Steven > Recent Status Updates

I can already tell that this book is going to be excellent. I love Benebell's YouTube channel and she is just so, so intelligent and discerning.

We finally got to the reincarnation discussion! Beautifully explained, no less. Every time I open this book there's a new passage that is so eloquent and meaningful.

I think another thing that I'm noticing with this book is just how much talent it takes to produce a good story using the third person omniscient narrative voice. A lot of authors use this voice, but they don't do it in a way that constructs a good portrait of their characters. If you want to use third person omniscient, you have to have a fully fleshed out view of your characters and their purpose within the story.

This book is so unbearably beautiful. I'm only about a quarter of the way through and it's by far the best work of fiction that I've read this year, and maybe in my entire life??? All I can say is that I'm glad that this is a tetralogy, because I will be reading every book in the series

This book wins the award for "most creative and beautiful descriptions of teenage boys getting erections"

I'm not even a quarter of the way through this book and the thematic material is already so deep. The traditional Japanese misogyny that was a Meiji era reaction to Westernization is already at a high, and it's turning the main character into an incel, essentially. Yet, femininity is represented by the light of the moon, and it sets every male in the book on fire. I wonder how much of this book is autobiographical.

Well, I'm only 30 pages in, but I'm already loving this book. Mishima waxes poetic without being pedantic or pretentious, and in typical Japanese style, he describes the simple details of every day life with a rapture that encompasses the Zen philosophy of mindfulness. And this book is the first in a tetralogy!!!

Oh thank god. The prose in this book is immaculate.

I NEED this book to be good after reading two horrible books in a row. I've heard good things about Yukio Mishima's writing (even though we are politically polar opposites). I want Buddhist fiction; I want good prose; I want descriptive writing; I want a good story. I expect nothing less from a guy that committed seppuku after taking a general hostage and went out in a blaze of glory.

I'm not liking this book so far, which is disappointing because I remember liking Hemingway in high school... His relationship with the nurse is vacuous and unexciting. "Oh darling I love you" "I love you too" "I'm worried" "Don't worry" "When will the war be over" "I don't know" "Will you love me forever?" "Sure, forever"

Their conversations make me roll my eyes into the back of my head

I'm a little disappointed about how this book is going so far?? I thought there would be a deeper commentary about war but like... This is just Ernest Hemingway talking to his nurse girlfriend. Total snoozefest

This book is such a breath of fresh air after reading that mess called House of Leaves. Hemingway is so stoic and succinct that even his narration of a bomb exploding comes off as unemotional. I don't know if I necessarily like that stylistically, but it's a hell of a lot better than whatever Danielewski was doing

Straight people are wild... They can just meet each other for the first time in a hospital courtyard and instantly declare that they're in a relationship and start making out. Right in front of my salad

I'm like so close to abandoning this book. I'm going to keep reading because there are some interesting things happening in one of the narratives, but if I wanted to visualize heterosexual escapades, I would just search for it on the internet

The parts of this book that describe the house and the characters that live in it are interesting, I guess. I would honestly be happy with a book just about that instead of having the narrative being interrupted by a straight dude who can't shut up about having a crush on a stripper