It’s almost like he’s an addict who has had a brief moment of sobriety but is still hazy and can’t quite come back to the real world and longs for a needle.
Daily Archives: April 5, 2016
page 127 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
This is much sadder than just “you can never go home”, he’s changed because he’s not changed. Everyone else is always moving on except him. He stands still while everyone else funnels on around him. And it’s his fault because he doesn’t want change, he wants what he used to have and he thinks it will come again. But it won’t.
page 123 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Bastiani : is this a play on bastion?
dfn: a place or system in which something (such as an old-fashioned idea) continues to survive.
page 120 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
I like the image of how the trees, once alive and budding in spring, still recall in a “weaker pulse” that spring, as if they yearn to still grow. There is life yet still. Yet But still.
page 119 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
“the soldiers caught themselves singing as they had not done for months.” A happy image, implying they’ve sung before and coupled with spring, the melting snow (change) we get something hopeful. And the Fort creaks and cracks like it’s talking, like the ice melting in the mountains. And the language sounds like gunfire.
page 117 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Drogo (and the others) stay because they “hope for better things.” But there is no better thing coming. Is this how we fool ourselves, to put ourselves in a position to hope for something that won’t come so we don’t have to struggle for real attainment?
page 116 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Dying happens on a day like any other for those not concerned with whom is dying.
page 115 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Drogo had been our main character but we’ve pulled away from him to follow the others and now that we’re back to Drogo it does feel as of substantial time has passed (slipped away)
page 114 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Angustina died for nothing. His last words are fitting though, “tomorrow we should…” Yes, they should, thru should do something anything, other than what they’re stuck doing.
90% done with War and Peace
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He’s learned that enjoying the differences in people while remaining true to his own beliefs makes for a happier life. One could debate and argue over whatnot, but to what end? So what if someone has a different political or religious view than you? Why not listen to what they say and then go about your day? Of course this implies what you believe is morally true (and most people already believe this).
90% done with War and Peace
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“And by old habit he asked himself the question: “Well, and what then? What am I going to do?” And he immediately gave himself the answer: “Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!”
Don’t worry, be happy. I mean, it sounds so cliche, but it’s true: don’t worry, be happy. Of course one should be moral and grateful for even suffering, but to actually do it means you have to do everything else first, like Pierre
90% done with War and Peace
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“and Kutuzov died”.
He was right that there was no more Russia could do to improve her situation, any extra action for Europe’s sake could only diminish Russia.
I’ll say once more that I wish Kutuzov had been a real character in the novel and not someone we only see from afar, but we see him the way we should: as someone who did the right thing, should not be worshiped, and then quietly died.
89% done with War and Peace
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When Kutuzov tells Chichagov that he has returned his fine China, Chichagov thinks this is a clever insult on the part of Kutuzov (“You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of?) – but Kutuzov really just did mean that he had the man’s China and was returning it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
He’s awarded the Order of St. George of the First Class, not by the emperor, but by a staff member.
89% done with War and Peace
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“And all he said—that it was necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots—was so simple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever, that it was evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not in power, were commanders of genius.” Often we think that anyone who acts simply is dumb, but anyone who has lived long enough knows what works and won’t- they’ve seen it before
89% done with War and Peace
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“The stars, as if knowing that no one was looking at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now flaring up, now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering something gladsome and mysterious to one another.”
Is this a bit of pathetic fallacy where the heavens approve of the French and Russians getting along and not killing each other? Or is this a portent for wars to come?
The Burglar: Read on April 05, 2016
I have no idea what the author was going for here. Was this all a plan for a TV episode? Were we supposed to ponder the racial stereotyping that goes on in media? Was this an examination of shallow, suburban lives? A sci-fi yarn about time travel?
I had hoped we were at least going to get a good twist at the end, but instead we get a whole bunch of exposition about what Emmett couldn’t possibly know (we’re even told he can’t know any of it), and then he just sees the boy go away with the satchel.
So?
This wasn’t even fun, it literally serves no purpose. And it feels more as if the whole story is an idea for a story that was never fleshed out. Maybe the writer is trying to parallel the artistic struggle of the writer character – the episodic structure of the story mirrors how TV shows today are a series of multiple story-lines edited together fast enough to make you forget there’s no substance to any of them – but there isn’t enough in the story to convince me that there is anything really all that deep going on here. There’s no character “real” enough to feel like we can identify with any real struggle, be it race, or time travel issues.
Maybe I missed something, but just because the New Yorker publishes something doesn’t mean it’s going to be good.
I did like the line, “The warm commotion of a party.”, but that’s all this story felt like: “The warm commotion of a party”, heard from far away.
90% done with The Burglar
He (the writer) has a chance to be comfortable financially if he just makes the black man a cliche?
We get a lot of exposition at the end. Was this the TV show? Was Emmett seeing himself as a young man and this is a loop?
I’m not sure what I was supposed to take away from this, the characters were thin, there didn’t seem to be much insight and if there is some weird twist I sure missed it.
80% done with The Burglar
She must be a TV character because she’s even aware of how cliche everything she thinks is. The co-executive producer even says “I feel like I’ve already seen that a million times.”
“I guess I understand why, for purposes of edginess, we want Emmett Diggs to be killing white women.” Is this an indictment of the media?
75% done with The Burglar
I lost track of who was who here. My fault or the writer’s?
The burger:Spiderwebs in the hedges, his hands warmer than he expected.
Wait, so is this Emmett Diggs TV character going to break up the struggle of the writer’s wife and burgler?
50% done with The Burglar
I suddenly had the idea that this TV character is also the burglar? Is the wife the one who gets murdered on the show? That would explain why everything feels shallow.
So early 2000’s from the DVD’s. They still have all their comics, too.
So the burglar is black.
“She always likes it when her mother pays attention to the Disney Channel universe.” So a mom, too.
40% done with The Burglar
Slash having to fix his refrigerator (snake around his neck and all) is pretty funny. And maybe we’re getting a story about image?
The race angle of a (young?) white man writing a black murderer character on TV is interesting, but only so far on a surface level. We’re not deep inside these people yet.
25% done with The Burglar
So she’s the wife of the writer and they live in the fake house about to be broken into because the dog isn’t as big as its bark: Rottweiler mix (not pure, mutt)
Do TV shows work where people are worried if it will get an order for 9 more episodes? I thought things were different now.
“The warm commotion of a party.” Nice. I like that.
10% done with The Burglar
The first of these mini scenes I like is the burger? seeing what a dump the backyard is though the front of the house (neighbors / world facing) is immaculate.
The other characters seem full of themselves. The lady is to happy about her money, the writer naive about how writing for TV works.
“She doesn’t want to get another ticket.” Another.