(B) 73% | More than Satisfactory Notes: A ribald mood, but far less nude than what it was before, a logic mess but, nonetheless, the art's still worth (B) 73% | More than Satisfactory Notes: A ribald mood, but far less nude than what it was before, a logic mess but, nonetheless, the art's still worth the chore.
(B) 74% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Review pending re-read. Individual reviews for included issues can be found here: - Muse[image] Review to come...
(B) 74% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Review pending re-read. Individual reviews for included issues can be found here: - Muse #1: Celia - Muse #2: Coraline...more
(B+) 77% | Good Notes: Wherein love is blind, undefined, limitless potential, but also illusion, addiction, delusion and capriciously torrential.
*Check(B+) 77% | Good Notes: Wherein love is blind, undefined, limitless potential, but also illusion, addiction, delusion and capriciously torrential.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary: (view spoiler)[
Progress updates:
02/13/2025 - Preamble (1) I read this book a really long time ago. It's one of the very first books I read when I started reading recreationally. - I chose it because I'd read "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" for a university English class and always had Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez down as an author whose work I wanted to explore more of. - Incidentally, it's still the only GarcÃa Márquez book I've read, and now for the second time.
02/14/2025 - Chapter One (1) "Oh, Señor, she said, with a mournful lament, that wasn't made for coming in but for going out." - At the risk of sounding juvenile or crass, there's been an awful lot of butt talk so far—butt talk in seemingly every way conceivable. - I guess this is meant to underscore the unnamed narrator's gross and profane morality and mindset, and to draw stark contrast with the 14-year-old virgin he seeks to defile.
02/16/2025 - Chapter Two (1) "For the first time in my long life I felt capable of killing someone." - All because someone publicly cast into doubt his knowledge of classical music. - It's a window into what he values. (2) "Poor thing, she's right here in front of me. Do you want to talk to her? No, for God's sake, I said." - Of course, because then she'd be an imperfect human being instead of an uncorrupted ideal of youth and beauty.
02/20/2025 - Chapter Three (1) The girl is both explicitly and implicitly compared with the old man's cat. - They're both beautiful and rescues of a sort. - The girl is his imaginary housemate, while the cat is his actual housemate. - He knows the cat too intimately: "The stink of his rancid urine and warm shit contaminated everything." - He knows the girl not at all, remaking their brothel love nest into an oasis of ersatz domesticity.
02/25/2025 - Chapter Four (1) We finally get to the point where the virgin speaks, which initially excites the narrator, though upon hearing her "plebian" voice he laments: "I preferred her asleep." - As long as she's a blank slate, bereft of idiosyncrasies, he can project upon her whatever he desires. - This absence of individuality backfires later when she disappears, and he sees her in every young girl he encounters and hears about.
03/03/2025 - Chapter Five (1) The narrator attempts to pawn his mother's jewels to continue financing his brothel habit. The jewels, it turns out, are fake, which he ends up keeping for sentimental reasons. - Ultimately, the only value that matters here is sentimental value. His love affair with Delgadina is as artificial as his treasured family jewels. (2) Love here inflames many things: illusion, addiction, delusion, affliction, etc. (hide spoiler)]...more
(A) 85% | Extraordinary Notes: Sight supplied through child's eyes, a real work of art, on being tamed, views reframed, and looking with your heart.
*Ch(A) 85% | Extraordinary Notes: Sight supplied through child's eyes, a real work of art, on being tamed, views reframed, and looking with your heart.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary: (view spoiler)[
Progress updates:
12/21/2024 - Preamble [image] (1) 2024 is nearly in the books and I feel like squeezing in one more audiobook before it's all over. - I prefer to start new years with as clean a slate as possible, and this book's short enough that I'll almost certainly be able to count it among this year's total. (2) I also like to finish off each year with a super-popular book, and this one nicely fits the bill.
12/28/2024 - Chapters 1�15 [image] (1) Bower is an interesting choice of narrator. Australian accents don't exactly scream Continental Europe, as this book does expressly. (2) This begins both odd and bland, but then starts to build up layers of meaning. - You realize that the tales recounted aren't trivial but symbolic. - Like any piece of art, it's about being able to see and appreciate the symbols.
12/31/2024 - Chapters 16�27 [image] (1) This is all about why stars are magical and can make you cry. - Initially, it almost seems like a book of individual parables, each with hints of philosophy and poetry, and could have come off as throwaway if the meaning didn't continue to build throughout. (2) Listening to an audiobook that regularly refers to absent illustrations does take some getting used to. (hide spoiler)]...more
(B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Forgettable fare, nothing with flair, nor smart or tight enough, no standout tale, punchlines fail, all really (B) 75% | More than Satisfactory Notes: Forgettable fare, nothing with flair, nor smart or tight enough, no standout tale, punchlines fail, all really recent stuff.
(B+) 76% | Good Notes: First half's great, some decent weight, the second, not so much: the later tales can often flail, forget the plot, and such.
*Pro(B+) 76% | Good Notes: First half's great, some decent weight, the second, not so much: the later tales can often flail, forget the plot, and such.
