Celina > Recent Status Updates

I thought after my Spanish historical doorstop I’d want something light and funny, but when the dragon showed up I kind of lost interest. It turns out what I really wanted was another realistic novel about flawed people, heavy on geopolitics. I’m not saying I won’t still read Terry Pratchett at some point, just not right now.

I’m going to have to buy the hardcopy, hardcover be damned. For one, I need to go back and check on earlier chapters, and for two I love this and will need to own it.

I’ve heard from strong readers who have had trouble with this book because the characters were so unpleasant. In the first chapter I agreed, wondering how much I could read about such an obnoxious child. Then the plot opened up to a background of geopolitical turmoil and I was hooked. I love it when geopolitical factors interact with personal lives. I can take more for that than for just interpersonal awkwardness.

This is good. A tough listen, but good.

“No es que los asesinatos de la banda lo dejaran indiferente, sino que estos se habían convertido en una rutina que le embotaba los órganos de la indignación y de la pena.”

Prison at last. The domestic drama was getting on my nerves.

Eeew. Feelings.

Went back to the beginning to get some characters sorted out, then stalled. Putting this aside for an audiobook from the library. Not sure if I’ll return to the audio or the paper edition.

This audiobook is gold as usual, getting me through a bit of a ridiculous time, but some of the minor characters are getting lost in the shuffle. I’ll have to go back to the printed book, not sure if before or after I finish the audio.

Oops, left this at a friend’s house on vacation and won’t get it back right away, so it’s paused. This isn’t bad at all, full of incidents, characters, and insight. Writing is a little rough in places, but this is a good read.

Not bad, but not easy for me to follow on audio right now.

All but explicitly a screenplay, down to camera angles. Slightly annoying but not necessarily a dealbreaker.

Sitting at a gate in Dallas-Fort Worth airport, listening to the chapter about delivering mail-in ballots in 2020.

This book is bonkers, in a good way. I know I’m not getting all the references but it is so rich and strange with overlaps and near-doubles that I don’t mind turning back to find the first occurrence of something that shows up later, as a mirror image or a continuation.

“There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers, containing almost nothing except sport, crime, and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs, which were composed entirely by a mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator.”

“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness”? Is that supposed to be as terrifying as it is to me?

I’m trying to deal with the fact that, in this dystopian hellscape, Winston had time to come home at lunch, do all that writing, and fix a sink.

“This was not illegal (*nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws*), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by 25 years in a forced labor camp.”

*asterisks mine - I’m doing this for a readalong so I’ll be quoting important bits here

The second trial is hilarious.

The author’s painstaking enumeration of clothing and shoes with their sizes and designers drives me up a tree, but she is from that time and place.

I asked Jessica [Leeds, who testified that Trump groped her on a plane in 1979] why she thinks Trump grabs women, and Jessica, her face falling in discussed, says resignedly, “I think he’s bored. Nothing is happening, you know, so let’s grab a little [P].”

On choosing fashion for the trial: “If Joyce Vance [and a long list of other friends]…had not called Robbie [Kaplan, E Jean’s lawyer]…the body that is the center of this trial, (like all survivors of sexual assault who take their cases to court, my body is the heart of the case) would not have been so beautifully clothed.”

“Do you know why I have never seen a therapist in my life? Because I get over things. Do you know how I get over things? I do not dwell. Do you know how I do not dwell? I forget it.” My favorite method, when it works.

She’s a hoot and an inspiration. I must admit I only barely know who Ben Vereen is.

This is so good, even the family dynamics, and I hate reading about family dynamics. Especially the family dynamics.

OK, that scene of depraved violence was a little cheesy.

“Dust and debris from the junkyard across the road engaged in dogfights as the wind picked up speed.”

Thea plotting and character development are exquisite, even better than in Razorblade Tears, and the reading by Adam Lazarre-White is excellent. And then there are little flourishes like this one. I appreciate them.

I think I’d like it better if Emily were the one discovering a neighbor’s drug smuggling—or if she were doing the smuggling herself—while Chickie hid his exquisite feeling for art, but I realize that’s not the book I’m reading. Onward.