Jay Daze > Recent Status Updates

A bit of a slog with characters that aren't working for me.

Massimo is a pushy fucker. He better be Domenico the villian. I hate him lots. Not a good looking control freak withia rocking bod and wicked smile. The boundary pushing is soooo gross. (only in a old fashioned novel would we get away with the one character is actually another gimick)

Ughetto's life as a trafficed (by ma and grandma) castrado and Teresa/Octavia having a threesome with Mozart and Countess Milosch where the countess bites orgasmically both of her partners. Hot. Jumping between past in Mozart's time and present.

Deep in the prep for Don Giovani at La Scala in Milan.

Hey.... I think, after a lot of table setting, the plot kicked in...

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime: a dark expression of Wilde's deepest fears wrapped with a funny plot and banter. It feels like he touched the burning brand of his deepest passions and immediately pulled the mask back on. Very sad. Or: "'What nonsense!" cried Lady Windermere. 'I never heard such nonsense in all my life.'"

Love the banter and the world, *quite* disinterested in the plot which is a shame cause it would help me care more about the characters - especially poor wounded fuck-up DePaul. Narration by Kowal is terrific though.

Chapter 1: book Isserley is NOT stone cold hottie Scarlet J - she is an oddly shaped predator with big lovely tits bolted on, like a hunter who has developed mock characteristics to lure their prey - actually precisely that. Though her big hands could be coded as trans which would be unfortunate. A great breakdown of an alien figuring out what male humans want in a woman. Dammingly good.

Hadrian takes charge and immediately scales back, thus protecting Roman - those efficient brutal fuckers.

Rapidly getting to the end of installment 1. Will it have a closure in and of itself? Shall see.

Ahhh I get Mary's story right at the end there. Duh, that is on me thoughiI wonder if peace would have been more correct than more -- though uiven the choice with a family you love, who wouldn't take more? Now on the the novella of Verity's mourning.

Well maaaybe I can see an end. Not restoration but a loping off of the headeof the Guardia. That won't solve everything but maybe a start. ICTHOS has been dealt with...

Much the same subject matter but better paced this time. Can't imagine how this is put to bed in the next 35% though. Not at this pace.

Is it to excuse or set in its place in time? Or both? Just how male gaze, western gaze is all consuming in its obsessive expression and desire. I feel it while being uncomfortable and caught up in it.

A book drenched in sensuality and what is it priapratic intensity. The mentions of both child and adult sex workers. Aline his mother being sexually abuse by father pursued by men, now the mistress of a rich dude. Setting up the context of what Gauguin did.

The savagry of man to hares.

Life among the people. The melancholy of Judith, fuck puppet of Frankenstein's Monster.

As a novel this is pretty shambolic. But it is really the connnntinuing story of the Price family and their adventures, primarily against their adversaries, all the asshats of this world, the Convenant being the primary foes, as that organization is what they broke away from.

Dream like books can really struggle at length without something concrete to anchor them. Also, I'm convinced this is some sort of hell that Q and Raya have fallen into. A possible baddie is saying that too now, which means the author is aware -- but is possibly going to argue against. This might be a book were the villian is right, not the author.

I've been going slow because of health stuff, but it has also been a bit of a slog so far, a lot of squabbling and infighting and mucking around. But the psychological realism of people struggling under hard circumstances really pays off when we get into the action scenes and then it hits really well. A death and the reaction to it feels real and hard hitting.

Do think the treatment of blindness urks me. It makes an effort to say NOT ALL blind people feel that their condition is a terrible burden and curse, BUT in the case of Q. this is exactly the case. Have cake, eat it too, maybe not.

Not convinced that the Elsewhere Express isn't an existential hell where people are condemned to forget, yet still fundamentally carry their hurt and worries in bodies. Hellish heaven.

Was worried at first whether it was going to be quirk/smaltz overload -- a bad Wes Anderson flic, but the aggressive dreamlike quality is winning me over a bit now.

So is to be actual relationship hetro-ish between Tremaine and Ilius? okay.

Lol Tremaine to marry Ilius!

Hmmm book is much more 'realistic' about how exposed and observed celebrities are today versus the tv show. Pics of Kip and Scott out on internet immdiately after a date at the Met.

The problem with this being a very compact story over two episodes is that it feels very long as a 400 page novel.

Ikios is awake and probably more trouble than he is worth. But can Tremaine make him cough up a spell to grow a body for R. Silvie?

Having a hot salt water bath on the Ravenna.

Very familiar story, but well told.