Books: What are you reading tonight?

I couldn't quite gel with the style of Intimacies by Katie Kitamura. It's too clinical, too well observed, the metaphors too on point. This kept me a distance, never getting under the skin of the nameless narrator.

I like all of McCarthy's stuff, I just don't care for in depth tales if inbred southern families. Faulkner is a great writer, but he almost killed me several times. I want to avoid another absolom absolom.

I think it was my own inbred southern family that made me steer clear of the dark stuff.

Anybody ever read any Lee Goldberg books? This guy is the nuts! I believe he has written 96 books. I have read 5 or 6 (all because they were available on Amazon monthly "free reads"). They have all been fast, easy, entertaining reads. The one I am reading right now "Murder by Design" is laugh out loud funny.

Is it literature? HELL NO! Is it fun and entertaining and worth your time? ABSOLUTELY!

I would def avoid Dungeon Crawler Carl unless you played D+D.

Loved Dungeon Crawler Carl, definitely helps if you're a bit of a nerd.

I spent the last 2 days rereading Norweigan Wood. I was deep into Murakami for awhile there, gradually soured on him a little over time. I'd say this is my favorite of his now. His novels started seeming a little precious to me when I was spending so much time with them, his tricks a little tired. Rereading this now did me some good. Let's call it reader closure. It's a good book.

In my early to mid twenties, I read every Murakami book / short story that I could get my hands on.

Much like Catcher in the Rye, his books feel very important during the years where one feels lost / trying to figure out who you are and who you want to be.

In recent years, I’ve bought / read his newer releases, but they don’t hit anywhere near the same when I read Kafka on the Shore or The Wind Up Bird at ~19/20 years old.

His books serve(d) a purpose, but I don’t have the attachment that I once did.

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my experience with murakami was the same as kioshk.

at first his stuff seemed really different and interesting and worthwhile and then halfway through some book you’re like hang on he tricked me into thinking he’s way better than he is.

For me, Murakami was a gateway for Borges, Calvino and Burroughs.

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I wrapped up Wind through the Keyhole last week. While I still have 3 books to go, I think I made a mistake reading it after Wizard.

While it’s technically book 4.5, I don’t think it added much to the journey itself. I guess that’s obvious since it’s a brief detour from the Ka-tet.

It did provide some cool back story and closure for one plot point, but I think it would be more enjoyable as a book to circle back to after completing the last book.

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Burroughs is my favorite writer. Not because he wrote the best, Cormac McCarthy wrote the best. Because his books are the residue of a great magical work. Nova Express is not a book. It is an opening. A cut, Burroughs would say.

I don't even particularly like Naked Lunch. I have read The Nova Trilogy three times, which is admittedly insane to do. His Late trilogy with The Place of Dead Roads and Cities of the Red Night, which magically predicted AIDS and The Western Lands, his Egyptian book.

interesting, i was a bit into hesse as a teen and my english teacher told me to hold off and not read anymore until i was middle aged because i wouldn't be able to truly appreciate something like steppenwolf as a teen

Rereading for at least the tenth time Roger Angell's essay "This Old Man," written when he was 93.

Here's how it ends:

Getting old is the second-biggest surprise of my life, but the first, by a mile, is our unceasing

need for deep attachment and intimate love. We oldies yearn daily and hourly for conversation and a

renewed domesticity, for company at the movies or while visiting a museum, for someone close by in

the car when coming home at night. Take it from us, who know about the emptiness of loss, and are

still cruising along here feeling lucky and not yet entirely alone.

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Tho much is taken, much abides; and tho We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Tennyson, Ulysses

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"

That was the motto of my high school. Yes, we had to take two years of Latin.

"Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense."

"Tintern Abbey"--Wordsworth

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A Short Stay in Hell - novella by Steven L. Peck.

After dying of a heart attack, a devout Mormon discovers that the one true religion was actually Zoroastrianism, and so is condemned to hell. Hell takes the form of The Library of Babel, an almost infinitely large library containing every possible book, and in order to leave he must find the one that exactly tells his life story.

I loved it. Audiobook was just under 3hours, so finished it in an afternoon.

I'm a great misunderstander of books, and as a result I tend to like the ones others ignore.

When I was locked in during COVID, I spent way too much time trying to translate Murakami's 1Q94 into verse. It didn't go well, but I gained a great appreciation for the structure of his work. I don't look for messages there, however.

I like Burroughs too. But, like Amp, I like the cut-up theory essays--but don't get much from his fiction.

Ursla K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick: I love their slapstick novels, but their famous works? Not so much.

If Borges never wrote a novel, but instead dedicated his life to reviewing non-existent books, I would have been perfectly happy.

If you are over 50 or 55, you may now read Anthony Powell. Tolkein wrote a three volume fairy tale--Powell wrote a twelve volume shaggy dog story.

I may have more pronouncements later. I feel expansive on my favorite holiday.