Alexandra > Recent Status Updates

"So I perceive all things reversed;
Beautiful plains instead of hills;
I take for flower the pale hoarfrost,
Perceive some warmth that the chill has cut.
Thunder sounds like warbles and chips;
Leaves embellish the barren sticks:
So firmly am I bound to gladness, no one seems to me that bad..." (117)

-Raimbaut d'Aurenga

"Wertheimer was no traveler like me. Was no passionate address-switcher... [He] was always and only the loser. No one pounded the streets of Vienna like he did, coming and going in until he was totally exhausted. Diversion maneuvers, I thought. He wore out tremendous quantities of shoes" (44)

"My constant curiosity got in the way of my suicide, so he said, I thought" (47)

Wertheimer is just as pitiable as loathsome

"You should understand that the limitations on the degree to which you can approximate the rule (pertaining to the suggested outlines) are not only ones of time and effort. You are a finite, mortal creature; but a book is also finite and, if not mortal, at least defective in the way all things made by man are. No book deserves a perfect outline because no book is perfect. It goes only so far, and so must you" (85).

That........ was an unexpectedly lovely note to end on considering the journey... Wow.

…Well, that was a journey.

I gotta say—my favorite parts have been when the war is in motion and we get on-site reportage from Helena from the field & emergency make-shift medical areas. A friend told me (prior to reading the book) that Alchemised was more of a fictional war memoir with some romance here and there & I wholly agree. It’s gotten so heavy, wow.

Going to start inserting “In nomine patri et filii et spiritus sancti” in my daily conversations just because I can.

I can’t resist educational books about books.

“Good books are over your head; they would not be good for you if they were not. And books that are over your head weary you unless you can reach up to them and pull yourself up to their level. It is not the stretching that tires you but the frustration of stretching unsuccessfully because you lack the skill to stretch effectively” (48).

‘No sooner had rubicund Apollo spread over the face of the wide and spacious earth the golden strands of his beauteous hair, no sooner had diminutive and bright-hued birds with dulcet tongues greeted in sweet, mellifluous harmony the advent of rosy dawn, who, forsaking the soft couch of her zealous consort, revealed herself to mortals through the doors and balconies of the Manchegan horizon..’(25)THE BEST MADNESS

"I'm afraid of so much desire—
desire makes distinctions—
gold's in everything,
I'm in love with just you.

At the moment of death
is there a letting go
or is the desire so great
for everything."

What a closing for the poem titled, "An Edge of Gold." Wow.

The stakes keep building higher and higher and while it feels like the story’s gravely escalating to a crescendo, the momentum feels … stable? At least for now. It’s war. Victories and casualties. But I can just FEEL something is about to happen and topple this safe feeling woooof

‪“Her death count was the numerical representation of her failures. All the lives she hadn’t saved, the ways she fell short.

For Kaine, it was a mark of power. His victims, even Principate Apollo, all represented what made him so valuable.

They were the inverse and counter to each other.

A healer and a killer, circling slowly, the push and pull inexorable.”

Once again, I strike out on trying to find a mindless, entertaining read :/

Yeah, this one was pretty bad. The writing? How are people giving this anything above a one-star rating?!! I'm literally questioning if AI was used here because everything from the action to the dialogue and pacing feels so uncanny—like an unfeeling, unaware machine simply regurgitated its cut-copy-paste slop of reheated old wattpad stories.

Gotta say— Bernard de Ventadorn is the first troubadour introduced in this book whose songs I just couldn’t fully get into. Nothing particularly bad or awful, just uninspiring compared to those before him. Still, there’s some beautiful lines that bring me joy especially in Old Occitan!

“A Mo Cortes, lai on ilh es,
Tramet lo vers, e ja no•lh pes
Car n’ai estat tan lonjamen” (98).

“Decades before my father’s blindness
you wrote about looking
at the blind man on the subway: He knows
where he is going, it is nowhere, it is filled
with presences. He says “I am.’” (41)

Pleasantly surprised at how so many of Ruth Lepson’s poems are like pebbles rippling a serene lake surface. I feel a difference after reading her words like there’s some new part of my vision becoming unlocked…

“it turns out these feelings
really had nothing to do with you
they go and come
I miss you only in the way
I miss a stain —

it’s about the same amount of pain
still there are variations on the theme
I’ve grown but my heart and brain
have fixtures that remain the same
I make my life with the things I can name” (25).

I always looooove Harold Bloom's introductions!!! It sounds so cheesy but I seriously do aspire to one day be as well-read as him and just as in possession of deep knowledge of the literary canon.

Anyway, first chapter down! I loved the humor. I think I'm gonna keep it this way going forward: read one chapter in English before re-reading it in Spanish so I have context in mind and don't trip up too much over words.

So much is happening… getting set into motion…. My brain’s hurting

WHAT?!?!?!! That last sentence of the chapter.... WHAT?!?!!

I can only WISH that the legendary myth of Jaufre Rudel’s vida was true!!!

“Jaufre Rudel… fell in love with the Countess of Tripoli without ever having seen her, simply because of the good things he had heard the pilgrims retiring from Antioch tell of her, and for her he wrote many fine poems, rich in melody and poor in words” (60).

Legendary fictional devotions haven’t reached the same heights since tbh

Hey, if it's gonna be a bad read, at least there's parts to laugh at!

Okay wow— gotta make this note to myself to remember the first time I felt compelled by Them™️

“He wasn’t even looking at his wife anymore. His gaze passed over Aurelia’s head, staring at a mirror that reflected himself and Helena” (158).

Looooooove that there’s nothing more, nothing less. LET WHAT IS UNSAID FILL OUT THE REST!

The atmosphere is crazyyyyyyyyyyyyy chilling wow

Eh… I don’t know if it’s just because the previous book was the definitive ending for this main character and this feels unnecessary or if it’s because I’m just disconnected from the dark romance genre right now, but I’m struggling to get through this one. Sigh.

The ending............ THE ENDING!!!!!............. I have no words

"'Life in this world,' he said, 'is, as it were, a sojourn in a cave. What can we know of reality? For all we can see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering & amusing shadows cast upon the inner wall of the cave by the light of truth... and we as troglodyte seekers of wisdom can only lift our voices to the unseen and say, humbly, ‘Go on, do the Deformed Rabbit… it’s my favorite.’’”

Sooooo rich in history already so far, I'm loving this! To think there's so little saved and far more lost to time we'll never get to know from the named troubadors/trobairitz deeply saddens me 🥺

"515 Madison Avenue
door to heaven? portal
stopped realities and eternal licentiousness
or at least the jungle of impossible eagerness
your marble is bronze and your lianas elevator cables
swinging from the myth of ascending" (Rhapsody, p.37)

I need to go to New York and experience the city through O'Hara's eyes soon :(

(Side note—a bit random but these poems make me think of Caroline Polachek's lyrics!! LOVE this)

I LOVE OM AND BRUTHA!!!

Okay but seriously this is such a perfect read to start 2026 with—it's absolutely hilarious and charming. I can't put it down!

I'm LOVING this story so much so that I looked up fan art (since Discworld is so popular) and discovered there was a Folio Society edition that came out in 2016 that is all sold out.... and now used copies are selling for the thousands! 😩 I will simply have to keep using my imagination <3