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my god, this has such breathtakingly written scenes. i'm actually holding my breath listening to the sequence of events unfolding

given all the reviews about this book being a v confusing one & having even been advised to get a guide for how to read it (which i did not end up using), i'm actually shocked i got hooked right from the beginning (though not as shocked about the fact that i'm really really enjoying it)

how is joan this good to her core. it makes her such an uncompelling character lmao

giggling at joan's realization of actually /wanting/ women in that sense

david plugging his ears to not listen to bags confessing his love to ida because he thought it too private and sacred 😭😭😭😭😭 my dearest boy how i'll miss you

"we've loved each other, thank god; i've been first in your life, and you in mine."

david being nervous about frank's response to his letter (the first, more sincere part) is so endearing 😭

and frank with all his brilliant hardness had such a tender skin, a skin often unimaginably tender to david's robustness.

his mind was no longer the mind of one who walked with his hand in another's, and swallowed with open mouth whatever was given him.

there's some jolly good ideas about translation and how changing the language can change the entire context of the phrase itself - and it's so very interesting to think about

slice of life stories are so incredibly entertaining sometimes, just the uneventful mundanity of them

god, david is such an idiot

"nobody is anybody in the world, unless he's clever or rich or commits a murder, and then he's not anybody for long."

bags drinking away his pining for david is hilarious to me (and so is the way david tried to control his drinking by matching how much bags consumes to his own glass lmfao)

"i haven't got anything else to tell you," he said, "except that you have come back."
"i can't think of anything else," said frank.

probably not a day had passed since his departure for athens on which david had not consciously missed him, but there would be no more such days for the present. would he ever, he wondered, come to the end of the things he had got to tell him and talk over? [..] frank would burst into his room and say "hullo!" and david would say "hullo!" and they would be back again precisely at the point where they left off.

it was impossible to be angry at anyone when the boy laughed like that. david you fiend!!!! how are you this likeable!!!! teach me your ways

it's supremely relaxing reading this at the end of every day

"i hope i should never dislike anything on which your heart is set" OH MY HEART. every parent should be as eccentric yet caring as david's father

"frank's away" "yes, you told me" ah yes, david's father looking exasperatedly at his gay son who's pining away for his boyfriend (who's in athens)

"i want frightfully sometimes" oh fuck

bags actually coming out (no pun intended) and confessing that he's jealous of how devoted david is to frank is hilarious to me

david's internal monologue when he thinks of becoming a sentry outside the buckingham palace with frank is much along the lines of "it's rotten work / not to me. not if it's you"

the two were perfectly content to loaf the days of waiting away, the important thing being that they should be together.

the way david throws the whole of himself into everything he loves, unreservedly, has my whole heart. i was just talking about this to my friend today: how people think being sincere is "cringe" because you're putting too much of yourself Out There, and how i hate that the world has come to this, that loving something is deemed mortifying. we've all become too used to being haters, i think.

not frank getting jealous of some girl he imagines getting david's attention and appreciating david's lesser known qualities at the same time lmao

the moment you got below the surface, you came upon human nature again, which was as old as time and as young as this spring day, upon people of the twentieth century, with all their queernesses and oddities, their pathetic pursuit of happiness, and their insatiable love of beauty.

what is with all the singing !!

david is just so vivacious and friendly; i love him so

in love with the coming of age aspect of this