Chris Via > Recent Status Updates

I shall learn volumes from The Professor at the pace of ~10 pages per day!

I'm taking my time with this one. The first 30 pages were a bit difficult for me to get into--perhaps because I was still under James Salter's spell from reading ALL THAT IS. Thereafter it picked up, and I was able to get into it a little more. This is my first pass with Bellow, and nothing in particular sticks out to me, though I still plan to read Augie March.

Joyce's prose never fails to impress me, but this SoHo Books edition is tripe.

The fifty years have elapsed (I feel like they have in reality too) and we've circled back to the time of the opening scene. Hoping GGM's rambling and repetitive exposition will now cease.

Finally down to a hundred pages, which pages I'll probably need a hundred years of solitude to get through if this thing doesn't pick up.

Armenian story was satirically pretentious and the form of the writing was innovative; but overall a bit tiresome.

So far, reading this book is as arduous as Florentino's quest to win over unrequited love.

My first brush with GGM. First 50 pages made for arduous reading; then it picked up for a while; and now it's back to very well-written but boring exposition. Kind of reminds me of my experience with Thomas Wolfe.

Belgian story: I'm getting redundant in my thoughts, but it's a good thing: another great story! A play within a story that leaves both audiences fraught with ambiguity!

Georgian story: An amusing piece of metafiction.

Montenegrin story: sharp narration, acuity of thought, and an understated ending that delivered a nice chill to the length of my spine.

The instrument of cognition does not let an object be itself, but rather reshapes the object. If we attempt to remove that which we add via the cognitive instrument, the object returns as it was before our perceiving it.