my catholic high school was very funny. we will put the fear of god in these students but we will also make them read el filibusterismo and the inferno in the same year, two works which totally revere the catholic church

You've talked a lot about lolita in terms of how it relates to tlt, and as possibly tumblrs premier tlt scholar are there any other works that you think it would be important to read to get the most out of reading or rereading tlt?

oh god!! okay well off the top of my head:

i assume this is a given, but, like, Annabel Lee. some of Poe’s other poetry hits similar beats to that one – The City in the Sea, The Sleeper, Lenore are a few examples, and his short story The Fall of the House of Usher has a woman with a very similar feel to his poetic muses (and frankly a similar feel to Alecto). not required reading ofc but it pads out the kind of touchstones Nabokov + Muir tap into!

i haven’t actually read Homestuck lol but i’ve heard that Homestuck helps, like, a lot (i really really should read Homestuck)

i think a decent fluency in classics is probably also helpful. which i do not have, lmao. but i WOULD recommend reading Homer's Iliad, if only for the fact that the Iliad is very explicitly referenced at multiple points in Gideon the Ninth and continues to thematically lurk throughout Harrow and Nona in these rhetorical gestures made towards heroism + tragedy (i believe Muir once talked about John as conceiving of and constructing himself as a classically tragic figure, which – interesting!!).

there’s absolutely some christian theological dimensions that fly right over my head (i’m jewish, lmao), but a working knowledge of the christian easter story is probably like the minimum you need to get how that’s being played around with in-text.

the opening of Alecto references the opening of Dante’s Inferno such that it’s fair to speculate that Alecto will develop itself in part around Dante (and, considering the role that Dante plays in Lolita, I imagine around Beatrice), so the Divine Comedy is a good one to have a feel for.

Don Quixote! one of my favourite things about Gideon the Ninth in particular is the fact that ‘Dulcinea’ is named in reference to Cervantes’ Dulcinea of Toboso, a wholly imagined woman essential to Don Quixote’s false image of chivalry, representative of spanish nationhood during a time of imperialist conquest, etc etc etc. it does a lot with the gendered paradigms being prodded at in Gideon, especially wrt how they relate back to ideologies necessary to the social structuring of imperialism. i really should put together an essay about Don Quixote and Gideon alongside one another tbh someone ask me about that sometime

i’m sure i’m missing some lmao but these are the ones i can remember! i also have a bunch of texts that i just think hold interesting discursive relationships to tlt, even if i can’t fairly make a case for being consciously present in the text: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel, Sheridan le Fanu’s Carmilla, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire are the Big Three.

march reading meme!

BOOKS

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle. Letters from Watson sent this from January to March, alongside a couple of other shorts ("The Field Bazaar" and "The Man with the Watches"). An interesting thing about it is that Sherlock was portrayed as somewhat bitter on the issue of credit (he does all the work, subpar investigators take underserved glory), while he's usually, in both ACD's later works and adaptations, portrayed as ~above such feelings. "The Field Bazaar" was interesting in that, in describing why Watson is a good "foil" for Sherlock's smarts in the books, actually illuminates why I think the smart investigator/fumbling idiot dynamic just. Fucking sucks for me lol. I don't get a kick out of it, I much prefer when they pair two investigator of different talents and portray those as both interesting and helpful in their investigations.

Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet's Ace Reporter by Tim Hanley. Amazing read. It takes you through the history of the character, often looking at it through the lense of real-life issues and movements, getting into the different eras, adaptations, etc. It's giving me a lot to think about, both within the dc fandom and outside it.

Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. This one I also read in substack newsletters, going for about a year, the last one being sent in March. It was a reread, and I maintain it's a book everyone should at least try to read. Inferno is by far my favourite part (the theology lessons in Paradise grate on me, in comparison).

Batman: The Ultimate Evil by Andrew Vachss. This book was written by a crime fiction author and attorney that specialices in representing children and in child abuse cases, who was approached by DC to write a book featuring Batman facing child sex trafficking. In the book, Bruce ends up discovering that his mother, Martha Wayne, was a sociologist who was investigating a child molester ring, and that's what caused their deaths. That's what caught my eye first, because really, how many canons give any weight and importance to Martha? If they opt to make the Wayne murders a conspiracy, it's always about Thomas's actions. I also appreciated that, even though the author clearly had to follow some dc-mandated lines (fictional country, individual villain), he practically hits you with a hammer when it comes to dispel a lot of the myths we have about child molesters and how they operate, specifically to challenge those dc-mandated lines. I wish we'd seen more of the social worker character, but I liked her as it was.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. I picked this novella exclusively for vibes and not plot, and it's what it gave me. It's also made me think a lot about how men see women, and how through their eyes our selves are twisted. Komako and Yoko are fascinating characters in part for how inescrutable the male lead finds them and how he might be misunderstanding them. There's so, so much hinted under the surface, about their persons and about their relationship.

