Jay

It's quite creepy to consider that the words of Osamu Dazai reek of an ongoing behavior within Japan–he wrote this shortly before his death in 1948!–that is defined by a contradictory form of servitude (emotionally torn, functionally obedient) and a penchant for vices. No Longer Human evokes the kind of self-awareness that should be alarming, even as it packages itself as a fictional reading of three notebooks from a character named Oba Yozo.

The quickest way I can describe reading this is that it evokes itself so nonchalantly that any form of Japanese media that comes before or after makes a lot of sense. It's astounding to consider that this is all compressed into such a story. Wow.

At times it is matter-of-fact, but the tone of Hiroshima crescendoes in its last act: the aftermath of each of its subject matters. It is not the bombing itself that feels the most devastating about Hiroshima as much as it is about the events that follow.

In doing so, Hersey collates a series of accounts that underlie just how implicitly political, interwoven, and shared the impact of the atomic bomb truly is. It is not a precursor to luck, nor misfortune; divide, nor unity; merely an acknowledgement of the vultures and the sunshine that come to respond to the destruction of Hiroshima.

...I met a man one time... who said, “I experienced the atomic bomb”–and from then on the conversation changed. We both understood each other's feelings. Nothing had to be said.

Reading “The Plague” at the post-pandemic period feels... so resonant. One cannot understate how much of a punch the book feels especially at its tail end: when the story mellows out and provides itself with very surprising one-liners or musings that linger even after the book's conclusion.

Meditations is certainly something that speaks to me. It's a book I treat as a personal reprieve from the confusion that clouds me whenever the world seems to close itself off because I am reminded time and time again that this book's focus and framing of your self to God and to your own—internally and externally—offers mindsets and ways of thinking that make many of the struggles in life easier.

First foray into the more introspective side of Ancient Greek writing! Truly something here.

I just want to express how fucking inspirational and magnetic Raymond Carver's prose is. This compilation specifically got me through high school in a way that I've been impressed with how stoic, yet powerful this guy manages to make from certain mundane situations. Tonally concise, heavily suburban, it's so difficult to replicate his writing style without coming off as a knock-off or a discount. Just simply gorgeous to read and imagine.