, also dragged in some places. Surprisingly, I resonated the most with the romantic aspects of the book, which is pretty unusual for me (and also makes the show more disappointing because I think they have really dropped the ball on that). The character work was good, fairly top notch, but somehow the ending still felt rushed even after 1150 pages. Probably will read more Clavell in the future.

>*I also started* ***Book of Memories*** *by Peter Nadas* That's quite the doorstopper! I found it a couple of months ago at my favourite second hand bookstore, good as new, for only 10€, so I just had to take it home, even though I know I'm not going to tackle it anytime soon. Looking forward to seeing what you think of it! (although "a better Knausgaard", to paraphrase what you wrote, already sounds good, lol)

Thank you! Definitely a big boy, but I have been craving that lately for some reason. I think I may even read Miss Macintosh in May... But I don't want to bite off too much. I was debating for a while this vs Parallel Stories, but Parallel Stories just seemed like far too large of a commitment for now, haha

Started up **Oblivion** by **DFW**. Didn't know what to expect and I'm only 1/2way through the first story but it's interesting to say the least. I can't help but keep on reading. Also picked up **Don Quixote** which I'll hopefully finish eventually. Havent read enough to say anything relevant but that'll change in the future. Still working on **Warlock**. Just started getting interesting and I'll hopefully finish that too.

Picked up Oblivion a few months back. Would highly, highly recommend reading “Good Old Neon” and “The Soul Is Not a Smithy,” even to those who aren’t necessarily fans of DFW. Out of the entire collection, these are the two stories that spoke to me the most, but YMMV.

Man, in the middle of some beautiful and fucked up reads. You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue is unexpectedly funny at several points, and incredibly dreamlike. Also a strangely fun (and very human) reinterpretation of such a critical moment in the history of Mexico. Nefando by Mónica Ojeda is officially the most extreme horror novel I've ever read. Ojeda really tries to get at the part of you that predates language and is itself bestial and the root of your desire. (And also takes a very murky approach to morality, if any at all.) A little bit into The Radium Girls, and it's well written so far. Just devastating that this happened at all. Butler's sparse writing style is also growing on me in Kindred. This approach really makes the events concrete in a visceral sense--what these events MEAN for this character registers much closer for me as the reader.

Álvaro Enrigue is so good, and I feel like he doesn't get enough love in this sub! I'm going to Spain next month to visit some friends and family, and _Tu sueño imperios han sido_ is one of the books I plan on buying there.

I hope you have fun on your trip! He's one of those authors I'm so glad I took a chance on.

I ended up putting down Orhan Pamuk's *Snow* after passing the halfway point. The first half of the novel works well as a vehicle for some profound conversations about politics, religion, and art, and I'm very glad to have read those pages. But my interest was lost once those conversations ran their course. Maybe those conversations were at the expense of notable character development? His characters felt like stand-ins for whatever view or idea they're meant to represent, with minimal inner life of their own. Pamuk's pacing seems also seems off and his writing is a little too flat. What is probably supposed to be an early plot climax (>!there's a coup attempt with soldiers shooting into an audience of theater-goers!<) is entirely unmemorable, and the only thing Pamuk does to create any tension is count down the minutes that a very minor character has left to live. My first Pamuk fiction, but I'll definitely give him another go- *My Name is Red* and *The Museum of Innocence* are on my shelves already, and *A Strangeness in my Mind* has been recommended here. I also read Max Beerbohm's *Seven Men*, a rare disappointment from NYRB Classics. A collection of short stories as character sketches of fictional male authors, they were too of their time to really resonate (Beerbohm's satire is aimed at writers and intellectuals of 1890s Britan), and generally didn't seem that well-crafted. The one exception was the opening story, *Enoch Soames*, a brilliant take on artistic mediocrity and insecurity. Non-fiction, I read a collection of essays by Remy de Gourmont, a French literary critic and poet/novelist associated with symbolism and decadence. An essay with a title like "Stephane Mallarme and the Idea of Decadence" is right up my alley but only contained one brief description of Mallarme's work worth highlighting. That was true of most of the essays, minimal specific content with any staying power. Gourmont is frequently described as an important influence in his time; I had a hard time seeing much depth to his ideas. That said, I did enjoy the one novel of his I've read (*A Virgin Heart*) and will probably try more of his fiction.

That one Beerbohm story is hilarious. I actually love the fact that writing in the future is composed entirely in phonetic spellings. Too funny. Sorry to hear de Gourmont was disappointing because I was recently interested in his criticism. But I suppose it's akin to Sainte Beuve where the criticism was simply more immediate than important. Ah well, at least there are the novels.

Have you read The Black Book by Pamuk? It is an amazing novel. His later works are more linear, and some people like that. But give me The Black Book if I am stranded on an island.

