Quotes From Books I'm Reading

A pseudo-reading journal so I can stop annoying my friends every time I read something new. Riddled with typos.

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Navigation

ᝰ. First Line / Last Line: Mood board w/ the first and last sentence of a book

ᝰ. Book Notes: Notes I have about the books I'm reading

ᝰ. Book Review: Final overview/thoughts on a book I've finished

ᝰ. Quotes: Self explanatory

ᝰ. Lit Memes: Reblogs or jokes related to my read books

ᝰ. Misc: Anything else

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I begin by informing my reader that for everything good or bad that I have done throughout my life, I am certain I have always earned due approbation or reproof, and must therefore consider myself a free man. ............................ At the start of Lent she left with her troupe, and three years later I saw her again in Padua, where I made a much more intimate acquaintance with her daughter.

Histoire de ma Vie, Giacomo Casanova (trans. Stephen Sartarelli & Sophie Hawkes) First and Last Sentence

[happydivorce]

every time I see a gambling ad I curse that 18th century Italian manwhore

[dozydawn]

Casanova Memoiren. Illustrations by Ferdinand Schultz-Wettel, 1925.

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The pleasure of smoking for me wasn’t about a buzz; the pleasure came from the jolt of giving in to an unhealthy physical craving, which over time increased my physical cravings, which in turn increased the pleasure of giving in to them. I haven’t smoked in more than fifteen years, but I don’t think I ever quite escaped that cycle. There remains a yearning within my subconscious that cries out for a sacrifice, and so I offer up a faint shadow of a proper vice and drink Diet Dr Pepper, the soda that tastes more like the Anthropocene than any other.

The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green

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It has taken me all my life up to now to fall in love with the world, but I’ve started to feel it the last couple of years. To fall in love with the world isn’t to ignore or overlook suffering, both human and otherwise. For me anyway, to fall in love with the world is to look up at the night sky and feel your mind swim before the beauty and the distance of the stars. It is to hold your children while they cry, to watch as the sycamore trees leaf out in June. When my breastbone starts to hurt, and my throat tightens, and tears well in my eyes, I want to look away from feeling. I want to deflect with irony, or anything else that will keep me from feeling directly. We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.

The Anthopocene Reviewed, John Green

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✺ Notes on R.F. Kuang's Babel ✺

Very didactic, but I got emotionally invested in these characters /5 Ideal for a young/new adult who's engaging with postcolonialism for the first time. Further Media Recs: Postcolonial Literature: ♖ Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih ♖ Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga ♖ Abeng by Michelle Cliff ♖ Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ♖ The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Academia and Disillusionment: ♖ Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh ♖ The Magicians by Lev Grossman Violence as Political Action: ♖ The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt ♖ The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) ♖ Philosophy Tube's Violence and Protest

Ranting and Spoilers Below The Cut

The single most devastating use of Plato's Apology. ('The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.')

This book is very didactic. Although it didn't bother me too much throughout most of it, the bits where Abel Goodfellow explains what it is the laborers want and how they're affected by the industrial silver revolution are bordeline unbearable.

I've seen a lot of people complain that this book is thematically heavy-handed, condescending, or, at worst, written 'for white people'. My general take on this is that, if you're already well versed in postcolonial thought and literature, then this book won't tell you anything you don't already know. There are plenty of books that deal with these themes in ways that are far less heavy-handed (I've listed some examples in my further media recs), and if you've read them then Babel is likely to feel very in-your-face and obvious. To quote a highly educated friend of mine: 'You're telling me 19th century Oxford is racist and colonialism is bad? No fucking shit.'

However, not everyone has had the chance to engage with postcolonial theory. If you didn't take humanities courses, or go to college, or even if you live in a part of the world where the topic isn't as commonly discussed (ironically, often the nations that are most affected), then I think Babel would be a great introduction point. I could see this being an especially formative book in the lives of old high school/young college students. With that in mind, I don't think the book is condescending so much as that it's written for younger or less familiar audiences.

The magic system of this book is so cool, the concept of exploiting those gaps in language is fascinating I really love it. Also it gives Kuang an excuse to shower me with etymology fun facts which I eat up every time.

I think this book's biggest strength is it's characters and the bonds between them. I got so invested into these kids and their stories, their relationships with one another. It executed on the found family thing in a way that really struck a cord with me, they made me feel how the books I read as a kid made me feel.

Maybe because it elicited those feelings in me, and maybe because of the whole 'younger audience' thing, I seriously misjudge the sort of book this was and did not realize Major Character Death was On The table. Robin killing Professor Lovell caught me off guard but ah, you know, he sucked and I guess it makes sense. But Ramy???? I did not see that coming, I think I froze in the middle of the sidewalk with my mouth open, gaping like a fish. Honestly I don't know why this surprised me so much, the book's alternate title is literally 'Or the Necessity of Violence'.

