Ben > Recent Status Updates

“The humor, Bikbov concluded, served a dual purpose. On the one hand, it defused the feeling of having been violated: one is less of a victim if one can laugh about it. It also signaled that the protesters were not dangerous. Revolutionaries do not kid around. “

Mystery solved on next page

What’s the significance of the missed trip to Amherst with Carlene?

Thwarted escape from a cloistered life? What are Carlene’s wants and her history?

Baader-Meinhoff effect. I had suspicions Faith was involved in shady stuff.

‘Children always think their parents gods - what else do they know? It’s our job to keep the truth in perspective, otherwise you end up loving your kids because of how they make you feel about yourself. And that’s not love, that’s egotism, pure and simple.’

‘whenever I saw him he was moving with the confident slowness of the beautiful. Even his jogging was somehow in slow motion.’

A man of no importance -

Kinda gross.

Regression to the mean on page 239 in the notes.

Miscommunication as a plot point annoys me. I don’t find it, at all, funny or charming.

Get to the point already, fools. (My summary of the entire fucking plot.)

Another book I’ve been reading for years. Considering there are 366 album recommendations in the appendix alone, I don’t expect to ever be finished.

Chapter 22

The first section is so wonderful and charming!!

Reading this in a time without google on a phone and swipe to type (1981 first published), why did this book have any success?

Words/phrases I’ve looked up so far:

‘Tongas, ikkas and gharries’, sacred kine, tamasha, wallah, anglepoised light, takht, babaji, sahib, scission, exordium, shikaras, purdah, cheroot.

To be fair, the context clues are plentiful and it’s otherwise easy reading.

“Sufficiently tutored in the art of rhetoric to deny that he had ever learned it …”