Elysia Stent > Recent Status Updates

it’s been a slow reading week for me but this is super interesting !

Exactly 200 pages to go. I am enraptured by this monument of a book. A few thoughts so I don’t forget:

- The biblical metaphor is outstandingly subtle!
- The back and forth in timeline is expert, it allows meaning to lap over each itself, like a tide leaving sediment. Irving’s characters are some of the best.
- The narrator is crude, but almost asexual - his observations are fascinating, in a way I relate to.

slow slow progress this week, but this book is great !

This book is ginormous—I may have to break my lifelong pact of only reading one book at a time or I may go insane.

Liking the style so far though, and the opening is SO interesting :)

A little self-indulgent trip down memory lane with one of my secondary school favourites 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

This is one of the most horrible and gruesome representation of a female character - and a parent/child relationship - and it is SPECTACULARLY written.

I am so repulsed and yet so intrigued by this character. Shriver does an excellent job of making you want to relate and then feel terrible about it.

The extended metaphor is a bit on the nose, but it’s saved by Oxford’s inherently complex relationship complex relationship to empire and my personal relationship to Oxford (lol).

Not entirely convinced by the moral greyness of the Hermes Society - nor do I really understand how Robin’s usually timid character aligns with his eagerness to take risks with them.

It’s fun though. LINGUISTICS! YIPPEE!

LINGUISTICS! LINGUISTICS! YIPPEE!