Brent Woo > Recent Status Updates

"These books are probably law books and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance." said K. "That must be it", said the woman, who had not quite understood him.

haHA :(

this particular type of relentless despair reminds me of Ip Man 2. ufff lighteyes don't let up

ohh so "Chink" is the name of his friend whew

this is an unbelievably weird book, and I'm saying that coming on the tails of Queneau, a guy who got bored with French Surrealism. Who ARE you Virginia Woolf??

oh wow this is my favorite type of book, absolutely nothing has happened except a plane did some skywriting and some lady did NOT invite Dalloway to a dinner, and yet the people are already indescribably complex and their interior monologues are emotional and raise so many questions

I am getting very worked up about this story. some craaaaaazy stuff is happening and it's blowing my mind

made it through the "Host" Conservative Talk Radio one which actually became very interesting near the end. last 80-page essay is on McCain 2000 (how timely).

she has a chapter titled "A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again either" which (a) guess what it's about, and (b) yesssssssss

also, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is turning out to be somewhat autobiographical, very interesting....

uh oh i actually like this, am I supposed to like this guy

oh man this is FUN I think I just read this for 4 hours straight

just 100% swashbuckling and intrigue and magic from the getgo

It's that damn Pixar movie all over again

vol 3 done, and onto the last volume -- Russia is thrumming

why is this so good. he's such a whiny dorky soft brat but I fear with him, I cringe with him, I rage with him

volume 2 done. i feel like I'm reading 3 books at once, with each wildly different plot lines, and they're all GOOD. I'm getting so swept up in these people's frustrations and (mostly frustration)

wtv takes the already-titillating story of the doomed cannibal Franklin expedition and gives it reincarnation(?) and weird sex

this is GOOD and EERIE can't stop reading

I'm on such a writer memoir high right now idk why. He's such a smart and florid writer, each sentence is a treat. I liked his calling legos "stippled tibias". And his exegesis on how captain underpants is failing to undermine capitalism

finished 'volume 1'. such a emotional range of characters...

seems to be a normal detective plot but it's weirdly hard to keep up, there's something slippery about the storytelling. enjoying it so far, and... love all the Socal south bay references!! one of the characters even lives in Torrance haha

Oh my god just talk to your husband don't do that AHHHH WHYYYYY

Wisteria Lane, but in 19th century france, so La rue du Wisteria

Ohh this is so good and unfairly targeted to me
just the kind of fancy postmodern book about language nerds and neo-classical piano that I needed

I had to set it down for a sec because it turned into disturbing body horror :/ (But also, I'm intrigued! Mysterious stories and worlds!)

MAXIMUM ENTROPY (E.G. HEAT DEATH OF UNIVERSE) IS INEVITABLE BECAUSE IT REQUIRES TOO MUCH I N F O R M A T I O N TO IMPROBABLY REVERSE TIME OMFGG THIS BOOK

Loving it. One of those books that threatens to redefine how you see the world. I'm already trying to anticipate what else reduces to "bits" of information. So far all of it's been about language and writing systems, which I kinda like

"The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway" YESSSSS FIVE STARS

Whoa. I didn't expect ethnic identity stuff to come up here. Lee is an ABC talking to Sam an Ireland-born white: "in a few years you can almost disappear, while I, who was born in Grass Valley, went to school and several years to the University of California, have no chance of mixing...

Picking this up again after a few months' break as a transit read.

Each mini-story arc is interesting, but I wonder how it all comes together in the end... I'm getting a little weary of these parties and high society meetings where all that happens is people scandalously talk to other people. I kind of miss reading about his prison escapades.

Not to make light, but I'm identifying with the prisoner engineers way too much. Grad school gulag...

This is great. I didn't expect all the relationship intrigue - there's a few budding romances in the gulag, some which seem dangerous. The segment driving through snowy Moscow was so surreal: it felt like surfacing in some gilded Gatsby wonderland, after getting used to the locked gates and wardens of the gulag.

Yessss I love surprise linguists as heros (enemies??)