J.T. Wilson > Recent Status Updates

Firework factory time as we get into the final act.

“Do you understand what’s going on?”
“Good heavens, no.”

“Do you understand what’s going on?”
“Good heavens, no.”

“Do you understand what’s going on?”
“Good heavens, no.”

“Do you understand what’s going on?”
“Good heavens, no.”

I knew it was going to sprawl once the count got out of prison and there were still 700+ pages left, but it still seems quite focused.

There must be more twists to come because this can’t be 700 pages of ass-kicking vengeance can it?

Curiously the book seems to have more movement when it restricts the movements of its protagonist (that is, by unjustly confining him to the dread prison of Chateau d’If).

A year for giant books clearly.

Affirmative! My friends surely recognise the shadow of ‘The Raw Shark Texts’ writ large in the last 20%. Would Murakami even be aware of the Hall masterpiece? I cannot say.

The “what if Gatsby was a dad and also in a Studio Ghibli story” plot is finally in gear. Not sure why Murakami repeats himself so much, as if the book was serialised or if he was being paid by the word.

Haruki Murakami Describe A Female Character Without Mentioning Her Breasts Challenge

“I thought about what it would be like to paint my own portrait. Say I were to try, what sort of self would I end up painting? Would I be able to find even a shred of affection for myself? Would I be able to discover even one thing shining within me?”

Murata has a very unusual mind, but is also one of the most imaginative authors around. Alas this, the third of hers I’ve read, is also the final one translated into English so far.

Basically the entire novel complete now, just Tolstoy’s 100-page essay(!) before this is all done.

Does nobody ship Natasha and Marya? Their whole thing reads explicitly like an intensely felt romantic relationship (even if it’s ultimately doomed by the era in which they live).

The occupied Moscow bits and the Rostov bits in the last 10% have been among the best in the book.

Page 900! After a bit of a slog with Tolstoy’s opinions on military history and long sections starring Napoleon, we’re now back with our cast in occupied Moscow.

The last 10% has seen Russia invaded by the French and the book invaded by Tolstoy’s “here’s what really happened” commentary. The cast is so large that pairing up characters who were very visible throughout the book, but who hadn’t met before, allows for intriguing possibilities.

HALFWAY!!! A lot of exciting stuff in the soap opera parts in the last 10% - two of the characters writing crap gothic poetry to each other, the erotic thrill felt by one of our heroes encountering one of the antagonists, and everything that happens afterwards - and then the arrival of (I think?) the first philosophical chapter, dispensing with plot entirely for a few pages.

500 pages in! The pacing is really good and a lot happens, it’s just really long.

This last 130-odd pages has been all movement: birth, proposals, death, Masonic rituals, wild gambling, a letter from the trenches that reads like a Spike Milligan memoir…

Another milestone worth reporting.

I think I feel the opposite to Bolonsky: he leaves the drawing rooms because he can’t stand them and goes to the battlefield, but thus far I’d prefer to be in among the psychodrama than the Napoleonic War bits.

10% feels worthy of recording as a landmark in this marathon. Very readable so far, once the principal figures emerge from the cast of zillions.

I’ll be on this book a while.