Oliver > Recent Status Updates

I was surprised she basically said everyone’s a little gay considering how old this book is

Just learned what victory mail was. I’ve always hated microfilm, but I guess it has its uses

Three pages in, and the author has already used a slur

“in childhood we have used up too much strength, too much grown-people’s strength”

It seems like this poor guy had the worst case of writer’s block and looked in all the wrong places for inspiration

Now that I’m reading some context, some small pieces are falling into place. Rilke glazed Rodin’s art because Rodin was his mentor. I’m assuming that he’d appreciate a work of art more when he knew personally what the artist put into it.

Gross. His first published poem was a glorification of war. I’ve heard he supported fascism in Italy, so I guess it makes sense

He has some decent views on women (for the time)

“there is nothing in common between you and other people”

You’re not like other girls, Mr. Kappus

I just realized I hate this so much because it reminds me of Walden. I need to stop reading works by white men who thought of themselves as profound

I don’t understand how this guy can put art above all else but completely shit on the value of history

Not a fan of this guys ideas about solitude and his sense of moral superiority. Seems like he’s just trying to cope with his own lonely life. Also, his ideas about sex made me deeply uncomfortable

It makes me sad that he was too poor to buy his own books or gift them them to anyone. I can’t imagine having a dozen books published and not even owning one of them ☹️

Rilke says Auguste Rodin (the guy who sculpted The Thinker) “has not his equal among all artists living today.” Now I’m no art expert, but his sculptures are kinda ass. Rilke might just have bad taste

I find it odd that Rilke recommends Niels Lyhne, a story about a man who renounces Christianity, when he said in the same paragraph that he carries a bible with him.

I’m actually reading a translation by M. D. Herter Norton

If I hadn’t read the translator’s note, I would have thought that Rilke telling Kappus to just drop everything and become a poet if he feels the need to write was such a rich person way of thinking. Knowing that he was going through hell as a poet when he wrote the letter makes it a lot more meaningful

“A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity”

Rilke poetically says I’m not going to critique you and then immediately critiques him in the next paragraph lmao

The story has gotten so much better

Things are finally picking up. It only took half the book

She ends the story by essentially saying that while escaping responsibility through the lives of others is enjoyable, there’s comfort in your own experience of life.

Underlying the critique of social class is the idea that humans will be humans, will hope and dream and live and seek happiness in their circumstances

The story dives into an appreciation of the human experience. I understand now what she meant by the sociability of evening life. Not just interacting with others but considering their lives and experiences rather than focusing on the weight of your own life.

She goes on to describe the undesirables of society who try and fail to to escape the weight of reality. This story is at least in part a critique of social class and consumerism

I like how she juxtaposes the suffocation of daily life with the anonymity of an evening on the streets, the relief of being able to exist without the weight of expectations and memories

I’m only reading the short story Street Haunting, not this short story collection. The author so far is discussing the sociability of London streets on winter evenings. Me personally, I would not want to stand in the cold ass streets of London talking to people.

This book still sucks. I’m really hoping it’s one of those books that is slow for over half the book and then the plot randomly picks up. If not, the read will continue to be long and painful

This guy’s really self aware, especially when it comes to academia and pretension as a means of escapism.

“As Nelson Mandela said, the oppressor determines what tactics must be used to dislodge them.”
The amount of violence needed for a movement depends on the amount of violence used by those in power