Jamie > Recent Status Updates

I just finished the volume with the plays and dramatic works, and was left mostly disappointed. The two or three high-points don't come anywhere close to making up for some if the drivel and gibberish that was included in these selected works. Sorry, but most of these pieces were nothing more than mental masturbation, in my opinion, and their ejaculations would have been better off remaining private and unpublished.

How It Is - I'm having an existential crisis because Beckett finally gave us paragraphs, but decided against using any punctuation to make up for it.

The Unnamable - Meta existentialism. Interesting read, but the lack of paragraphs in Beckett's novels is starting to get to me. I get the urgency it creates, but it pushes me too quickly as a reader and I find myself blowing past some really fun turns of phrase because his style doesn't really give you time to come up for air.

Malone Dies - This one had me laughing aloud at points, emotionally invested at others, and I had a bunch of funny existenitialist jokes come to mind as I was enjoyingmy way through it, but then those last few pages happened, and, wow. Despite the frustrating lack of paragraph breaks, this one really hits. Five stars all day.

Molloy - I don't generally gibe with with stream of consciousness novels, but the affectation worked well with this one and was put to good use when Beckett flipped the narrative and plot on its head.

Finished Volume One

MURPHY - Too esoteric.

WATT - Too neurotic.

MERCIER AND CAMIER - Reminded me very much of an acid trip I once had back in the 80s, but not in a great way.

Peak Claremont, but a bit of a mixed bag with the art.

Notes from Underground - Five Stars - An immaculate study of self-loathing and the projection of insecurities from an unwell mind onto the world around him.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - 5/5 - Still one of the best, in my opinion. I will never get tired of this play.

Taming of the Shrew - 3/5 - Definitely not one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. While this play does have some nice turns-of-phrase, I didn't find it overly funny, and if its lesson is that the way to tame a shrew is to isolate her from her loved ones, starve her into compliance, and act like a crazy asshole to her, it's a lesson better left alone. I probably won't be coming back to this one anytime soon.

I've left the Tiffany Aching books aside until now because I didn't want my relationship with Pratchett to end. I love the Discworld series and I loved Terry Pratchett, and while this was a fun and entertaining read, it was also kind of sad because I know I'm getting closer to reading my last new Pratchett and soon there will be no more.