Barry > Recent Status Updates

This is going to end up abandoned. Nothing I've started this year has stuck with me as something I want to persist with. I scaled my reading challenge WAY back because I had a feeling this year wasn't going to be a reading year, but I'll have to get my skates on even to get to 12!

I always feel a twinge of jealousy and a pulse of excitement reading about characters (real or fictional) who have the courage to leave their ordinary behind, and head off on some brave adventure.

I'm not sure if I'm failing to understand something, but so far this feels like two separate tales sewn together to make one, linked by the central character (narrator): a traditional 'child of immigrants' story, and a (shorter) post-apocalypse tale. Like an elegaic reminiscence of things past and future. Will there be more than just sadness, loss, and regret?

It's chilling to be reading this in 2024 and to see how much the Nazi rhetoric is echoed by President elect Trump. WTF US?
As history, it's a fascinating lens to apply to the story of the Nazis and WW2 - how Germany's economic situation, viewed through the twisted looking glass of a mad hateful ideology helped shape Germany's actions including war, the Holocaust, & mass forced labour.