carlin

appreciated this a lot, it's refreshing to read challenging fiction

Complicity was my fav, and it worked really well for me. Debbies, however, much less so, as I left it not really having a good sense of who Debbie is.

I think this is a neat introduction to New Narrative/cut up fiction

Every summer solstice for the past few years, I've attempted to read a book in its entirety during the day (as it is the longest day). The first year I read Battle Royale, and this year I was contemplating reading Much Ado About Nothing, but with the upcoming Nolan film, I decided that this was a more apt (and readable) classic option

Unfortunately to say, I found this to be underwhelming even accounting for this being a very old text with foreign modes of storytelling.

In terms of stuff I appreciated, Wilson's translation is really great: very readable while still preserving the beauty and the strangeness of the text. I also did really like how much emphasis there is on hunger being a burden and something we all have to fend off. And as such there is a lot of emphasis on meal times with washing hands, mixing wine, preparing food etc. Finally I loved how emotional all the guys are all the time, just openly sobbing.

However my main grudges with the text are that it is so repetitive (and yes, I know that it's an oral tradition, however how many times does it need to be explained that Penelope weaves and unravels the cloth every day for three years) and there is a lot which seems pointless/overly long winded. And while the former maybe is a benefit to it being spoken, I'm really surprised that all of it was preserved from generation to generation. I would skip whole books if I was the one orating it. To elaborate about the pointless/long winded sections, cunning Odysseus gives multiple extended false backstories to different people (pointless) and we spend 4 books with Telemachus asking people where his dad is (they don't know) and another 4 where Odysseus and Telemachus talk about killing the suitors but actually don't (long winded). And to be fair, I'm sure they all had more resonance to the people of the time when they were hearing the story, but it made the experience of reading the book drag.

In terms of the arc of the narrative, I had assumed that Odysseus would face all these labours on his way home, however his way home is actually very straight-forward. All the famous stories are things that he tells as a guest of honour to his hosts. Which means that there's not really much stakes, as all the stories are in the past tense, however maybe this is a false standard to hold it to given that we are dealing with the Gods and prophecies. Anyway, the mode of the story is not always conducive to the narrative, and I am pretty eager to see how Christopher Nolan navigates his adaptation.

As someone who loves both Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, and hasn't read Dykes to Watch Out For, this was underwhelming and not my thing.

For one, Bechdel is satirising her own life, and I don't care for it (I'm not a fan of docudramas and I don't see why autofiction would have me feeling otherwise) and for another this is much less intricate than FH/AYMM due to the different genre — maybe the closest comparison i can give is between comic books vs graphic novels. For example, in this the pacing would occasionally jank as a scene ran out of steam after three pages or we have an unannounced time skip. I think what made this more uncomfortable for me, is this is her first (afaik) book fully coloured and shaded and so it feels like it should have a higher value due to the greater resource investment.

I also side-eye her outlook as a lottt of these jokes are about non-binarity, leftism and vegans...

The best part of the book is when it focuses on the other couple navigating their new realtionship (with their child). This was fun, but again parts of it make me be like what is the joke here? (there is a lot of focus on his sexual fantasy which I feel like is meant to be self-evidently funny). Idk it just feels like if this came out 15 years ago there would be an attack helicopter joke.

I think there is a generational problem with my enjoyment of this, as I relate most strongly with the characters in the generation below instead of Bechdal's generation. A flip side version written by JR about their mom etc would probably work better for me (in the way it wouldn't if Bechdel was to read it).

Overall, not for me. I continue to hunger to read books by communists

I loved Pillion, and I became a lot more interested in reading the book when I heard that Colin is fat in it

I enjoyed the voice of Colin (our narrator) and of course the story itself. I feel like my enjoyment is a bit diminished by the subtitle "A Story of Low Self-esteem" as it is redundant and colours the way I feel the author intends the relationship (or Why of this story)

I think the movie is an overall major improvement on the book story-wise, as the relationships between the characters are richer (the parents in particular are a highlight of the movie for me, and here they just kinda are). I do of course prefer Colin being fat, but it doesn't do all that much here besides providing yet another thing for him to be self conscious about.

This is of course a Fitzcarraldo Edition and I must say they do a very enjoyable presentation for reading with nice type-setting and the over generous margins at the bottom and opposite spine. Want to read more, but will unfortunately have to read the blurbs for them to find ones I'm interested in ahaha

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