I have FINISHED Infinite Jest. It took me exactly 1 year.

I have a lot to say about this book, but also I don't know what to say. There are times when it is very brilliant or very funny or very sad. Usually a combination. There are also parts where it's extremely lucid, there would be multiple chapters where 90% of it is just some insanely detailed descriptions and observations of stuff and then something insane happens in the last few pages. I always felt like those conclusions compensated for the inanity though.

At some point though you have to be like respectful of your reader, and introducing 450 characters with weird names and details that are presented in a way that's just kind of hard to remember is like not nice. The aggressively non-linear nature of the whole thing made it so that I didn't really grasp what was happening until 700 pages in. It's incredibly difficult to read but it does feel rewarding when you're working through it, up until you realize the thing has no payoff. It's frustrating and it makes me feel stupid, like I am not "smart" enough as DFW is to understand all the different layers or some shit.

And now it's got me making up all these backwater ass stories for random people who may or may not even exist, like Kanye West starting riots outside of Wikipedia's HQ to get his Wiki page taken down, or a guy whose porn addiction gets so out of control that it ruins his family and leads his daughter to actually start acting in pornos and then the dad went to watch porn one time and saw his daughter getting screwed from the back and jerked off to it, and after he splooged he let the video keep playing, and the girl turns over for the male actor to splooge on her face, and the guy only then realizes that it was his daughter he jerked off to, and is like psychologically scarred from that, and now can not watch porn anymore, but is suffering from addiction withdrawal via kind of having his hand forced into quitting cold turkey, so he becomes like vegetative and turns to hard drugs, and now has just like totally addled himself. My brain is full of this shit now

I just read a vcr manual. We cant all read the classics Mr Highbrow

Book #??? of 2021: "El Juego Del Angel" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

667 pages in Spanish. Went a lot easier than the last one... pretty much didn't need to use the translator a lot (for grammar/sentence structure), but only the dictionary for words I didn't know/forgot.

Good story but an unsatisfying ending/resolution.... but maybe because the mysteries are being saved for the next two books in the series.

Library doesn't have the next two in Spanish, only in English though....

The Grapes of Wrath. Just amazing imagery and a really wonderful snapshot of a life that so many people lived that feels impossible to me. No better postcard for working class solidarity than this right here

Recently finished "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond.... was pretty good... probably the most "logically" and "straight-forward" presentation in a book I have read.... every chapter felt more like a "scholarly essay" in traditional format....

Haven't finished yet but I started reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I loved the film so figured I would give the book a shot so I could roll into the 2 sequels that aren't getting the film treatment. What I have discovered is that the book is vastly different from the movie. Way more mysterious and ominous right off the bat with things that aren't even mentioned in the movie being the focal point of the book thus far. I'm actually glad in a sense that they differ so much because I don't feel like I'm reading something that I already know the story of at all. I'm hooked and feel like I am going to burn through the trilogy in short order.

The Corner by Simon and Burns. Great fucking read and laid the foundation for the Wire.

Crying in H Mart, pretty good/sad, lots of descriptions of Korean food, still haven't really listened to Japanese Breakfast

Annihilation is way better as a book. It's an excellent movie but does not come close to the novel. Moving on to Authority.

2 down, 1 to go.

Authority is so much different than Annihilation was. It comes from a completely different perspective that sheds so much light on some of the unknown factors of the first book. Super hyped to start on Acceptance now.

The Outsiders

had to read it 4 middle school class i'm student teaching... good, fine... makes for some good lessons abt listening to other ppl despite your differences & "destructive behaviors" when it comes to conflict. good to know the origin of the phrase "stay gold ponyboy" init

This chick became a right wing airbag who just repeats Fox News talking points on her youtube channel... sad

gross take you got there

Read another North Korea book called "Without You, There Is No Us" abt a woman who goes to teach English to elite kids in North Korea... not sure if propaganda. The most valuable thing from this book is the snippets of dialogue that the North Korean kids would say and the questions they'd ask her, there seems to be some gloating about capitalism and at least she admonished a bunch of the missionary teachers for being shitty

Not many ratings. Less talk more ratings plz.

