Curtis > Recent Status Updates

Excellent end, despite me predicting one big twist very early. Enough twists to satisfy. Characters are all great, even the insufferable ones are interesting. Religious allegory, down to 4 perspectives like the gospels. Shows how biases of culture affect our behaviors, duty vs morality, challenging conformity/hierarchy. Sarah was great; subversion of 'virginity as virtue' trope. Slow parts but worth the read. Great!

Christ allegory, maybe a touch heavy-handed but very interesting. Because of superstitions of characters, perspectives are tinged with the supernatural--great way of immersing you in the time. Period also shows the rise of scientific method amidst superstition--someone uses medieval 'bleeding corpse' method to try and find murderer, analyses the way custom can act on a person's behavior, biases or conclusions.

3rd part better than 2nd! Lots of what's happened in the last 2 parts only gets full significance when given context of other parts, whereas part 1 worked almost like independent novel. Tough adjustment because of that, but I've come around. The tangled web that's developed is so big and encompasses so many people at all ranks that I started taking notes on motivations, actions, etc. Complex but engaging, if patient!

All perspectives revolve around finding truth in a chaotic world split between superstition & the dawn of enlightenment. All have defensive motives for writing besides the murder. Loving how scenes from earlier take on totally new meaning with each concurring perspective, how we can see the consequences of an action in one playing out in another, etc. Also continually impressed by depth of historical research here.

Jack not as empathetic or fun to follow as Marco, but still enjoyable. I actually thought he was kinda cool for a bit, then he did something and now I hate him. Also, I find it hard to shift from one perspective to another because it means resetting the momentum & stakes. But love how your perceptions shift, especially regarding how you view the characters. Funny enough, Sarah once again comes off looking best!

Holy hell, what a way to end Marco's section! His was a great intro to book--fish out of water made him discover the mood & manner of 17th century England along with reader. Also connected to the characters whose perspectives come later, but not so connected to see the whole picture. A lot clearly happens out of Marco's sight, especially near end of his section, so the author builds a need to see more. Very excited.

Working with victims of trafficking is huge achievement, but something's off here. Authors insulated victims from seeking legal or medical help, they claim there's no laws against what's happened to these women even though there definitely are, & say people call them crazy or withdraw support, but don't explain further. Rant at the end compared all sex work & porn to torture & snuff films. Very unnerved by the end.

Love running joke about needing a corpse & how Pears inserts info on thinking of the time in humourous way (doctors tasting patient's urine). Also uses dialogue not only for character development but to show important ideas of the time (science versus religion, the new clashing with old ways). Also quite gory with medical procedures. Loving the set-up and atmosphere. Someone just died so the mystery begins!

Very atmospheric, great prose, love how pompous Marco is. History book I just read on the period is doing a lot to help me fill in the context of the setting & I'm picking up on a lot of references, though Pears does explain things too. This is a world of hierarchy/propriety, where manners are dictated by a person's rank compared to your own. Themes of 'pursuit of truth' likely to be important. Funny moments too!

Didn't expect anything big to finish off the book! After restoration, seemed to be a predicable trajectory--until the last chapter, wow. Amazing how the exact same mistakes of century's first half are repeated in the second! These people don't learn and I'm surprised nobody just decided on religious toleration considering the countless thousands that died purely for being different denominations of the same faith!

Lots of interlude chapters in later book; one talks a bit of daily life. Seems weird to do a chapter like that 3/4ths in! Some of these chapters also feel like author trying not to waste his research and don't fit in organically--would've rather seen this space used to explain key things like how gov/parliament was organized, or a primer on religious tensions of the time since book is sparse on explaining that stuff.

Drawback of quick style, you don't get sense of scale. Battles didn't seem huge but then told Britain lost as much a percentage as they did in WW1 & found out Ireland lost 40% of its population because of Cromwell. Some events could also be told with less jumping around to better streamline. Still great sense of narrative drive though. Charles 1 down, army under Cromwell takes over Parliament. Epic change of fortune.

Very concise writing during Civil War, not bogged down in meticulous maneuvering or pedantry. Things really escalated, but fairly easy to retain how it got here. New Model Army and rise of Cromwell especially interesting, foreshadowing how much bigger war would become in later centuries. Books like this, Distant Mirror etc really helping me 'piece together' the grand narrative of how modern world was shaped.

Wondering why they never go to the cops to bust the traffickers? They have evidence, they know the traffickers, the women they're talking to are still being tortured/haven't gotten out yet--wouldn't priority 1 be to get them out since they're in immediate mortal danger? They also seem to isolate the survivors from seeking proper medical care because they believe system would 'just medicate & label them.' Unsettling.

Parliament vs King perpetual issue. Charles I keeps going back on any ground he appears to give, making him seem indecisive (one sec saying 'follow customs/what I say', another implying parliament has power then going back on it a bit later). Taxes/customs, religion, etc all become a tug of war for this conflict. Also love mentions of medical 'treatments' of the time, including sticking feet into freshly killed deer.

