Lee

A collection of short stories that give you a general sense of the world, and Geralt & company as we tag along various different Witcher jobs of varying difficulty. S01 of the Netflix show does not do The Last Wish Justice. But Henry Cavill is a damn good Geralt (despite not looking like him and being too handsome frankly). If you thought that the first season’s non-linear approach to storytelling and plot pacing were confusing and unnecessary, reading this will clear things up much better and (obviously) with more detail.

“I'd never learned how to relate to people, much less how to speak up for myself. I preferred to sit and rage quietly.”

There’s an underlying uneasiness to this somewhat stream of consciousness tale; an almost haunting feeling like there could be a supernatural element introduced at some point, but it never arrives. I don’t know if that’s what Shirley Jackson embodies at times, as I have yet to read the heralded author. Eileen is certainly a slow-burner—emphasis on slowburn—with moments of meandering coming of age blended in, but I enjoyed my time with this complex character study. Due to its intricate narrative pacing I do think it begins to lose steam in the third act, but there was a consistently palpable comparison to the great film, Carol. A strong debut for Moshfegh, and you can easily see the fleshed out development from Eileen to the Narrator in her best book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

Very much the Samurai oriented Game of Thrones that word of mouth sold it to be. I'd go an additional step further in specifying a more acute comparison to House of the Dragon, as Shogun leans more into the socio-political aspects of its feudal 16th century Japan. It's over 1000pg count allows the characters to breathe and develop through its various revelations, fights, betrayals, and romantic ties. While I would say that author James Clavell gets a little trigger happy with his assumption that seppuku was committed on the fly left and right, Clavell does take detailed pauses to showcase the stark cultural differences between the English, Portuguese, Spanish, and of course, Japanese. It's a tome to get through, but I did enjoy my time with it—possibly the longest I've taken to read a single book ever.