reading reviews of this book is making me dislike either the book or most people
anyways book has a good story, can recommend
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then itâs settled
we kill the reed man
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read goetheâs faust, very weird but moving. part one is quite focused and gets most of its power from the total seriousness and scrupulousness with which it treats faustâs vacillations in the face of mutually opposing, mutually unsatisfying visions of life - the imp of the perverse is caught so well that thereâs almost nothing for the devil to do but watch it happen. part two throws this out completely and moves from the internal to the wholly external, turning into a series of elaborate and sometimes inscrutable allegories. it has some of the best writing in the play and some of the goofiest and most jarring shifts of focus, at least in english translation which i guess has to work a lot harder to fluidly manage changes in form and register. so itâs a lot craggier and misshapen but it sort of works in that sense - it reminded me of reading artist biographies, which start out sharply individuated before starting to blur under the weight of all the accumulated names and dates until the subject almost disappears under the material and their own wariness. faust suddenly disappears from the narrative for long stretches, reappears in a different guise each time as court magician, courtly knight, parent, politician, and finally ends up (spoilers??) in the most un-Romantic way possible, as a petty municipal official trying to bully some peasants off property heâs already earmarked for land-reclamation purposes before dropping dead on the spot, presumably as exhausted by this point as the reader. the fact that heâs carried off to heaven regardless seems after this less like the result of his âstrivingâ than of the sheer dogged persistence of his own egotism, managing to continue lurching on through the most jarring changes in tone and setting. but weirdly moving for that alone just like i say.
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From what I understand, Goethe is notoriously difficult to translate well into English and âcraggy and misshapenâ seems to be a criticism exclusively for english translations of his work.
idk, i always heard that as well but i donât know that itâs incorrect when describing a threehundred-page posthumously-published allegorical drama which includes lengthy parodic treatments of contemporary geological debates and the advent of paper money. maybe i was more cued to pick up on that stuff in part two because i went in thinking of it as a late work, though.
I found a copy of karl ove knausgaardâs my struggle: 5 in a sale bin so I am reading that a little bit. I havenât read the others
I was about to read Childhoodâs End by Arthur C. Clarke, but decided it wasnât for me or I wasnât in the mood for it after reading the first chapter. I am going to try Slaughterhouse-Five. I already loved Vonnegutâs Catâs Cradle, so I am excited for this.
Childhoods end is pretty good as far as that era of sci fi goes. Lots of stapledonian cosmic significance and big ideas
I read Kiss me, Judas, by Will Christian Baer. Itâs about this guy who gets his kidney stolen.
I love the sparse and hardboiled prose. It has some great black humor and the end is the kind of shit I wish I could come up with. Loved it.
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i reread Neighbors by Jan Gross
read han kangâs the vegetarian on christmas day. it was harrowing, but excellent. thank you to whoever it was on here who linked to one of her stories on granta
Iâm reading Sorcerer of the Wildeeps and so far itâs the best thing Iâve read in months.
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been reading The New Jim Crow, it is of course insanely depressing. I think for a lot of people who have been following coverage of mass incarceration it might not contain any new info, but it is extremely helpful for thinking through things to have it all presented coherently and with reference to specific cases.
Beyond that, it is really nice to read something written with academic sophistication but intended for a general audience. The past year when reading non-fiction Iâve been stuck between bloggy/journalistic style imprecision and obsessively jargon-filled academic texts (usually on totally different topics), this is a nice digestible medium and in spite of the obvious discomfort of the subject matter I feel like it is inspiring me to keep up this sort of hobby of reading up on various social justice / american politics books Iâve neglected.
I think I will probably read Hillbilly Elegy next
Itâs crazy that TNJC is already slightly dated, I hope someone does a followup to incorporate what has gone on in the past 6 years. The main thing about it that feels dated though is that there is a pretty pervasive sense of the Obama disillusionment angleâthis is of course not at all wrong, but I want a followup that is able to fully address the Obama adminâs approach to mass incarceration. Two years in, the conclusion seems to be that the changes have been mostly band-aids that donât do much to alleviate root causes. I assume that has remained the case for the back-end of his two terms, but hopefully someone will lay it out in a way that is as persuasive and intelligible as TNJCâs coverage of how things went under Clinton/Bush.
Another big takeaway from this is just how low into abhorrent âtough on crimeâ stuff Bill Clinton was willing to go in order to convince undecided conservative voters. This thing got resurrected due to Hillary Clintonâs superpredators comment, and I think I was vaguely aware of the broader context, but itâs crazy how stark it was, and how disastrous the consequences.
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Basically he takes lists of people who were dreadfully oversentenced pursuant to lingering Clinton-era tough on crime policies and commutes a couple dozen every month. Itâs certainly great for those guys, their lives are literally saved, but itâs hilariously far from systemic, and not even a band-aid really. More a capricious imperial clemency.
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I was reading Jack Vargoâs The Spike Tomahawk: A Popular Weapon and Tool in North America when he referred to a plate in George C. Neumannâs Swords & Blades of the American Revolution which gave me a reason to pull my copy of the latter off the shelf and look up this extratextual example.
So that was pretty thrilling.
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Charming
âAll hayed up on marijuanaâ is a pretty good phrase though⌠i ⌠hope it doesnât have some kind of racist etymology because I really want to be able to use it to describe people that love to get all hayed up on marijuana
Jesus christ, itâs weed, not PCP
Although maybe he got some of that dreamboat without realizing it. Happens.
note to self: do not read trainspotting while eating dinner
note to self: read trainspotting at all other times