Aaron Schmid > Recent Status Updates

Started this in audiobook format before and it was good, but I'm definitely enjoying it more as a first time read. I was struggling to pick up what it reminded me of, but I think it's Proust, which would make sense, considering they lived at the same time and wrote about similar things, albeit rather differently. I've only listened to the abridge Proust on Audible, but this makes me want to dive into that journey!

I finished it. The Nonexistent Knight was a fantastic companion to the Once and Future King, which I also finished earlier this year. It's hard to say why I appreciated this one so much, but it's partly the dialectical structure of existence and humanity, past and future. The frame is great. I love the idea of writing to a book, haha. That empty suit of armor, perfectly preserved. Agilulf lives! It was amazing. 5/5

The Cloven Viscount was great. Like The Baron in the Trees, it has a fairly simple premise, but it's written with beautiful simplicity and lightness, as is totally characteristic of Calvino. I'd say it's nearly flawless. It's only 122 pages if you buy the standalone paperback, but in this edition it was even fewer: only 68 pages! What a fantastic novelette. On to The Nonexistent Knight now, for more absurd wonder :)

Brilliant as ever. The Cloven Viscount has a great opening. It made me recoil, and then laugh. But his little genuflection with the octopus halves... Calvino dishes up some rare treats. Both stories I have left in this collection are sub-100-pages. Should make for some fun, fast, and light reading. Been doing that a lot lately, with Metamorphosis and The Stranger. This seems a fitting continuation of that trend.

The characters and plot have developed into something pretty enjoyable. I'm not too focused on plot holes at this point, but I can kinda smell them. Overall, I really appreciate how it's made me consider the secrecy of children and Jones' imagery of adulthood. It's interesting to consider how this story affects the one before it too. The kids all just seem so aloof, haha. Makes sense, I suppose. They're just naive.

I wish the main character was less naive. It feels like he barely thinks about the world he inhabits. It's interesting how much he embodies a sort of combination of the two main characters of book 1, but I wish I liked him more. The adults are pretty uninteresting. I'm kind of waiting for something new to happen in the narrative at this point, but I really hope it gets better soon. Not sure I'll continue the series.

I definitely like it more now than I did before. It's super surreal, like a bad dream. I'm reminded a lot of various segments of Infinite Jest. The opening, and the cannabis binge, with the externally unintelligible anxiety speak, and the insect going in and out of the girder. Makes me want to watch Cronenberg's The Fly again. Haven't seen it since I was a kid. It gives me the same sort of soft horror vibes.

It's alternately fantastic and historic, raw and polished, harrowing and inspiring, all in the span of a few lines or pages. I love how personal the names make the violence feel. The details rather than simple battle movements or victories/losses. The intimate records of broken families. The mythology is a great breakup too. The imagery is striking and the translation is really carrying me through. I love Ajax.

Wow! "Charmed Life" was such a great story! I can't imagine how delightful it must've been in 1977, to read something so creative. J. K. Rowling must have taken a good deal of inspiration from Jones. This is like Harry Potter meets Narnia. Jones did hear Lewis lecture after all. Her background is full of legendary authors. Gwendolen was awful, and it dragged on for a but, but Janet's sacrifice almost made me cry!

I'm enjoying it a lot. There's plenty of drama and violence to keep things interesting. The format is the only thing that can sorta drag, with the repetitions and formalities, etc. But it's not to hard to pick up on some of that and just skim over it when you know it's coming, it's just that this makes it tempting to skip over other parts as well and then you realize you missed something and have to go back, haha.

I might not finish this book for a couple years. The stories are pretty similar but also fairly insular, and remarkably memorable. It's been years now, I believe, since I started this book and the stories are still deeply unsettling. I don't have a lot of thirst for this stuff, but it certainly sets the spooky vibe for October. Some stories are better than others, for sure. Each one is good, albeit a bit disturbing.

Fun and easy reading so far. Listening to the soundtrack adds some extra ambiance too. It's pretty close to the movie, with a little added and a little missing, here and there, which makes it fun and worthwhile. It's very charming and feminine. Not a whole lot of anti-war stuff yet, but we'll see. Reading this blind would be a lot better, I think. But the movie is worth it, I suppose. We'll see how the moral changes.

Dude, the Ilaid is sick, haha. Book 5? Diomedes Fights the Gods? It's awesome! The violence is so epic! Giants and gods/goddesses, super-human warriors and chariots, and spears cutting people's heads in half? So sick, haha. And it's just unrelenting. Just one scene/hero/slaughter after the next. Truly gruesome, ancient combat. If only comic book movies would go back to the source material! It's so good, haha.

It took 100+ pages to get to a real sense of the larger narrative. It feels like a mashup of a couple other novels, like A Cure for Suicide meets House of Leaves meets A Voyage to Arcturus or something. It's kind of occult/surrealist meets mythology, with a puzzle/mystery on top - e.g. Giovanni Batista Piranesi's prison etchings, the Labyrinth, etc. It's kinda cool, but pretty shallow and the writing is nothing much.

This is a comfort read now. Reminds me of a simpler time, before the internet and adulthood. The main plot is so scarce. It's basically just an adventure/exploration story. It's hardly a mystery, since its subtitle is the puzzle's answer... But it's the setting that really carries the book, even if the characters have heart and charm. It's just nostalgic more than anything. I don't think kids today will care as much.

