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Page 595 of 625, Moby Dick has finally appeared in the story

This is a book that you need a course to go along with in order to explain whats happening

Book structure: | Plot: 1 page | Hey-guys-I-know-this-really-cool-thing-about-whales-let-me-share-it-with-you: 35 pages | God is dead or otherwise hates us: 2 pages | repeat ad infinitum

No exaggeration, I think a quarter of this book is just whale facts

WHALE SPOTTED

Very boring!

Still no whale

No whale yet

The way Hugo writes about inner turmoil is genuinely perfect. One paragraph of it more than makes up for the 150 pages of slog you need to get through to get there

Gavroche is my spirit animal

Idk how to feel about Marius. Sometimes hes just beyond annoying and an airhead and then other times hes really sweet and respectable.

The first quarter of this book is so unbelievably boring but the second quarter of this book is absolutely thrilling

This Marius sub-plot is just the plot of Obsession

I enjoy this book

Marius is a weirdo

I will never forgive the theatre kids for turning this into a m*sical

I cant put into words how beautiful this book is. Its the best poetry you’ll ever read but its written in prose.

This is the best book ive ever read in my life

“Thus the social power becomes the private power of private persons. Ancient society therefore denounced [money] as tending to destroy the economic and moral order. Modern society, which already in its infancy had pulled Pluto by the hair of his head from the bowels of the earth, greets gold as its Holy Grail, as the glittering incarnation of its innermost principle of life.” Go off, Marx

Shoutout Gondor

All this guy ever talks about is money

Smeagol as the personification of temptation is just so good. I love that Tolkein writes him as child-like. Ultimately temptation is just a part of ourselves that has not yet passed on from our childhood into maturity and thus come under our conscious control. Smeagol is such a beautiful representation of that.

The way Tolkein writes Smeagol is amazing. You genuinely do pity him. You can tell deep down theres a part of him that wants to be loved, that wants community and connection; theres a part of him that is genuinely a good person, loyal and caring. But Gollum and his desire for the ring just have this complete hold over him thats completely corrupted him. Fantastic writing 10/10

Im starting to think this Mordor place is NOT where the good guys live

I think theyre trying to bring something somewhere

The thing i really like about this book is that its an anti-british empire book but it does so on the Empires own terms. One of the theses of the book is that yes the empire had salutary ambitions (spreading democracy and education institutions) but at every possible turn the empire undermined itself by prioritizing abject and total extraction of wealth and resources while categorizing the world into racial hierarchy

Vibes based ethics are the best kind of ethics

Absolute banger oh my goodness. Theres this one poem about aging and death that was so beautiful. Then there was this other part with snow that was great. I like this book