Gianluca Fiore > Recent Status Updates

By now I believe Wolfe is one of those writers that writes with the assumption that he is smarter than all his readers. Which may well be true, but I hate it.

Section 3, chapter 2 = wow. Amid many chapters where trivial things happen, or nothing praiseworthy, there are gems where word after word captivates the reader.
So far best book of this 2021.

A travel book that couldn't have been published today. Cynical and completely not politically correct. I am liking it

Going on a reread of this classic series. First time in the original English. I have very fond memories of the first three books and good but not great ones of the second trilogy. I have never read the last four books and I intend to do now after the reread.

By now I've learned that any drama is meaningless because Tolstoy will invariably use the verb 'reconcile' before the end of the chapter and all will be forgotten. Bah.
The general stupidity continues, now affecting the only one who seemed somewhat gifted with a glimpse of an intellect, Anna's husband.

I'm reading on out of sheer hope that a final twist will redeem this supposed 'masterpiece'.

The next 600 pages or so have better be beyond awesome to redeem those I have so far read. A pure slog. The main issue is that all the main characters are irredeemably stupid. Add to that that there's no epic, no larger event that this bunch of nobles can be connected to, and the book comes out as simply unengaging.

I had forgotten how much Spanish I had forgotten

This seems to be a character driven book and it is taking me all my efforts as a reader to get engaged. It will take a long time to finish it, and not due to its length.

For a book about the Arab 'conquests' there is surprisingly little about the actual battles that led to these conquests so far. Even the most important ones are dismissed in a paragraph, often due to lack of sources. Only, I've read in much more detail about these battles elsewhere so I don't know why the author isn't considering these sources.

I have been meaning of reading this book in the original language for a long, long time. It was the very first book I read, back when I was 8 years old. But I've only read it in Italian, translated, and never managed to do in its original form.

Let's see how it aged. I have very fond memories of this series, hope not to crush them.