Tassara > Recent Status Updates

⭐⭐⭐ to "The Fear" // "So long as bricks and mortar, and the atmosphere itself, are retentive, as we know them to be, there is little, Dexter, that you or I, or anyone else, can do to be of assistance... we can only prove what has been proved hundreds of times before, that there are more things in heaven and earth than the human philosophy of present day can understand."

⭐⭐⭐ to "The Indissoluble Bond" // "‘We do not know that it was really an evil thing. Is it not possible that, in our ignorance, we appraise far too highly these poor bodies of ours? What do we know of our souls and of the laws that govern spiritual existence? ... The laws of this world are not the laws of the hereafter. Some day the truth will be revealed.’"

Part 4: Marius 🕯️ They seemed very depraved, very corrupt, very debased — heinous, even — but rare are those who fall without sinking into vice. In any case, there is a point where the poor and the wicked become mixed up and lumped together in the one fateful word: les misérables — the wretched. Whose fault is this? And besides, should not charity be all the greater, the further into the depths the fall?

Part 2: Cosette 🕊️ "Superstitions, bigotries... prejudices, these spectres... cling to life. They must be tackled head-on, and war must be waged against them... For it is one of the fates of humanity to be doomed to eternal battle against phantoms... In ordinary times, all it takes to disperse and dispel an anachronism is to make it spell out the date. But these are not ordinary times. Let us fight."

⭐⭐⭐ to "The Boy of Blackstock" // "She was free to do as she liked, so she declared, and her husband had long ago forfeited, by his brutality, all right to her love.’"

⭐⭐⭐⭐ to "The Vampire" // "The wood seemed full of dreadful sounds — moaning and wailing and hideous laughter. The wind of course, and the screaming of night birds — once I felt the fluttering of wings in close proximity to my face. But I could not rid myself of the thought that I, in my turn, was being pursued, that the forces of hell were combined against me."

Issue #1: Knife Trick 🗡️ "When It comes to Gotham, you don't know it, brother. It knows /you/. And the moment you think otherwise, the moment you get too comfortable, that's when it stabs you right in the back. Because above everything, Gotham is… a mystery."

⭐⭐⭐⭐ to "The Fire Unquenchable" // "Who can say that the fire of inspiration dies with the death of the body? Who can say that, released from fleshly bonds, it does not continue to burn with a zest and ardour that we poor humans are totally unable to appreciate?"

they really do make fairy tales differently up there in Denmark huh

⭐⭐⭐✨ to "Lady Green Sleeves" // "This world lacks reality, and the men and women who inhabit it are but as changing shadows; here today, they will be gone tomorrow. There is nothing in this world that endures except — except love."

⭐⭐⭐⭐ to "The Stranger" // "Do you think this world only belongs to the living, or do you believe that the past still has some hold on it — some claim? And have we lived before, or are we just ourselves?"

⭐⭐⭐⭐ to "The Invader" // "Tonight is just the night for a ghost story. There's a white, witching moon in the heavens-the pine trees look weird in the distance and hark how the wind is sighing amongst their branches!"

Part 1: Fantine 🥀 "‘Alas! the work wasn't finished, I admit: we destroyed the old order in its deeds, we were not able entirely to abolish it in its thoughts. To put an end to abuses is not enough, attitudes must change. The mill has gone, the wind is still there.’"

no one look at me, i need some space opera popcorn if i want to have any hope of hitting my reading goal this year

💚 This is a buddy read with Emily. Trying to get better at updating my gr now that I can see the light at the end of this months-long reading slump. And who woulda thunk that a 1300+ page chonker of French lit would be the thing to do it? Ah well, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Wholeheartedly loving this so far and wouldn't abridge it for the world. 🇫🇷

alright !!! now we're cooking with gas !!!

I kind of hate everyone* but also never want this book to end... Hardy makes me want to move to the English countryside so bad. (*everyone except the old maltser, for whom I would die)

I really wish this resonated with me more than it did... I feel like I read a completely different collection than some of y'all in these reviews

dang I'm really regretting that I paused on Paradise Lost earlier this year... I could be reading this so much faster instead of having to read every footnote every time de Quincey makes a Milton reference 🥲

”He called so loud, that all the hollow deep / Of hell resounded. […] Awake, arise, or be forever fallen." 📌 This is shaping up to be one of the most challenging books of classic poetry I've read.... And it's the only one originally written in English (my first language)!

I finally finished this!! Gonna need to simmer a bit before I decide on a rating, but Part 3 was the strongest and most intriguing (besides the very beginning) by far. It's because of the final act that I'm not saying no to trying the sequel eventually 👀

i have been trying to read this for like 3 weeks and just can. not. so i'm going to put this on pause until i can be bothered.

"in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand — and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible."

"Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

"Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be."

A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

"If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him."

"The universe, which is not merely the stars and the moon and the planets, flowers, grass, and trees, but other people, has evolved no terms for your existence, has made no room for you, and if love will not swing wide the gates, no other power will or can."

"I know how black it looks today, for you. It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived."

Not sure I'm ready for Uncle James to wreck my shit... But I'm diving in anyway.