Pierce Burnette

Plato is an artist in his own right. His arguments may not be all that convincing to modern readers, but the way he pulls you through the arguments is unparalleled, regardless of if they're repurposed from Socrates (like possibly in the Euthyphro and the Apology) or if they come straight from him (like is theorized about the Phaedo)

I will say, I was surprised in reading this that I found a few arguments that could still be used by modern audiences. But regardless, a good starting point for my getting into philosophy.

I thought it was going to be a cute novella about a dog investigating society (a profound investigation of society, more than likely, because that is Kafka's modus operandi)

Who was I to think that a German speaker could write a “cute” story? Instead I got a profound investigation of science, the scientific method, and the limitations of perspective from a dog's point of view. Very good, but very dense; didn't particularly feel like a novella given how dense it was.

The ultimate “I wish I liked it” book for me. This doesn't usually happen, most books I read, you'd notice from my average score on my profile, I'm able to find enjoyment in because of their better qualities, ignoring the qualities I don't love from them. And this book certainly has better qualities. The prose feels like poetry at times. It's extremely thought provoking. The meandering and constant tangents make sense in terms of what the book is saying. For these reasons I rated it above my personal enjoyment, but it just didn't land for me.

The constant meandering makes it hard to follow. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator sets your expectations, explaining that he's going to tell the story as if he's explaining it to a friend by the fire in his house. When you tell a long story to a friend like this, you often go on tangents and talk about other related things, give minor stories about certain people in your story; it makes sense. It also makes sense in terms of it being an unreliable narrator. If you subscribe to this interpretation, the narrator is constantly trying to control your perception of the people in his story by telling you different things about them. But at times I felt it was too much to follow, as sometimes the tangents aren't mini stories, they're just statements; most of the time these statements or mini explanations are where the prose shines through, the narrator giving a beautiful description of something. Perhaps as someone with ADHD, the distractions were too much for me, and they wouldn't be for someone else, but I could never get past it. I really wish I liked this book

An absolutely incredible retelling of Norse Myth. Coming into it, knowing a little about Ragnarock, made the work that much better. The way that Gaiman frames the stories, each building on each other to the natural conclusion of Norse Myth, is great. You can see each mistake the gods make, every mishap or unfortunate circumstance or bad decision, that leads them to ultimately “losing” when Ragnarock happens. Sometimes Gaiman tells you how this will change the coming events, like in the story of Gerd and Frey, and other times you can see it for yourself, like when Thor catches the World Serpent on a fishing line.

Gaiman connects all these stories of Norse Mythology as beautifully as Yggdrasil ties The Nine Realms together

Brilliantly defined, as Aristotle is famous for

But it makes it an absolute slog to read. The third book is interesting, concerning itself mostly with styles of Rhetoric, but by the time I got to it I was ready to be done. Maybe I'll come back and give just Book III another chance, reviewing my notes for Books I and II