The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal. Short novelette I picked on a whim. A 60+ yo astronaut is offered a chance to travel to space again, her dream come true. She has to choose between taking it, or staying with her ailing husband, who has little time left. The story apparently later expanded on some novels/prequels, I might pick them up.

COMICS

Secret Origins 80-Page Giant. I picked this one up for Steph's story (I'm going through her comic arcs), but ended up reading all the others. It's cemented my desire to pick up the Young Justice comics. These teens are sooooo chaotic and fun lmao, all of them (back then) with such weird and interesting backstories.

Lois Lane (1986). A two-part issue that shows Lois getting in deep in an investigation about child abductions. It's gets gruesome and heavy at times, but it's a great read, specially for her character. It shows Lois at a moment that the mainline comics seem to have ignored (she missed out on a great professional opportunity due to Superman), and it shows how obsessive she gets and how that is what makes her a great investigator and reporter. I also liked the glimpse at the dynamic between her and her sister Lucy there, how dismissive Lois was of Lucy's stewardess' job, for example.

DC First: Batgirl/Joker. I don't like it as much as the early-Batgirl (2000) run but it's kind of on that vein. Barbara tells Cass about her first encounter with the Joker, and Cass is determined to prove herself against him. I loved the art as well (very different than in the cover).

I just love that Obey Me is using Dante’s Inferno, the greatest self-insert fanfic of all time, as their reference for a lot of their lore. I should really reread DI as it’s been a VERY long time (I’m OLD and I read it in high school and not even for required reading because I was that kid always reading about Hell and demons).

i think i should reread billy bat for the 12th or whatever time now that i've read dante's inferno i think that will do something to me

Don’t look at me. I know. But I am also a weak ass bitch who rereads Pride & Prejudice almost yearly.

And boy if I thought Smasher’s voice was hard to find before, it was near impossible considering this AU is so not him. Alas he’s but a toy to my whimsy so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Prompt: Free Day – AU {Regency} Adam Smasher/OC Summary: After breaking her heart years ago, Victoria doesn’t take Adam’s return well. At all.

.

All the years of careful steps and dutiful presentation as the perfect daughter, the perfect lady, the potentially perfect wife, walking with her chin held high and her temper pressed well underfoot, amount to nothing when she lays eyes on the man again.

That temper, a thing usually doused the moment she feels even an ember of it try to spark, rouses into a blistering inferno in her chest – its smoke chokes her lungs, tightens so cruelly within her that her heart has no other option but to thunder against the cage of her ribs in its desperation to escape the inevitable reopening of its wound. A wound she had carefully tended to in secret, cradling that broken organ as tenderly as her lover should have, holding it in her gentle grasp, letting it spill its naïve hopes and aches in ink across a page that she’d hide away in the pages of books she knows her mother would have no interest in reading.

“Fruitless things,” Marion Crane had said once when her daughter had offered her the book that had caught her rapture at the tender age of fifteen. “Don’t let it sully your thoughts with imaginations of whimsy, my dear. Love is a luxury we cannot afford.”

A lesson she should have taken to heart long ago. Once she had convinced herself she had – until that American came along, with his stern brow that only seemed to soften when he caught her eye across the room. That had softened her in turn, convinced the lone child of the notoriously sharp, impossibly wealthy Cranes to put her talons away. She should have known better, that a man of his standing would naturally seek a perch as high as her own to elevate his personal status, even to be seen with her arm entwined in his would bring interest he could never dream of currying on his own; the novelty of an American in London only lasts as long as a cup of tea on the day of their arrival. And seen they were, together in public, arm-in-arm in their walks around gardens, her dance-card conveniently full for every inquiring partner but him, yet it ended as suddenly as she felt it began. The scandal sheets had a particularly field day with that matter, the young Crane spurned by one far below her station.

And now here he is once more, perfectly at home in her aunt’s parlour. The aunt whose daughter is getting married to an American of ‘interesting character.’ The coiling in her stomach feels like fire, and it must be for how her throat dries and how hot the water that builds at the corners of her eyes is. Clenching her jaw as she was taught, grinding her teeth together until all become dust is not enough to keep her still, driven forward by the vitriol in her chest, the venom building on her tongue.

