Jacob James > Recent Status Updates

At dawn, and twilight, when the light is an oyster shell, and again at midnight, bodies change their shape and size, like cats who slide from dormer to gable and vanish into the murk.

The frequent use of mirrors as a looking-glass into the memories/soul of a person in this novel is so interesting

Book Four, Part One: ✅

Catch me crying at Andrei's last days 🥲

Rereading because it's been awhile and it's the perfect Spooktober read

This is a fascinating read. The chapters on the Lonely and Demonaic Selves are worth exploring even without everything else so far.

"The dead are magnified in our eyes, while we to them appear as ants. They look down on us from the mists, like mystic beasts on spires, and they sail above us like flags."

Book Three, Part Three ✅

Andrei has tons of death flags going for him right now and I'm NOT happy about it 😭

"The king's companions are prepared to march... slaughter is their trade. Like butchers in the shambles, it is what they were reared for. Peace, to them, is just the interval between wars. Now the stuff for masques, for interludes, is swept away. It is no more time to dance. The perfumed paw picks up the sword. The lute falls silent. The drum begins to beat."

Barely started and already I can tell that The Last of Us is a clear rip-off

"Hunters, it is said, live longer than other men; they sweat hard and stay lean; when they fall into bed at night they are tired beyond all temptation; and when they die, they go to Heaven."

Part Two: Purgatorio, complete.

It's time for the really weird shit - Paradiso. Hoping to see many depictions of biblically accurate angels and other proto-Lovecraftian phenomena.

Book Three, Part Two ✅

I get why Tolstoy became a pacifist now

That's the point of a promise, he thinks. It wouldn't have any value, if you could see what it would cost you when you made it.

‘I reach the crossroads and I throw the dice, and whichever comes up, it is the same – it is the swamp, or the abyss, or the ice. So I shall follow you as the gosling its mother. Or as Dante followed Virgil. Even to the underworld.’

Informative so far but much of this is stuff I've been aware of for a while now. Snagged an audiobook copy to help speed this read along for me.

Chris mentions the book "How To Do Nothing" which means I have to reread that now...

"Our possessions outlast us, surviving shocks that we cannot; we have to live up to them, as they will be our witnesses when we are gone."

"through the prism of her great eye, the limbs of agitated men unfurl like ribbons, yearning through the darkness. Perhaps she thinks they are praying to her. Perhaps she thinks she has climbed up to the stars. Perhaps the darkness falls away from her in flecks and sparks of light, the roofs and gables like shadows in water; and when she studies the net there is no net, only the spaces between."

Halfway through the Comedy, and 2/3 done with the Purgatorio. I am a bit of a political nerd so I'm loving the shade Dante keeps throwing at his political rivals in this

Book Three, Part One complete. I love this book.

"Intrigue feeds on itself; conspiracies have neither mother nor father, and yet they thrive: the only thing to know is that no one knows anything."