Joshua’s Reviews > Middle C > Status Update

I’ve been vacationing in California for a week with two younger brothers and two younger sisters, all under ten years old, so reading—to my dismay—has been difficult.

Happy to be getting back to it.

Honestly, I enjoyed Against the Day, but I didn’t really connect to most of it save for the incredibly ethereally esoteric parts. I felt like there was a thick patina between myself and what I was reading that, while being my fault (& shall be inspected upon a second reading) nevertheless was dampening my experience.

Middle C is the exact opposite. I’m feeling a deep, binding connection. Absolutely gorgeous

If you are up on music theory, this book is an absolute treat.

Earlier in the novel, Joseph, who is clearly a disturbed person, keeps re-writing a sentence about the apocalypse and relating it to music. He mentions the diminished 5th (tritone) or the Devil’s interval.

This left me curious, until he stated that during the Black Plague, the world population diminished by a 5th.

Calm down, Gass.

I used to think most readers were self indulgent assholes with egos so big you could die by jumping from atop them. Then I looked in the mirror. Shit.

The community I have found here has been already incredibly encouraging and inspiring. Thank you guys!