Dylan C. Sarich (Author of Where the Mind Wanders)

Dylan rated a book really liked it Kallocain by Karin Boye	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I was visiting family friends in Sweden for Midsummar when I mentioned Aniara, the sci-fi epic poem I had begun reading. Tommy mentioned this book in response, and I promptly began reading it when I returned home a few weeks later. Either Boye or the ...more
Sep 22, 2026 10:09PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Kallocain by Karin Boye. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Kallocain by Karin Boye <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dylan is now following Umberto Eco Author of The Name of the Rose
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Dylan rated a book it was amazing The Divine Farce by Michael S.A. Graziano (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I just wrote what might have been the best review for a book I have ever written. Ugh, it was actually really good. But Goodreads didn't save it, and when I tried to publish it, it deleted it. I think maybe refreshing the page did me in. Maybe I'll w ...more
Sep 20, 2026 07:03AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Divine Farce by Michael S.A. Graziano. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Divine Farce by Michael S.A. Graziano <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dylan rated a book it was amazing The Love Song of Monkey by Michael S.A. Graziano (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Graziano has a beautiful way of writing, in that he only needs a short few sentences to set a scene, or to describe someone's movement or reaction. In such little words, I can recall this entire (albeit, short) book. I would like to read Graziano's l ...more
Sep 20, 2026 06:35AM · like · see review
Dylan rated a book really liked it Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature by Emily Wilson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Some of these essays were not remarkable, but the ones that were great, were really great. I liked her essay on Helen, Edith (I forget her last name, my apologies), and translation. Reading her chapter on translation has ignited an interest in studyi ...more
Sep 19, 2026 09:36AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dylan rated a book liked it The Burial at Thebes Sophocles' Antigone by Seamus Heaney	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I have not read many plays, but this one was amazing. I love the whole dilemma that's so cleanly debated amongst the characters of the play. I felt that the true dilemma was one I was at the forefronts of trying to figure out alongside the characters ...more
Sep 19, 2026 09:35AM · like · see review
Dylan rated a book really liked it The Old Man and the Bureaucrats by Mircea Eliade	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The beginning to this book was perfect. Eliade has a great way of capturing an image, or an emotion. As it went on, I became tired just as the bureaucrats were of the old man's stories. However, in the last sentence, I realized I was a stupid stupid ...more
Sep 19, 2026 09:33AM · like · see review
Dylan rated a book really liked it The Pooh Perplex by Frederick Crews	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I saw this at the Cambridge University Library and I fell in love with it. It did become tedious to read, but it's an important book for me to read as to not only see a satire of all disciplines of English Literature (at least, from the time this boo ...more
Sep 19, 2026 09:31AM · like · see review
Dylan rated a book really liked it House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I originally was so excited reading this after reading The Whalestoe Letters (which I consider to be an absolutely perfect book). Then, as I continued reading, I just became tired of this. I get this is super intellectual, super complex, and so on. T ...more
Sep 19, 2026 09:29AM · like · see review
Dylan rated a book it was amazing Bone, Vol. 1: Out from Boneville (Bone, #1) by Jeff Smith	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I remember reading these books as a kid and re-reading them over and over. They are so remarkable since they are funny, light, and also full of mystery and adventure. The tone in which the Looney Tunes-esque Bone cousins are brought into the stakes o ...more
Sep 19, 2026 08:43AM · like · see review

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I was visiting family friends in Sweden for Midsummar when I mentioned Aniara, the sci-fi epic poem I had begun reading. Tommy mentioned this book in response, and I promptly began reading it when I returned home a few weeks later.

Either Boye or the I was visiting family friends in Sweden for Midsummar when I mentioned Aniara, the sci-fi epic poem I had begun reading. Tommy mentioned this book in response, and I promptly began reading it when I returned home a few weeks later.

Either Boye or the translator have a great sense of language. It's very clear, and yet the sentences are not all that short. There's a precise, exacting sense to Boye's language which I really like.

Even further, if stories are just philosophies expressed as 'plausible' events, this book has a very clearly-defined philosophy in the best way possible. The truth serum, and its counterdictory effects on the inhabitants of a restrictive society is a perfect way to reveal the hidden truths everyone has and hides from everyone- even themselves. I also really enjoyed the chapter about the propaganda machine about making films. The introduction of Boye's life provided at the beginning of the book really helped helped shape a bit of the characters of Leo and Linda well, mirroring a bit of an autobiographical insight into Boye's life, if I choose to read into it that way.

