Max Kimmelman > Recent Status Updates

writing/translation feels a little sloppy, especially with the dialogue. hard to tell who’s talking sometimes. it’s also super disjointed at times, which might be stylistic, but can go too far occasionally. also, already rly dislike how the protagonist describes women; it’s very objectifying even w the more prominent characters. might be characterizing him as a typical grunt? still sounds awful.

had to restart this book and take notes throughout just to start to understand the story, so readability of the writing style is still horrendous, but the story itself is getting really really good

a lot of unnecessarily difficult vocab so far, either bc words are obscure or just fail to appropriately describe certain things. also most of the worldbuilding lacks any explanation so far, so it’s hard to understand any of that either. i’m still pretty into the story tho, it’s just weirdly difficult reading

simmons continues to highlight only repulsive things about calcutta, the people who live there, and hinduism, clearly not respecting any of them. when some characters admit similarity to western civ in decades past, he uses a character of indian descent to counter this and double down on the inherent evil of indian culture. feels gross to use a character like this to try to wash away racial prejudice.

it feels like i’m in the middle of a slow build up to the main story, but i’m p uncomfortable with how much of the narrator/protagonist’s language is racially motivated and suggestive of stereotypes against india and its people. i’m holding out bc it feels like there could be a narrative purpose for it, but if it goes unchecked much longer, idk if i’ll be able to keep reading through it.

mindbendingly good. feels less handholdy now, but still a little bit. feels like it might be written for a bit of a younger audience, which kinda make sense even tho the subject matter is pretty intense. will have to wait to see til the end if this trend persists

insanely good so far. so hard to put this book down. already a huge fan of so many literary ideas in this book like antimemetics, mnestics, narration from amnestic perspectives. the only think i’m not sure about is how generous the narration seems to be, pointing out important things to realize and making sure the reader is aware, rather than setting up hugely rewarding realizations. maybe that comes later tho.

ideologically i agree w a lot that the author presents, however it ends up sounding like violent/edgy catharsis against modern dating culture, gender norms, and society as whole. it’s a shame this was compared to le guin bc i love how she deconstructs gender, but it does not live up to that level of commentary at all. not even ideologically consistent within itself. mc is overall whiny and unlikeable.

herbert’s gender essentialist views become a bit more concrete. diving into the reasons for leto’s female army, we get a bunch of odd stereotypes of women that are based on absolutely nothing, but at least finally give us some insight towards how herbert thinks about gender. gender essentialism this blatant is still an awful literary tool, but at least some of isn’t so misogynistic.

already some weird gender stuff /:

i really hope there’s a good reason for female bene geserit being inherently weaker (especially relating to abomination), bc occasionally there are some odd references to differences between genders. it seems like we’re yet to learn this, but if we don’t then i think these inherent gender differences are just weird and unnecessary

some of the writing a bit too reminiscent of the foundation series w the conspirators against paul

a little iffy on the writing style by now. recently been p frustrated by the descriptions of rock/sand formations since i never rly understand what they’re supposed to be as paul/jessica traverse the desert. this happens semi often w other settings too earlier in the book. altho the description of paul’s sense of seeing across time is p well done.

loving the narrative style and how quickly it throws you into its wild universe in a pretty immersive way. however, a couple things feel a bit off. firstly paul is a bit too faultless and talented right off the bat. also, the third person narration that weaves in internal monologue of various characters is good at adding complexity to the narrative, but it still feels p stilted when it comes out of nowhere at times.

very similar to first book in writing style, rly not a fan of it still. characters are still all insufferable, although we finally get a female character, her husband is still more of a protagonist than she is. plot lines are a bit longer in this book though, which is kinda more enjoyable.

some cool and unique ideas for first contact and alien civilization, but there are also sections of writing that are less interesting/slow. the writing style is also pretty mediocre overall, and there have been a couple times where descriptions of events/places are overly vague/confusing

the dialogue feels a bit too theatrical a lot of the time. often there are too many characters to keep track of in segments of dialogue. dialogue and choreography of characters is also just unclear sometimes.

i feel like the author tries too hard to make science sound cool at every point they can. they even bring up science facts when they’re not relevant to the situation. for example, there are many references to change in artificial gravity w respect to distance from center of rotation, but sometimes this difference is on the order of feet, when the center is hundreds of feet away, during imprecise maneuvers

having a decent amount of fun w the story, but the writing and narrative style are bothering me a bunch at the same time. the writing is a little painfully straightforward, and the characters all act like middle schoolers with absurd amounts of power. ironically the most human character so far is the only alien we’ve met so far.

still feeling pretty lost in the excessive texture in this part of the story. so much text is purely names that are never repeated, colors of fabric in clothing, and descriptions of religious customs on tien shan that aren’t relevant. i love the presence of texture like this usually, but it has felt overdone and boring for the past hundred pages or so

struggled a bit reading the section with all the descriptions of the landscapes of the planet w the hanging temple. so much time was spent describing geometries of mountain ranges and structures based on cardinal directions that i could not slow down enough to conceptualize. i was way too invested in learning the events that happened during the time skip to try to focus on the rambling about geography

feels like a slow start for the first hundred pages or so. although i am excited about the complex politics/conspiracy within the pax that are now getting more attention. it is hard to follow all at once, but that feels intentional at this point, and i expect it to have a high payoff down the line as long as i can remember a decent amount of the details.