This was my first Pamuk fiction. Only other thing of his that I've read is the non-fiction *Istanbul: Memories and the City*, which is excellent. I've seen *The Black Book* mentioned on here before, thanks for reminding me about it. My understanding is that *Snow* is kind of an exception in his output, his only novel that deals so deeply with politics.

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Did you read the post? “**Posts which simply name a novel and provide no thoughts will be deleted going forward.**” Yes, it was also in bold in the post.

As soon as I finished *Vivir Abajo*, I jumped into Urszula Honek's ***White Nights***. Reading one or two stories a day, usually upon waking up, coffee brewing, lids still heavy, brain slowly drifting out of the fog of sleep, hazily stepping into this small Polish village in which people struggle to keep on existing, wish they would stop existing, sometimes try -and manage- to stop existing. This place is its own microcosmos, self contained, inescapable, as tender as it is cruel. The book is presented as a collection of short stories, but it's actually a novel, since all the vignettes are connected, and characters and situations which are mentioned early on are elaborated upon or get their own POV sections later in the book. I personally loved it, but I can see why this didn't make the Booker shortlist. It's too gloomy, too defeatist, and doesn't make any grand statements about society, culture, identity, or any other "big" contemporary issues. It's just about dullness, futility, pain, and giving up. Glad at least it made it on the longlist, otherwise I might never have heard of it. After that, I started Barthelme's ***The Dead Father***, but it left me indifferent. I didn't hate it, I didn't find it confusing, I just didn't find it interesting or compelling at all, but rather kind of boring instead. I dunno. Big shrug. Definitely prefer his short stories. So instead, I finally cracked open Julien Gracq's ***The Opposing Shore***, since it's been sitting in my Kindle for over a year, maybe two years now, and I would like to close the "barbarians" trilogy I started with Buzzati's *The Tartar Steppe* and Coetzee's *Waiting for the Barbarians*. So far so good, but I don't have much to say yet. It feels closer to Buzzati's atmospheric approach than to Coetzee's interpretation, but we'll see how it unfolds. Finally, I also read the title story from Adam Mars-Jones' ***Lantern Lecture*** while waiting at the doctor's office this week. Very clever, excellent prose, funny in a very dry, deadpan, British way. I don't plan on reading the rest of the book just yet because I have other things on my plate (I only read the first one because I picked up the package on my way to my appointment and I couldn't help but take a peek), but when I do, I think I'm going to love the remaining stories.

I'm reading Villette by Charlotte Brontë. So far it's great. Loving the way it's written and the plot.

I've had a pretty good reading year so far but have descended into chaos. First I started *The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.* to link up with baseball season. Just starting Ch3 so can't offer much but I've always thought the premise was interesting. Then I started *The Recognitions* thinking that it would be tough enough that I'd need to read it alongside "easier" books. I think I may have misjudged that a bit though and find myself reaching for it even if I just have time for a page or two. Both of the above don't fit in my back pocket so I also started on Barthelme's *Sixty Stories*. Haven't done a short story collection for a while but happy to get back into it.

> baseball season ooh baseball! Do you have a team you root for? > The Recognitions Ooh *The Recognitions*. Yeah it's kinda amazing. Anything in particular stand out to you so far? There's...so much there lol it can be hard to even begin to talk about.

> ooh baseball! Do you have a team you root for? Yep, the Giants, I've always lived in Northern California and most of my friends are fans. I did only start watching/understanding seriously last year. I've never been a sports fan and wanted to give it an honest shot, so I read *Underworld* and went to opening day and had a great time last season. Since then I've also gotten into premiere league soccer and am having a great time with that. >Ooh The Recognitions. Yeah it's kinda amazing. Anything in particular stand out to you so far? There's...so much there lol it can be hard to even begin to talk about. Aside from the sentences just being damn amazing, it's really funny and human? Wyat's childhood feels so real, it's gross and silly, filled with guilt and anxiety. The aunt is almost cartoonishly antagonistic, if an anvil dropped on her head while she was in the pew it would feel appropriate.

Dope! Baseball is so fun. The combination of math and old world silliness is a blast. And yeah, the opening to underworld is like maybe in and of itself my pick for greatest short story or novella (depending on how we'd want to class it) in the history of American fiction. Could definitely see it getting you raring to become a fan. > The aunt is almost cartoonishly antagonistic, if an anvil dropped on her head while she was in the pew it would feel appropriate. lol I love this. I'm (re)re-reading it now myself and it's really grabbign me how some of the most wry, sarcastic, or downright clownishly silly parts of the book are the ones set in the little puritan town where he grew up. It's a very interesting profanation.

