Clarien Luttig > Recent Status Updates

The audiobook is lovely: author Robin Hobb's skilled at writing dialogue for a cat, and the narrator's good at voicing it.

"Hold the cat. You'll feel better."
"I don't think so."
He rubbed against my leg insistently.
"Hold the cat."
"I don't want to hold the cat."
He reared up suddenly on his hind legs, and hooked his vicious little front claws into both flesh and leggings.
"Don't talk back! Pick up the cat."

(A wolf addressing a human mourning a love lost)
"When I wallow in something dead to reawaken the savour of it, you rebuke me. [...] You should leave off sniffing the carcass of your old life. You may enjoy unending pain. I do not. There is no shame in walking away from bones, [...] nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you"

I'm reading Hobb's work in an unorthodox order (quite accidentally): I started with the Liveship Traders trilogy years ago (and loved it), then went back and read the Farseer trilogy. Recently, I finished The Inheritance, which included a collection of short stories set in the same realm, and decided it's about time I get back to these tales, so from here on, I'll read them in the proper order.

Three books down, two to go.

I've finished the second book in the series - The Queen of Air and Darkness - and started the third - The Ill-Made Knight. The second book isn't as good as the first, and swings around wildly in tone. The author throws in some anachronisms, including a reference to Hitler and an explanation of fencing that compares it with cricket.

The third book focuses on Lancelot and Guinevere. Let's see where this goes.

Such a well-constructed plot. Such thought-provoking questions raised about empathy, and who (or what) deserves it. Such luck that my memory is atrocious and it's been about two decades since I watched Blade Runner, so instead of knowing what'll happen next, the things that unfold bring me moments of "ahhh, right."

"Our daily life [...] was repetitive. On the ship, later, I learned that people who live in artificially complicated situations call such a life 'simple.' I never knew anybody, anywhere I have been, who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details, the way a planet looks smooth from orbit." (from "Solitude")

Le Guin is Le Guin-ing, and I love it.

Highlights so far:

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
I'd heard so much about this one, and been wanting to read it. Lived up to my hopes. A thought-provoking tale about a scapegoat, reminiscent of a bit from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov.

"Nine Lives"
Felt like a very typical Le Guin story (in a good way). 'We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?'

I finished the first book in the omnibus, "The Sword in the Stone." It's a light-hearted and rather whimsical tale of adventure that shows Arthur's childhood, up to the discovery of Excalibur.

The second book, The Queen of Air and Darkness (originally published as The Witch in the Wood in 1939), starts on a dramatically different note. It's suddenly much more sinister and austere, and the villains are introduced.

So far, it's sweet and witty.

My father and I used to have a tradition: each year, he'd give me a Discworld novel for Christmas. My mom insisted that he had to give it to me in the evening, otherwise they wouldn't see me all day. So I'd spend the entire 26th reading it. Sadly, Sir Terry left early to avoid the rush in 2015, which means no new Discworlds... Since then, I revisit Hogfather around this time every year.

It switches between depraved, dysfunctional drama and lyrical, heartwarming sermons in a heartbeat.

Contains some of the most insufferable characters I've ever read.

Not sure why, but I'm surprised by how funny Dostoevsky can be at times. Evocative character portraits. Fyodor Pavlovich is one of the most infuriating characters I've read, and simultaneously, entirely believable and familiar. Thoughtful perspectives on human psychology.

This reminded me of my favourite lines from The World According to Garp:

He'd discovered that he liked houses. Maybe mostly because they were understandable. They could be calculated and drawn on paper. They did not leak if they were made watertight, they did not collapse if they were properly supported. Houses were fair; they gave you what you deserved. Which, unfortunately, was more than you could say for people.