Lauren Smith > Recent Status Updates

I loved Scott Smith's The Ruins partly because of the way he drives the plot with a lot of very small, unwise character decisions that usually come from their flaws: arrogance, insecurity, greed, laziness, etc. It was surprisingly relatable and that made it more horrifying. He uses the same tactic in A Simple Plan, but this time it's only from one character's POV and it's stressing the fuck out.

Started listening to this last night. There’s sooo much more context to the Torrances and their marriage than jn the Kubrick movie. That, plus Danny’s shining, makes for very clear foreshadowing, but it’s still pretty creepy, especially when Tony is talking to Danny.

'Here, I had nothing left in the world. I was nothing but a mortal being lost between sand and stars, conscious only of the sweetness of drawing breath ...'

Doubt I would have picked this up in print, but it's included in your Audible subscription. Finding it to be an interesting if convoluted reflection on the meaning and purpose (or usefulness) 80of pain, even though I'm not religious.

Bookclub read for a geography theme.

Meds work but there's 'the voice of upbringing that said one should be able to handle everything by oneself'.

'looking back over the wreckage brought about by this ... blind stupidity and pride, I now wonder, What on earth had I been thinking? I had also been taught to think for myself. Why, then, didn't I question these rigid, irrelevant notions of self-reliance? Why didn't I see how absurd my defiance really was?'

'A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals, and a people reverts to a mob.'

Randomly started listening to this last night and suddenly it was 2 a.m. Easygoing, amusing and full of love for life. The story of his investigation into the Challenger space shuttle disaster is fascinating.

Getting pretty bored with this after a solid, pacey start. It's clunky and Paul is one of those tedious main characters whose personality begins and ends at being The One. Reading it only because I'm interested in the Denis Villeneuve movies though, and that's enough motivation to keep me going. The Bene Gesserit are also worthwhile.

'Oh, we'll know each other forever,' Bix says. 'The days of losing touch are almost gone.'

An tragically ironic reference to the coming of Facebook.

The New York Times, recalled Heidi, blasted us and said that the idea of people working at home was ridiculous'. Much to the Tofflers' delight, in 1994 the paper published an article identifying this new trend, 'as if they had always known that this was the case!'" - p. 214

'Dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong.'

Most people operate under the assumption that they've got to go big or go home. [...] Life and happiness occasionally demand it. But remember that you hear about people making big changes because this is the exception, not the rule. Narrative drama comes from bold action [but] big bold actions on the balance are not as effective as many of us are led to believe.

Being original doesn't require being first. It just means being different and better.
From the chapter 'Fools Rush In', on the benefits of procrastination, which are always delightful to hear if you're a person who is constantly putting things off.

[Lenin] was impatient to know why the Western world did not rouse itself and join in the world revolution. Wells replied that this was because the middle class was not interested: it was far too comfortably off.

Strangely, [Gilman's] predictions are interesting not because they were wildly wrong, nor because they have come true, but because nearly a hundred years later, some fundamental questions and concerns have not changed. Answers are all very well, but asking the right questions at the right time is one of the founding principles that sets an interesting futurist apart from a mediocre one.

'Lina does only what she feels like.'
'That's how you want to see her.'
'I've known her since she was six.'
'Maybe she hates you for that.'
'She doesn't hate me.'

"Think about it. A woman separated, with two children and your ambitions, has to take account of reality and decide what she can give up and what she can't."
Everything, in that last sentence, bothered me. (p.67)

Reminds me of a quote from book 3: "In the fairy tales one does as one wants, and in reality one does what one can."

Eleanor had been waiting for something like Hill House. Caring for her mother, lifting a cross old lady from her chair to her bed, setting out endless little trays of soup and oatmeal, steeling herself to the filthy laundry, Eleanor had held fast to the belief that some day something would happen.
[...]
Eleanor, in short, would have gone anywhere.