Max Urai > Recent Status Updates

The first few chapters were great, when the main character was going on a road trip to buy Dead Souls. Interesting idea, we're constantly introduced to new characters, it was a bit like a picaresque, which I like. The middle chapters are all about gossip and polite society and what a pisser it is, which I don't like, and usually find the most cumbersome thing about 19th century fiction. Hopes this picks up.

REALLY LIKE THIS SO FAR CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HOW IT ENDS

So far: five stars for material, four stars for interpretation, two stars for style. Indeed, this historian begins quite too many sentences with the word "indeed", and there's a general stiffness to his manner that suggests he has, perhaps, indulged slightly too frequently in old manuscripts.

Ok ik weet dat dit bedoeld is als grappig, licht boekje over kantoorcultuur, maar het lukt me niet om dit niet als iets anders te lezen dan een absolute tragedie over mensen die geen enkele taal meer hebben om over hun wensen en emoties te praten, behalve die van bedrijven, beleefdheid, en wat vage clichés uit Amerikaanse sitcoms.

This really would have benefited from being a "selected prose" - so much of this is just repetition of earlier gags. I get that he got famous for this sort of stuff and he had to live, so he had to write what people wanted of him, but that doesn't make reading it ALL a compelling experience. I do still really like The Kugelmass Episode, for its weirdness

My current toilet read

I was this to be a expecting a fiery, edgy book on race, but while it certainly has some explicit implications, Painter is more nerdy and bemused about the history of the idea of "whiteness" than she is enraged. She feels like someone who las lived with racism for long enough to see the fundamentally absurd and dopey side of it. Like this a lot so far.

Thought Fault in our Stars was a lovely and very well-written book. Not so blown away by this one yet - the whole Agatha Christie schtik that props up the plot feels out of Greens range - but the pages on OCD are good.

Just started. So far, it's deeply good: light, well-remembered, funny and horrifying in that way only non-fiction can be. If this holds up, it's going to be one of my top books of the year.

Dit is niet zo goed als ik had gehoopt maar ook lang niet zo slecht als ik had gevreesd. Beetje Giphart-achtig, met meer deprimerende seks en meer dronken, vieze mannen.

Ik ga hier met een rotgang doorheen, maar ik ben niet echt onder de indruk. My First De Monster Trilogie.

OK nieuwe vertaling gekocht waar tenminste wel al dat fucking Frans in wordt vertaald. Poging twee.

what the hell is a novel anyway

I like this book, but like perhaps its closeth brother, Catch-22, the kickass premise is getting stretched very, very, very hard. It's like the novelist is trying to become a taffeemaker. Feels like it could have been a four star book that's on its way to receive three just because there's so much superfluous nonsense in here.

Let's do this, motherfuckers.

This is really, shockingly good so far.