Being another 20 years removed from the last sanctioned visit to Hav, my standard grief at putting down a masterpiece is here accompanied by despair over the seeming loss of the city-state altogether. Hav’s allegories have before our eyes bent further into maze-like opacity, evangelism, and zealous capital pursuit. I’m crying into my sea urchin soup rn, and I plan to cope by combing actual travelogues until I find one as illuminative (eagerly beginning with Jan Morris, herself)
I've never been so quickly hooked. Since the intro bade me consider the preconceptions and even physicality involved with embarking on a read, my consciousness re: the act of reading has exploded. Now I can’t help but adjourn from the commotion of the bus and give everything of myself to the tomes toted in my lap. Or perhaps the substance of the stuff is made in those moments where my gaze wanders?…sometimes both or neither
Anyway, this is mildly philosophical but so playful. How could I call its narratives a gimmick when Calvino is often anticipating and eluding my exact attitudes?
Nearly perfect but for hard and unfocused male gaze (unless you’re among those readers privately seeking this, too). I expect anyone who reads any fiction for any reason would find some resonance here
So astonishingly great that I can't believe I hadn't heard of it. Bless whichever airport was the straw that broke Le Guin's back and compelled her to dream up this relatively short & simple ethnographic wonder of concepts and cultures. It strikes me like an anti-capitalist, post-humanist, post-structuralist Phantom Tollbooth. Not to mention pretty pictures!!
I anticipated that Moore's takes on Lovecraft would examine the seriously messed up fiction, but I'm intrigued by how Moore explores the fucked up writer himself. This discourse is the comic's winning element, and I hope for more from Moore's Providence.There's much to contemplate re: the role of extreme sexual violence—as a reaction to Lovecraft's repression, it's perhaps a little over-corrective? To me, the character response in the final issue is at once a liberating conclusion and a troublesome head-scratcher