Daniel > Recent Status Updates

must sleep, much as I'd rather keep going

Done with Eleanor's section. But was it true?
Obviously, not done yet, but based on what I've read so far it's better than Laura. Annoying that most of her work is out of print.

Caspary is seriously underrated.

Really enjoying this. There's something special in the writing, vivid and lively. Lola is a riot, seems like she'd be right at home with Nick and Nora. I've been too busy to read much lately but maybe Monday.

don't often encounter a new word in a novel. "anent", I thought it was a ocr error at first, but no.

Like Laura, the structure here is unusual. Enjoyed the first part, hopefully the other povs won't be awful.

ok, another sex scene, proper one this time. but omg it was soooooo loooong. booooriiiiiing. i almost died. some skimming may have (definitely) occurred.

was not expecting the action adventure plot. 1 sex scene so far, sort of

Ok, I was thinking this was a lot stronger at the intimacy and attraction between the Augusts than with the plot, but damn, that was an unexpected turn of events with the "ex" there. Also no sex yet, which is a good sign 👍as I was a bit worried this was gonna turn out to be just a flimsy excuse for smut.

look, man. I don't make the rules. I have to read this. Cuz of reasons.

it's comforting to me to see all the ways Baldwin really did not have his shit together, and still he managed to be absolutely amazing

is this my best read of the year so far? def in the top 2.

good bit about Another Country in that last chunk. much more interesting than travel details. please give me a 700 page book of Baldwin explaining his intent and thinking re his own novels.

point of reading this again immediately is to pay attention to how the author is doing things, but sometimes I'm confused about the order and timing of scenes cuz idk which readthru I remember them from

how is it i relate more to phil but find jacks more understandable, like idk wtf phil is hung up on half the time. anyway it's going slow cuz im making lots of notes

I'd never heard of Gilbert Sorrentino, but I'm gonna need to reread that piece. I don't think I entirely understood it.

The Robert B Parker piece is barely a page. Just like a chapter in one of his novels. ;) The Richard Layman piece was very good. One of the best in a while. I'd been starting to think they'd frontloaded all the good stuff.

2 problems with this book:
a.) length, both overall and the way it's structured
b.) it's not Nolan's Ross Macdonald bio, which I've been dying to read since I reread The Underground Man. Not going to start a second big bio while I've got this one in progress though. (Tho honestly this would go on hold if I did.)

been going deliberately slow on the reread, one chapter at a time. hopefully i'll be able to make more time for it and finish it up soon.

The stuff in this section is largely unfamiliar, so yay. But very wtf about Elia Kazan still hanging around The Actor's Studio with everybody after he traitor'd up Strasberg's wife Paula a few years earlier in the HUAC/McCarthy bullshit era.

Jerome Charyn making it about himself. <.<

didn't care for the David Madden piece, too much about himself. most of this has been pretty good though.

why are the chapters in this book sooooooo long? it's exhausting. i just have to keep stopping at random spots.

this is just stunningly good. phil is so believable, and real to me. jacks is a sweetie. the bathroom window gag on the other hand is ott, and there's never any acknowledgement of it. like acker just sweeps all the book's weaknesses into the time gaps.

some cool writing tidbits in the kenner piece. the symons piece is good, but nothing stood out in it.

The Robert Easton piece was good. (Only the first two pieces here are by Macdonald, the rest of the book is various people writing about him.)

there's no way i could have read this in 2 weeks as a library loan