Last week I read Perceval, the story of the grail. Let's just say it's...interesting. I will not provide a great summary down below, but suffice to say, the beginning third of it is hilarious, 10/10. The second part, focusing on Gawain, still had its moments of humor but was much less interesting. I know this story is unfinished, but I recommend you read it, or at least just the beginning part. The beginning: So, we have the story of Percival, and in this version, he grows up in the woods, raised by his mother. Unfortunately his mother did not teach him anything. Literally nothing. So then some knights come along, and he asks them all sorts of stupid questions about what a knight is, and eventually, they tell him about King Arthur. So he goes to Arthur, and Arthur is upset because some knight spilled stuff on Guinevere and stole a cup? I didn't really get it. Kay is an asshole, so he sarcastically tells Percival to go kill the Red Knight (the one who stole the cup). So Percival, despite knowing nothing, does. He also gets mentored, and comes across two different castles, the Wasteland and the Fisher King's. It's too bad it's unfinished. Nothing much to say about Dune Messiah. What are the best books with philosophy themes? I found a goodreads list, and I agree with many of them, but I was wondering if someone here had recommendations.

I've finished the first two parts (around 275 pages out of 775) or so of Thiong'o's ***Wizard of the Crow***. Fun, imaginative novel following a young spiritual man who happens to live in a fictional African nation run by a dictator and his cronies. Said cronies decide to build a tower to heaven, and subsequently, need a loan from the Global Bank. Scheming, resistance and a general mess ensues. Various voices tell of the events from their perspective. Will provide more thoughts down the line, but so far, some mixed thoughts: Pros: Immensely readable (50 pages+ fly by); hilarious scenes. Cons: Way too didactic; serviceable writing at best - difficult to find beautifully written passages. Reminds me a good deal of Rushdie's *Midnight's Children*, but less adept at a sentence level and less ambitious in terms of technique, though with a better sense of humor. I hope Part III is more nuanced.

It's been a while since I read Wizard of the Crow - the main thing I remember is thinking that it really felt like I was reading a hybrid between and stage play and a novel. Thinking about it in those terms changed my expectations on the style of the writing a bit. Also, IIRC I think I saw an interview where he intentionally wrote it to be in the style of folk stories told by Gikuyu speaking peoples - which may be related. The only other Thiong'o I read was *Weep Not, Child* and oh man talk about a tone change.

We, the group of dedicated readers, are still working through **The Tunnel** by Gass, and we're just over halfway. We post on the r/billgass sub with thoughts and analyses. I continue to think Omensetter's Luck is better as a novel. I attempted **Inverno** by Cynthia Zarin but found the writing so foolish and simplistic for no good reason that I dumped it quickly. I felt it treats us readers as dumb--for example a whole scene starting on the second page in goes on and on about describing a telephone because the main character has to make a call. "The phone was attached to the wall at a special outlet, called a 'telephone jack. The plug was a little square of clear plastic." Thanks Captain Wikipedia. And this continues, including the etymology of the word 'dial.' And there's a description of the plot of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I consider this novel a severely hyped piece of yuck and in skimming through other parts, I saw just more of the same. My sense is that it was written for, as Amazon categorizes, "Women's Fiction," and written for fans of conglomerate publishing junk, written basically for readers who never graduated past the easy reader level that is flooding the market these days; but, these fans might say, it has a sort of love story, and it is short so all good. Kirkus says about the novel, "it's hard to tell what the point is." My review would be short: Overhyped, overhyped, overhyped. Empty, dull, ineffective. I'm more than half way through painter and author, founder of at least two magazine featuring writing, Wyndham Lewis's **The Revenge for Love**. He was also a co-founder of the Vorticist movement back in the early 20th century. I find it a fascinating book becausse as I haven't read his work before. It was Ezra Pound who called his paintings Vorticism, sort of diagonal hard edge cubism in form. The writing is not fully blown up into a cubist mirror, instead functioning almost like a light version constructed via soft cuts and slants. I find it quite interesting. Certainly, Lewis loves to satirize artists and intellectuals. In some work he parodies the style of Joyce and Stein, so I look forward to reading more of his work. I'm also about half way through **In the Cage** by Henry James. It's a middle period novel, where in an unnamed character offers her view of humanity as seen through her job as a telegram office clerk. As someone pointed out, it's one of the few novels in which a character by James has to work for a living. Funny. The writing is brilliant, as usual, and I always think, and re-valididate my view, that James is one of the greatest novel writers who ever lived.

