Leigh > Recent Status Updates

Just finished “Humaniora,” which perhaps could also be titled “The Anatomy Lesson.” I can never decide whether this is a novel of ideas, or a parody of one! At one point (261) the narrator directly addresses the crisis/slippage of narrative voice — “such, at least, were Hans Castorp’s impressions, which we here reproduce.”

Enjoyable so far — narrator voice is pretty fun, plot seems to be a classic 2001/Alien/The Thing trope.

The Wunderlich interlude is nice. I was surprised he didn’t actually spell out the ways it was “not about running” but it’s no great mystery — we are all on a long mountain trail with no idea when we’ll reach the top or when the trail will come to an end.

“He has sincerely wanted to die, but he has never sincerely wanted Marianne to forget about him. That’s the only part of himself he wants to protect — the part that exists inside her.”

We’ve hit the conventional low point of the rom com, right on schedule I guess, though Rooney’s formalist time-manipulation still leaves us in suspense about whether the worst is over. (Did something happen after the dinner party to drive her into the self-destructive semester in Sweden? I can’t remember whether we’ve been told this)

In the spirit of chapter 16 “measure success as many ways as you can” I’m going to celebrate making it 2% further in this audiobook tonight (after spending the day packing up my office)

Really enjoying chapter 2’s analysis of the positive feedback loop between gay nightlife and gay political consciousness.

Finished the first main chapter (supposedly on masculinity). I’m enjoying the analysis and especially the references to new songs to listen to, but I’m not too impressed by the disorganized structure.

“His attraction to her felt like an oncoming train, and he threw her under it.”

We almost had a conflict between two characters!! Almost.

There’s a brief moment where Joachim says “we seem to be cured; no fever” and they go for a walk, and that could have been the end of the novel… but then they run into Frau Chauchat and Hans gets so excited by her saying “good morning” that he spikes a fever of 100.4 lmao

The novelty is wearing off a bit and the slowness of the book is starting to wear on me. Hopefully I'll find a new source of motivation soon!

(after long hiatus) Chapter 4 complete! It feels SO Modernist: 1) super-intense inward gaze on the momentary minutiae of living, calling attention to the artificiality of the author’s authoring, and 2) a gradually dawning sense of existentialist absurdity "wait a minute… This whole institution is a sham” which could be extended to any institution. I wonder what's left to do in the remaining 75% of the novel lol

The main triad has been fleshed out a lot, and Evie on her own. Not really tying them together yet

Well, it’s sort of coming together!

Still introducing new characters! (the Queen) But at least we’ve gotten one short scene where most of them were in the same place at the same time.

Sounds like we're just about ready to finally get the plot started! Maybe!
The long sections introducing Evie (49-60 and 93-125) are pretty compelling — as her passion for the ocean is stronger than any sentiment from any other character so far — but make the book feel lumpy. The flap said the cast will meet on the island but nobody's met yet. Still waiting for Itchy & Scratchy to reach the fireworks factory.

One week to book club and getting more serious about catching up. Made a list of characters to help keep everyone straight. The main plot still hasn't started yet though!

The audiobook performance is good, but I'm belatedly concluding that it's not the ideal format for a book like this. I can't listen to the relevant music while reading the text, and I feel compelled to keep moving forward through it rather than giving each section time to digest.