“You uncouth, barbaric, hateful-” Her litany of insults is muted even to her own ear with the ring of a slap that fills the deepest corners of the room, the sharp sting of flesh to flesh biting into her palm and, for but a moment, calming the torrent that was her thoughts as his head snapped with the motion, cheeks already reddened by the bite of outside’s cold unbalanced by the richer pink that now blossoms across his left. It is a sight to watch that square jaw, strongly defined, work with what she imagined to be bitten back insults, or perhaps his own rage being caught in his teeth, his hand rising to rub where she had struck. And yet the words he gives don’t insult her character, simple and more proper than her own venomous greetings. It works merely to rile her ire more.

“Hello, Ms Crane.”

“Is it not enough that you unsettled my standing within society, that you have to now lay those same designs upon my cousin?”

“You’re talking trite; I have no such ‘designs.’” There is the scorn she knows he carries, curled deep in his gut and baring its teeth in the smallest of gestures, the simplest of words – it matches her own beast, that quelled temper that only he manages to provoke. She wishes it was mirrored, that if she alone could not have his love then maybe his anger could be hers, but it wasn’t the case and she is loath at the thought he may own a part of her, no matter how unpleasant that part may be.

“You have lied to me enough that I have no reason to place merit in your word to contraries, Mr Smasher, not when all I know stands against you.” His brow, that strict thing that sits atop characteristically narrowed eyes, draws to meet in the middle, a conference of thoughts she both wishes to be privy to and desires to interrupt in tandem. “I am merely curious in what lies you have fed her, and if they were perhaps from the same trough as the slop I ate from your hand.”

“I don’t recall an instance of ever lying to you.”

“A shame then, that I was such a fool to not notice how thoughtless your promises were that you can’t even remember the dishonesty of them yourself. Because I doubt that slap was hard enough to wipe them from your memory.” And despite her anger stepping aside, letting the hurt she had managed to hide for the better part of a decade seep through in the rough edge of her voice, he has the audacity to smile – to laugh! A rumbling sound, rolling through his chest to shake those broad shoulders in minute quakes. And ever bold enough to take liberties he has no right to, his fingers rise to crook under her chin, the hardened skin of a working man rough against her own unmarred and soft, tilting her head upwards so she has no option but to meet his stern eyes – to bear witness to their softening, to the crinkling at their edges in amusement. It’s a mockery how her heart still skips at the view, that her thoughts veer to the beauty of it even now when she knows it to be the grin of a rake. A greater mockery still is that she knows how those lips will feel against her own, against her skin, the texture of the small scar that mars his bottom lip, the warmth of his breath that should be foul with poitín instead sweetened by anise comfits. The worst of it all, an offense she inflicts upon her own pride, is the longing to feel them against her again.

“Oh, I have missed you.” He croons, as soft and sweet as the nothings he had whispered when they lay together in his bed, nothing between them with even the cotton sheets kicked aside against the summer’s heat, dipping his head so that her longing may be cut short. It would be a simple matter, an easy motion of rocking onto the tip of her toes to close the scant distance propriety would already deign scandalous enough to question her virtues over, a mere press of her lips to his and their dance could begin anew. He would lead, as he always did despite her efforts to the contrary, wrangling against his demand as she did even when she fancied they might have something of a future together, his tongue would glide gently across her bottom lip and dip into her mouth at the vaguest of invitations.

It would all be so easy, so painfully familiar. A well tread mistake; one she had promised herself she wouldn’t make again for she had trailed the path so readily that there was no need to pave it, not when he was engaged to her blood and not when she had designs that extended beyond England and yet – and yet, she presses forward and up, locking her lips to his at not the detriment of her heart but the encouragement of it; that wounded organ she thought trying to escape the inevitability of pain was as foolish as the rest of her, its efforts not to flee but to bury itself in his chest, nestling close to the drum of his own.

Damn it all, she had missed him too.

end of the year book stuff tagged by @carriagelamp

How many books did you read this year?

does comic books count? if yes then i didn't count, if no then i'm pretty sure just two (but comics should absolutely count btw)

Did you reread anything? What?

i always reread servamp all the time so i can write Essays. also i reread katekyo hitman reborn for nostalgia and crossover reasons. TECHNICALLY i reread dante's inferno even though i never finished it because i'm not used to classic so i have to repeat the paragraphs before Getting it

What were your top five books of the year?

