Matt Brandel > Recent Status Updates

We begin again, I hope. finnegan beginnagen.

Looking forward to finally hearing Augustus' perspective after only reading letters from others surrounding him.

Reading this ahead of my Italy trip. Crazy these were just real people 2,000 years ago and they left real things behind that we can touch. This is my adulthood version of Rick Riordan.

Nearing the end now. I can’t believe he finished Finnegans Wake, with all his eye troubles and caring for his daughter. He truly lived for his work.

My latest subway book. Unsure of the intelligence of reading two books about Joyce at once.

It took Joyce 9 years to publish Dubliners. Have faith, young people.

finally, we’re into the creation of Ulysses. I like the image of artist as squid, whose ink (art) comes from their own body (life). echoes of Pollock there.

this is such a joy to read. it follows me around all day and opens me up to Life.

Goddamn, can this guy's life get any worse?

My reading resolution this year is to finish this book, the Shobogenzo, and (finally) Finnegans Wake. They’ve been on my currently reading far too long.

“When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality.”

“Conveying one-self toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization.”

I’m enjoying his prison diary more than the earlier chapters. I just can’t get into politics; hearing about people is much more interesting. Especially the little everyday things he does to pass time in prison and what he chooses to note. I can’t imagine having his attitude when there’s obviously no valid case against him.

Knocked some of this out on the plane today. I’m stepping into unfamiliar exciting territory here, with very minimal knowledge of Russia and the Soviet Union. Not loving his writing honestly. He’s kept it pretty surface-level without much physical description.

So begins book club #2.

I'm not sure if it's actually helpful to read something without understanding the specifics. I tend to go through books without much dissection.

“With his three hundred and sixty joints lathered up, throwing deadly milk wildly in all directions and showers of blood and sweat steaming violently up through his eighty-four thousand pores, he stomped the trichilocosmic universe into dust…”

So begins the book club.

Hi Hannah’s Friends,

Hannah wants to read books for the first time so we need some book recs. She’s looking for some light fiction, possibly fantasy or romance. In the past, she’s enjoyed Harry Potter; Red, White, and Royal Blue; Evelyn Hugo; Daisy Jones and the Six.

Thank you! Anything will help. Maybe we’ll see her on Goodreads soon🤞.

This book is so hard to read, it’s basically incomprehensible. I’m just hoping some of it seeps in and opens my mind.