loafingcactus > Recent Status Updates

Did anyone who is praising this book actually read it? The book is a hoax. I wonder what level of AI went into it, or if he really just slapped down meaningless words on the page himself without knowing what they mean. Amazing.

Still eating my vegetables... very slowly. I do think this is a good book, and an important book and in these days probably every person should read it. Also it's not a difficult read, the author pitched it to general audience, it just hasn't been at the top of my stack this year.

Me reading along: Oh this is so pretty, so much pretty, la la la, looks at reviews about "preachy" and "moralistic" oh whatever could be those peoples probl.... RECORD SCRATCH. Okay so this author sounds like she is in a cult. A Kellogg holdover, maybe would be Scientologist today. She has time to redeem herself but its not looking good.

I've been feeling like absolutely no one understands what it is like to have read Proust unless they have done it, and then I went and looked at the Goodreads reviews and many of them are so dull and everyday... what book did these people read. Meanwhile I'm here fighting for my life, hoping Proust will let me go after one book!

The first about 20% of the book I thought it was just going to be a silly little book but once Ferber takes aim she does not miss.

I have so many bad things to say about this narration. The book too, but there's no defense for the narration.

Getting bored, we shall see if I power through...

I haven't had a chance to read the popular essay about this book yet, but there is a complaint that the book has a white savior spin. If the first pages are any indication, I see I see indeed.

I like this development of the sick aunt as a different view of sickness from the sick protagonist, and of course there is the sick author. I wish there were a good, current, disability studies analysis of this book (from a sick/disabled person, I don't care to hear from an abled on it and they wouldn't get it right).

I think it would be okay for most people to read part 1 of chapter 1 and call it a day. It gets the experience of touching Proust down. In the Lydia Davis translation if reading English.

Things change very much from there forward, I guess no one could carry on at that level for very long. Not that it's bad, but part 1 of chapter 1 is... untouchable. A universe of perfection away from anything else written.

Putin has become a character of American religion, such that it takes some effort to have a rational thought about him, and if you make the effort you will be rewarded with an inquisition!

I think of the king who said, "Won't someone rid me of this troublesome priest?" and then when the priest was killed the king crawled to the cathedral in penance.

But say Putin did not hold the gun & "you are excusing the devil!"

It is very interesting how disability is completely silent as workers and employment is discussed, especially as disabling workers has been frankly used over the last five years as a means of short-term goosing the economy. Having been collecting resources on MMT and disability that I will be bringing into my review.

I am so in the headspace of this book, where all is desolation and the cattle are starving and dying in the drought, that yesterday I drove past a field of healthy cattle and was momentarily confused.

One of the most perfect opening sentences and first pages I have ever seen. The first few pages are gorgeous. Looking like a good read!

Everyone says that part 1 of chapter 1 is one of the most difficult things ever written in French and it had me questioning my life choices! I did not think I knew French! I struggled through 1 paragraph a day. Turn to part 2 of chapter 1 and suddenly I know French again I read 3 pages at once and understood them.

I think this book just called me old because Gorbachev is about to take power and the author is going on about "little known" items of history that were in the paper and on the evening news every day in those days, I was alive then I am alive now I know that!

Eating my vegetables. Apparently this book is just going to be 100 ways to say a government is not a home or a business. That's fine because I've had this conversation 1,000 times and I anticipate having it 10,000 more times before I die, so a few more ways to say the same thing might prove useful.

In the one star reviews for the book I just read, Wilmington’s Lies, the top complaint is too many names. That was one generation in one fairly small town. If those readers took on 3+ generations in all of Russia as we see here their heads would explode. Mine might.

I am on page 24 of my French edition... Proust writes like a thesaurus, there is no learning the author's favorite vocabulary of 2,000 words or whatever and getting on with it, he uses all the words. My French isn't all that anyway. So I read 2 pages of French and then 2 pages of Lydia Davis, which has all the words and the poetry and I am delighted with and recommend as a translation, based on so far.

I read this book a good 30 years ago and I thought it was really the book I should be reading right now. So even though I have very little money at the moment with $3 and a $3 credit I was able to snag it on my Kindle. I haven't read 30%, rather, 30% of the book is frontmatter and am 4 pages into the actual book.

I shall have to save my thoughts on those pages for another update as characters run out!

I've more or less read from the book my entire life. Right now I am reading from a randomized list of pages of the entire book that I created. Reading the book cover to cover is boring I think, better to skip around. If you would like a copy of the randomized page number list, DM me an email address to send it to and happy to share.

I've more or less read from the book my entire life. Right now I am reading from a randomized list of pages of the entire book that I created. Reading the book cover to cover is boring I think, better to skip around. If you would like a copy of the randomized page number list, DM me an email address to send it to and happy to share.

I am co-reading the original French and Lydia Davis' translation, and while I have not read any other translations I am so completely delighted by the Lydia Davis. Proust is so very special (I am finding reading the first few pages ever in my life) and she is capturing ever word of it.

The "experts" say to do at least 5 pages at a time, but I have work & responsibilities so 1-2 pages a sitting, 3 times a week so far