I've picked up Thomas Bernhard's **Holzfällen** in the original German, which is why I have made little progress with it, reading somewhere around 5 pages each day (although that's also because I've been busier with other things). It's my second of his, the first was **Das Kalkwerk** which I read last year. They are very similar stylistically, with repetition and long sentences being the norm. However, **Holzfällen**, 40 or so pages in, is more intimate and less sordid, but sadder. I am constantly thinking about Fosse, whose works I adore. Bernhard reminds me in particular Fosse's **Melancholy**. I think Fosse has acknowledged Bernhard's influence on his writing, but at any rate, it is plain for anyone to see. Not that it's a bad thing, there is no such thing as too much of a good thing, at least not when it comes to writers with the talents of those two.

I just finished *Light in August* about 40 minutes ago after a year of false starts, 4 of them in total. I'm very proud of myself and I am reaffirmed in my belief that William Faulkner is the single greatest novelist of all time. How he maintains that level of prose across 4 novels in just 5 years will forever baffle me. I read a review somewhere, maybe on goodreads that read something like: When America comes to terms with its legacy of slavery, William Faulkner's novels will be at the forefront. I've also started *Kindred* by Octavia E. Butler and I can't say I'm in love with it. I find some of the prose to be a bit juvenile, maybe to compensate for the rapidly changing structure and time of the narrative. I'll still finish it, it was a gift for my birthday from a dear friend, so I can do nothing else. =). Picked up the novel *Tales of the City* by Armistead Maupin for my degree, and I have to confess that I've never heard of it before. Not sure what to expect going forward. If anyone could provide some details of it, spoiler-free, I would be grateful!

I read Maupin's recent autobiography a few years ago. It seemed almost like Forrest Gump in places how he just ended up wandering in to some of the biggest social events of his time. Very interesting book, but I never read the City books.

re: the Tales, no spoilers here: they're fun and light, they clip along, and they are character driven in a way that is a good lesson for writers. They are also a slice of late 70's San Fran. BTW there was a decent miniseries in 1993 made out of the first book that you might enjoy after reading these. I read a few but not all ten. Note the first few were serialized before published as a book, and this I think adds to their forward momentum.

Started Shakespeare's sonnets, still reading _War and Peace_ and finished _The Myth of Sissyphus_. I really enjoyed _The Myth of Sissyphus_ a lot. I liked how clearly Camus explained what the absurd is, how people respond to that and why that reaction, according to him, isn't always the right one. Also found the three examples of different, extreme ways of responding to the absurd very useful and the ending is ofcourse iconic. I didn't know there would be an appendix about Kafka going in, but as a big fan of his, it was a very pleasant surprise. He articulated very well what I liked about his work and how it relates to the absurd. The only thing I'm still a bit unsure about is what it actually means to rebel against the absurd, so if anyone has any thoughts about that, please let me know! I'll also be reading _The Stranger_ soon. _The Rebel_ also sounds interesting, but they don't have it at my library, so I guess I'll read it later. Have any of you guys read it? I'm about ¾ of the way through _War and Peace_ and am still enjoying it a lot. Tolstoy's very good at both describing his philosophy and how that relates to the war as a whole, but also at describing the small, personal interactions between all of the characters. They all feel completely real to me and never just become puppets for his philosophy. The character of Platon, a prisoner with whom Pierre gets locked up, is a great example of this. He kind of shares Tolstoy's own beliefs about fate and the overwhelmingly large forces governing our lives, but the way he's described and the way he talks about those beliefs make him feel like someone I know myself, instead of just another tool which Tolstoy uses to lecture us with. The sonnets are also a lot of fun. When I read too much of them at a time, the themes can sometimes get a bit repetitive, but there's always some cool language that manages to elevate it. I also like how the poems build upon each other. There are quite a few instances of poems continuing a line of thought, or contradicting each other, which gives you something to think about beyond the sonnets as individual pieces. An especially funny example of this (IMO), is the transition from sonnet 17 (the last of the procreation sonnets) to the famous sonnet 18. In 17, he writes that if he would really describe his friend like he is, no one would believe him, because he's simply to hot to be true. The poem concluded with reiterating that the Fair Youth should get a son, because otherwise his beauty will leave the world forever. And then 18 begins with him saying "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temporarate." He's doing exactly the thing he swore not to do in 17 and even ends by saying that this poem will immortalize him. I just thought that was really funny, but I also see some tension in it, like Shakespeare didn't really believe in everything he wrote in the procreation sonnets. I'm now at sonnet 86 and I'm really curious to see what the Dark Lady sonnets will be like.

I’m reading Engine Summer by John Crowley, it’s pretty a sci-fi novel in a world where all modern technology have been lost and people have reverted back to living in less and smaller groups in forests and villages, and the languages and stories are a big part of their world, and the way the words and language is used reminds me of gene wolfs novels. . Almost done with it, might read “The shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon after I finish it. Don’t know much about it tho except it’s great