GIDEON THE NINTH!!! also Superman Smashes the Klan. the rest of the top 5 is servamp, unfortunately

Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

if i have never read tamsyn muir's homestuck fic before then it would have been her, but because i have that means she's an old fave-- oH i guess ryohgo narita counts? i knew he wrote durarara but i never truly managed to appreciate his writing until i read dead mount deathplay

What genre did you read the most of?

fantasy, duh

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

too like a lightning by ada palmer. i keep forgetting i already have an e-book of it

What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?

i dont use goodreads thumbs up emoji

Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones?

yeah, finally reading original novels again. im trying to beat my ADHD so i can devour books the way i did during childhood

Did you get into any new genres?

new genre huh uhhhh... no. i know what i like

What was your favorite new release of the year?

i don't follow new release i just browse the bookstores and hope something speaks to me

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

gideon the ninth

Any books that disappointed you?

i dropped a lot of books and nothing this year has disappointed me enough for me to remember their titles

What were your least favorite books of the year?

bungou stray dogs look the light novels are still REALLY well written. i also appreciate how beautiful the translation can be. but the canon storyline fucking sucks. it betrays its theme when it comes to handling abusers by making this little girl who gets physically abused by her dad as a form of discipline to look up to him as a hero because dad's a cop

What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

i don't care about something like that

Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

i don't follow book awards either

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

i tried reading blue lock and it's the worst sports manga i have ever read. i can't get over how stupid the premise is. soccer is a team sport you idiot (note that this book didnt disappoint me because i never had any expectations for it in the first place)

Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

oh yeah JK Haru is a Sex Worker in Another World. I went into it expecting a cheap smutty story but turns out it's a pretty feminist narrative about sex workers and how no matter talented a woman is as long as the environment around her is aggressively and violently patriarchal those talents that would make men a hero would make women accused as demons-- but that's okay because you don't need the power to slay an entire army to change the world. sometimes, eating at a cafe in a world where women arent allowed to go outside without a chaperone is more revolutionary than magic that can burn a horde of monsters into cinders

How many books did you buy?

more than five

Did you use your library?

there is no usable library around me

What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

i dont follow new release remember

Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama?

oh yeh i watch them from the sideline with popcorn and all, thats crazy

What’s the longest book you read?

dante's inferno

What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book?

back when i was a kid i read three pjo books in one day. i don't do that anymore

Did you DNF anything? Why?

i read reeeeeeally slow now so it's less not finishing and more like taking long breaks inbetween

What reading goals do you have for next year?

finish gideon the ninth so i can read the next one

13 Books

I was tagged by @leatherjacketmixtapes! Thank you for the tag. Let's talk about some books.

1.) The Last Book I Read

The Score by Elle Kennedy. Book #3 in the Off-Campus series.

2.) A Book I Recommend

I've really been wanting to recommend The One by John Marrs lately. It was a book that had me gasping aloud while reading. Quickly followed by, "Oh, he's not going to do that..." "Oh my god he did that!" So many weird and fun turns. It's a weird book that was so so good. (I have more recommendations as well. That's just the one I've found myself wanting to recommend more lately.)

3.) A Book That I Couldn't Put Down

Recently, this book was Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson. I read it in like 36 hours. And that included two full work days.

4.) A Book I've Read Twice (Or More)

I love a good reread so there are a ton that would fit this one. I had fun rereading and annotating for the first time Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. But that same month I also reread a book I remember reading and loving in 5th grade. It doesn't stand up to a 24 years later reread, of course, but it was still fun. I have plans to reread The Hunger Games trilogy this year.

5.) A Book on my TBR

I have 7 physical books, 9 Kindle books, and 8 NetGalley arcs on my TBR at the moment. So let's pick one of each? I'm excited for Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I can't wait to read the novelization of Pacific Rim which is currently sitting on my Kindle. The NetGalley ARC I'm the most pumped to read is probably Icon and Inferno by Marie Lu (the second book in the Stars and Smoke series).

6.) A Book I've Put Down

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi. After managing to get through the original Shatter Me series, I should have known better than to pick up a book by this author.

7.) A Book on my Wish List

The new pretty edition of The Lies of Locke Lamora that comes out in August. Have you seen it? It's BEAUTIFUL. I also have a handful of comics/comic bindups that I would love not to have to pay for myself.

8.) A Favorite Book From Childhood

I was really into The Westing Game in 5th grade. I had another favorite series for the rest of my childhood. And then I found Twilight in high school and loved that series.

