A2 > Recent Status Updates

Three months spent on the library's waitlist... finally, it is here!

The style is extraordinary; the first thirty pages were SO GOOD. But the plot has grown monotonous, and I don't parse the language quickly enough. DNF—

This book is insane

I was hoping for more of the Averno/Cumae stuff when I picked up this book. Catching criminals is fine too but gets old after a while.

I haven't been immersed by prose this simple in a long time--

More magic: Schoenberg in America, the Albuquerque Civic Symphony Orchestra.

Chapter 3 (on the Zweig-Strauss relationship) and Chapter 4 (the author's Sebaldian trip to Garmisch-Partenkirchen) are incredible and resonate so much with both my literary interests and the time I spent in Germany.

112-113: "[A] nation's memory of the Second World War is never uniform; it moves at different speeds in different places."

144: "When people expected you to drone on about sadness, saying you felt wonderful could make them really love you."

Currently in my English travel novel phase

The first book I feel like I can read in parallel to another, since there's no plot to speak of, just beautifully written scenes.

Speedboat meets Wittgenstein's Mistress. Sebald, not so much.

160, 191

100, 113, 116, 135