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Coming down from the lofty heights of Psyche’s alpine palace, her sister Maia who was both mother and king to her must figure out a new strategy to remove a stubborn sibling from her delusion. She returns almost immediately with a scheme that wins her over and yet brings about more trouble for all of Glome. It places Orual on a path where she becomes a queen who keeps her face hidden like Cupid wanted for himself.

The wine-soaked remembrances of events leading up to an affair, told with such a breezy sense of destiny makes one overlook that the narrator is an awful, judgey person, highlights that everyone has their own “failure to love” our own selves just as poorly as we fail others. Like the reisling that were supposed to set the story in motion, Gina’s dry, citrus-y wit balances the minerality of her grounded reality.

Wasn’t this book about someone named Magda who broke the author’s heart? Hard to tell which random hook-up might have been the titular her, as if Yunior were some hard-luck Rob Fleming trying to rationalize what went wrong, but instead throws his whole family and everyone he slept with under the bus to show off his profound profession as the author of some crappy tell-all Book that is as delusional as it is dull.

Zooming in on the three key leads, the narrator and future queen Orual, the protagonist and sacrificial goddess Psyche, and the helpful soldier Bardia, as they shift from castle keep, sickbed, training and sacred place. Each of them has a Rashomon-splintered view of what the ordeal at the Tree might actually portend: Orual can’t believe any good will happen, Psyche sees the divine and Bardia questions not the gods.

Oh man, this is just a series of New Yorker short stories haphazardly stitched together as a novel, meaning I could have searched through backissues of the literary journal on the always iffy app, rather than downloading the pricey ebook? And very fitting for the New Yorkese that it is someone from a marginalized ethnic group navel-gazing and moaning over the tigueres he intermittently hooks up and releases.

A cleverly constructed tale based on a half-remembered myth from Ovid that is given more complexity than most retelling from any age. The King, the Fox, the Princess and the Priest all have motivations that are in sharp contrast with each other like all good archetypes should. Even Venus, the most familiar within the whole pantheon, is shrouded in mystery as Ungit so I can’t yet imagine how Cupid becomes the Brute.

The loss of Poe’s wife must have really done a number on his psyche, troubled enough as it seems in his writing. The ante- and penultimate stories itemize the beautiful features of dearly departed dames, particularly their teeth. The final story, however, takes a all-seeing glance at the cruelties of society then singles out one man to follow and wonder at, only to lose interest as the readers must imagine Poe did.

Suzuki eloquently demonstrates how his book is an uninstruction manual, something to be read only to be immediately forgotten and the true understanding coming when one sits in zazen. The effect is similar to what many college graduates go through when they complete their degree and complain how all they got was a piece of paper, the beginner’s mind allows us to shrug off these expectations and lets us truly learn.

Three of the most renown tales of terror seem nothing more that an atmospheric account of odd events, hardly a protagonist to root for. Yet with “William Wilson” Poe doubles down on the personality caught up in the macabre machinations, only to prove as much of a cipher for strange and impersonal storytelling, as if all four confessions were just a demonstration of a moody mind stuck upon some cruel contraption.

Fire, like an old friend of the Doukhobors, brings about the swift resolution of so many of William’s problems. Right from the start of the novel, when his wife and secret accomplice mentioned the spark, it seems like letting everything burn would be his only solution. Just like his father finding everything taken from him except for one last thing, wealth in gold or cash means very little when seeking forgiveness.

Flanagan’s exit has created a void filled with an exponential growth in police presence while crimes become more apparent. William nervewrackingly keeps himself ahead of being caught but his father Pavel’s path has more torment and trauma. The women in their lives also have burdens to bear: either not enough attention from spouses or too much of the wrong kind from abusive creeps. Behind every twist lurks an owl!

Two supporting characters are as far apart in temperament as they are physically in location and time. Uri is a thug without a conscience and a drive to get gold despite the harm that came to William, Dennis or others. Flanagan is burdened with concern for his young New Denver charges and cannot accept the cruelty and corruption that would allow another internment of Canadian citizens to proceed with unjust impunity.

Quite the rare event to read a novel that deals directly with my heritage, and even describes in detail a few familiar places. William and his mysterious SynchronoX deliveries and Nina’s survival skills are two plot points that will keep the pages turning for a while - how long can they keep things going. Yet a true wonder is Pavel’s storytelling skills, all the lies, literally making up Doukhabor mythic origins.

I get the sense why the proto-detective Dupin didn’t really have the long-lasting legacy as Holmes and Poirot, as Letter shows C. Auguste as a opportunistic meddler. More ratiocination occur with Cat and Usher, but relying on the desperate and depraved minds that seal up women inside walls. One done in by a ghostly cat, the other by pathetic fallacy that ends with a literal house falling.

Continuing his erudite analysis of the division in society that are prominent in the west, contrasting with the liberation promised, yet not always present, in the east, Watts leans into the mysticism while he acknowledges the tenets of psychotherapy. He concludes that we could learn more about life’s purpose if it is viewed a game to play like Orpheus on his harp rather than a struggle for survival with dull work.

