Rachel Gorham > Recent Status Updates

The show. was better. Not sure how much is the original vs. the translation, but the prose is cumbersome. Morck has the off-putting habit of constantly discussing (often internally, sometimes out loud) how sexy or kissable or arousing the women around him are. (Unless they're not, and then he comments on that.) (HE. HITS, ON. HIS. SHRINK.) Assad continues to be NOWHERE NEAR AS COOL as Akram. I'll finish, though.

So far, I have to say I like the show a little better. This is partly because Assad / Akram is not (so far) quite as awesome in the book -- though there's still time -- but also, for the audiobook version, because the narrator does the narration with a flat American accent, but gives all the characters Danish accents. THE WHOLE BOOK WAS TRANSLATED. Is this just a me thing? I've always hated when movies do that.

I had read two Adrian Tchaikovsky books before so I knew I was in for something clever and well-done, but WOW. What a startlingly dark, utterly original imagination this writer has. There's some body horror and some very horrifying monsters (so far).

I had forgotten how much Steinbeck just DESTROYS you in this book. The little interstitial chapters especially. My HEART. Some of them are devastating poetry. I literally cried about the little girl and the horse. I caught my breath about the empty dead barns. I replayed the line "the fire sighed up and breathed over the box" twice just to marvel at the mind that put those words together in that order.

It may just be because I just finished a book that is *very* different from this one, but I'm having a hard time loving it. It just feels a little bit ... obvious? didactic? it thinks it's subtle but it's only subtle if you're not great at picking up subtext? anyway I'll give it another commute in case it's just me.

So far it's exactly as hilarious (and just generally fun; I don't like celebrity gossip but I love a good unassuming memoir about how someone became the person we all got to know) as I had hoped it would be. Also, it's read by Cleese himself, and probably my very favorite parts are where he dissolves in laughter while he's reading his own book about his own life and then we're laughing together in my car.

Of course Steinbeck was a phenomenal writer, that's not what this update is about. It's about how "The Red Pony", which I hadn't reread since I first encountered it in seventh grade for much the same reason as I haven't rewatched *The Neverending Story*, can still break my heart, even while I drive. It's also an absolute jewel of prose.

Okay so this is much darker than I anticipated from the description, but it's also much funnier, and overall very well-done. It's a very piquant blend of bleakness and wit, with a strong side of zaniness and some very well-drawn characters. I'm also loving the narration.

It has been years since the last time I read this. I knew I loved it but I had forgotten HOW GOOD it is. The narrator is great too.

I am taking this book slowly. It is an Experience. At first I made a database to keep all the characters straight since I had a hunch all the unconnected stories at the beginning were going to merge eventually, and I am glad I paid attention. It's so deep and rich and difficult (I have to google vocabulary words from time to time) and worth it.

Mary Doria Russell is a shining example of my favorite kind of writer: the kind whose prose startles me a little with its skillfulness even on rereads, whose ideas are important, whose storytelling is innovative, and whose plots don't let me go. My God, this book is good.

I do just love this story, and I love Karen Savage's reading of it.

We are finally, FINALLY almost done with this audiobook. Is this how people feel when I geek out about stuff I'm super into? Because this is just TOOOOOO MUCH theoretical physics. It's hard to stay engaged because it's 100% obvious at this point that the people in this book only exist as hangers, if you will, for some very out-there quantum physics ideas. But we want to see how it ends.

The world is hard right now so when I need a lighter commute, I choose Karen Savage reading this to me instead of *Anna Karenina*.

This book is SO WELL-WRITTEN but I think I need something more cheerful for my commute right now. Yikes.

This book is still great but it's the weakest in the series for me so far. It's just *everywhere*. It feels like five or six shorter novels. The cast of thousands is difficult to track. Also - and more important - the whole THING about Niccolo is that he is a genius strategist and engineer. He does not need a supernatural twist giving him additional skills in book 5 of a series. It feels like lazy writing.

For about the first five minutes, I thought someone was doing Murderbot as a house servant, but this quickly took a very original turn. It's richly interesting: the chapter titles are veiled references to writers and thinkers -- Kafka, Orwell -- whose ideas and style are... not so much *borrowed* as they are *honored*; there's a lot to think about. It's also HILARIOUS (I keep laughing in the car) and engaging.

Ripping good story! But: lalala false accusation, prison, damp, drear, escape, buried treasure! Smugglers! Rewards for the good! Let's get ready for some vengeance RIGHT AFTER THIS HASHISH-FUELED ODDLY-SPECIFIC STATUE-SEX FANTASY!

I keep waiting for that to turn out to all be some kind of... trap? But first we have a few hours of local legends about bandits.

REALLY enjoying this!! Exciting and informative and sometimes horrifying.

I... surprisingly am not grabbed by this so far? I was expecting lyrical and literary, but it's kind of clunky and slow and very, very tell-don't-show, and I barely care at all about any of the characters. I don't know if part of that is that the narrator, while technically skilled, has a pretty flat delivery. I might try Kindle or paper before I give up entirely.

Not quite sure why it took me seven-plus years of empty-nest road trips to suggest that my husband might like the Mitford books. I haven't read them myself in many years, and in a lot of ways I'm pretty different from the person I was when I first read them. But I'm liking revisiting them, especially with my husband.

OK so any rule may encounter an occasional exception: I actually really like this book and don't mind that there are no quotation marks around the spoken bits. THERE I SAID IT. It fits stylistically. THIS IS NOT THE CASE for most books whose writers think they're too clever for appropriate punctuation, so DON'T GET ANY IDEAS.

Seriously this book lives in my head rent-free while I go about my day.

Most of this book is fun, but I just got through the Cachalots chapter and WOW
Cpt. Nemo: Ned Land, you whalers have done a terrible thing! You should know better!
[literally the next paragraph]
Cpt. Nemo: But these SPERM whales, these are BAD whales! We'll DESTROY ALL OF THEM.
It was like I stepped from an adventure story to a circa 1986 Stephen King gore-nightmare between sentences.

It's veering back around toward a moderately survivable ending but holy COW this book is much more depressing than it sounds, and as an aging woman in a long marriage, it's actually kind of terrifying.