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dillydedalus · 5 years

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what i read in july

THAT’S MORE LIKE IT aka i’m finally out of the (relative) reading slump for good & my bro james joyce was there

men explain things to me, rebecca solnit the original mansplaining essay is great, and still scarily relevant; the others in this collection (most on feminist issues) are also quite good; some aspects are a bit dated & problematic so be aware of that. 2.5/5

erschlagt die armen!, shumona sinha (tr. from french, not available in english) short but very impactful novella about a young french woman, originally from india, who works as an interpreter in the asylum system and becomes more & more broken by this system of inhumane bureaucracy and suffering, until she snaps and hits a migrant over the head with a wine bottle. full of alienation and misery and beautiful but disturbing language - the title translates to ‘beat the poor to death’ so like. yeah. 3.5/5

fire & blood: a history of the targaryen family I, george r r martin look, it’s a 700-page-long fake history book about a fictional ruling dynasty in a fictional world, and i’m just That Obsessed & Desperate about asoiaf (and i don’t even care about the targs That Much). anyway, now i know more about the targs than any ruling family from, you know, real history, which is like, whatever. this is pretty enjoyable if you are That Obsessed, although i will say that some bits are much better than others (there are some dry dull years even in everyone’s fav overly dramatic dragon-riding incest-loving family) and the misogyny really is. a lot. too much. way too much. BUT i did really like Good Best Queen Alysanne (her husband king joe harris is alright too i guess) and i found my new westerosi otp, cregan stark/aly blackwood, who both have Big Dick Energy off the fucking charts. 3.5/5 (+0.5 points for cregan and aly’s combined BDE)

the old drift, namwali serpell hugely ambitious sprawling postcolonial nation-building novel about zambia, told thru three generations of three families, as well as a chorus of mosquitoes (consistently the best & smartest parts). there is A LOT going on, in terms of characters, of plot points, of references to history (the zambian space programme) and literature (finally my knowledge of heart of darkness paid off) and thematically, and honestly it was a bit too much, a bit too tangled & fragmented & drifty, and in the end i probably admire this book more than i liked it, but serpell’s writing is incredibly smart and funny and full of electrical sparks 3.5/5

a severed head, iris murdoch the original love dodecahedron (not that i counted). iris murdoch is fucking WILD and i love her for it. this is a strange darkly funny little farce about some rich well-educated londoners and their bizarre & rather convoluted love lives. not as grandiosely wild as the sea the sea, but fun nevertheless. 3/5

midnight in chernobyl, adam higginbotham jumping on the hype bandwagon caused by the hbo series (very weird to call the current fascination with chernobyl a hype bandwagon but you know). interesting & well-written & accessible (tho the science is still totally beyond me) & gets you to care about the people involved. lots of human failure, lots of human greatness, set against the background of the almost eldritch threat of radioactivity (look up the elephant foot & see if you don’t get chills), and acute radiation syndrome which is THE MOST TERRIFYING THING ON EARTH . 3.5/5

normal people, sally rooney honestly this is incredibly engrossing & absorbing once you get used to how rooney completely ignores ‘show don’t tell’ (it works!), i pretty much read the whole thing in one slow workday (boss makes a dollar, i make a dime so i read books on my phone on company time, also i genuinely had nothing to do). i also think rooney is really good at precisely capturing the ~millenial experience in a way that feels very true, especially the transition from school to uni. BUT i really disliked the ending, the book never engages with the political themes it introduces (esp. class and gender) as deeply as it could and the bdsm stuff never really gets TIED UP LOL. so overall idk: 3.5/5

störfall: nachrichten eines tages, christa wolf quiet reflective undramatic little book narrated by a woman waiting to hear about the outcome of her brother’s brain surgery on the day of the catastrophe at chernobyl - throughout the day she puts down her thoughts about her brother and the events unfolding at chernobyl, as well as the double uncertainty she is trying to cope with. really interesting to read such an immediate reaction to chernobyl (the book came out less than a year after chernobyl). 2.5/5

the man in the high castle, philip k dick it was fine? quick & entertaining alternative history where the axis powers win the war, some interesting bits of worldbuilding (like the draining of the mediterranean which was apparently a real idea in the early 20th century?) but overall it’s just felt a bit disjointed & unsatisfying to me. 2.5/5

fugitive pieces, anne michaels very poetic & thoughtful novel about the holocaust, grief, remembrance & the difference between history and memory, intergenerational trauma, love, geology and the weather. i’m not sure how much this comes together as a novel, but it is absolutely beautifully written (the author is a poet as well) and very affective. 3.5/5

