Jack > Recent Status Updates

Loving the Oxford she creates, with all its contradictions

This is a terrific book! Properly gripping in the way it's written, but not in that overly stylised, 'modern' mode of narration that some popular historians use (well, occasionally he does this, but not intrusively). What I really appreciate is that it combines historical, archaeological, and literary evidence throughout, when usually you only get one or at most two of these. It creates a really vivid picture

Picked up after long break. It's very vividly drawn but the problem I'm finding is I just don't feel there are any stakes. I know what's going to happen, I don't like the main character, and there's no emotional content or development really. So I'm struggling to keep going with it.

'[He learnt] that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another'

Wasn't sure at first but have since become hooked. It's prose that (*sorry for the image*) you can really sink your teeth into; every turn of phrase is packed with meaning but delicately finished. He creates a careful and distinct narrating voice in each section (minor spoiler but it's on the blurb so not really: already we have had three different narrators). Proper intrigue too!

Really gets relics right

This is loads of fun. It's all you want from the twelfth century, and terrifyingly erudite.

Is there anyone who doesn't love David Mitchell?

Is it terrible that I'm not enjoying this all that much? I know it is well loved, but I'm just not getting very much from it. Perhaps it's just this era of literature which I don't find all that stimulating, neither character nor plot. The one thing which is rather wonderful is Hardy's descriptions. In future I might stick to his poetry.

This is really readable. It's obviously quite simplified but it is (so far) a part of history that most people don't know much about so I am in favour of that, and it manages to grab all the most interesting things and present them in an engaging way. I'm having a very nice time!

Have been listening to this narrated by Andy Serkis on audiobook - he does it wonderfully well, a properly epic narrating voice, very dramatic but not overly emphasised, so that the story can still speak for itself (though his voice for Sam is a bit annoying and his singing is not exactly what I had imagined....). I just so love this book!!

I think I'm slowly getting the hang of this, maybe

I'm quite lost. It's rather hilarious and absurd but struggling to get the point (if there is one). That said, it's a really enjoyable experience and is somehow completely absorbing.

I'm slightly lost. Very entertaining though

This is absolutely wild

Even I am struggling with the heaviness of some of the medieval discussions. Amazing that Eco is such a rare marriage of erudite scholar and compelling writer that he can run through the complexities of fourteenth-century theologies while keeping the reader invested in it all, but really I do sometimes find myself thinking, get on with it!

These books were my childhood, and it is so comforting to have a sequel which has captured the same energy, tone, and character as the original series. The nostalgia is immense!

I'm starting to think this counts as research....

Erudite to the extreme, but also colourful and mysterious. I am having a wonderful time reading this.

World-building at the heart of this novel, its setting as the future of humanity makes it all distressingly familiar. I feel myself constantly drawn into the mystery of the Dune planet Arrakis and the Fremen (its native inhabitants), astonished by the detail.

Mixed feelings about the narration and characters, but mainly positive (individual character-building does not seem to be the main effort of the book).