carlin

I read this impromptu by the river after impromptu sushi, I was in a japanese mood i guess

enjoyed the three pieces here, individually I would rate 4.5, 4, and 3.5. In a bamboo grove is very strong and I love the conceit. I feel it's better executed here than in the movie, however I feel that's maybe just because I found the movie much less intelligible.

I wish the penguin little black classics had a *note on the text* or something, it would've been nice to know beforehand that the latter two pieces are autobiographical.

--- 2nd review ---

probably less effective the second time around 😅

the second and third pieces are mostly interesting to him I fear ... I wonder why they didn't bundle more of his actual stories for this collection

unrated as DNF

I stopped reading as I felt myself having a grudge against the book which made my read critical and unpleasant

before reading I had heard a criticism that this is written for the tiktok generation with its short sentences and paragraphs, and they were not wrong. At first this was a salve after coming from Pride and Prejudice, but I came to dislike it. For example, I skipped ahead 100 pages and it was giving me enough context that I did not feel lost even though I missed the introduction of a couple main characters (including what the main plot is about).

It wasn't just the aforementioned issue that caused my grudge - I didn't know the book deals with alcoholism - but idk I might revisit if I hear even more heaped praise, and my grudge against it has lessened with time

for my record, I skipped ahead at p49 "...Ali drank gin at night..." and I stopped reading on p184 "...pull the plug..."

I enjoy having read Pride and Prejudice more than I enjoyed reading it

The book is well structured, there's lots going on, the chapters are short, it's unpredictable and so forth, however there is something about the style of writing which I found generally quite dry and unengaging. Given all it's qualities, it seems to lie mostly in the manner in which it is written due to it being over two centuries old.

However saying this, I found it very enlightening regarding the life and times of the period, and I would say that this really is a must-read for (British) people for that reason alone if you are unfamiliar with them.

As an example of both the difficulty and the enlightenment, the practice of referring to people exclusively as Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc is unfamiliar to me, such that I tend to pay attention more to the *name* than the *M.*, and so I frequently had to re-read which M. it was. However, at the same time, this is also revealing of what marriage is and its function (historically perhaps) which is not something which I had really thought much about.

Maybe surprising, but my favourite characters by far were Mr and Mrs Bennet! Also, there's that book The Other Bennet Sister and she really is the other one

--- spoilers ---

In terms of the plot/romance, I was really pleasantly surprised that the declaration of Darcy's love happens around halfway through! I was also surprised how much this isn't really about their romance though, but again was Jane Austen writing a "romance"? Maybe classically it is romantic but not what we would consider one to be nowadays. Anyways, I do ship them and they both feel very realistic. I especially loved "A man who had felt less, might"

I also must mention that I really was waiting for Darcy to profess his love in the rain. Which is also to say that I did read this fully spoiled, which I don't think is really possible to avoid

I very much see how suited this is for education as the title itself provides the breadcrumbs for you. It's almost distracting every time the words appear, but it was satisfying when I pieced together the foil of Wickham and Darcy in regards to prejudice (and to a lesser extent pride).

I went against my usual practice and around a fifth of the way through, I read the two appendices regarding Entail and Dancing. During the former, I got the idea that Mr Bennet dies during the book and so I read much of it trying to figure out when he would die 😅. Of course once Mr Collins is married, I knew that the clock was ticking, and when he kept living I was more curious. I decided though, once he had gone to town in search of Lydia that this would be the perfect moment! I imagined that roughly concurrently Darcy would propose to Lizzie and that Pemberly would be the life-raft for the Bennet's after they lose Longbourn. Alas Mr Bennet survives his trip to London in the end.

disappointing

I've previously read LJJ's debut, At Certain Points We Touch, and this book is really quite similar but less developed

Both books are seemingly obscured re-tellings of her life stories, but dressed up in a fanciful way that maintain a sense of glamour even under the duress of penurious precarity. The debut wasn't for me, but I appreciated its immersiveness and its ruminations on grief.

However in Lean Cat, Savage Cat (meaning of the title remains murky) the fictive narrative doesn't really go anywhere and remains quite shallow throughout. Additionally, I understood the crux around half way through and unfortunately the book became much less rewarding after that point.

I don't think LJJ is for me, but I am guaranteed to learn new words and they make for interesting discussions in our book club :)