american innovations, rivka galchen short collection of bizarre & often funny short stories about neurotic women whose furniture flies away, or who grow an extra breast, or who are maybe too occupied with financial details. very vague & very precise at once, which seems to be the thing with these sort of collections. 3/5

fool’s assassin (fitz & the fool #1), robin hobb YAASS i’m back in the realm of the elderlings!!! i thought this was one of the weaker installments in the series - i still enjoyed it a lot, and Feelings were had, but it just doesn’t quite fit together pacing-wise & some of the characterisation struck me as off (can i get some nuance for shun & lant please?) and tbh fitz is at peak Selfcentred Dumbass Levels & it drove me up the fucking wall. molly, nettle & bee deserve better. still, completely HYPE for the rest of the trilogy. 3.5/5

JAMES JOYCE JULY

note: i decided not to read dubliners bc it’s my least fav of joyce’s major works & too bleak & repetitive for my mood right now AND while i planned not to reread finnegans wake bc……. it’s finnegans wake…. i kinda do want to read it now (but i also. really don’t.) so idk yet.

a portrait of the artist as a young man, james joyce y’all. i read this book at least once a year between the ages of 15 and 19, it’s beyond formative, it is burnt into my brain, and reading it now several years later it is still everything, soaring and searing (that searing clarity of truth, thanks burgess) and poetic and dirty, and stephen is baby, and a pretentious self-important little prick and i love him & i am him (or was him as only a pretentious self-important teenage girl reading joyce can be him - because this truly is a book that should be read in your late teens when you feel everything as intensely and world-endingly and severely as my boy stephen does and every new experience feels like the world changing). anyway i love this book & i love stephen dedalus, bird-like, hawk-like, knife-blade, aloof, alienated, severe and stern, a poet-priest-prophet if he could ever get over himself, baby baby baby. 5/5

exiles, james joyce well. there’s a reason joyce is known as a novelist. this is….. a failed experiment, maybe. a fairly boring play about an adulterous love-square and uh… love beyond morality and possession maybe??? about how much it would suck for joyce to return to ireland??? and tbh it’s not terribly interesting. 2/5

travesties, tom stoppard a wild funny irreverent & smart antic comedy inspired by the fact that during ww1, james joyce, lenin, and dadaist tristan tzara were all in neutral zurich, more or less simultaneously; they probably never met, but in this play they do, as dadaist poetry, socialist art critique, and a james joyce high on his own genius & in desperate need of some cash while writing ulysses, AND the importance of being earnest (joyce is putting on a production of it) all collide in the memories of henry carr, who played algernon & later sued joyce over money (tru facts). not my fav stoppard (that’s arcadia) but it’s funny & fizzy & smart & combines many many things that i love. 4/5

ulysses, james joyce look i’m not really going to tell y’all anything new about ulysses, but it really has everything, it’s warm & human(e) & cerebral & difficult & funny & sad & healing & i always get a lot out of it even tho there’s bits (a lot of them) i’ll never wrap my head around. ultimate affirmation of humanity or whatever. also stephen dedalus is baby. 5/5

dedalus, chris mccabe the fact that this book (sequel to ulysses about what stephen dedalus might have done the next day) exists and was published ON MY BIRTHDAY is proof that the universe loves me.

anyway this is very very good, very very clever, extremely good at stephen (less good at bloom but his parts are still good), engages w/ ulysses, portrait & hamlet (& others) very cleverly & does some cool meta and experimental shit. y’all it has stephen talking to a contemporary therapist about how he’s stuck in joyce’s text which is all about joyce & very little about whoever stephen is when he’s not joyce’s alter ego/affectionate but slightly amused look at younger self and ithaca is an interview w/ the author about how his relationship to his dad influenced his response to ulysses and I’M INTO IT. the oxen of the sun chapter replaces the whole ‘gestation of english prose’ w/ just slightly rewriting the first pages of about 10 novels published between ulysses and now & it does lolita w/ “bloom, thorn of stephen’s sleep, light in his eyes. his sire, his son’ and i lit. screamed. anyway i don’t want to give this 5 stars (yet) bc i think some of the experimental stuff ended up a bit gimmicky & didn’t add that much to the text but fuck. that’s my boy & i want to reread it right now. 4.5/5 ALSO it’s a crime no literary weirdo woman has written ‘a portrait of the artist’s sister’ about delia ‘dilly’ dedalus, shadow of stephen’s mind, quick far & daring, teaching herself french from a 3rd hand primer while her father drinks the nonexistent family fortune away and her older brother is getting drunk on a beach & starting fights w/ soldiers bc he’s a smartarse

#the books i read #long post

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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March Progress Updates, and April Goals:

This hopefully will not get to long. Progress made in March.

