A Mutual Addiction

He told me I was so small I told him, "Water me" I promise I can grow tall When making love is free

A wonderful, quick read... But with more feeling in what is beautifully unsaid than what is said.

A brutal story, but at the same time a bit contrived, a bit too fantastical... Even as it was drenched in conventionality. Not my favorite Roth novel. It seemed less raw, less personal than others. It lacked Roth's usual, mesmerizing nakedness, except in very small doses. I'm not sure the protagonist was believable. In any case, it was less believable than his others. This strangeness may have been a result of the half-framed nature of the story-- readers lose the narrator early on, but are they expected to forget that the entire remainder is only in his imagination?

This reassured me of Salinger's ability to write a great character. It is honest to the point of cruelty, pretentious and extravagant but completely self-aware, acknowledging its own flaws in a way that strikes me as incredibly human.

Lovely lovely lovely

An important read to check off the list. Interesting, sure, boundary-pushing. I can't say I got much out of it, or enjoyed it particularly. Maybe a sense of feminism is more important to my appreciation of things than I realize.

This sucked. I had a vague appreciation for The Road, but Huneven was right about McCarthy and his idealization of a world without women. His unrealistic understanding of them, his unwillingness to deal with the reality of them. The sex, the drugs, the greed, the brutality might all be beautiful under someone else's pen. I just really hated this screenplay. It was the closest thing I could find to something decent to read at El Pratt terminal 2.

He really knows how to break my heart. From every perspective. To make me care. There are no flat characters. He is such a lovely storyteller.

She really has it. But not together.

And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.

Top Notch.