Zach > Recent Status Updates

The problem with most dystopians is the us-versus-thems. I’d like to see one where both sides are, within the fictional world, right. Currently, Smith is doing a much more literal representation of Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse: conservative member in organized religion? Bad.

Definitions are also oppressive, which is a tricky linguistic position that usually folds in on itself.

Wow wow wow. Ali Smith knows how to do just enough experimental stuff to keep you interested and locked in. Unless this novel nosedives, I can’t recommend this enough.

So far, there’s not a bad story present here. That said, they’re all dense and very disturbing. Some more dense and aggravating than others. All stunning, but deeply troubling.

So far, this novel reminds me of Never Let Me Go and The Road. While distinct from both, it’s got a similar feeling, tone, and vibe. That is about as high of praise I can give a novel, I think.

—It says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
—I don’t understand…Do you understand it?
—Well, I wouldn’t say I know it completely, but it’s something like, “Everything is a story, a story told by God, and the story is God”…At least that’s how Brother Aed explained it to me.

V surprised this isn’t a recent miniseries. It had some adaptations in the 60s and 90s, but it seems so easy to adapt—it’s all right there for the taking.

Also, while I absolutely despised The Ambassadors, this novel is making me a James fan.

‘I’ve never kept up with Isabel—it would have taken all my time,’ she had often remarked; in spite of which, however, she held [Isabel] rather wistfully in sight; watching her as a motherly spaniel might watch a free greyhound.

—Masterclass. Every sentence is weighty, but none of it feels overwhelming or burdensome.

It’s so good and so intelligent. A joy to read.

Engrossing

Exceptional characterization for any kind of writing, not to mention this is mainly real people or composites.

Overall exceptional writing!

My only complaint: it takes 168 pages (of 390) to find out why this book exists. I think to tease the crime—without saying victim or accused—or hint at someone’s life being cut short (“Two months before __ died,” etc), would signpost while maintaining intrigue.

A friend lent this to me. Just starting it (my reading list goes exclusively by vibes), and have you ever listened to a true crime podcast or Revisionist History and thought, Why don’t people write novels like that?

Well, my friends. This is that.

And it’s not a novel. But this nonfiction reads as engrossing as crime thriller.

“Anyway, I don’t like the idea of murdering the possible.” Great writing, somewhat tiring story. Sentence level remains strong, but you can see areas to revise. I love Carpenter’s tone, but I’m not sure you couldn’t get it from Hemingway.

Beautiful.

Still shocking, sentences remain electric. I keep thinking Scott Galloway is famous for saying all these things about displaced young men and Carpenter wrote the novel about it in 66. Flawed, troubled characters as a product of their time.

Carpenter sure seems to be writing something postsecular even if, as an avowed atheist, he rejects org. religion. A sense of, “is that all there is?”, lingers throughout.

Each page is electric. The grammar is clean and sharp; the language is harsh. Carpenter can write bleeding sentences that cut you at the same time.

I only realized some friends of mine read this and didn’t enjoy it after starting, so I’m waiting for a shoe to drop.

But, as of right now, Carpenter’s incredibly skilled. I keep thinking of that Hemingway line of just writing one true sentence after another.

The Dostoevsky link is apt. No characters to emulate here, but unflinching depictions of people who’re the result of a cultural moment/ideology.

“All he’s after is a coke dealer who won’t charge him a month’s wages for what’ll turn out to be half a pound of Alka-Seltzer.”

Pure Pynchon poetry.

I feel like fever dream gets tossed around liberally, as if it say it’s just a lil weird and surreal. This novel is a bona fide fever dream: for the first 100 or so pages, each chapter feels episodic and disconnected. Suddenly, once you’re on the boat, it takes off.

At the start, I didn’t enjoy this. Once you get to tasteless lamps surrounding a global psychic conspiratorial network, however……

“Oh dear,” Pips making with an eyebrow, “do you really not know? ‘Normal’? Things will never go back to the way they were, it’ll all just keep getting more, what the Chinese call, ‘interesting.’”

Simultaneously one of the most addictive and exhausting books I’ve read. Period. But, it has the vibes of The Untouchables filtered through Pynchon, and a tone of Harjo’s FX show, The Lowdown (I’ve only seen one episode). Utterly ridiculous, cartoonish, yet realistic, and highly written. Feels like a follow-up to The Crying of Lot 49.