Incredibly disturbing/upsetting, hard to stomach. Incredibly important to lay out what's happening, so applaud it for that. But book still refuses to address why what's happening needs to be called 'torture' & says it can't be legally addressed otherwise, despite the bad things in the book already being illegal & taken seriously. Also why no attempts to get women out? Some they speak to are still being tortured.

Works as intro in some ways, not in others. Lacks background about Catholic/Protestant tensions, as well as how Parliament/King relationship worked in 17th century. Glad I have some background knowledge on protestant tensions because otherwise I might be lost. Couple of chapters that feel like author couldn't integrate them elsewhere so they seem underdeveloped. Overall though, very much enjoying, though slow going.

Catholic terrorists digging tunnels under parliament to blow it up, a duke's wife poisoning her husband's best friend to maintain influence, a king so in debt he can't get a line of credit... & a whole host of people planting friends in his inner circle to sway him one way or another! 50 pages in, & already a clusterfuck... but a fun one! Thrown straight into it, info is inferred instead of detailed to maintain pace.

As disturbing as you would expect. Horrific stories & explanation of how sex trafficking goes on. However, chapters oddly structured & goals not well explained. Big focus on getting govt. to recognize 'non state torture' as a crime, but no explanation as to why this label is important, since all things done to trafficking victims are already illegal. What will the additional label change? Hoping for answer.

Last 70 pages were pretty good! A reminder that there's a great, solid novel in here, but as a whole it's a mixed bag. Or maybe it's a book that's so big & meandering that it's hard to put in perspective with just one reading. Either way, although a lot of it was fun (especially near the start) & it had some interesting themes, satire, & commentary, it was often a plodding one-trick pony. Still glad to have read it!

I think it's all falling action from here on! A few fun parts towards the end but mostly I felt that after the joke had run its course, the book fizzled out. Favourite recent part was the wedding. Overall I think the first part was much stronger & that this novel could be compressed to half the length & be stronger for it. I know it was meant to be episodic but only about half of the episodes held interest.

My copy's only got 150 pages left... just gotta power through, lol. Sancho's time as governor was kinda neat but honestly, 800+ pages of basically the exact same joke/formula is a bit much, & as much as I wanna see it like a serial/episodes of a show, I still wish it had more variety & fewer tangents/endless diatribes. It always seems to be the least funny jokes that get stretched to the breaking point.

These monologues are endless. Sancho refusing to do things & monologuing for a dozen pages before agreeing (this happened like 3 times in the past few chapters). Them being set up to believe they're on a flying horse would've been funny if it hadn't been for a dozen pages just setting up the fake story why these women got cursed with beards. The narrative makes jokes about how belabored it is but that doesn't help.

Once DQ set out again, the familiar pattern was established of getting into shenanigans each chapter, with the same formula playing out. I'm now listening to a chapter or two at a time via audiobook instead of reading for long chunks at a time. It's making the repetition/episodic story a bit easier to digest. Still, over halfway through!

Back reading DQ! Pt. 2 starts with meta conversations as characters discuss the book & the reputations they've garnered from it. Narrative takes shots at copycat authors who tried to make their own second part. Makes you question the story's reality (are the other literary knights real in this story?), as well as the nature of fictional characters, since the book shows how fiction makes impression on the real world.

Very touching section on his mother in her last months. Augustine converted & baptized, but the transformation was very unsatisfying. He was trying to be grounded and rational in figuring God out, untangling the complexities of doctrine, but as soon as he has a road to Damascus moment, all questions go straight out the window & his inquisitive mind does, too. "Just have faith." Reminds me of Sunday school.

Was okay; 5/10 or thereabouts. Very meta with narrative being unreliable combined with the motif of being misunderstood/miscommunications. But not solidly engaging enough to carry the story. Very apparently written without any outline, Burgess making things up as he goes. Best section was the start. Stuff with Bob entertaining & would've made a good story itself but not enough of it. Satire of it might grow on me tho

Edwin confused for foreigner & his academic talk confuses locals with heavy Cockney dialects. Irony of him being a linguist who can't communicate, needing brain surgery because his mind/body aren't communicating properly either. Interesting that he's asexual--interested in love but not sex. People treat it as a problem when he doesn't. Ahead of its time in some ways, very dated in others. Still pretty funny moments!

If Kafka wrote humour. Good prose, witty slice of life, a minor theme about alienation/feeling foreign in your surroundings until you become assimilated to them, & inability to communicate. Many characters are immigrants (unfortunately referred to in a pretty retrograde way; don't think it's malicious). My recent experiences are making the frustrations with medical professionals' obtuseness very relatable!

Like many theists, Augustine works backwards: stars with conclusion, then forces things to fit it, instead of using evidence to work towards making a conclusion. His false dilemmas also start off with presumptions--talking about things good or corrupt, he doesn't explain what corruption is or how he knows it. Reminds me of my own religious questionings as a kid, & the efforts I went through to maintain faith.