#chatterbones

Title: The Catcher in the Rye Author: J. D. Salinger

In which an adolescent boy is not doing so well.

Glad I read it, you know, as a matter of improving my knowledge of literature written in English. It's definitely a classic I felt I should have read. It kind of just showed up in my life -- I was feeling burnt out (my default this year, as you probably know) and reading-blocked, rain was soaking Paris and i was too early to a museum date so i just got into the Devil's Lair (bookshop) and found it in the foreign language section. That one edition and all. Because I'll often see a book looking one way and remember it as is, but not actually find the same look here. I watch Americans most of all. It could happen to anyone. Anyway, this cover is so iconic, I'm glad I have it. And the horse makes it worth it, especially at the end of it all.

As a read, it's medium good. It's, like, okay. I mostly enjoyed it, and mostly as a distraction in passing. As literature, it's a hell of a character study, this adolescent boy and his feeling that he knows it all, that's he's got it all figured out, he can just tell how fake and devoid of magic and pure kindness life is. How broken or illusionary it all is. It's so completely uncharming to follow his cynical mindset for pages and pages, but completely well done. At some point, I started noticing the language -- and it is so purely adolescent, I couldn't not admire the skill of it. Not in the vocab, of course -- I mean, it's probably old adolescent vocabulary, but not any recent one i could recognize. But, but! The rhythm of it is very true to life. He has some lexical bright sparks, words and turns of phrase that are quite good, but not so much that he has variety. So he's using like 20 words/phrases as part of a rotation of language tools he uses to describe the world around him. He's in turn very self-assured and completely unconfident, often about the same situation. He severely lacks emotional intelligence, and struggles deeply with introspection. If you remember your teenage years, or if you're ever around teenagers, you'll recognize it. This is exactly how a sad, pedantic, vulnerable rich boy would describe his manic day of running away from his problems and struggling to put his feelings into words.

Title: Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) Author: Tamsyn Muir

As the blurb says: "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!"

You'd be forgiven for missing the science-fiction aspect at first. Don't go in expecting much technology talk ; for, you see, caring about the technical aspects of things is nerd shit, and your narrator Gideon is NOT paying attention to any of that boring crap. Similarly, you'll be forgiven for feeling confused by the court politics happening throughout and as a main aspect of the story -- because again, your darling beloved narrator Gideon is NOT paying attention to anyyy of that boring crap.

Oh I love Gideon. She is sooo... hm... uh... she certainly exists. You know. Ok, you know? She's fantastically stupid at times and an EXCEPTIONAL liar if you consider how much she lies to herself. (i love her)

Then i Adore Harrow and definitely not because I have questionable feelings of nostalgia for when I was capable of working from 7 am to 2 am on the regular. I have to stick with my fellow weakling with a big brain there. I love Harrow.

I'll stay very vague about the story there. I went in basically blind, and had a Smashing Time with it. It is Very Good. It is Verrrry Fun in Manyyy Ways. Gideon is a very funny, very engaging narrator. But I think this comes from something extradiegetic that I've been suspecting -- that Muir did a very, very good job writing this first book. There's some worldbuilding in there, but it's never allowed to hold up much space, again because Gideon doesn't care and won't pay attention long enough to let you know much. Her story is pretty much entirely personal, which in addition to her nemesis stuff makes it very easy to engage emotionally with the book. The setting is very dark, very goth, but again -- Gideon is markedly Not Into It. Her humor allows you to follow her easily, and lets you get hit like a fool when you realize that The Setting Is Very Dark.

You often hear about Show Don't Tell, but here I think what Muir did really well is Dont Even Allude To It Actually!. It reminds me of... maybe of how Daft Punk uses silence to create really startling and engaging rhythms. This felt similar. Some things are simply not told, shown, or foreshadowed -- they merely drop at the right time.

This is an A+ book to me. I had so much fun. I'm glossing over things I could be critical of because I don't think it's worth it. Read the goth lesbians. Read it!!!

for a whole chunk of the season you only get the moody melancholic music and a camera shot that looks vaguely first person. blues and purples on a highway scene. a big mesh fence with holes in it. you drop down to the road, with cars flying past you. it's both poetic and unsettling.

some time down the road you realize this is yuuki's POV, at least in part. you learn this after seeing her silently ponder her life, existence, people, these death games she plays. unsure what she really thinks, as you most often are as the viewer.

it's ambiguous but not so much. the scenery is one of a chunk of highway network far off from any cities. she's alone. she's walked all the way there. it's night. you can guess at the her mindset: she's lost, she needed a walk and fresh air, and twenty minutes didn't cut it, could never have cut it. she may be suicidal. dropping down in the stream of cars hurled at speeds made for turning people into paste. she may be thrill-seeking. she's playing with her own mortality, the same way she does at work. the ambiguity lies in the fact that this is her free time.

you really get the sense that reese is originally put off by finch's dandy routine and also never gave a strong thought to his own sexuality and that he would just agonizingly slowly grow completely obsessed with him and his idiosyncrasies