zeynep > Recent Status Updates

They name-dropped Herbert von Karajan twice (and by they I mean Ludolf von Alvensleben) and I'm like dam...I guess we not gonna listen to his Beethoven Deutsche Grammophon recordings anymore 😡 (but the Furtwangler Beethoven performances from literal Nazi Germany can stay for historical curiosity)

I'm not gonna lie I feel like this book is serving discount tier magical realism although I can't say I'm an expert on the Real Deal. Im irritated by a lot of it

"In Israel, Eichmann even announced his plan for world peace: women should be in power. [...] He didn't mention that he thought world peace was 'un-Aryan.'" nauuur this footnote is so funny

'His sharp, scratchy voice momentarily becomes deep and soft, and his "Thank you for your trouble....my dear lady" sounds unmistakably submissive.'

Hello why did we momentarily enter fanfiction land here 💀

This book is so oddly written. Or, maybe it's poorly translated? Or maybe I'm just idiot

Tiberius: "Wolfgang! Siegfried! Adelstan! An assassin! Schnell!"
"Coming, all-highest, noblest-born, gift bestowing Chief," the Germans instantly replied.

(I giggle at Tiberius speaking in German even tho it's no giggling matter because this is right before the German guards poke the eyes out of a fisherman with a lobster in his catch. Oh, Tiberius)

"Beer is a a fermented drink made from steeped grain and [the Germans] drink it to extraordinary excess at their feasts." I die at (Robert Graves writing) Claudius helpfully including this note for his ostensibly non German audience

"torrential storms ...beat down and spoilt what little corn had come to ear" 🌽?????? In my ancient Rome?? Not Robert graves forgetting about the Columbian exchange....

I continue to love everything about Tiberius's horrible but salacious private life. Divulge, Clau-Clau-Claudius, divulge!!!!

This book had thirteen year old me absolutely quaking at lunch time as I desperately read about the salacious Tiberius and his unfulfilled love for Julia (or whatever her name was) and it was just one random paragraph amidst everything. Curious if the magic holds, 15 (!!) years later

ok love that they have a chapter in this book with Julio Cortazar's short stories of cronopios with Goya's fucked up paintings en seguida. textbook for pretentious people (yo)

I have some ancient copy of this and it appears from the table of contents that the selection of short stories may have changed over editions... but anyway

I saw "Waterloo veteran" and was like. Hell Yes this is relevant to my interests . Ms Cecilia's first book was too good so I hope she can work her magic in this one as well

YAHHHH Belinda by Maria Edgeworth just got name-dropped I'm gagged... Cecilia Grant you continue to be the best HR author I've encountered on my miserable journey through the romance genre

Waiiit. I don't want to get my hopes up because modern romance is the devil's slop but the way this book has demonstrated some intelligence already AND has the fmc with a sensible regency name like Martha

This is a little too dense for someone like with me with very light understanding of Nazi bureaucracy, AND is reading it on her phone before bed...but also im shook @ mention of Sarona, an 1871 settlement of antisemitic Germans in Palestine claiming a slice of the Christian holy land. Wonder what happened to them lmao?

"She told us that she was trying to influence the political situation by damaging Hitler's astral body" oh my gott it's the nazi equivalent of etsy witches hexing donald trump

Courtesy of having just watched inglorious basterds I might be in my Nazi Germany era rn (<-me phrasing that in the most problematic way possible for some reason mein Gott)

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." THEE COLLAPSE

"...Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."

"Perhaps I shall.—Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. [...] I will not allow books to prove anything."
SNATCHED...and meanwhile Frederick Wentworth eavesdropping...

"Once she felt that he was looking at herself—observing her altered features, perhaps, trying to trace in them the ruins of the face which had once charmed him" reading this on the bus and just maniacally grinning to myself HEEEHEEE

"He had thought her wretchedly altered...Her power with him was gone for ever." Killing self brb. Also the way Austen writes, at first I thought this was still Anne's internal monologue, which was devastating from another angle

Holy f**k was Austen's grammar always this hard to parse. Truly, listening to the audiobook meant I wasn't listening for SHIT. Rereading every sentence like five times to see what the commas are trying to logically tell me

He's talking about Germany and Austria in WW1 and how poor meow meow Catholic Austria is being domineered by Protestant Prussian militarism and I'm just now realizing I don't know shit about modern day Austria

"The elegant Paris of the Champs-Elysées...where all the rich visitors from the Balkans congregated and no one spoke French but the waiters" I'm dead. The rich gulf Arabs moment of fin de siecle Paris I guess

"this monstrous army of prostitutes was divider into different kinds, just as the real army was divided into cavalry, artillery, infantry, and siege artillery." Lmao this Eros matutinus chapter...

I reached chapter 8 but I am returning this to the library for the time being. Tis a little too dense for my feeble understanding of late 19th cent. (Will come back to it after Mike Duncan spoonfeeds me via the revolutions podcast)

I didn't realize Corsica was just like Sicilian mafia and vendetta land but under French control

I didn't even know Roxane gay was Haitian American wtf

I'm honestly quaking that you can visit a prison in Louisiana and that the offical tour takes you to the panopticon where the death row prisoners are kept and if you're there at the right time you can see them let out of their cells for their occasional allotment of "free" time. The fuck???.? And the prison is called/nicknamed Angola? (Zumbi_jorgebenjor.mp3 plays)