Chinese progress:

Chinese novel chapters read in March: 64 (most are 寒舍, these chapters average at 10 pages on my phone compared to the usual 20, so also for size comparison’s sake this is equal to around 32 20-page chapters... still I think this is most chapters I’ve read in a month so far)

Chapters I studied with Listening-Reading Method: 4 (L-R to The Glass Maiden, Love and Redemption’s novel. I only did it as I felt like it though... and as usual the way audio didn’t line up to chapter endings made it hard, so next time I do L-R I’m still planning on Guardian or Silent Reading. That said, this amounted probably 2+ hours of audio. Currently on The Glass Maiden: chapter 5, Audio 12)

Chinese shows watched: 10. (At the beginning of this month I was watching Word of Honor and Killer and Healer raw, until english subs came out. I did well enough to follow the plot so yay I plan to take advantage of that next time I can’t wait for subs ToT but I still don’t catch nuance super well so the eng subs I still picked up new stuff... related to this I definitely think I could rewatch Guardian in chinese only now, if I wanted to pay attention to the chinese lines/wording, especially since that plot I know well already. A big part of why I’m missing some nuance is usually the first watch I’m trying to catch all the plot so some things go over my head, then if I rewatched a woh or kah episode I caught more little line details)

Chinese Spoonfed Audio listened to: 11 (I was in the habit of walking and listening to one file per day, but then I twisted my ankle lol ToT. I would love to just... finish these files. That said they make great chill practice/review)

Japanese progress:

Japanese Audio Lessons: 1 (I was trying to do something with this - very good resource - but ended up not focusing on it).

Japanese KH Let’s Play watched: 6 (so 30 minute to 1 hour lets play videos, where I listened and looked up words as desired in jisho.org. I also watched a few random things like Ratchet and Clank I found in japanese lol, but I’m only counting this cause its what I watched for a decent length of time and paid attention to)

Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide, lessons read: 10 (I’m almost done with part 1 which has 11 lessons - i think the guide has 3 main parts. I’m trying to read ahead of doing the Nukemarine deck’s tae kim relevant portions)

Nukemarine Memrise decks: finished LLJ 3 - Kanji, 289/318 finished in LLJ 4 Tae Kim part 1. (Ideally I would like to get done LLJ 4 part 2, LLJ 5 before I start trying to PLAY a video game in japanese again. LLJ 4 parts cover beginner grammar, and LLJ 5 is 1000 common words. Long scale ideally, I would like to finish Nukemarine’s first 8-10 decks, since I think that sets a good foundation and utilizes all the main parts of it - the rest is like more in depth intermediate/advanced niche stuff. From there I’d like to just go back to immersing, maybe read my 2 textbooks that focus on Japanese Reading eventually. The short term goal this month was to do the OLD stuff I’ve done in these decks years ago, and surpass it. Which I DID. As of this month I’ve gone farther in the Nukemarine decks than I did last time I studied japanese or tried to play japanese games/read manga. So good job mejo! ToT You are officially studying new material. I’m not... in the most flashcard mood ever, and not really in the mood to read Tae Kim very much... but doing those 2 things has been the most effective study this month so its what I ended up doing)

So yeah... made some decent progress this month. As usual I did not do what I expected to do. I REALLY really thought in February or March I’d finally Listen Reading Method go through Guardian but lol... still hasn’t happened. That said, I found files for all of Silent Reading’s audiobook and Guardian’s audiobook I already had (and because of how avenuex made it - the chapters LINE UP perfect with the text). So I am prepared to L-R a priest book I love whenever the motivation finally hits.

Reading has been going a lot better than I ever could have expected. And I did try a few pages of a few other novels - I still have many words to learn lol. The second I switched to a new novel my words I had to look up increased a LOT. That’s good in a way though, it means the next novel I go to will teach me a lot too. At the moment, I plan to kind of just stick to hanshe - and probably this author - for a while. At least as far as intensive reading where I look up each word. The ease of reading feels good and I’m not ready to give that up quite yet (I will be once I get invested in a new story tho probably lol). I have also been slowly extensively reading Guardian, and if I do pick books for extensive reading they’ll likely be priest ones for now. Just because I have english translations available to reference and read first, and I’m familiar with priest’s writing style, so its an extensive reading material I can pick up a lot of words from context when I read. This past month Guardian was the only novel I really extensively read a bit - and with the eng translation to help, it went well.

