Sean Kuhn > Recent Status Updates

I really do think I was just at a lull when I last stopped, I love the way that Tartt writes Theo’s cloudy narcotic induced narrative in the latter third of the book, it reads very similar to how Henry Hill’s denouement unfolds in Goodfellas with all the coke and pills he was taking and how it muddles in with his social connections always underscoring his shady back door dealings.

Can’t help but think this book may be overrated, maybe I’m just at a lull in the story? The narrator just is not as captivating as a medium for the plot, more so compared to Richard Tartt’s “Secret History,” and I think a lot of the artistic references are going way over my head. The cast of characters is compelling though, it’s just that I expected more depth with the length and reputation the book has

Falling more and more into this book as it slowly burns. Tartt’s dissociative first person poetics are part of what had me hooked on The Secret History and they are even more refined and present in this book, but they have a more integral story telling facet in the novel similar to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. She never passes up a chance to make an allusion to a classic by Pushkin or Dostoevsky and I love her for it

Donna Tart is incredible. Her description of a Dionysian ritual was so well done that it caused genuine dissociation, reading it was like being on shrooms (not a drug guy) but it felt almost exactly the same.

Her prose is seamless, her characters are privileged and incredibly frustrating but their toxicity keeps you hooked. She is great at establishing set and setting and toying around with philosophy, ugh I love.

“The yams is the power that be!”
- K Dot

Achebe’s prose reminds me a lot of Camus’, for better or worse, but so far this book is pretty great. Just straight up immersion into Ibo culture with no context or preface, it’s been neat comparing and contrasting this with the Epic of Sundiata and the Malinke people, as they are both Bantu groups that are distantly related and share some cultural heritage.

Don Quixote is such a silly character. Bro is just so into his own folly and has gone completely delusional it's just hilarious, more or less he's the first "literally me" character, he walked so internet incels could run. About to get into his fabled duel with the windmills and currently giddy with excitement.

Recently, I made a mental note that the female characters in this novel don’t have much fleshing out or big roles, within the last 80 pages or so that has completely changed and I’d say for the better. Gruneshka and Katerina are definitely both embodiments of tropes common with Dostoevsky but they’re much more unique and nuanced than those who came before them (Save for Sonya Marmeladova ofc). Good stuff F.D.

Liar's Poker is more or less a, "Court of Thorns and Roses" but for finance bros. Each page turn has a new arbitrage, a nuanced way to rip people off, with untold troves of shareholder value, and all packaged together neatly with the fantastic writing of Michael Lewis. Although at times he may be an unreliable narrator due to personal blind spots, his story telling ability is quite unique and entertaining.