Ez > Recent Status Updates

I’m determined to finishing this book.

Astonishing dynamic revisionist history (positive). Her prose is electric and fun and research unimpeachable.

Good, not great. Not a huge fan of the prose and theres too much personification of the plague itself. The line between speculation and researched-backed insights is too fuzzy. But good.

Starting over! Back at it again.

Excellent - witty, fun, excellent prose, but heavily cited and driven with the razor precision of an academic historian who knows her work will be microscopically disected.

I’m going to really love this book.

Fascinating, well written and sourced from start to end. I truly understand the world in a slightly new way after reading. Definitely a future re-read/ Importantly, communicates lots of uncertainty where appropriate. I never trust read a pop-science or history where there is no discussion of differing theories or interpretations or unknowns.

Libby took it back, and thats ok by me. Great characters and strong prose but just not for me, I think.

Beautiful, even if it’s a bit up it’s own ass. The characters who Billy encounters that proffer extended, unbroken streams of wisdom speak with effectively the same voice. It’s deciding if it does or does not believe in hope and some justice. Thats ok, and getting there is moving and bleak. (Perhaps three words that define every boon McCarthy has ever written.)

Not as good as the first of the Border Trilogy.

In the middle of a 15 page monologue/parable about the nature of our relationship to reality, experience, witness, whether the world exists outside of our perception, whether God knows we exist at all, and if we can bargain or impact God in anyway, why God constrains himself by his own laws and if that means anything.

Kind of exhausting at this point. Perhaps my least favorite Cormac McCarthy passage I've ever read.

What can you say? Wrenching, stark, vivid.

Biswas is a deeply unpleasant main character, but vivid and complex. I dont kniw how I feel or if I will finish it.

Back at it.

Insightful, but I kind of feel like I “get it”. Rigorous coverage, brilliant, but becoming a bit of a slog.