Kara > Recent Status Updates

Finally found a Barthes that I can put down :/

Turning out to be an interesting read. I often feel I understand very little about "the environment", but these essays make it more accessible.

Sat on this for literal years, it was a loan from a friend when I first started following the NBA. Really enjoying this now, makes me feel connected to the PH while lamenting over another short post-season run with the Warriors. Some actually good laughs here.

Incredibly well-written, and superior to Wolf Hall in every way for me. Bummed that I have to pause the read when I accidentally left my copy in Manila.

I'll see you again in Singapore, Cremuel. 😢

Oh damn? Finally Henry gets interesting.

Only 50 pages in and I'm enjoying myself... also the influence on senlinyu's Manacled is so clear! In a good way, and I am a huge fan of senlinyu.

Hmm, has grown a little niche.

Chilling (and devastating) how the same contexts and struggles reverberate to present day.

Why is it not getting better…. I skipped ahead and the ending seemed so anticlimactic for a potentially fascinating subject. Might shelve this DNF.

Yet another Didion banger. Can quite possibly dethrone Play It As It Lays in my esteem.

Today is the anniversary of the French annexation of New Caledonia, aka “Citizenship Day” aka “Day of Mourning”.

It’s slowed considerably. Some sections very strong, the others could do with tighter editing as some of it is rather repetitive.

I keep thinking I wish it was written more in academic style than a narrative…

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”

The second letter made me cry a little. First thing in the morning too.

I’m at the 34th year mark and it certainly feels like it.

She gave in!!!!!!! Henry gains the upper hand!!!!! And yet it's only the beginning of Part Five? What else is there?

When his family died, one after the other, and then Wolsey … the way grief was characterised, I felt that. And then Part Four opens with a strong scene of Katherine in less than 5 pages. Loved that.

So well written!! Glad I picked this up to rinse the memory of that cringy Eleanor book.

Picking this up again as House of the Dragon Season 2 is this month. Last time I tried to read this was early 2021, in between radiation sessions.

I read THAT scene while in line at the supermarche. I did not see it coming. Also: I have an auntie who is Baby Kochamma irl. :/

I’ve forgotten how long this part takes, where Odysseus arrives in Ithaca but he goes through this whole pretence of not revealing himself. Why the deception? What does this mean, and what does this say, about coming home?

“When you set out on the journey to Ithaca, pray the road is long.”

I’ve held these words close to my heart since first encountering them in high school. I come back to Homer now as I try to make sense of ‘home’ and ‘voyage’ and perhaps even my own odyssey in/to this side of the Pacific. I’ve just reached the part where Odysseus arrives at shore - what is ‘homecoming’? What is ‘return’?

It annoys me because some of the letters are too beautiful for words but at the same time I can’t help but feel that they are that exactly, and no more. For something so flowery it’s just… hollow.