9.) A Book You Would Give to a Friend

The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes. I'm thinking of a specific friend for this one. It's a good Sci-Fi. For other friends, maybe Assistant to the Villain and/or The Foxglove King for the purely selfish reason that I want someone to talk to about these books.

10.) A Book of Poetry or Lyrics You Own

I have a bind up of all of William Shakespeare's sonnets.

11.) A Nonfiction Book You Own

I don't tend to read Nonfiction, but my well intending mother-in-law gave me a copy of Worthy: How to Believe You are Enough and Transform Your Life by Jamie Kern Lima.

12.) What Are You Currently Reading

Just Do This One Thing for Me by Laura Zimmermann. (A YA Mystery/Thriller).

13.) What Are You Planning on Reading Next

The Hemlock Queen by Hannah Whitten.

hiiii can we expect the next chapter of TOU to be out by the end of this week? i’ve already reread it too many times and I need new content cause the rest of my life sucks rn

I've learned the hard way I can't give a hard timeline for when it'll be about bc apparently the universe just sees it as me tempting it to throw a wrench in my plans lmao so hopefully you will!!

Additionally, what I can offer you as compensation for my wildly erratic posting schedule and utter lack of content for several months is this... here you go, hope you enjoy because I haven't written anything spicy in a bit and I'm feeling rusty

He fucking hates this, watching you yield without pushing back, the flame of the fight flickering out before it had the proper time to climb to the raging inferno he knows it should be. All signs might appear to point towards the current location of you

Head bowed where he’s accustomed to seeing it held high, proud and challenging. Eyes sullen and downcast where there should be that blazing gaze of yours held in them, rightfully staring Daniel down, daring him to keep it up and find how just exactly how shit of a prize it’ll win him. That fucking look, God does Max have the most dysfunctional relationship with it. It wouldn’t even be right to describe it as a love-hate relationship when hate-fuck would be a far better fit. 

He’s still working through it, but he is woefully well aware exactly how much it says about his psyche and the current status of what he likes to call his list of almost nonsensical ‘high probability to be cause for concern, if not also deeply worthy of several therapy appointments’ things that have really fucking been doing it for him lately. 

So, strictly speaking, is it surprising to anyone at all that for whatever reason the thoughts in his head start to trend toward the filthy and the nasty and the debauched when you look at him like that? He’s of the opinion that that little fact would be breaking, unexpected news to exactly no one. 

Because, yeah, okay so what if you and your half hooded eyes and your addictive fucking ability to somehow manage to look down your nose at him while you stand several inches shorter than he does makes him want to find the closest empty room with a door that locks— actually, it’s not a must have that the door locks, he doesn’t give a shit because he’s had these fantasies on repeat for an obscene number of months and if other people want to watch, he’s not about to let a little audience stop him.

But seriously,  how the fuck does one look ​​capable of convincing him that he’s small and insignificant and so far beneath you he should have to ask you for permission before he gets on his knees and begs for it, for whatever you’re willing to give him, while simultaneously making him feel larger than life, unwavering in his certainty that you’re thinking the exact same thing that he is— and you’d have absolutely no qualms about letting him bend you over the nearest flat surface and fuck the attitude right out of you-

God damnit, he has to get better about his timing with this kind of shit because now is really not the time for him to be mentally wandering off down the ‘it’s been three months since I’ve fucked anyone and its all because of you’ version of memory lane.

Squash’s Book Roundup of 2022

This year I read 68 books. My original goal was to match what I read in 2019, which was 60, but I surpassed it with quite a bit of time to spare.

Books Read In 2022:

