Status Updates From Uccellino del paradiso

never in my life did i ever think i would be fighting my way through an oates novel. but this is painful. not dnf-ing because this is oates and i do not do that, it'll bother me if i leave a book unfinished.

this just feels like it would have been executed best as a short story. there's lovely prose and detail but there's no real point to any of it other than to stall the plot, which barely even exists. i have a little less than a hundred pages left and am snowed in with nothing to do. let's end this.

somehow i have forged clawed my way to part two. it's like she is holding me at a distance and blocking the real heart of this story by putting up walls of flowery prose and repetitive details that do not matter. this is the first time i have been thoroughly disappointed by an oates novel. this was published just one year after my sister, my love, which i adored. what happened.

OH MY GOD PLEASE CAN SOMETHING JUST HAPPEN ALREADY

it is like i am waiting for the actual book, the actual plot to begin after setting the scene and getting all the exposition out of the way but even after over 100 pages it is just not going anywhere. also: how many fucking times am i going to have to read the name Zoe Kruller in this thing. jesus christ.

jco's prose is lovely as always, but it honestly feels like she's trying too hard to meet the word count. she had this idea but then didn't know how to stretch it out into a whole novel so she's just repeating information and adding excessive descriptions and similes to everything.

also: the use of "daddy" here doesn't work like it did in my sister, my love.