Mike > Recent Status Updates

This is fucking eerie. It's not quite spot-on as to what it was like after Trump was elected, but it's close enough for me to suspect that Roth might be a time traveler. The thing is, this is otherwise kind of boring, and not particularly well-written, but... damn, it's hard for me to not get emotionally invested in it.

I guess I just wish there was a little more clarity in what exactly the allegory is here. I mean, there's definitely a lot of food for thought here, but I'm not sure it quite coalesces into anything coherent. But of course, it's totally possible I'll read some analysis that makes me totally rethink everything.

The longer this goes, the more I like it. I do wish there were more of a story in the present, but the flashbacks are fascinating.

God, this is a disturbing book, in a lot of ways. I can definitely see why it sticks with people.

I really, really wish I bought into how Gahdhi wants to change the world. But it's just too... eat-your-cake-and-have-it-too-y. I just don't get how he plans on changing the minds of people who make their livings off colonialism and exploitation - he doesn't seem to have any understanding of why people colonize and continue the system of colonization.

This is a really unsettling, uncomfortable book to read. I imagine it would be even more so for a woman. Atwood does a good job here, even if I'm still not at all into the story.

While I have a lot of admiration for Gandhi's dedication to his positions, I think I'm a bit at odds with him, because I hold the radical leftist belief that colonizers are actually really shitty people who poison any community that they're invited into. Like, the idea that people should change of their own volition is nice, but that's a long-term process, and people need protection in the short-term.

God, I wish the story were better. This prose and this worldbuilding deserve a better story.

I think I'll never really get behind Tocqueville, because I disagree with the basic premise of this book - that Americans were basically economically and socially equal. It's just factually wrong.

This prose is some of the best I've ever read. Atwood's metaphors and selection of detail are both excellent - it's hard to think of writing that better communicates the emotions and mental state of the protagonist.

I guess I'm just not able to latch onto political analysis that so thoroughly denies the realities of class structures. It just seems so far from the truth to me that it doesn't work.

Man, I really want the plot to start. The writing and worldbuilding are both really good.

On the whole, this is just way too general. Tocqueville didn't actually spend that long in America, yet he feels confident making huge, sweeping generalizations about the kind of people who live there and how they think and live.

This is kind of interesting, but I just think that Tocqueville's vision of American democracy is way too optimistic. He seems to care more about theoretical ideas of equality and liberty than the realities of poverty and slavery that were happening in America at this time.

This plot had better be interesting, because this premise has a lot of potential that I don't want to be wasted.

I think my big problem with this is the completely false premise that the people who came to the Americas were basically all economically equal to begin with. It's just not true - there's been slavery and racism against free Black people for a long time, and even among white people, farmers were much poorer than the merchants, who were much poorer than the lawyers and ministers that the Founding Fathers tended to be

On one hand, I hate infodumps. On the other hand, the world being infodumped about seems super interesting, so I'm still cautiously optimistic about this book.

The Dog Story by Kim Newman: 3/5 Like I said, the Seven Stars stories are all just running together. Tonally repetitive, not very interesting characters, decent writing.

Bay Wolf by Neil Gaiman: 4/5 An entertaining and stylistic poem. It's a little silly, to be honest, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Reading this book has made me realize just how pervasive Marxist thinking has become since the mid-19th century. It's just bizarre to read something that doesn't either use or respond to that class analysis.

What if my essay for class about this book just said, "TL;DR"? I'm reading an abridged version (the only one sold by my school's bookstore, btw, this was not by choice), and even then, this is dense. Interesting, but dense.

It's pretty interesting to see political science from so long ago. The worldview that Tocqueville takes on what people want and do is so completely alien to me. That said, that does make this book very difficult to follow.

I really wish I could hear Gray tell this story out loud. Told like this, it's just hard to follow, and not that entertaining. Which is a shame, because Gray clearly has an interesting story to tell. It's just not being told here.

This certainly seems like it could be interesting. So far, I have to admit, I have no idea what I'm even reading, or what to expect going forward. But the introduction makes a pretty good case for Gray, so I'm excited to see if he lives up to it.

These letters are boring. Why is this part of my required reading? I have no interest at these at all.

More than half of these poems are eulogies for the dead - it gets repetitive for a while. And it's a shame, because I like almost every poem that isn't a eulogy for a dead person. Wheatley's overall output might've been better if she didn't feel the need to dedicate a poem to every deceased person she's ever heard of.

It's a little sad to see her praising the king of England so much. That said, the poem about David and Goliath was quite inspired, and Wheatley is clearly a capable writer. But I'm not sure how memorable I'm going to find these poems - I can picture forgetting most of them after I'm done with this book.

This is a really interesting book, and unfortunately, I feel like I'm not fully understanding it. I feel like this would have a lot of re-read value, like I'd get a lot more from seeing everything a second time.

This is pretty interesting so far. Certainly, the prose is phenomenal.

I'm actually sort of glad to be reading this, so that I can figure out early on that I could never, ever be a history major. This is boring as shit.

Yeah, this is just incredibly boring. You can see a bit of the spirit of the American revolution here, but it's mostly just tedious details about their daily lives.