Books

Pedro Paramo

A man in search of his father visits a ghost town that turns out to be substantially populated actual dead people.

I should have had a bigger reaction to this, given that I’m from the rust belt and I love books about death. The whole book is about the dead and dying in a declining Mexican village. 

But a big part of what I find so interesting about death is its awesome terrible finality. And this book presents death as a permeable barrier. The spirit world interacts extensively and fluidly with the real world. And the narrative is nonlinear, which emphasizes the muddling of the life and death border. 

Mostly it just made me crave another pass through 100 Years of Solitude. 

I tried reading this in Spanish but couldn’t hack it. It shook my confidence in my Spanish reading comprehension, but then I struggled to understand it in English, which reassured me a bit 😅

Only recommended if you’re addicted to magical realism and running low on supply.

The Cossacks

Young aristocrat moves to the sticks to live awhile with some tough frontier people. 

It’s a fun and exciting adventure, with all the usual Tolstoy depth and substance. My only complaint is that some of the philosophical tangents carry on long enough to disrupt the main narrative. 

The protagonist is mostly just a vehicle for the aforementioned philosophy and for introducing us to the Cossacks. The Cossacks are the stars of the show, and they form a memorable ensemble. I especially liked Eroshka. 

Read Anna Karenina and War and Peace first, but don’t overlook this book.

How do you feel about Ayn Rand’s feelings on Tolstoy? This quote lives rent free in my head, not necessarily because I agree just for how evocative it is: 

“Victor Hugo gives me the feeling of entering a cathedral – Dostoevsky gives me the feeling of entering a chamber of horrors, but with a powerful guide – Spillane gives me the feeling of listening to a military band in a public park – Tolstoy gives me the feeling of an unsanitary backyard which I do not care to enter.”

cypherpunk • human rights lawyer • actress • queen  // hosting /aaina • also indivisible.fm 

Yea and that’s exactly why she doesn’t like him. She has no time for  literature that glorifies the “unsanitary” parts of life, or at least draws attention to them as being acceptable rather than base.

Hahaha I suspect it was politically motivated and she was just being a hater.

Victor Hugo feels like being on a medieval street on a rainy day

Dostoevsky ranges from being in god's presence to being in Satan's

I haven't read Spillane

Reading Tolstoy is exactly like being alive, with all its nuance and complexity, the full spectrum of experiences

I hate his politics for the most part, too, but there's no writer who could match him for creating a facsimile of living an entire complete life inside of a single volume