salma > Recent Status Updates

there are a lot of gems here but it's also starting to piss me off a little

9. 'the july war' by rabih alameddine

this was going well until the last page... yea everyone deals with traumatic stress differently and you couldn't predict wartime behavior but telling your son to go have sex with the neighbor and then doing it yourself when he refuses to, and then blaming him for cheating on your wife, is not it. not sure what the point was.

8. 'night women' by edwidge danticat

i have nothing particular to say about this one tbh.. just sad

trying this again lol

7. 'the flower garden' by mieko kawakami (translated by hitomi yoshio)

this is a horror story /: so unsettling.

this needs to pick up its pace a little

6. 'one minus one' by colm tóibín

this made me cry and i feel awfully sad writing this. i don't think i've ever experienced real grief and i fear it and death more than anything. it is not the grief itself, i think, but the regret and guilt that i know will come with it. this made me feel terrible honestly

5. 'war of the clowns' by mia couto (translated by eric m. b. becker)

clowns ARE scary

still reading just one a day but don't feel like reviewing them anymore

4. 'my sad dead' by mariana enriquez (translated by megan mcdowell)

this made me terribly sad ):

5. 'public park'

when i think about stuff like this (how the sun is perfectly distanced from us) i feel really sad for some reason... maybe cus it makes me think about my place in this universs

love how much i'm getting greek mythology vibes with this so far. especially the story of the foretellers at Fastness.

3. 'apples' by gunnhild øyehaug (translated by kari dickson)

so so beautiful. i adored this one so much. i love how each portion revealed something at its end that seamlessly led to the next. need to look up this author's work.

4. 'furniture shopping'

nothing sucks more than not being on talking terms with a loved one /: and it's usually over something so stupid

3. 'fireworks'

sometimes people's lives intersect with yours just for a little moment and then you're not meant to see them again from then on. and that's okay

2. 'the illumination of santiago' by nona fernández (translated by idra novey)

the welcoming of electricity and light :') so sweet and heart-warming. it must've been so exciting seeing something so new and inconceivable.

'Behind this admiration, however, there was an underlying assumption of Western supremacy, according to which only the West could revive the Islamic past and its artistic traditions.' basically yea

yes i am started 5 million books at once- please look away

1. 'super-frog saves tokyo' by haruki murakami, translated by jay rubin

"shall i croak for you?"

this was so fun. i love me a 6 foot tall frog who quotes hemingway and dostoevsky. i would like to think about the deeper meaning of this, maybe how frog was just the embodiment of the mc's fantasy of wanting to have some bigger mark on the world, like saving tokyo from a horrific disaster. end scene was so gruesome!

2. 'reunion'

there really is something so special about going back home and there being someone waiting for you :') it never feels any less special no matter how many times i go back

pretty interesting

reading a comic day.

1. 'day off' - while i do not have people who rely on me, i still relate to this a little bit. i always which time would pause a little so i can stay in one moment for a little longer before i have to return to real life and its demands. i often think about how much i'd crave alone time if i was married with kids and it's one of the reasons why i fear it altogether.

i think Swoon must be my favorite in this collection so far... so beautiful

this whole reading experience has just been me vs huysmans and his stupid main character... men are insufferable

love the part where des esseintes fantasizes about being topped by a strong woman so he can channel his inner femininity a lil bit and then gets very disappointed when the muscle mommy ends up being a pillow princess and he has to resort back to his masculine ways lmaoooo

i'm so undeniably bored and also tired of the descriptions of every nook and cranny of this house /:

man i don't remember augustus being this cringe inducing when i was 14 <|3 eliminating the cigarette metaphor would've made him at least 20% more tolerable... he's 17 though so i'll give him the time of day

i'm rereading this in an attempt to cure a brutal reading slump.... and to see what i think of it 12 years later....