I also checked HSK words this month, and my brain forgot 100-200 HSK 4 words, and like half of HSK 5. Its not an issue right now since I’m studying to read and watch shows, not to pass an HSK test. But its something I should keep in mind. I got tempted to go through HSK flashcards but... genuinely I need to separate my study activities if I intend to focus and make progress. When I’m doing flashcards for chinese AND japanese I just end up giving up and doing none. The only time study methods don’t seem to interact is when its immersion, since i don’t have to ‘progress’ through material I just have to choose to do ‘some random thing’. (So no lesson 1-10 etc that I must do in order, just any random video or chapter read counts).

So in light of that, my April Study Plan I would like to be mostly the same. Will it work out that way, who knows? But Ideally:

Chinese April Plan:

Read chinese chapters. (intensively - hanshe or X, extensively optional - Guardian probably)

Try to Listen Reading Method a bit (probably Guardian, or Silent Reading)

Optional - continue listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio (would be nice to get into the 20s)

Optional - watch some shows in chinese (realistically I predict that if 2ha’s Immortality drops in April I will 100% be doing this if english subs aren’t immediately available, and doing as many eps as needed so this count could well be 10-20 eps lol by the end of April. but if english subs are then I probably will be too busy to bother watching anything with chinese subs only. this activity is highly dependent of if i will have a reason to)

Related - read through Guardian and/or Silent Reading in english (while this is not directly studying at ALL, the more of these I read the less I’ll avoid ‘L-R’ since the prep-work and time L-R takes will be shorter, also then it’ll be enjoyable refreshing instead of me trying to follow the plot for the first time... same with extensive reading, if i’ve read in english then the extensive reading is less mentally draining and less daunting and i tend to do it more... this past month my Guardian extensive reading was mainly just restrained by how much i’d read beforehand in english)

Yes, mainly big reading focus again, with optional activities where I might listen more. L-R would ideally work great alongside me reading, just because then I’d be practicing both listening skills and reading.

Japanese April Plan:

Continue reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide (would be nice to get through at least 10 more lessons)

Continue through Nukemarine LLJ decks (intense goal is to get through LLJ 4-part 1, LLJ 4-part 2, and LLJ 5... though I would be floored and happy if I just get a few hundred into LLJ 5...)

Optional - try to play some Nier in japanese at end of month (dream goal is I get through enough of Nukemarine by the end of April to play the game getting remastered IN japanese TOO but. That’s probably a pipe dream lol. I’m getting the remastered Nier at end of April and if its like Automata then it’ll come with both language options, and it would be very cool to have an english and a japanese save file...although the language is ??? since its like sci fi fantasy so if its hard i might not play it long... but just to have a foundation enough to even play it a little would be cool. I could always play KH2 if i feel like maybe i have hope lol)

Optional - watch more japanese lets plays (fun, easy, why not)

Bolded is what I really PLAN to do in April. But we will see lol.

#study plan #april study plan #april #march progress #progress #march

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roominthecastle · 7 years

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Everyone is making a house call to Grissom, where we're y'all when Sara was here lol? And now noone is there to make him soup or shave him apparently :(( *no but srsly, why is everyone sick this episode? Was there some kind of an epidemy on set or sth? *It's Sara calling right? His face just light up)) I'm glad they stay in touch *wait, are those Mythbusters?? Too many nights those crazy dudes kept me company. Fun times... *Where's Sophia? I feel like I haven't seen her in a while... *Warrick 😿

This ep is a goldmine for domestic!Grissom!! cooking, wandering around in pjs and robe, taking care of his dog, and desperately trying but failing to escape visitors & adventures like some reincarnation of Bilbo Baggins.

I guess if a show is on air long enough, it’s almost inevitable to have an episode where the flu or a cold - or a musical event - strikes our faves. I tend to enjoy those eps and this one is no exception. Yes, your eyes weren’t deceiving you, those guest nerds in the lab were Adam and Jamie (CSI has on- and off-screen ties to the Discovery Channel), and oh YES that’s def Sara calling at the end. It’s enough to look at Griss stretch out on the couch after he answers the phone. I think if you lean close, you can hear him purring ;)))) And I kept thinking about it, but rn I honestly cannot recall what happens to Sofia. I think she just… idk… drops out of the story at some point?? and Warrick, yeah… now his departure is something else, like

9x01. How can I even… I AM NOT OKAY!!! Jesus I can’t even formulate anything… They’re all so close… Family… How can I ever be fine after seeing Grissom’s face?? When he just crumbled… Losing someone after allowing them to become that close, I don’t know how to… I’m not ok, with any of this… Glad Sara is there (even more beautiful than before, that’s just not fair) God I’m such a mess. I didn’t even like him all that much but Nicky loved him, and I can’t see him cry! And Gris… JC

What you said, anon. I’m not familiar w/ the specifics of the off-screen events that forced the writers to come up w/ an exit for Warrick/GD, but boy did they manage to make it CRUEL and PAINFUL. but also meaningful, imo. Warrick once called Grissom a robot for never emoting like a “normal” human being, and here we have this “robot” saying the L word out loud and openly breaking down and literally clinging to him in an entirely irrational and desperately emotional, futile human act to keep him alive… yeah, I’m w/ you 1000%: I AM NOT OKAY!!!