Anyways, then Kuang proceeded to kill off everyone except Victoire.

There's a bit in the book My Left Foot where the author talks about how as a kid he'd write these expansive cowboy stories with tons of different characters and then by the end he'd get overwhelmed and wouldn't know what to do with them all so he'd just kill everyone. Anyways, something about the sudden death of the Hermes Society + Griffin reminded me of that.

Reading about them immediately after the murder of Professor Lovell had me stressed out, these morons were acting as suspiciously as possible and making the worst decisions (unfathomably stupid, the lot of them). It was really annoying me at the time cause 'in real life they'd get insta caught they're so lucky they have plot armor blablabl–' but then they did, in fact, instantly get caught. Never send an academic to do a henchman's job.

I love the edge of possession in Letty's feelings for Ramy. The first time they're explicitly addressed, Robin tells Ramy: "she wants you". Later, in Letty's chapter, she thinks of him as "Ramy, her Ramy". This isn't love for an equal, it's an aspiration to ownership. Even after he's rejected her outright, she still thinks of him in those terms. Hers. To do with and dispose of as she pleases. Idk, I guess just find Letty interesting, I'm always fascinated by the psychology of villains.

Dude the silver on the chains to keep enslaved people docile is just straight horror holy shit

The decision to leave Ramy and Robin's relationship that was is so devastating. We never see them be together, get mostly ambiguous hints at their feelings for each other, but the seeds are the there, the groundwork is there. In time, as they grew up and came to know themselves who knows what might have happened. But they'll never get the chance. The book just ends with this sense of things things cut short and left unfinished, which really drives home how young they were when they died.

I'm woman enough to admit I cried at the end of this. Victoire ending up alone, Robin's decision to die, being alone in his final moments... Even thinking about it now it makes my chest hurt. Especially because I got so invested in their friendships, and because reading this took so long, I kept thinking back to who they were then and how it started and it's all feels very 'it's not what one would have foretold'. (Get through a write up without quoting Brideshead Revisited challenge: impossible).

I do take issue with some of the footnotes. Not so much the ones providing historical context or additional information (that's fine, and I found much of it quite interesting), but more so the ones that provide extra information about the characters themselves, or stuff that happened while you weren't looking. In my opinion, if those character moments are important then Kuang should've worked them into the actual text of the story (in which case footnoting just feels kinda lazy) OR, if those moments aren't important to the book, then she needs to learn to kill her darlings and cut out the filler. Either way, an executive decision needs to be made. There's no reason why a conversation between Robin and Mrs. Piper about using silver to treat people should be footnoted, or the encounter with a boy at Prof. Lovell's house.

The whole Griffin backstory stands out to me as a very bad instance of misused footnotes. I think it would've been fine to leave Griffin/Evie/Sterling's backstory as merely implied. Indeed, I think the body of the text gives you more than enough hints and details to make those connections for the reader without it having to be spelled out. But, if Kuang really wanted to discuss it outright, then she should've found some way of doing it in the story itself. Again, either than information is necessary or it isn't.

Also, by the end some of the footnotes start to feel a little defensive, like maybe Kuang's preempting attacks from people that might try to poke holes in her story. Like when Robin/Victoire exit the tower to talk to Abel, and the footnote tells us:

*Professor Craft had drawn Robin’s and Victoire’s blood and replaced their vials in the wall; they were now as free to enter and exit the tower as ever before.

Like come onnn doesn't that feel like a lazy attempt to patch over a potential plothole? Again, this should've just been included in the body of the text. Or, if Kuang thought it so obvious it need not be mentioned, then leave. it. implied. Another instance of this comes again later when Abel is discussing strategy and the footnote interjects:

*If this organizational competence strikes one as surprising, remember that [...]

1) don't assume what strikes me as surprising, you don't know me. 2) while the info on the Ludites that follows is interesting enough, the opening sentence reeks of "I know you might think this is a plot hole but actually–". R.F. Kuang, can you please stop shadowboxing your critics we have a story to finish.

Robin's mom calling him by his real name at the end (a name we never hear) is very sweet and sad and tragic and I think that's the perfect note to end his story on.

The book's ending is also solid, the fact that we don't find out if the mission will succeed. We don't know if the destruction of Babel will work in the story, just as we don't know if resistance attempts at decolonization in the present will ever be totally successful. Was it all worth it? Ask me a little later, and I'll tell you.

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By the time Professor Richard Lovell found his way through Canton's narrow alleys to the faded address in his diary, the boy was the only one in the house left alive. .................................. 'Ask me a little later, and I'll tell you.'

