Zach > Recent Status Updates

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.

Yowza what’s going on? Story’s wild. Not a clue where this is going, but I’m having fun getting there. Definitely feels like an old school picaresque detective story, where each chapter pivots/leaps from the final lines of the previous.

Imagine if pomo experimental Pynchon wrote a Dashiell Hammet novel with dialogue that (wrongly?) reminds me of Tennessee Williams.

Very fun and engaging overall, but I hate the “breakthrough” cliffhanger only to start the next chapter and they’ve talked about “it” and now have a plan.

Definitely fun and soap-operay, but, goodness, if there aren’t problems that wouldn’t be resolved if the people in the book communicated like real people

The intro and first chapter were pretty incredible, but I’ve been struggling to understand the point of this until the previous page: Why did Leonard go to Sinai in ‘73?

Listen, these are always fun, but I have a theory that Rowling’s primary trick is overwhelming you with info early. 2 chapters in, and we’ve been introduced to two new characters, one who speaks of 11 new names, and 3 new unnamed characters. I’m taking notes. I’m determined to guess this one.

Currently read:
“The Soul Is Not a Smithy” 5/5
“Incarnations of Burned Children” 5/5
“Good Old Neon” (a sorrowful but meaningful) 5/5
“Oblivion” (which I hated until the final few pages made it a) 4/5 (or maybe 5/5 now, idk)