(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Bit clunky/weird, winter-geared (not all holiday-themed), mostly clicks, a motley mix: main story's a sorcery scheme.
*Progress u(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Bit clunky/weird, winter-geared (not all holiday-themed), mostly clicks, a motley mix: main story's a sorcery scheme.
(B+) 78% | Good Notes: Fun quintet, a solid set, not goofy (that's a pun), on reputations, stress vacations, tricks and schemes that get undone.
*Progre(B+) 78% | Good Notes: Fun quintet, a solid set, not goofy (that's a pun), on reputations, stress vacations, tricks and schemes that get undone.
(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Five Euro tales, no real fails, the oldest one the peak: you'd never know it's ancient though, looks ageless not antique.
*Progre(B+) 76% | Good Notes: Five Euro tales, no real fails, the oldest one the peak: you'd never know it's ancient though, looks ageless not antique.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary: (view spoiler)[
Progress updates:
06/08/2024 - Preamble (1) It's been a very long time since I first read this. Really, this is one of the earliest novels I read when I began reading recreationally. - I remember at the time not getting what all the hype was about and thought it, while quite well done, was fairly ordinary. - It'll be interesting to see if I'll change my tune at all after so many years. (2) No real chapter breaks, which is a shame. I like boundaries.
06/09/2024 - Prologue (1) You know, I'd just been wondering why the original cover art was "Narcissus" by Caravaggio. I couldn't understand why. Well, the prologue answered that question immediately albeit not directly. - My first thought is it's symbolic of this book in concept. The prologue tells the story of Narcissus, but then adds to it. Which is to say this book might use existing folklore as a base to build its fiction upon.
06/12/2024 - Andalusia (1) Melchizedek's interesting. He says he's the Biblical King of Salem, who dealt with Abraham. So, he's either a liar/conman or in some way divine. - You'd think Santiago, who attended seminary, would be either awed or skeptical. He seems neither. - Presuming he's divine, the way he disrupts Santiago's life, overturning the status quo, makes him an archetypical trickster. - This is magical realism, I suppose.
06/13/2024 - Tangier (1) "The boy knew that in money there was magic; whoever has money is never really alone." - True, albeit cynical. You're never alone because people want your money. - Of course, it implies the inverse is also true. Losing all his money means he's now really alone and has no ability to make things magically happen. (2) This whole Tangier section is about blessings in disguise and not settling for the familiar.
06/14/2024 (1) - The Caravan and Oasis (1) "Once you get into the desert, there's no going back, and, when you can't go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward." - That's the difference between the Crystal Merchant, who looks back and never sees Mecca, and the Englishman, who builds a forge in the desert. - This whole section is like one big Nike ad. So many metaphors all amounting to the same "Just Do It!" call to action.
06/14/2024 (2) - The Desert (1) It's interesting how figures here tie themselves into a Biblical lineage, as if to imply this story is Biblical as well. - We saw this previously with the old man who insisted he was the Biblical Melchizedek. - At the oasis, the tribal elder says they were the very people who purchased Joseph and brought him to Egypt. - Like Joseph, Santiago is a foreigner who saves the locals and is made a court official.
06/15/2024 (1) - The Military Camp (1) It's around this point in the book that you realize the titular "Alchemist" isn't the alchemist character, but Santiago. - Because turning lead into gold is a metaphor for leaving a mundane life to pursue treasure. (2) "Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives." - Hitting rock bottom usually spurs people into action. - That's why the boy was robbed of everything three times.
06/15/2024 (2) - Epilogue (1) Ultimately, this is one of those "it's not you it's me" books. - I can understand why it inspires so many people and why it's one of the most popular books on this site. - But (call me jaded, cynical or a grump) the book-long refrain that the universe conspires to make your dreams come true just seems quixotic and trite. (2) Overall, a better experience than before, but nothing to make me change my rating. (hide spoiler)]...more
(A) 85% | Extraordinary Notes: It's a logical, captivating mystery where everything clicks into place. It gives backwoods Sweden a Transylvania feel.(A) 85% | Extraordinary Notes: It's a logical, captivating mystery where everything clicks into place. It gives backwoods Sweden a Transylvania feel....more
(A) 85% | Extraordinary Notes: Opens rough, like stalks of wheat, bit raw to eat, but flavors build as meaning's milled and by the end it tastes a trea(A) 85% | Extraordinary Notes: Opens rough, like stalks of wheat, bit raw to eat, but flavors build as meaning's milled and by the end it tastes a treat....more
(B+) 78% | Good Notes: Ambrosial artistically, it's cheerful cheesecake: a breezy burlesque, salacious by suggestion, but eminently endearing.
*Progress(B+) 78% | Good Notes: Ambrosial artistically, it's cheerful cheesecake: a breezy burlesque, salacious by suggestion, but eminently endearing.
(B+) 77% | Good Notes: A silly story, slightly strained, and short on subtlety, it's still a solid satire: sly and seductive in spite of shortcomings.
*(B+) 77% | Good Notes: A silly story, slightly strained, and short on subtlety, it's still a solid satire: sly and seductive in spite of shortcomings.
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