"El Prisionero del Cielo" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The third book in the series. Feel like nothing happened in it... was mainly just exposition and stuff setting up for the final book. No real "character arc" or "journey" in this one I feel like.... Some plotlines just kind of "end" and others that are like "ok this will be a challen- oh no, wait they solved that immediately"....

Getting better/faster at reading these books.... this one was the shortest of the three so far... I guess I want to read the fourth one to see how it all winds up, but it's more than 900 pages in a smaller type-font..... gonna take a break and read books in English before I try tackling that one....

Best book I read this year:

"Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World" by Nick Lane

Was very fascinating.....

SHut up bitch

"Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe"

2/5

King Lear

47

That book was fucking cringe and pretty racist, lol.

Choas: Charles Manson, The CIA and the secret history of the 60's - 5/5

I was more than skeptical when i started this thinking it was likely conspiracy and as it turns out it absolutely was. it just happens to be completely true.

a single reporter spending decades investing the discrepancies found in the both the official coirts records and the book Helter Skelter with the official documents lead the journalist down a spiraling decent into his own obsession that took up most his adult life and what he found is a least unequivocal substantiated evidence that the official channels with held considerable information.

does that lend to some of the grander connections? well thats another topic altogether but after reading this im completely certain based on the physical records that remain we are looking at a heavily redacted and edited narrative.

that sounds fucking crazy, destor

it cartainly does. but the book is purely evidence based reporting. no conjecture or theorizing.

"El Laberinto de Los Espíritus" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón..... the fourth and final book of the series.... 925 pages of Spanish but I made it... started it late February. Was easily the best entry of the four books.... feel "emotional" at having accomplished reading them all and also at the time with this world and characters being at an end....

Last book I read was Toni Morrison Song of Solomon... really f*cking good... "transcends" normal novels... feels biblical

Anna Karenina

so very complicated and tedious, yet a simple message prevails: put goodness into the world. took me all summer to finish this. Konstantin Levin is the greatest literary character of all time

My only issue with Tolstoy is his insistence to always use a chracters full name everytime anyone mentions the character...ever. brevity is ok

"Murder on the Links" by Agatha Christie

Once in awhile I'll just get a Hercule Poirot mystery out to read.... was an enjoyable one. Liked the "contrast" of having another detective working the case....

Every character has 5 different names and half of them are Alexey

"Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict" by Ara Norenzayan

Was alright.... feel like he was a bit long-winded sometimes in saying very simple things.... Some interesting stuff I guess. Not quite what I was expecting. Was expecting more history but was more psychology.10

Cinema Speculation - 8/10


Really enjoyed this. A dive into the history of 70s cinema and into what makes the theater an experience

"Football and Nation Building in Colombia: The Only Thing That Unites Us" by Peter J. Watson

Wasn't sure on this one but actually turned out to be super fascinating sometimes. Feel like it was almost a "perfect" follow up on the last book I read about Gods/Religion, because it was just another study in the efforts to unite larger "tribes" of humans and create co-operation.

May I ask why you are interested in Colombia?

Went there randomly on a trip and dunno.... just is a fascinating place. The history, the culture.... such a diverse country geographically, biologically, culturally....

So many problems but so much life....

Just the more I learn about it the more I get sucked in...

"The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and the Hidden Error That Transformed the World" by Ken Alder

Book about the origins of the Metric System... was a lot more fascinating than I expected...

I'm currently re-reading Frank Herbert's Dune at the moment, which I originally read around 15 years ago (I think; at least a decade).

As much as I liked the Denis Villeneuve film adaptation, and I look forward to Part Two, reading the book shows just how shallow that adaptation is. They should never have done a film or two films; it needs a big budget HBO series to do the book and its world building justice.

Finished Dune; as great as I remembered.

I've now started Children of Dune, which I haven't previously read. I decided to skip Dune Messiah, as I remembered reading it years ago and not thinking much of it.

I've also bought the first book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, Master and Commander. There was a film based on this series years ago with Russell Crowe - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I'll get to this novel after Children of Dune.

Read "Salka Valka" by Halldor Laxness... got this in Iceland at the "Laxness Museum" which was just his house

Long book about an Icelandic fishing village that unionizes... very boring which I like of course

I finally finished Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Not as good as Dune, but good enough that it has compelled me to buy the next two books in the series, God Emperor of Dune and Heretics of Dune.

I still need to read Master and Commander.