Babel, R.F. Kuang First and Last Sentence

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The room seemed at once both mundane and heartbreakingly beautiful: the morning light streaming through stained-glass windows, casting colourful patterns on the polished wooden desks; the clean scratch of chalk against the blackboard; and the sweet, woody smell of old books. A dream; this was an impossible dream, this fragile, lovely world in which, for the price of his convictions, he had been allowed to remain.

Babel, R.F. Kuang

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And that was the heart of it all, wasn’t it? Robin had always been willing, in theory, to give up only some things for a revolution he halfway believed in. He was fine with resistance as long as it didn’t hurt him. And the contradiction was fine, as long as he didn’t think too hard about it, or look too closely. But spelled out like this, in such bleak terms, it seemed inarguable that far from being a revolutionary, Robin, in fact, had no convictions whatsoever.

Babel, R.F. Kuang

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‘We have to die to get their pity,’ said Victoire. ‘We have to die for them to find us noble. Our deaths are thus great acts of rebellion, a wretched lament that highlights their inhumanity. Our deaths become their battle cry. But I don’t want to die, Robin.’ Her throat hitched. ‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be their Imoinda, their Oroonoko. I don’t want to be their tragic, lovely lacquer figure. I want to live.’ She fell against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, rocking back and forth. ‘I want to live,’ she repeated, ‘and live, and thrive, and survive them. I want a future. I don’t think death is a reprieve. I think it’s – it’s just the end. It forecloses everything – a future where I might be happy, and free. And it’s not about being brave. It’s about wanting another chance. Even if all I did was run away, even if I never lifted a finger to help anyone else as long as I lived – at least I would get to be happy. At least the world might be all right, just for a day, just for me. Is that selfish?’ Her shoulders crumpled. Robin held her tight against him. What an anchor she was, he thought, an anchor he did not deserve. She was his rock, his light, the sole presence that had kept him going. And he wished, he wished, that was enough for him to hold on to. ‘Be selfish,’ he whispered. ‘Be brave.’

Babel, R.F. Kuang

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✺ Notes on Jessica Knoll's Luckiest Girl Alive ✺

Slow start, but picks up by the halfway point /5 Ideal for someone who wants an exploration of trauma with flawed, complicated characters. Further Media Recs: 𓏌 My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell 𓏌 The Drama (2026) 𓏌 Gone Girl (2014)

Ranting and Spoilers Below the Cut

I listened to the audiobook so I had to check a digital copy when I did the whole first/last sentence thing. I straight up thought there was something wrong with the formatting and had to google other editions and the netflix movie and everything cause what do you mean her name is TifAni FaNelli??? With TWO mid name capitalizations???? It like if that beak-faced spongebob meme were trying to say her name.

Flipping back through the book's earlier portions I think there may be a ton of hints at/reflections of Ani's trauma that I just didn't pick up on the first time round. For example, after the reveal we're told about how sometimes she can't eat some foods because they'll remind her of the violence she's witnessed. While I hadn't noticed it before, this is absolutely something we see Ani doing early on, describing her spilled wine as "pooling around the base of the glass like [...] a gunshot wound". I think this may be a book that benefits from a reread, once you know the entirety of Ani's context.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the disordered eating in this book. I didn't like it, but I can't tell if it wasn't handled well or if it just made me uncomfortable. Regardless, it is certainly one of the book's defining features, pervading throughout both the past and present storylines. We're told that Ani's obsession with 'perfection' manifests as an extension of her trauma, hence starving herself in the lead up to her wedding. That being said, her disordered relationship with food pre-dates any of the events that take place in the novel, they've just always been a part of her.

The book ends by telling us about Ani finally eating, stuffing her face with a "grilled cheese, chicken fingers, fries, ice cream sandwiches.[...] I think I was still chewing through a French fry as I dozed off." If Ani's only pattern of disordered eating were starvation, this might be a sign of recovery. Unfortunately, Ani goes through periods both of starvation and binge eating. With that in mind, Ani falling asleep mid fry is less quirky-but-cathartic than it is reminiscent of grotesque food descriptions from her binge-eating days with Arthur. Idk, I might be reading into this too much but it's truly never addressed or even discussed as an issue. Disordered eating is one of the most prevalent themes of the whole book (even Arthur's mental health decline is hinted at in terms of his gaining weight/binge eating) yet it never gets a real resolution.

I found Ani very unlikeable early on, but I think that's kind of the point. The more I got to know about her and why she is the way she is she started to grow on me. I think Knoll did a great job of creating a character who isn't a perfect victim– and, sometimes, isn't even a good person– but who you want to see succeed and grow and whom you feel for nonetheless.

With Ani's pursuit of Andrew Larson, for example, I kept wanting to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. "You are engaged. That man, your high school teacher, is happily married with children. Leave. The man. Alone." And yet, though she's 1000000% in the wrong, you can totally understand why she's doing it and understand her actions as those of a drowning woman desperately clawing at a possible raft. It's a hard balance to strike and I think Knoll does it masterfully.