9x02. “who are we talking about right now?” A-a-and there is my Sara from first few seasons! God I love that woman. So brave, and strong, standing up for what she believes in, unwilling to talk riddles and play mind games. Just say it straight to her. Kind of understand Grissom too though… This whole thing is so damn sad… Oh and that pillow talk was so tender and quiet, so them…

They’ve been doing this thing ever since they started dating - whenever one makes an observation or drops a remark about a victim or a scene they happen to process, the other is like “okay, is that supposed to be about us?” and it’s never 100% clear. Work and private stuff has been bleeding together w/ them for a while and it is finally starting to make waves in a way that not even Grissom can remain immune to it.

9x05. Why does this show insists on fucking me up this season??! I can’t see them suffer anymore! He’s like a fish out of the water the whole episode… I’m a bit conflicted though. Sara left because she couldn’t take that job anymore and I totally get it, but did she expect him to just follow her? I mean it just doesn’t seem like him at all. Yes he belongs by her side but she moves around, he should have just upended his whole life, without any kind of plan? Perhaps I need to sleep on it tho…

905 is like exhibit A of why I love Lady Heather episodes - she cuts through Griss like no other, and this time there’s a clear overlap btw case and private life. LH’s sugarcoat-free remarks are relevant to both, helping Grissom unpack (or more like rip open) some of his own private mess and climb off the fence he’s been sitting on. I do understand your conflict, I was the same way at first, but then I came to the same conclusion you did below:

9x08. You damn right it’s time to up the ante! This girl is the right girl!! Ugh… 9x09. If Sara was here, she’d help you with that last word… Just saying… *omg is he for real? (I know he is, I’m just really emotional omg) *fly-fishing) his mind is already off of work)) he has been quite distracted lately though. This whole thing is a long time coming. Perhaps all he needed was that push from Sara… *man I love Bill Irwin! Which reminds me, have you watched Legion this year?

(After reading the summary, Legion instantly went on my watchlist, anon, but I haven’t seen it yet.)

Exactly, it’s been a long time coming and that’s why I think Sara was not out of line with her hope - or maybe even reasonable expectation? - that he’d start a brand new chapter with her away from the lab. Most of this relationship happens off-screen, so I can only offer guesswork, but we can find some telltale breadcrumbs leading up to these final episodes.

Grissom already starts displaying burnout signs in S7 + he starts dropping comments about how ppl no longer really need him in the lab anymore. He is not bitter, mind you, he is genuinely proud of the team he’s trained/mentored, but this also means that he becomes - as he tells Warrick - a teacher w/o students who feels increasingly aimless, unfulfilled and even drained after having spent 25+ years wading through the (literal and figurative) cesspools of humanity. I think the combination of developing burnout and unfulfillment is why he grabs at the opportunity to leave for a month and teach a seminar as far away from Vegas as possible, and I don’t think it goes unnoticed by Sara. It is never said out loud (naturally), but she seemed to understand why he just up and left the same way Griss understood why she needed to leave in S8 despite each feeling miserable w/o the other. It’s a constant back-and-forth btw them, a drifting away then back again then away again, as they work through their individual baggage, and this “double pendulum” doesn’t stop until the very last episode of the show.

Uprooting one’s life is a huge ask, esp for someone like Grissom, but in this specific case I think it was a natural progression and would have happened anyway. Sara did not force him out of a pleasant, fulfilling life. He needed - wanted - to move on, he knew it was time, he just needed one more little push, like you said. Then he jumped in w/ both feet

and:

9x10. Oh Lord omfg this is… I… This is like a cinematic experience or something… Oh God his face the very moment he first saw her! Oh my sweet awkward nerdy boy, his eyes!! And that sigh! The smile! And those needy arms!! And Sara omg I just can’t… Yes that’s right just grab her and kiss her, talking’s overrated anyway!! OMG I saw the gifs but I didn’t realize how this scene will be… will make me feel… It’s just so… I’ll get back to you when I’m a bit more coherent, please stand by

#anonymous #csirw #musings

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