-The Man Who Would Be King and other stories by Rudyard Kipling -Futz by Rochelle Owens -The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht -Funeral Rites by Jean Genet -The Grip of It by Jac Jemc -Jules et Jim by Henri-Pierre Roche -Hashish, Wine, Opium by Charles Baudelaire and Theophile Gautier -The Blacks: a clown show by Jean Genet -One, No One, One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello -Cain’s Book by Alexander Trocchi -The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren -Three-Line Novels (Illustrated) by Felix Feneon, Illustrated by Joanna Neborsky -Black Box Thrillers: Four Novels (They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, No Pockets in a Shroud, I Should Have Stayed Home) by Horace McCoy -The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas by Gustave Flaubert -The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco -Illusions by Richard Bach -Mole People by Jennifer Toth -The Rainbow Stories by William T Vollmann -Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse -Equus by Peter Shaffer (reread) -Ghosty Men by Franz Lidz -A Happy Death by Albert Camus -Six Miles to Roadside Business by Michael Doane -Envy by Yury Olesha -The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West -Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche -The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox -The Cat Inside by William S Burroughs -Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry -Camino Real by Tennessee Williams (reread) -The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg -The Quick & The Dead by Joy Williams -Comemadre by Roque Larraquy -The Zoo Story by Edward Albee -The Bridge by Hart Crane -A Likely Lad by Peter Doherty -The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel -The Law In Shambles by Thomas Geoghegan -The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzche -The Maids and Deathwatch by Jean Genet -Intimate Journals by Charles Baudelaire -The Screens by Jean Genet -Inferno by Dante Alighieri (reread) -The Quarry by Friedrich Durrenmatt -A Season In Hell by Arthur Rimbaud (reread) -Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century by Jed Rasula -Pere Ubu by Alfred Jarry -Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath by Anne Stevenson -Loot by Joe Orton -Julia And The Bazooka and other stories by Anna Kavan -The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda by Ishmael Reed -If You Were There: Missing People and the Marks They Leave Behind by Francisco Garcia -Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters -Indelicacy by Amina Cain -Withdrawn Traces by Sara Hawys Roberts (an unfortunate but necessary reread) -Sarah by JT LeRoy (reread) -How Lucky by Will Leitch -Gyo by Junji Ito (reread) -Joe Gould’s Teeth by Jill Lepore -Saint Glinglin by Raymond Queneau -Bakkai by Anne Carson -Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers -McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh -Moby Dick by Herman Melville -The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector -In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (reread from childhood) -Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren -The Medium is the Massage by Malcolm McLuhan

~Superlatives And Thoughts~

Fiction books read: 48 Non-fiction books read: 20

Favorite book: This is so hard! I almost want to three-way tie it between Under The Volcano, The Quick & The Dead, and The Man With The Golden Arm, but I’m not going to. I think my favorite is Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. It’s an absolutely beautiful book with such intense descriptions. The way that it illustrates the vastly different emotional and mental states of its three main characters reminded me of another favorite, Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey. Lowry is amazing at leaving narrative breadcrumbs, letting the reader find their way through the emotional tangle he’s recording. The way he writes the erratic, confused, crumbling inner monologue of the main character as he grows more and more ill was my favorite part.

Least favorite book: I’d say Withdrawn Traces, but it’s a reread, so I think I’ll have to go with Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. I dedicated a whole long post to it already, so I’ll just say that the concept of the book is great. I loved the whole idea of it. But the execution was awful. It’s like the exact opposite of Under The Volcano. The characters didn’t feel like real people, which would have been fine if the book was one written in that kind of surreal or artistic style where characters aren’t expected to speak like everyday people. But the narrative style as well as much of the dialogue was attempting realism, so the lack of realistic humanity of the characters was a big problem. The book didn’t ever give the reader the benefit of the doubt regarding their ability to infer or empathize or figure things out for themselves. Every character’s emotion and reaction was fully explained as it happened, rather than leaving the reader some breathing space to watch characters act or talk and slowly understand what’s going on between them. Points for unique idea and queer literature about actual adults, but massive deduction for the poor execution.

Unexpected/surprising book: The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox. This is the first book about archaeology I’ve ever read. I picked it up as I was shelving at work, read the inner flap to make sure it was going to the right spot, and then ended up reading the whole thing. It was a fascinating look at the decades-long attempt to crack the ancient Linear B script, the challenges faced by people who tried and the various theories about its origin and what kind of a language/script it was. The book was really engaging, the author was clearly very passionate and emotional about her subjects and it made the whole thing both fascinating and fun to read. And I learned a bunch of new things about history and linguistics and archaeology!

Most fun book: How Lucky by Will Leitch. It was literally just a Fun Book. The main character is a quadriplegic man who witnesses what he thinks is a kidnapping. Because he a wheelchair user and also can’t talk except through typing with one hand, his attempts to figure out and relay to police what he’s seen are hindered, even with the help of his aid and his best friend. But he’s determined to find out what happened and save the victim of the kidnapping. It’s just a fun book, an adventure, the narrative voice is energetic and good-natured and it doesn’t go deeply into symbolism or philosophy or anything.

Book that taught me the most: Destruction Was My Beatrice by Jed Rasula. This book probably isn’t for everyone, but I love Dadaism, so this book was absolutely for me. I had a basic knowledge of the Dadaist art movement before, but I learned so much, and gained a few new favorite artists as well as a lot of general knowledge about the Dada movement and its offshoots and members and context and all sorts of cool stuff.