I can't decide how I feel about this book. I think if it took itself a little less seriously, it would be improved. It's too rigorous and intellectual to be a very good novel, and too fictional and retro to be remarkably relevant as philosophy. It astounds me that it's been so successful. People were certainly more educated in the 70s, but I can't imagine this being a best seller... if not just because of the title.

This book is NOT "passing the vibe check"... It's like an inversion of Atlas Shrugged almost, or some sort of theosophizing Pilgrims Progress with creepy, amnesiac filling. It's honestly giving off a strong demonic feeling. It kinda works as a paranoid thriller, haha, but not really. I keep waiting for something to drop. The ideas are amateur, 70's-era, stoner type stuff. It's an interesting retrospective though.

This has an oddly spooky feeling to it. There's a lot of talk about ghosts, and some hidden mystery about something tragic. I didn't really expect it to be so suspicious. I'm wondering how much of it is "autofiction". I have questions about the guy's wife, among other things. We'll see how much gets answered. The abundant philosophizing is fine, but it's not particularly convincing, for all its intellect.

The time scale is stunning. And the marriage between the virtual past and future is wonderfully self aware and unabused. The Cavendish tale was perfect, haha. Sonmi was okay. The fulcral story was great. We'll see if he can wrap up Luisa Ray and the other two in a poignant fashion. I'm pretty confident he will. This is a wonderful book. But it hasn't been all that deeply impactful yet, for whatever reason. We'll see.

I love all the nesting. The comet theme is cool too, as well as the various other echoed elements - Nefertiti, etc. I like how the themes from one bit sort of cross into the next: parasites, stories, and technology as a couple of heirlooms and invariable bedfellows. It really does live up to its name, as a map of linked vertices within some collective cloud of stored narratives. It's an oddly fun anthology, so far.

It's pretty good so far, but I haven't quite figured out what Mitchell is up to. There's cross-play between the stories, but if this all comes together neatly I'll be shocked. I hope it does. Will we go back to the narratives we've covered already? Or just keep plodding on through time? I don't think I really care much to go back, but I do want some kind of satisfaction in an ending that supplies a summary meaning.

I'm glad we didn't skip the action. The Whale was great. It was far from perfect, but can't argue with the results... At least not until laundry day. I'm interested in hearing the rest of the Benitez story, because I don't know what happens and I really hope he goes back to it. But it's applicability is maybe not as apparent, except for that one part. It's good, but I want an ending now, and a titular line, haha.

I'm hoping this gets better again. There's certainly some fun and compelling stuff, but all of the philosophy just seems monotonous (like different characters all rambling in the same voice). And their convictions all seem false, like they mostly just care for argumentation itself. Honestly, I kind of just roll my eyes at a lot of it. The boxing segments are a welcome change, but did we just skip the main action?

Current themes are pretty existential. What do we live for: hopes of greatness, family, legacy, immortality projects, the exclusivity of greatness, perfection (e.g. the perfect crime; perfect defense, etc.)? It's okay so far. I'm not loving it, but the central plot has yet to completely reveal itself. I've avoided reading the blurb/synopsis, but I know there's a katana at some point, just because of the movie cover.

It feels like a debut novel...turns out, it is. It's a little all over the place so far. A lot of the characters sound similar, in a rambling stoner-thoughts kind of way, or they're inarticulate petty criminals. The narrator feels inconsistent, flipping between jaded exhaustion and hopeful excitement. But it's very clever, and sometimes funny, like Infinite Jest... just not as good. The racial element is fine so far.

Unformed. Uniformed. Uninformed. Children. I can't imagine being Adam. Either this or the first... Sending sons. And yet, this is life. Death. They must be sent. Choose death or choose death. Pick the right kind. A pleasing sacrifice. What is Steinbeck even doing to me? This stuff is wild and I don't even know it until I step back, but it's so deeply and thoroughly layered. "Hide from the ugliness--in the evening."?!

It's all building and feels fit to burst. I think I see what's coming. I'm not sure how it will happen, but I dont think I want it. I hope I'm wrong. I love Cal. And I love Lee and Abra. I pity Aron. His shame changed my opinion of him. Adam is a good man, but he doesn't know how to be a dad. He's just the same as when he wandered after the war; he doesn't know how to come home, so to speak. Kate is a looming issue.

I know by now. But I should've remembered that every happy moment is paid for in sorrow. I was thinking, 'This is fun!'... But of course. Cal's prayer was heart-breaking. Kate's "blindness" is staggering. Adam sees her, though! Wow! Then Dessie and Tom... I wonder when he burned the poetry. The way Steinbeck circles back to earlier details is amazing. Throwaway lines blossom into deep, meaningful, breathtaking cuts.

This book is going to break me. I feel it coming. Samuel. My man. So Timshel. Much wow, haha. The themes are pretty solidified now. The through-lines are there and I'm all about it. This is a top-five book, probably. I'm lost in it, and loving every page. I think the timing was perfect for this. I keep thinking, 'I wish I could get a Steinbeck description of myself,' haha, 'of my life, traits, and family history!'