Kelly > Recent Status Updates

“Those hearts, so inflated with ecstasy at the spectacle of space, are at the same time withered by it.” (On the physical impacts of space travel.)

There have been many similarly beautiful nuggets of observation or expressions of nuanced human emotion. The world glides by the shuttle windows, and I must resist wanting to look at a map and google all the locations mentioned, being horrible at geography myself.

Dear Victor, it’s been a year since I touched your beautiful book, I’m so sorry. In the interim, I have thought about it, wondering if AI could be harnessed in some way to annotate and footnote it, what a feat, right? I’ll talk to Claude, or President Perplexity. Soon again. I have a stack of smaller reads to get me back into the habit.

Brought this one with a few others on my weekend trip to AZ, to move the reading challenge forward. The main character played Little Drops of Brandy on his tin whistle while serving in the military, so as a good media user, I’m listening to the Chieftains version on YouTube while reading now 🎶

Just had a boring lengthy descriptive section, followed by a more dramatic emotional section. He did that on purpose, right? Hugo is playing me, like a fiddle lol

Jean Valjean is meeting Cosette.

Another break from Les Miserable, along with The Year of Magical Thinking, something easier to digest. Some French and Russian history, but much lighter. Thinking maybe it would be good to be able to read the original, as sometimes I sense the it could be lacking some of its beauty and weight in the translation.

I spoke too soon. Suddenly Waterloo has transitioned from a boring descriptions of roads, fields and hedges to a Game of Thrones cinematic level, catastrophically masterful depiction of a battle plan gone horrifically off the rails. Hugo got me again.

I’m roughly 20 pages into the Battle of Waterloo description, and like Napoleon, I fear I may not survive the battle without defeat….this intricate description of generals and locations is wearing on me, but I will soldier on.

Although it does inspire me to consider putting in on a “places to visit” list at some point in the future!!

I’ve learned Hugo is a master of suspense, as well as philosophy! Will Jean Valjean go to the trial or not?!? Will Fantine live to see him bring her daughter back?! It’s all too suspenseful!!!

It’s also amazing that I’ve lived this long and don’t know these basic things about the story, although I’ve never seen it performed and only know of the one song from the musical.

“There are no bad herbs and no bad men; there are only bad cultivators.”

Beautifully stating the “perpetrator as victim” concept. Earlier similar passages are even more beautiful; I’ll have to go back to highlight them.

This book is so biblical, I need to go and search out whether there are some analyses.

Taking some time to read on a drizzly Saturday morning after a medical procedure. Luxurious :)

I borrowed this book from the Nawakwa book collection, oh, maybe some 10 years ago now? Someday, I hope to return it.

I have started and restarted it so many times, each time dutifully re-reading Hugo’s biography and the introduction. Finally, I’ve committed and gotten past the introduction of Monseigneur Bienvenu and into the introduction of Jean Valjean, woo! Wish me continued luck!

Time to kick it into gear and get this year's book goal met. Giddyup, Kelly :)

There's a completely accidental Paris theme in my reading right now, partially due to reaching for the thinner books. First The Stranger, next Paris to the Moon, then a brief non-Parisian interlude with Oedipus Rex; now, back to Paris with The Sun Also Rises :)

"There is no Regulon in the Semiosphere."

This novel, or more a series of essays on the life of an American writer living with his wife and son in France, is a welcome bit of armchair cultural observation, after the mental shakedown of The Stranger. The author's everyday observations are carefully woven together with his broader political and cultural observations.

Whoah....note to self, just because a book is only 123 pages, do not assume it doesn't contain the existential explosiveness of the Big Bang, paired with insanely compelling, gorgeously spare, mystifyingly obscure storytelling. Whoah...

I'm feeling lucky...it's Thursday, I just finished Kavalier & Clay, and want to get another book going toward my challenge that I can finish before the weekend is over. The Stranger is thin, and a Pulitzer Prize winner...perfect :)

<3

"Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." Love this conjuring of the hot, humid, Deep South.

Thank you, Goodreads friends, for all the amazing books you've shared this past year. It's been an incredible experience to watch your lists and reviews, and get ideas for my own. I wish you a year of inspired reading in 2015 :)

Chabon's ability to craft a sentence is very masterful. I am often re-reading them to admire them, and his selection of rarely used words.

This is the discussion book for my library's September discussion. I am *really* hoping to get it read and make it to the discussion. It's been at least 3-4 years since I've made it to one, and I miss them so much.

"She was the book thief without words. Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like the rain." So powerful.

This book is bringing to mind the zeitgeist of Douglas Coupland's Generation X for me. It was so "of the moment", with novel literary devices and coined phrases/word uses, and this seems *so* similar in that way. Entertaining, yes. Timeless? Not so certain of that.

Finishing The Orphan Master's Son has really got me eager to read again, so I was bold, and picked up the June library discussion book. It looks lovely, really looking forward to it.