Ian > Recent Status Updates

1.) Penn Warren's penchant to extend an image over paragraphs and use an initial metaphor as a wellspring for others. Example. A room as greasy and then later on, the candle looked fed by the grease. A scene like a play backdrop then, after a few paragraphs, characterize a noise as 'somewhere offstage,'

2.) The slow intro of Adam Stanton over 200 pages before his role becomes clear is really, really something.

Like the concept but when is he going to say anything about mid-century modern or brutalist buildings. One cannot just write off all modern styles with a criticism of Le Corbusie and not have to then deal with them. I like Italian architecture as much as the next guy but I also like midcentury modern as well! He's never said anything about his work being applicable to modern styles.

Stylistically, it’s like a bunch of different devices, tenses, moods, symbols, and other crap thrown together without any care or foresight hoping something sticks.

I appreciate how much care Roth seems to have for his characters. In the actual sense that he really cherishes them and loves them. Which itself is an interesting stylistic phenomenon that I haven't noticed before. Ultimately though, the style is wordy and most of it seems to be fluff. I'm going to continue reading but I'm frustrated by a lot of the uselessness of the prose.

Three things:
1.) fitting I buy this book at the Harvard Square bookstore.
2.) It’s useful to originate the MAGA phenomenon in the 1960, but it’s far from accurate. And, relatedly
3.) Through the introduction there is much of the usual talk: centering female/bipoc experience, problematizing the family, framing native climate experiences but not a damn word given to deindustrialization. Typical

Strangest and shadiest introduction to an edition I’ve ever read. It’s just the editor launching a polemic at another Chesterton fan - and rather spitefully I must add… very strange.

Incredible the amount at which racial navel-gazing gets mistaken for an interesting plot.

Was worried for a second Nikolai and Princess Mary’s weren’t going to get together. Tolstoy teases us for a couple chapters in the epilogue.

Finally entering the epilogue. It's been very good but it lost some steam in the second half and the journalistic endeavors Tolstoy attempts are good but incongruent with the work it seems to me. Finally, the character of Pierre... Gosh I don't know. Tolstoy also too often uses the phrase 'looked the same but everything had changed.' That phrase comes up way too much for a writer with such psychological depth.

These strange journalistic endeavors into the maneuvers of the Russian and French militaries in 1812 seem out of place - I much more care about the Rostovs and Pierre! But the 'great man' theory hate is well taken. The quote 'Napoleon - that most insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile showed human dignity - Napoleon is the object of adulation' Could similarly be used for many tech savior.

On par with Wright’s Falling Water or The Sistine Chapel in terms of artistic achievement. So forcefully and brutally good it needs new categories created to talk about it.

These people think I’ll be shocked by the power-knowledge binary as if I haven’t read Foucault.

The authors are certainly Liberals: Their prescription is simply there should have been more rational debate during the pandemic. We certainly Agree there. Perhaps I am a little upset because the authors scrupulously refrain from caustic polemic or character attack; which I immaturely crave out of a desire for catharsis. For this stayed maturity of tone, only rarely slipping into derision, I praise the authors.

Chapter 3 - Despite vigorous scholarly debate in the early months of 2020, after the hasty publication of the pro-lockdown report by a joint WHO-Chinese commission in late February, combined with (the perennially histrionic) Dr. Niel Ferguson’s predictive models, and the Harvard released Safra report, elite consensus quickly concretizes around tech-intensive, society-wide, NPIs and bare-life moralizations.

Chapter 2 - Most well-researched pre-Covid pandemic planning was skeptical of all large scale NPIs to contain spread. Furthermore, early mortality rates of a novel pathogen are notoriously misleading. Pressure on politicians to appear 'tough' and in control compelled them to look for quick dramatic solutions in the contentious writings and plans of (generally math-centric) pro-NPI pandemic-modelers of the Bush era.

The Fox, despite being the best piece in the collection so far, ended weakly. The amorality revealed in the story when Banford is killed and it is referred to as a victory for Henry is jarring. furthermore, the desire Henry feels for March is never explained well. Despite this, the characters and story are all the most thorough and full so, all in all, it's quite a nice read with some admirable stylings.

To make my previous critique of The Ladybird more succinct: Daphne is superfluous and it isn't clear what role she plays in the occult trichotomy going on in the piece.

Of the three works that I have read The Fox is by far the best. However, it kinda lost me when the young man is said to be actually drawn to March. This isn't consistent with the previous characterization and the source of this desire is vague.

The Ladybird - The second half is much better than the first. I like the occult intonations and spiritual personalities and symbols that the characters take on. However, it is still a bit over-written and awkward, even the second half. The mood becomes clear, consistent, and even quite gothic at the end. Reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe to an extent.

Just a bit more than half through 'The Ladybird' now - quite bad. The occult stuff comes out of nowhere and the hyphenated couplets are awful stylistically: adoration-lust, woman-godhead. It's incredibly overwritten. Lawrence also disregards the far more interesting character of Lady Beverage. Count Dionys is more comical than anything. I'm frustrated because I believe the WWI setting is always a ripe one.

Love among the Haystacks - quite a quaint and subdued little read that is ultimately happy with some mishaps along the way. The vernacular is well done and helps to build the characters to some extent. Ultimately, though, the plot doesn’t cohere to me: Maurice’s falling of the stack is altogether unimportant it seems. It’s nice and prosaic but everything happens just a bit too quick.

Jacques Ellul is an F-it-we-ball-type writer

A measured defense of the West agains the pop-criticism of the time based on the unique and fundamental gifts of the west: freedom and the individual subject. Ellul claims that all revolution in non-western countries are only possible because of the export of these concepts.

Some clarification of technique also: "the systematic, effective application of rationality (technique) is evidently an effect of freedom"

It is interesting to think about how the term folly has changed since the writing of this oration. Now the term seems to have elements of haplessness and inevitability while in Erasmus’ usage it seems to be isometric to foolishness, tomfoolery, or giddiness… a more spirited and charming definition (and perhaps theological/spiritual)

The travelings to the Colorado territory do feel a little like the wandering in Blood Meridian. Mainly the daze-like sense. Although one shouldn’t get too wrapped up in the similarity of setting and extend the comparisons too far!

I like the judicious balance between the speculative, heavily-written, detail-full prose and the plot moving portions. Williams strikes a great balance with this!

The last two sentences of part one are probably the most horrifying I’ve ever read.

It’s a real shame what the unsophisticated anti-socialist rhetoric did to mid-century American conservatism. Although I suppose a fear of ‘collectivism’ was justifiable at the time, considering the visibility of its barbarity in the Soviet Union.

For some reason, however, this banal rhetoric is still relied upon even today - long after it’s lost all meaning.

Two things:
1.) it’s crazy how much historical context one can get through a fiction book but this puts upper class European noble life in perfect context.
2.) I don’t find Stendhal’s treatment of women to be especially perceptive. Actually, it feels like he only has room for semi-dominatrixes. The lauding of his writing of women seems to me to be motivated by the political concerns of his supporters.

Wow this is amazing; so dense, so full of great characterization and touching, empathetic narratives.

Far, far more than the superficial genre piece that I expected going into it.

The unique style keeps things interesting but I’m still getting Neil-deGrasse-Tyson-esqu trivializing preachiness…

It’s unique and fun to read.

However, so far, the moralizing comes off as condescending. Like I’m sitting in a classroom getting scolded by a young lady teacher. Maybe it’s an anachronism but this type of schoolteacher-y moralizing, to me, just screams of resentment. The moralizing also seems reductive when talking of chemicals and the environment - gosh it’s so banal!