Greg > Recent Status Updates

Wow... Too much romance not enough goth.

I've been looking forward to reading this for years: my understanding is this novel is different from all other novels by Dickens AND has a murder mystery. But at page 130 I found myself lost and had to go back and list all the characters mentioned thus far and their lineage, etc. Thus, this feels just like Dickens. Not necessarily a bad thing, really.

To finish or not to finish? i SHALL put this aside for a while. I think I read this when they published it as "The Road."

One of the greatest first-100-pages I've ever read.

Appearances are SO important: "He was so fit that his supporter's straps didn't even dent his buttocks." True or not: "Girls literally embody the idea of making yourself at home. Males, when they come in somewhere and sit down, project an air of transience..." Xenophobic or not: "The Chinese women didn't walk so much as scuttle..." Hey, I didn't write this book.

I was watching the film version of Cats a few weeks ago and now I realize that movie could have used one of the characters in this book.

Love these seemingly odd lines like: "It's good cheese, but I've had better cheese." But addicts are chasing their 'cheese'. Then later, "...why should I, as the sacred individual, give you half of my soup? My own pleasure over torment is what is good..." Everyone is after the BIGGEST whatever, the best buzz, the best orgasm. Fun Times!

"It was the establishment of O.N.A.N. and the gerrymandering...that turned the malevolent attention of Quebec's worst post-F.L.N. insurgents south of the border..." Familiar? Then, "...and the insurgent cells of Quebec...completely lost their political shit." Thankfully, this novel isn't about politics at all. But isn't everything political? Even tennis?

HALLELUJAH! I' ve gone where no reader (of this particular volume) has gone before: past page 247! The rest of this library-owned book is in mint condition, not a page touched or turned. And what's on page 250? "Did he have film-related things with him..." when his head exploded in a microwave oven? The movie "he" made that's so addicting one watch, you're hooked forever and can do nothing BUT rewatch! Stay tuned!

About videphones vs regular phones, circa 1996: "This bilateral illusion of unilateral attention [regular dial phones] was almost infantilely gratifying...you got to believe you were receiving somebody's complete attention without having to return it." 25 years later, spot on, and hilarious. When people don't like their looks on videophones (Video-Physiognomic Dysphoria, VPD) a new industry develops: lovely masks.

The professional tennis circuit is torture. That's why I prefer ping pong.

In the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, Ededy awaits the delivery of 200 grams of great pot and stocks up on vaseline, a new bong, and other necessities for an extended masturbation session. FOR THE LAST TIME. In a world that worships entertainment (nothing has changed since 1996), Ededy is delusional of course. There will be next times.

Has anyone read the entire specific volume (1996, First Edition, Hardback) setting on my desk? When I borrow huge, older books from the library, I study all aspects of the exterior then estimate how far average readers get. Here, it appears no one has ever turned past page 246. From pages 247 to 1079, I see not a speck of dirt, no turned down corners, nothing. No Wrinkle in Time spanning 25 years.

This book is beautiful! I'm thinking maybe this is where the term "City of Lights" originated. And so romantic, wistful, dreamy.

"I revealed myself to be both a tireless dancer and an unobtrusively learned man; I managed to love simultaneously-and this is not easy-women and justice..." Finally, in all of literature, I've found myself!

Boring! I'm listening to the audio...and it's just background noise now.

Nice construction, integrating character flashbacks with action sequences. And this one never takes itself too seriously.

...gettin' on my very last nerves.

I'm a third of the way through. Hoping for a Napoleanic/French invasion soon cause Becky and Amelia gettin' on my very la

Yep, Neal Stephenson's clock (here, Everclock) deep in the recesses of a fortress...with Neal's 'monks' and with Neal's comedic elements. Jersper, "Play piano, too?" Wylan, "Flute." Jesper, "Perfect." You just gotta laugh.

Problem is, I just read "Do Androids Dream.." and I guess that books Rick Decker seques into Kaz Brekker in some way? And I finished Neal Stephenson's "Anatham" last month, lots of made up words, but liked it. I'll try to finish Chapter 3.

Still not sure what this book is about...

So, there are these 4 big, naked guys winding a clock in some kind of monastery...Hey, what kind of book is this anyway?

Margaret, 19 y/o, has had hot, passionate sex (with thief Harry) in a bunk just a few feet from her parents. The next morning her mom comments that Marg looks flushed, Marg says, "I'm feeling guilty because I stole a strawberry from the breakfast buffet." Just an example of how terribly bad, so on-the-nose, the prose is in this novel.

Why is it that only the ladies gently massage themselves while aboard an airplane? For the record, it turns out both flight attendants, Nick and Davy, are 'musicals'! Gotta hand it to Follett, he sure knows his way around women's underwear!

1939: the flying/floating Pan Am Clipper is embarking on a 20-hour flight from England to NY. Is there a Nazi scientist aboard? Check. An American movie star? An escaping Fascist family? A Russian Princess? Yes, yes, yes. And is the effeminate front flight attendant, Nicky, queer? How about Davy, the rear flight attendant? Will the thief get Lady Oxenford's jewel's, or perhaps Nicky's? Hang tight for thrills to come!

I must say this isn't as comical as Nicholas Nickleby and at mid-point doesn't feel as if it's going to be much fun at all. But then again, I know this is close to the author's life.

You just KNOW our heroine isn't gonna get to marry her bookseller. He's gonna find out about her past (dark), she's gonna find out who chopped the arms off a monkey (yea, darker, but not the darkest here) and why, and there is just no hope for the drunk stranger who held the 'idiot's' mouth open to take a piss. And WHERE, exactly, did her own supposedly dead child go?

RIDDLE TIME! What is called 'his thing', 'a bone', 'topped by an apple', 'has two plums', 'weeps semen tears', and more and more. Those Cubans are manly men!

Immigration? On "I Love Lucy", 1950s, immigrant Desi Arnaz-real life musician- as Ricky invites The Mambo Kings (immigrants newly arrived) to play at his NY club. It's reported (I'm speculating) that NO ONE screamed 'f***ing aliens" in all of America. Instead Ricky and his lovely white wife, Lucy were beloved and mambo music swept AMERICA. No mass shootings followed. What happened to the USA?