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So close ...

Loving the quiet contemplative mood of this one; it certainly gives food for thought.

It is early days yet but I'm really enjoying this so far.

Weird ...

Gory ...

100 pages into the diary of a pseudo-conflicted paedophile.

Doing a gothic study with a few friends and fellow colleagues, and where do we start looking for answers to our questions but right at the beginning. Having a bit of fun along the way too - with terror supposedly around every corner - is always nice.

... (cont) bolted the city's doors, the forces of the Former will find a means to slip through the cracks" (p350).

"I know there is something quixotic in dreaming of the Former but when all is said and done, if the Former is even a remote possibility, then how can one submit to the likelihood of the Latter? To do so would be contrary to the human spirit. So fundamental is our desire to catch a glimpse of another way of life, or to share a glimpse of our way of life with another, that even when the focus of the Latter have (cont)

Poor Miska ...

... bothersome idioms - even names! Where else in all of Europe could one shout a single word to hail any of one's countrymen be they male or female, young or old, friend or foe?" (p181)

"A wonder of semantic efficiency, comrade could be used as a greeting, or a word or parting. As a congratulations, or a caution. As a call to action, or a remonstrance. Or it could simply be the means of securing someone's attention in the crowded lobby of a grand hotel. And thanks to the word's versatility, the Russian people had finally been able to dispense with tired formalities, antiquated titles ...

In absolute enjoyment of the Count and his very precise way of navigating the world, not to mention the job the narrator is doing of conveying the Count's linguistically just so approach to life. The appreciation for language has me transfixed. I look forward to reading this every spare moment that I have. Unfortunately over the past two days there haven't been very many of those ...

A little thrust and parry with words ...

Excited to start!

Trouble with goodreads again. Anything after the homepage is a dud. WTF.

Not my cup of tea ... all this Jesus this and Jesus that is getting on my nerves when there's no substance to it. I know its saying something about these people; these characters and their nuttiness but ... I don't really want to go there right now lol.

I'm not a fan of O'Connors's style so far. It's effective but the heaviness is suffocating. Southern Gothic is my least favourite genre but at least its a short piece of work - relatively.

Whew, what a journey! It has been an incredible two weeks with Massie's Catherine the Great.

"Poland now was reduced to one-third of its original size and a population of 4 million. When the treaties were signed, Catherine told herself that not only had she fended off the revolutionary virus spreading from France, but she was simply reoccupying lands that had once belonged to the great 16th c principality of Kiev, 'lands still inhabited by people of the Russian faith and race'"

This sounds familiar lol

Watching Ruth Bader Ginsburg's confirmation hearings after having watched Amy Coney Barrett's; the difference in judicial quality is staggering.

Catherine is in her 40s and concerned with securing succession to her throne through her son Paul's marriage to a minor German princess. Potemkin ceases to be her primary sexual companion, though he retains a significant role in her court. Massie does this weird one paragraph comparison of Catherine's sex life with England's Elisabeth I's i.e the Virgin Queen that is unsettling, to say the least.

"None of Catherine's successors dared to summon such an assembly again until 1905, when Nicholas II was forced by revolution to sign a document transferring Russia from an absolute autocracy to a semiconstitutional monarchy - and then, in 1906, to summon Russia's first elected parliament, the State Duma" (p362).
One has to wonder what she would've thought of this, well, blockhead, and his endless series of blunders.

"It is worth noting that Catherine's writing of the Nakaz and summons to the Legislative Commission took place nine years before Thomas Jefferson wrote, and the Continental Congress voted to approve, the American Declaration of Independence. It is preceded by 22 years Louis XVI's summons to the Estates-General" (p362)

After a lovely (and mostly quiet) day reading we have Empress Catherine II. Why, oh why, does it have to be Monday tomorrow? ...

Books were her sanctuary. Not only as a source of comfort for a fifteen year old away from home, but increasingly as a window out of the oppressive, profoundly unhappy, and increasingly farcical marriage she was in to Peter. Her readings of Montesquieu and Voltaire proved profound in developing her personal character and intellect, not to mention her public awareness of the complex Russian court.

I am absolutely loving this. Dammit why do I have to get up early tomorrow :((((