Gregory Luckert > Recent Status Updates

Already wondering about this one. The subject is interesting but the writing is overworked - too many adjectives & too much telling without showing. Even the mindset & worldview seems derived from cowboy and Indian movies. Who says the first arrivals to North America would have 19th century NA worldview? The entire story is previewed in a dream. Technically accurate but amateurish.

Finished tonight, 3/22. This was epic poetry, meant to be read aloud. I’m interested in reading it someday, but feel glad I opted for the audiobook for my first exposure. Simon Vance’s performance is excellent. This is a slice-of-life story of an anti-hero, a fool, experiencing a rupture in his society. He makes the wrong decision at every turn, hurting everyone and everything he loves, including his land.

I'm loving Buckmaster. What an anti-hero! He's exactly the demo that would be most impacted by the Norman Conquest - smallholder without retainers or any real political power. Yet, he and his family could have survived on his land, except perhaps for his sons, if he was not so boneheaded, arrogant, egotistical and stuck in the past. Most of his misfortune is self-inflicted. A leader would have united his ham.

He is obsessed with the idea of "freedom", yet he doesn't know that freedom is not given to every man, and is a luxury, not a virtue. Not to mention, he is all bluff and bluster. Has he actually ever swung his grandfather's sword? He was gone at that critical moment when he could have lived up to his words and ideals, to protect his land and family, even though he was warned that moment was coming.

Buckmaster of Holland is a metaphor for the modern American. He sits atop a pile of wealth and privilege, looking down on everyone else. He doesn't realize that his wealth was built through conquest, the same forces he is facing now. He clings to the past in a superficial way. He doesn't love the old gods. He just rejects the modern world. Then, he has delusions of greatness. He thinks he is the chosen one.

So glad I opted for the audiobook. I would’ve been distracted by trying to learn the vocabulary. I see that the vocabulary doesn’t really matter, and I get the gist. The narrator really helps with this.

CH1, CH2
This is a must for anyone interested in what is going on at quantum scales. From the first two chapters I see that we are representing quantum particles position with complex numbers. That helps a lot. I can also now can see where some of the quantum strangeness comes from. I still wonder WHY complex numbers work. Why a phase component? Also, wave function vs. probs discussed here are confusing.

Into "Trunk" after picking this one back up. The storylines are starting to intertwine. I love Patricia Westerford chapter. She's my favorite character. I keep putting this one down because it's going to be about the activists who take on names like "Butterfly" and live in trees, to keep them from being chopped down. That seems a dull way to end such an interesting narrative.

"Neelay Mehta". I remember why i gave up on this one from this chapter. Premise and characters don't fit. This is going to be about sentient trees, isn't it?. The author clearly never coded before - double FOR loop is a revelation. Mountain View is not mid-Peninsula. The reminder that ensenada means live oak was nice.

Last two chapters. Finally done. Good last chapter with Sunja visiting Isak's grave and seeing Noa's earthly work. Phoebe leaves. Solomon accepts his destiny and takes over the Pachinko biz, after Hana tells him to.

III - 18,19. Soloman and Phoebe live in Tokyo. S works for investment bank. P is not happy about how the Japanese treat Koreans and is unhappy because she can't speak Japanese. S's boss very indirectly asks S to take care of a biz issue using his "connections". S's boss thinks everyone in pachinko is in the Yakuza. When the situation breaks slightly bad, S is fired. Shit rolls downhill. Hana apparently has AIDS.

III-16. Solomon returns to Tokyo with his gf Phoebe. She is unhappy there with nothing to do and feels the Japanese are racist. She's US-born Korean. We have a scene where Solomon throws a poker game, with the higher ups at his banking job, after someone brings up Pachinko and Yakuza.

Roots - Douglas Pavlicek. This is a good chapter and a good character. I had forgotten all the Stanford Prison Experiment stuff, but I remembered the banyan tree catching his fall in Thailand. The "beauty corridors" affected me deeply, although I think (hope) it's not as bad as portrayed.

Roots - Ray & Dorothy. I love this couple but remember it turns out bad somehow. The significance of oaks in their relationship struck me.

III-14,15. Hana and Solomon have a physical relationship. Hana runs away to Tokyo after seemingly preparing for an unsavory career. Solomon goes to US for school and gets a Korean-American girlfriend. Hana descends but is caught by Etsuko and the last moment.

III-13. We see the next generation: Solomon & Hana. Little reminiscent of Noa and his first girlfriend. Hansu’s wife died and he expected Sunja to marry him. This happens at Sunja’s mother’s funeral.

Adam Apich. Totally forgot about this chapter. Although, I remember relating to it now. This is the tech entrepreneur guy I think.

III-12. Suja’s mother is dying of cancer. Suja returns to Osaka to take care of her and her last days. Her mother says everything she did wrong in her life, that Suja did wrong. Kind of a throwaway chapter.

III-11. Solomon’s birthday. Etsuko perhaps forgives herself “Somewhere after being sorry, there had to be another day, and even after a conviction, there could be good in the judgment”
We see Solomon sees her as his mother. We see the entire life of Mizasu, Solomon & Etsuko in a few vignettes. Storytelling in flashes of light. Scenes that push narrative forward.

Roots - Mimi Ma. I forgot her father commits suicide. Also, I forgot how "unstuck in time" this novel is. This chapter is very good. Telling the story in snapshots.

III-10: More on Etsuko & Hana. it looks like Hana will live with her mother. It’s clear that her children don’t know the full story because they blame her for running out on them.

III-9. Background on Etsuko. Mozasu's Japanese girlfriend. They have been together for years by 1979, the time of this chapter. E refuses to marry M and considers herself a fallen women because her first husband divorced her for infidelity. We get a glimpse of the hoops Koreans have to jump through in Japan. Every four years Soloman has to re-register with the government.

III-8. Devastating and beautiful. Hard to understand Noa. Hansu finds Noa and brings Sunja to him. They talk. Noa has a wife and four kids. After Sunja leaves, Noa commits suicide.

Roots - Nicholas Hoel. Now I remember why I dropped this one years ago. I wanted to read a physical copy because it is dense and requires rumination. We are intro'd to Nick. We learn about his family and see them suffocated in their Iowa home from CO2 emissions from space header.

Still in the second section (1948). I love how the author shows and doesn’t tell. Things happen and they’re only hinted at. The protagonist continues to live in a rundown hotel and rights for a newspaper. It sounds like he wants to start writing about the homeless.

III-7: Some insights into the detective & Mozasu’s life