A very curious set of instructions, that underline the ineffable contradictions of practicing zazen: you can’t expect anything from continual practice and you’re not even supposed to enjoy it, yet nevertheless it must be practiced. When I got to the part about leaving your teacher once you find them, it became clear how the book should read and how not to quote Suzuki unrehearsed during a conference presentation.

How sophisticated were the short story audience in the mid-1830s? Would some readers have taken Poe accounts of mesmerism, maelstrom and murderous monkey business? He gives detailed description of the events as if he were there, transporting the reader into the uncanny Gothic world, but given that his balloon hoax could be read today as a fabled account of transatlantic aerial navigation, there had to be a few dupes.

After hours of listening to Watts’ sonorous voice in podcasts (thanks to Mark) of Allan’s lectures, it feels great to get back into the books with these echoes in mind. And back to the best bits of what I previously read that combines Eastern mysticism with a still-developing scientific field of psychoanalysis. Not being too attached to one way of think over others, this book is as if wu-wei were put in a bottle.

Moving beyond the familiar driving internal rhymes of “The Raven” to explore the small sample of poems written by Poe, they are recognizably gothic while being separate entities on his psyche. “A Dream within a Dream” and “To Helen” resonate with the wisdom of the ages while lingering on the imagined future life that evades a miserable speaker of each poem, stuck in a maddening present moment of inaction.

It is starting to wear me out, the constant flow of novels that all seem to rehash a nostalgic mash of the Second World War and revered role American troops played. The homefront isn’t much more interesting either. Racial stereotypes abound, as if all one needed to know about someone was their heritage of drunkenness, greed or violence that put others in their place while glorifying one’s own ancestral adversity.

A few too many chapters featuring almost-endings: the one where Anna find out what happened to her long lost dad, the one where Dexter almost beats the odd mixed with Eddie’s gangland exit, and then Anna’s trouble that were almost over before her sister’s intervention. So much potential so near the end, it is any wonder if the resolution won’t be a family reunion and one absent father swapped out for another.

Another awarded novel that takes the nonlinear timeline approach to storytelling, after several strictly chronological chapters at the beginning to lure me into a false sense of security. Most of the flashback serve the purpose of filling in Eddie’s backstory, or rather the gap he left for Anna and his family when he was shipped out. Must agree with Agnes that the rest was better off without, but here we are again!

After a fatal fire and other catastrophes, many of the families continue their hunt for their next home with many, many obstacles thrown in their way. In addition to drugs, arrests and prior evictions, the most depressing reason for the constant rejected applications are the children each family (mostly the mothers) struggle to house. A sociological history lesson looks back on several centuries of pervasive poverty.

Anna’s story takes an expected turn allowing two clichés as she strives to be a diver only to encounter Benny Goodman-era sexism. And then, in a moment of empowered achievement, she hooks up with Dexter and may very well be on her way to becoming his moll if only for their shared past. Turns out her father didn’t just disappear, Dexter might have had a hand to get him Shanghaied in San Francisco five years back.

Getting past the point where Anna motivation to become Dexter’s mistress or a gangland moll, she is taking serious steps towards becoming a diver, despite the officer’s objections. One of the weights holding her to home, sadly enough, passes away and their mother moves back to Minnesota, allowing her to plumb the depth. Dexter’s brief outing with Lydia brings him to an unusual generous depth lurking inside him.

While rent money is the driving factor for all the exchanges between landlords like Sherrena and their cash-strapped tenants, two other currencies are always at hand: food stamps and drugs. The former is a necessity for all families that gets traded for favours while the latter is the cause of and escape from so many troubles. Neither provide any pleasure and even a third unspoken commodity, sex, is more of a burden.

While their doesn’t seem to be any clear winners in the centuries-old American game of passing the buck, for the struggling poor families living in the inner city it is a demeaning game of Duck Duck Goose landlords and welfare agencies play among themselves. When duck-counting stops, figuratively, another family needs to scramble to find a new place while another unfortunate becomes the grubby goose of this game.

While the plot doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, at least it is not getting anywhere faster than the first few chapters, focused on Anna all grown up and taking charge while her mother remains in the same place with her near-motionless daughter, Lydia. Meanwhile, Dexter only just endures the disappointments that wealth has brought upon his family and probably he is better off with a self-willed daughter like Anna.

The repetitiveness is understandable: this is a nationwide problem being explored at the civic and interpersonal level: one city with a growing cast of destitute evictees. The sympathy gained for their life-long misfortune soon evaporates in every landlord gathering and the chanting affirmation to prove how they all had it coming. Poverty perpetuates the race and gender lines for those who get locked up or thrown out

Had to read the free, limited, Libby eBook sample before the library system would release the rest of the book, and can’t say there is much going on within these digital pages that will keep me engaged. The research behind the factionalized story must have been extensive (the eBook sample didn’t include endnote) but it is all becoming a blur of well-intentioned landlords falling prey to property management greed.