Renzo > Recent Status Updates

I’m hooked on this Neapolitan Novels series. Still have one more to read and already wondering what’s going to stack up after I’m finished. I suppose I’ll have to finish the final 400pp of Karl Ove.

Received this as the initial mailing of a 6-book subscription from Archipelago. Along with it came two other books: Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz and The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas.

I’m excited about this subscription. All three books are well printed and beautifully bound.

Skipping through this mostly overstated and increasingly boring evaluation of great societal narratives. The first 3/4 was already discussed in Sapiens.

A few GR reviewers have noted the English translation leaves something to be desired. I can see their point. The character depth throughout this story is impressive; it’s a great and important, foundational book, but it reads anachronistically.

Getting through it. Worthwhile for developing a morning writing habit, but also realizing most of it wasn’t written for me. I’m not a blocked creative who needs to nurture his inner child. Hooray!

Beautiful story. I’m barely into Ice and already feeling melancholic about it’s finitude. The text is descriptive enough to show a succession of surreal scenes, overlapping and cutting across one another, but not so telling regarding time, place, era or names. There are no complicated plot details to keep track of here. Unique writing

Wishing that I had read this as a child. I would have loved it then as I am now and would have learned earlier to not be daunted by "adult-length" books...

CITIZEN should be read by all white people. Especially all white Americans. The thought of tennis as an inherently white sport never crossed my mind until I read about Serena Williams in this book. But that's the whole point: racism is invisible to those who are not its direct victims

This book is a TRIP.

"All cravings are the mind seeking salvation in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being..."

"Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind..."

"The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future..."

The first chapter of this is amazing writing. Dislocated, stream of consciousness, hallucinogenic, noir...

This book was my introduction to postmodern thought. I read it in '97 and it blew my mind. Baud prophesied the murder of reality and many other aspects of life in the 21C. I remember feeling like it had prepared me, given me a paradigm with which to navigate the following decade of ever increasing speed and digitization. I'm going to reread it now after twenty years...