Carl

https://www.goodreads.com/carlrosin

Carl’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (546)
currently-reading‎ (45)
read‎ (832)
did-not-finish‎ (4)
american‎ (591)
literature‎ (444)
nonfiction‎ (285)
female-author‎ (284)
21st-century-fiction‎ (276)
nonliterature‎ (260)

bipoc-american-author‎ (142)
british-irish‎ (123)
crime-and-spy‎ (86)
young-adult‎ (71)
science‎ (69)
memoir‎ (56)
nonwestern‎ (53)
historical-fiction‎ (52)
european-nonbritish‎ (44)
education‎ (43)

graphic-novel-and-nonfic‎ (43)
poetry‎ (34)
business‎ (32)
satire‎ (29)
drama‎ (28)
for-my-kids‎ (27)
war‎ (26)
criticism‎ (25)
fantasy-or-sci-fi‎ (22)
short-stories‎ (22)

unfinished-and-unlikely-to-finish‎ (9)
re-read‎ (7)
philosophy‎ (6)
best-5-fic-1965-to-now‎ (5)
best-5-fic-before-1965‎ (5)
best-5-nonfic‎ (5)
best-5-science‎ (5)

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Carl is Currently Reading

Carl is currently reading

As I Lay Dying

by William Faulkner

bookshelves: currently-reading, american, literature

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progress:

(page 52 of 250)
— Jun 25, 2026 10:55AM

Jun 25, 2026 10:55AM

Carl is currently reading

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

bookshelves: currently-reading, american, literature

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progress:

(page 405 of 601)
— Jun 25, 2026 10:54AM

May 29, 2026 07:45PM

Carl is currently reading

Bleak House

by Charles Dickens

bookshelves: british-irish, literature, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2022

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Carl said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" At times it might seem to us, upon our having spent several weeks embedded in a Dickens novel like Bleak House, with its 881 pages, that it is too much. But when we earn our way to the end of a Dickens novel like Bleak House, we realize that what we At times it might seem to us, upon our having spent several weeks embedded in a Dickens novel like Bleak House, with its 881 pages, that it is too much. But when we earn our way to the end of a Dickens novel like Bleak House, we realize that what we have is “quite enough” (880). It is hard to imagine a writer who offers a more thorough mix of frustrating complexity and deep satisfaction. When it comes to the final accounting, however, it is satisfaction that prevails.

Key to the satisfaction is the richness of characterization that the author provides. It is not merely the inner ring of characters—Esther, John Jarndyce, Richard, Ada, and the Dedlocks—who provide such richness. Perhaps even more engaging, and certainly more quintessentially Dickensian, is the next ring of slightly more peripheral personages, who range colorfully from the Caddys, Georges, and Allan Woodcourts at one pole of the moral continuum to the Tulkinghorns, Mrs. Jellybys, Skimpoles, and Vholeses at the opposite pole. More Dickensian yet is the next outer orbit of characters: Krook, Miss Flite, Charley, Boythorn, the Bagnets, Chadband, the Snagsbys, and what seems like 200 others, each of whom has not only a role to play but a memorable characteristic to mark him/her/them.

The other element that marks Dickens for me is his supernatural patience. He trusts us, and we (eventually—not without some struggle) trust him, to partner in the delivery of answers and connections more than 800 pages after the questions have been hinted at. The novel emerges from the fog that marks its opening scene into Resolution upon resolution—sometimes drawn by needle through a fabric of unbelievable coincidence, I admit—but once we consent ourselves into Dickens’ world, the whole pattern always rewards us with beauty. We think about law, chance, religion, birds, weather, and money in ways that few things enliven as robustly as great literature does.

It does sadden me, as a reader and teacher, that so much stamina is required here that it seems less and less likely that Dickens will retain the hold on our canon as he once did. That is a shame. I only hope that those who are willing to submit themselves to a voyage through to Dickens’ world will continue to proselytize and keep him in circulation and conversation. In many ways, this book seems the opposite of the vampiric court that is perhaps the novel’s most insidious villain: Bleak House rewards, with interest, and in interest, over and over. ...more "

progress:

(page 120 of 896)
— Apr 29, 2026 07:21AM

Aug 06, 2022 09:54AM · see review

See all 45 books that Carl is reading…

Carl’s Quotes

“The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.”
― Salman Rushdie

tags: criticism, freedom-of-thought, idea, ideology, offended, religion, rushdie, sacred, satire

52 likes

“Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

tags: humanity, minority, oppression, race-relations, responsibility, sexual-orientation

398 likes

“Now and then I am asked as to ‘what books a statesman should read,’ and my answer is, poetry and novels – including short stories under the head of novels.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

tags: novels, poetry, reading, short-stories, statesman

0 likes

“The true Renaissance person is endowed with panoramic attention.... The habit of noticing the ensemble of everything and its constituent parts is a matter of will, not of innate aptitude. It involves the conscious noticing of things and the gaps that separate and connect them.”
― Christy Wampole

tags: connection, consciousness, noticing, renaissance, synthesis, thinking

4 likes