Barbara > Recent Status Updates

I don't remember Aiden and Lucie being this funny, but it's been a bit since I read the first book

"I'm acting like a Regency-era viscount. Two inches of collar- bone, and I'm gripping the edge of the table so hard it's biting into my palms."

Green shirt during a weather broadcast made me chuckle, but the comments at the end of chapter 9 actually made me burst out laughing

I think I get how the magic works now

🫠

Really cool magic system and some pretty solid world building so far!

Not who I expected, but that's fine too

This is the second (I think, but definitely not first) time the phrase "Max feels his scrotum shrivel" has been used, and it breaks me out of the story both times partly because it feels so out of place, and mainly because I don't need to be thinking about an 11 year old's anatomy like that.

"Nellie is about to take her first bite when she sees, stretching away beneath the trees, over the leaves and humus of the forest floor, whole cities-no, whole countries, whole continents of moss. Bright green and gray and populated with toadstools and mushrooms that seem to smile and bend toward one another, happy congregants in a cathedral of fungus."

I'm going to be very happy when Lonnie dies

How very dare this book published in 2022 reference Dolly Parton 😭

""Next thing you know, this flu gets down here, hell, we'll all be ordered to mask up like a passel of Night Riders at a Mardi Gras Ball!""

Hm! Familiar!

"From hell's heart, to his own: no great distance, in the end."

Josephine the Singer, or the Mousefolk:

Hard to read without picturing the American Tail movies. (lol)

More seriously: One of my favorites of the stories in this collection. It's a story of a misunderstood, unappreciated artist told from the perspective of the misunderstanding, unappreciative audience. Not hard to think of what Kafka's inspiration likely was.

It's really hard to not imagine the American Tail movies reading "Josephine the Singer, or the Mousefolk"

A Hunger Artist:

At first it seemed to be about the "noble suffering' those who are ill and/or disabled are expected to go through, and maybe it is a little bit. It could also be about losing oneself in your art so much you forget why you started. I also read an interpretation online about it being willpower vs natural human impulse, and I can see that too.

First Sorrow: This one I liked. To me it seems to be about growing up and realizing you want more from life, while also realizing you might never be satisfied.

A Little Woman: Like with "Rejection" in the Meditations section, eye rolling. Standard misogyny exacerbated by whatever Kafka had going on mentally.

So like with "A Country Doctor", this section is just named for one story within it ("A Hunger Artist" in this case). I didn't see any connection between the stories within the section named for "A Country Doctor", so who knows if I'll see one here.

In the Penal Colony:

I liked this one a lot! I interpret it as being about traditions and society at large, and how even those who happily uphold an oppressive system may eventually be crushed by it.

A Report to an Academy:

This one was an interesting read too, I have a couple different interpretations.

Both "A Country Doctor" and "A Dream" feel like anxiety dreams I've had before

The Metamorphosis:

There's a lot of ways to interpret the meaning behind this one, and I think approaching it with different meanings in mind makes it a slightly different reading experience each time.