Unfortunately, while the ideas and characters were really well done, and resisted the banality of archetypal or cliche writing, I thought the enjoyment factor of this book was not fully satisfying. I kept seeing this book as a chore, and then decided to just speed read the final 75 pages of the book to get it out of the way (which had some really great scenes- like when Linda tells Leo she wants to kill him under the effects of Kallocain). However, I mostly enjoyed the beginning of the book to midway when it concerned Rissen and Leo creating the Kallocain, and their dynamic and conversations. There was some meandering plotlines which I thought was fine, but I felt bad that I ended up finding this book to bore me. I had the same issue with 1984 when I tried reading it in high school for fun. Orwell's language is so amazing, and he's got a way of writing in which I am anvious of, but man I did not find Winston or anyone else that interesting (less so than this book!). I was able to try again with 1984 due to the exceptional graphic novel adaptation of it, which permitted me to slowly digest his language while also experiencing a fantastic visualization of the story in a very atmostpheric, moody sense. This book could make for a great graphic novel, as some of the imagery made me think of We Happy Few, which while I never finished it, has some music and images that are always in the back of my mind.

Maybe the main takeaway is that I might not be a dystopian dude. I used to be when I was younger. It's a shame, since dystopian stories are similar to science-fiction in that they have some of the greatest ways of 'literalizing' or 'manifesting' philosophies as literal or physical substances. I remember in high school, that the dynamic of Winston and the overall story of 1984 felt too familiar to me. Perhaps the stories of 1984 and Kallocain and We (I have not yet read that one) have become archetypical cliches in the dystopian genre, and it's a cliche that I just cannot find myself enjoying much. I also had an issue with Stephen King's The Running Man, which featured a character I originally liked and then became what felt to be just an angry, violent man who I could not really appreciate any longer. I really don't know what it is about the story of 1984 and Kallocain that I find a bit alien to me. Leo was much more sympathetic than Winston, despite the fact that Leo was much more morally heinous in his ways.

Oh, a little complaint on my part is that I have mixed feelings about the ending. I think it was a 'good' ending, but I suppose I wanted the Kallocain to be used on Leo. Perhaps that's a stupid thing to want, since the perspective of narration included Leo's thoughts, and it was all written as though he had put the very words down himself. However, I suppose that there was never going to be a happy ending, in the same way that 1984 and The Running Man don't have happy endings (except that Edgar Wright gave his adaptation of The Running Man a happy ending...). I do remember liking Make Room! Make Room!, and season 3 of Westworld (being a dystopian story) was something I liked. In a way, Le Guin's hainish cycle books come across as more dystopian than science-fiction, which may be why I had trouble getting into those books. Asimov's Robot novels are much more pulpy detective stories with dystopian backgrounds, which I really really really really (let that word keep repeating) really liked. I should maybe just read those books again. ...more

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Umberto Eco

Author of The Name of the Rose

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The Divine Farce
by Michael S.A. Graziano (Goodreads Author)

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I just wrote what might have been the best review for a book I have ever written. Ugh, it was actually really good. But Goodreads didn't save it, and when I tried to publish it, it deleted it. I think maybe refreshing the page did me in. Maybe I'll w ...more

Dylan rated a book it was amazing

The Love Song of Monkey
by Michael S.A. Graziano (Goodreads Author)

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Graziano has a beautiful way of writing, in that he only needs a short few sentences to set a scene, or to describe someone's movement or reaction. In such little words, I can recall this entire (albeit, short) book. I would like to read Graziano's l ...more

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Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson

Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature
by Emily Wilson

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Some of these essays were not remarkable, but the ones that were great, were really great. I liked her essay on Helen, Edith (I forget her last name, my apologies), and translation. Reading her chapter on translation has ignited an interest in studyi ...more

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The Burial at Thebes Sophocles' Antigone
by Seamus Heaney

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I have not read many plays, but this one was amazing. I love the whole dilemma that's so cleanly debated amongst the characters of the play. I felt that the true dilemma was one I was at the forefronts of trying to figure out alongside the characters ...more

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The Old Man and the Bureaucrats
by Mircea Eliade

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The beginning to this book was perfect. Eliade has a great way of capturing an image, or an emotion. As it went on, I became tired just as the bureaucrats were of the old man's stories. However, in the last sentence, I realized I was a stupid stupid ...more

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The Pooh Perplex
by Frederick Crews

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I saw this at the Cambridge University Library and I fell in love with it. It did become tedious to read, but it's an important book for me to read as to not only see a satire of all disciplines of English Literature (at least, from the time this boo ...more

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House of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)