Most interesting/thought provoking book: Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I annotated my copy like crazy. I never had to read it in school, but I had a blast finally reading it now. There’s just so much going on in it, symbolically and narratively. I think I almost consider it the first Modernist novel, because it felt more Modernist than Romantic to me. I had to do so much googling while reading it because there are so many obscure biblical references that are clear symbolism, and my bible knowledge is severely lacking. This book gave me a lot of thoughts about narrative and the construction of the story, the mechanic of a narrator that’s not supposed to be omniscient but still kind of is, and so many other things. I really love Moby Dick, and I kind of already want to reread it.

Other thoughts/Books I want to mention but don’t have superlatives for: Funeral Rites was the best book by Jean Genet, which I was not expecting compared to how much I loved his other works. It would be hard for me to describe exactly why I liked this one so much to people who don’t know his style and his weird literary tics, because it really is a compounding of all those weird passions and ideals and personal symbols he had, but I really loved it. Reading The Grip Of It by Jac Jemc taught me that House Of Leaves has ruined me for any other horror novel that is specifically environmental. It wasn’t a bad book, just nothing can surpass House Of Leaves for horror novels about buildings. The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren was absolutely beautiful. I went in expecting a Maltese Falcon-type noir and instead I got a novel that was basically poetry about characters who were flawed and fucked up and sad but totally lovable. Plus it takes place only a few blocks from my workplace! The Rainbow Stories by William T Vollmann was amazing and I totally love his style. I think out of all the stories in that book my favorite was probably The Blue Yonder, the piece about the murderer with a sort of split personality. Scintillant Orange with all its biblical references and weird modernization of bible stories was a blast too. The Quick & The Dead by Joy Williams was amazing and one of my favorites this year. It’s sort of surreal, a deliberately weird novel about three weird girls without mothers. I loved the way Williams plays with her characters like a cat with a mouse, introducing them just to mess with them and then tossing them away -- but always with some sort of odd symbolic intent. All the adult characters talk and act more like teens and all the teenage characters talk and act like adults. It’s a really interesting exploration of the ways to process grief and change and growing up, all with the weirdest characters. Joe Gould’s Teeth was an amazing book, totally fascinating. One of our regulars at work suggested it to me, and he was totally right in saying it was a really cool book. It’s a biography of Joe Gould, a New York author who was acquaintances with EE Cummings and Ezra Pound, among others, who said he was writing an “oral history of our time.” Lepore investigates his life, the (non)existence of said oral history, and Gould’s obsession with a Harlem artist that affected his views of race, culture, and what he said he wanted to write. McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh was so good, although I only read it because 3 out of my other 5 coworkers had read it and they convinced me to. I had read a bunch of negative reviews of Moshfegh’s other book, so I went in a bit skeptical, but I ended up really enjoying McGlue. The whole time I read it, it did feel a bit like I was reading Les Miserables fanfiction, partly from the literary style and partly just from the traits of the main character. But I did really enjoy it, and the ending was really lovely. In terms of literature that’s extremely unique in style, The Hour Of The Star by Clarice Lispector is probably top of the list this year. Her writing is amazing and so bizarre. It’s almost childlike but also so observant and philosophical, and the intellectual and metaphorical leaps she makes are so fascinating. I read her short piece The Egg And The Chicken a few months ago at the urging of my coworker, and thought it was so cool, and this little novel continues in that same vein of bizarre, charming, half-philosophical and half-mundane (but also totally not mundane at all) musings.

I'm still in the middle of reading The Commitments by Roddy Doyle (my lunch break book) and The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, but I'm not going to finish either by the end of the year, so I'm leaving them off the official list.

ask meme!

tagged by the honorable @vinelark!

three ships: Soriku from Kingdom Hearts, Kurofai from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, and Hella/Adaire/Adelaide from Friends at the Table [stream Hieron its the podcast of the summer]

first ever ship: Sora/Riku my beloved... It's been like 18 years and I'm still here kicking and screaming about them so you know they're powerful and in love

last song: VIOLENCE by QUEEN BEE

last movie: Glass Onion!

currently reading: W.I.T.CH [reread the first book last night thanks to vinelark's first ship response lmao], PARTY EVERY OTHER WEEKEND (Peow #2) by Jane Mai, and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

currently watching: My sister has coerced me into watching Survivor, The Circle and Singles Inferno, but I'm also digging through the live action Sailor Moon, PGSM, and screaming about it in my heart.

currently consuming: Sprite! I should be drinking water though lmao,,,

currently craving: [a month and a half into an insomnia backswing] I think a fic really digging into and dealing with Tim Drake's nightmarish insomnia would be neat-

Tagging: @merthurlin @luckydicekirby

1, 6, 12, and 18 for the book asks?

Thanks for the ask!!!

1: book you've reread the most times? Honestly I've lost count but most likely A New Dawn.

6: what books have you read in the last month? hmmm.... Well, I took out the novelization of TROS, Inferno Squad, Princess Leia: Moving Target, and The Legends Of Luke Skywalker from my local library, so there's that; the third book of Wings Of Fire (The Hidden Kingdom); and A New Dawn. There's probably something I'm forgetting there but I have no idea what it could be.

12: did you enjoy any compulsory high school readings? Well, I haven't had very many and they were... okay? I like Star Wars books better though. Better than what my English classes have been having me read.

18: do you like historical books? which time period? Ooh... that's actually really hard. I love historical books, as many as I can get my hands on, but lately I've been most interested in ancient Greek history and that tends to be hard to get historical books on. (So I've had to resort to Youtube when I can't find anything.) The southern part of Italy is fascinating as well, I should get some historical books on that.

who is your favorite poet?

I'm not entirely sure I've got favourites in that way. The first two names that came to mind were Eliot and Dante, but I mean...

Like okay, I do think The Waste Land is the greatest poem, perhaps the greatest work of literature, to emerge from the Twentieth Century. But we all know that Eliot is an absolute piece of shit and doesn't deserve any reverence, right.

And as for Dante, I feel like I ought to discount any poetry I’ve only read in translation, because English is the only language I've ever spoken fluently enough to really appreciate the poetry thereof. I did have a facing copy of the Inferno as a teen, and I did actually read large swathes of the Florentine, and I've also read bits of Verlaine or Schiller or Virgil or what have you in their original, but did I ever really get it? (I did, actually, yes.)

Another name that springs to mind (not least because I was discussing his genius the other day, but I daresay I'd have thought of him regardless) is Derek Walcott. In many ways, maybe, he's like the Eliot we really deserve.

If I'm honest, someone like Spencer Krug or Dan Bejar would probably rank pretty highly for me, to say nothing of the likes of Leonard Cohen or Peter Sinfield or I don't know Bruce Springsteen or Chuck D. And after all why should we remove pop from the canon??

And on a similar note, I actually quite like Tolkien's poetry. It's not exactly profound or moving, but I really appreciate how it updates Old and Middle English conventions to Modern English, and I've spent too much time grappling with the form of the Perle Poet for this not to resonate with me on some level.

In those technical terms, I have always been impressed by the Romantics, especially Byron, whom I appreciate for his fusion of punk rock fuck you thrust and legit sublime classicism. Even Wordsworth (whom I kinda hate) is kinda chef's kiss when it comes to foot and rhyme and metre. That old school shit really self-harmonises in ways that I think no one even recognises since like Larkin or even Yeats.

ALL THAT SAID: something which I've mentioned now and then is that when I've recently reread Gramsci or Mao or Fanon especially, but also like Adorno or Deleuze or Haraway (all but the last of which in translation), I realise how much they really speak to me, touch me, move me, more than, you know, Carol Ann Duffy or Mary Oliver.

Pourquoi tout simplement ne pas essayer de toucher l'autre, de sentir l'autre, de me révéler l'autre? Ma liberté ne m'est-elle donc pas donnée pour édifier le monde du Toi?

Just try to tell me that's not poetry, and I will show you, mon semblable, mon frère, a reader who cannot read. Or this:

This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia. It is an imagination of a feminist speaking in tongues to strike fear into the circuits of the supersavers of the new right. It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories. Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.

In the immortal words of Nigel Tufnel: That's poetry that is.

Deep in Tartarus is the Titan Tityos who receives the same punishment as Prometheus (re: the whole liver/eagle thing) but unlike Prometheus this guy sucks

Now that I think about it, Dante would probably love the concept behind Pioneer of the Stars, he that ended Inferno XXXIV with e infine uscimmo a riveder le Stelle (with all the sheer, ferocious hope this little line express), Purgatorio with puro e disposto a salire alle stelle and carefully put “stars” at the last word of each cantica/part of the Commedia. 

After all, Ulysses isn’t in Hell bc he always longed for more, on the contrary, that longing of his is praised and presented as inspirational for the whole chant.