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I originally was so excited reading this after reading The Whalestoe Letters (which I consider to be an absolutely perfect book). Then, as I continued reading, I just became tired of this. I get this is super intellectual, super complex, and so on. T I originally was so excited reading this after reading The Whalestoe Letters (which I consider to be an absolutely perfect book). Then, as I continued reading, I just became tired of this. I get this is super intellectual, super complex, and so on. Things that are overly intellectual purposely just do not interest me as much, which is a shame, since I really really love the premise of a story being told through footnotes and the typology of this book. I like the premise and layout of this book so much that I began writing a novella in the style of this book concerning a retelling of Paradise Lost in a secret science facility. In the afterword for that novella, which I wrote despite being near finished writing the novella, I wrote this partway through the afterword:

After I had finished my master’s, I read Mark Z. Danielewski’s The Whalestoe Letters and found myself quite entranced from it. I opened a library copy of Danielewski’s House of Leaves to see that the text looked awfully small and hard to read (which was not the case for the new edition I purchased which is perfectly easy to read), and decided to read The Whalestoe Letters first. The novella was absolutely entrancing. In the first ten pages of The Whalestoe Letters, I felt more than hundreds of pages of House of Leaves. By the time I finished The Whalestoe Letters, I was so confused as to how I felt, as well as how I should feel, that I really had to interrogate my own emotions. Being at a Buddhist retreat was a great environment to think about things like that and to meditate (even though I missed a yoga session since I was so absorbed by the book).

I am glad I read The Whalestoe Letters first, for whenever I was growing irritated with the laborious nature of reading House of Leaves, I would just have to think of the simplistic clarity and exasperated emotional condition I felt while reading The Whalestoe Letters. For much of House of Leaves, I was frustrated with what I felt was pointless escapades into a bad boy’s sexual life with various girls as well as (what I personally felt were) formulaic characters exploring a door that leads to seemingly endless and changing rooms. I have recently watched Kane Parson’s Backrooms movie (and also had seen some of his short films in the series), so the premise was not exactly mind blowing. Perhaps for the time it was fascinating, but after playing Control, Portal 2, Superliminal, watching/reading/playing Exit 8, watching Dark City, reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Authority, various Stephen King books, Alexander Garland’s Coma, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, a few volumes of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Steven L. Peck’s A Short Stay in Hell, and Michael S.A. Graziano’s The Divine Farce, the idea of the haunted house that changes, moves, and distorts was not exactly unique to me by the time I began reading House of Leaves. In fact, the idea of a location mirroring the mentality of a character’s psychology has been on my mind since I watched LOST (everything comes back to LOST to me). Granted, most of these stories concerning distorted buildings (I’ve been wanting to read Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi for years!) were released after House of Leaves.

I know I didn't pour over the details to conjure up a grand conspiracy concerning the Minotaur and Zampano and Truant and whatever, but I'll look into what others say about it. I've never been one to think of my own theories for stories. I remember doing so for LOST, The Prisoner, Westworld, The Divine Farce, and The Stand. I shouldn’t sound like I am trying to be diminutive of House of Leaves. I actually have such great respect for it. I think that I am still disappointed that the book did not fill me with literary wonder in the same way it did for others.

I still think House of Leaves is probably one of the most visually arresting books I have ever read, where the typography is mind blowing (mine is only a pathetic shadow of Danielewski, where mine is mostly digital communication) and the layout of pages was much more exciting to read than anything related to the story. Even at the more exciting parts of the novel (is it a novel?), I found myself uninterested in the story such as the shootout, but fascinated by the way the words appeared on the page.

I’ve always loved the way how Elisabetta Dami’s Geronimo Stilton had words with different fonts and styles to mirror each words’ meaning. I also love in graphic novels and comics when bolded words or italicized words are used to delineate which words a character (or narrator) is emphasizing (which changes the meaning of a sentence!). What I am trying to say is that House of Leaves is a superbly amazing book in terms of its typography and visuals. For me, however, the story and characters and content were not that interesting. Some of the theories surrounding the book are more interesting than the book itself, I think.

After that, I then go on about how the novella I wrote is written in a way similar to House of Leaves as to muddle its story just to sound smart. A great writer, to me, writes clearly and plainly to express fascinating ideas and does not shy away from showing them off proudly (as that is a sign that the writer knows exactly what they are saying and how they can relate the information to another person they have never met). Danielewski wrote this book knowing that it is jumping around, and while it's neat, it's just not what it was to many others. Something like Graziano's The Divine Farce, which is a short 75 pages long, holds the wealth of a hundred books. Conversely, a book like Isaac Asimov's autobiography, which is long, holds a great wealth of great writing and honest, sincere, ideas. ...more

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Bone, Vol. 1: Out from Boneville (Bone, #1)
by Jeff Smith

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I remember reading these books as a kid and re-reading them over and over. They are so remarkable since they are funny, light, and also full of mystery and adventure. The tone in which the Looney Tunes-esque Bone cousins are brought into the stakes o ...more

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