Speaking of Mr. Larson, I was losing my mind hearing about his interactions with Ani. Like, just from a self-preservation angle. Don't invite your fourteen-year-old student to stay at your house unsupervised, are you insane???? We know nothing happened, but dude you're gonna get your shit shut down, you're lucky no lawyers got involved.

Larson also loses major points for kissing Ani, especially right after she's in such a vulnerable state. It didn't strike me that he had any ill-intent leading up to that moment. Like I said, having her over as a teen seems more stupid than sinister, and I totally buy that he started meeting up with her out of genuine concern. Still, it certainly complicates the 'good guy' persona he's presented with throughout the rest of the novel, even if Ani is the once pursuing him.

I really appreciate the way Arthur's character is handled. I don't have much to say other than that Knoll does a very good job of treating him like a person, rather than just a 2D villain. Honestly, even characters like Liam, Dean, and Peyton are treated with a surprising degree of humanity.

Knoll just does a great job of writing complex, multifaceted characters (essays could be written about Ani's parents alone). Really the closest we come to flat character are Luke and his family.

Re: Luke and his conservative family– I grew up in a red state, surrounded by deeply conservative family members and family friends. Simply put, that is not the way these people talk behind closed doors. Don't get me wrong, they absolutely say disgusting bigoted shit, but the whole scene where Luke's cousin talks about how she sent someone condolences flowers when her son came out as gay is just so ludicrously cartoonish I can't get over it. The whole thing reads like maybe Jessica Knoll has never spent time around people who aren't liberals and is trying desperately to guess at what they're like.

There is some weirdness around how the book talks about queer men, though. The main moment that comes to mind is when Ani talks about how a gay man's ability to effortlessly navigate female social dynamics is more of an indicator of his being gay than the fact he likes men. Idk, not to be the friend that's too woke but it did kinda rub me the wrong way? Seems to be an implication that gay men are more women than they are men. There's also this one description of a waiter: "He was gay, tiny and pretty. Probably had a beefy bear he'd hook up with after his shift was over." Idk, I can't quite put my finger on it, but there were multiple points that made me go 'hm...'

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✺ Notes on Stephen King's Carrie ✺

Compulsively readable, but won't stick with me longterm /5 Ideal for someone who blows off steam after a bad day by creating, torturing, and killing their enemies in the sims. Further Media Recs: ♕ The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides ♕ Ethel Caine's Preacher's Daughter ♕ Matilda (1996) ♕ Girl A by Abigail Dean ♕ Heathers: The Musical

Ranting and Spoilers Below the Cut

This is the first Stephen King novel I've ever read, and I went into it with high expectations because of how beloved he is. The high praise he's received over the years lead me to believe this would be more literary than it ended up being. In retrospect it is pretty obvious he's more of a prolific 'pop lit' kinda guy, so that's on me.

Although I do also get that this was his debut novel so I'd be interested in reading some of his later work and seeing how his style develops.

I picked up Carrie because I knew it dealt with themes of religious trauma/womanhood/puberty in a horror context, which sounded super interesting to me. Unfortunately, though those themes do indeed appear in the book, I don't think King does anything all that interesting with them.

The killer prom queen concept does go very hard, though. And that one scene of Carrie in the pig blood on stage is undeniably iconic.

All in all, it was a fun read, but doesn't have much in the way of long-term grip. It's been about a week since I finished it, and I've already stopped thinking about it.

Carrietta White is a fantastic name, I love saying it out loud, what a shame no one can ever name their child that ever again.

I keep thinking about the fact that it was people trying to help Carrie that ultimately led to all this happening. Miss Desjardin stepping in to protect her against the other girls, the principal standing up against Chris' father, Sue asking Tommy to take Carrie to the dance, Tommy voting for her for prom queen... Idk, it feels narratively cruel, maybe even a bit mean-spirited in a way I don't quite know what to make of. Cause like, your gut instinct upon reading the book is to think 'oh, this is the consequence for treating people like they're invisible, for cruelty, THAT'S the point' but like... Though there is undeniably cruelty and meanness, she ends up on that stage largely due to people's kindness/their attempts to make amends. So is it just a matter of too little too late? Would it have been better to leave things as they were and not try to challenge the pecking order? I don't know.

In the preface King talks about how he got the inspiration for this book from two girls he knew about that had tragic lives and commit suicide, saying he wishes he could show them this book. ...Idk, I've kinda got mixed feelings about it.

There's a real 'men-writing-women' quality to this. It's obvious that King doesn't understand periods and didn't consult any women on it before publishing. Examples:

1. Someone throws a tampon at Carrie and it sticks to her body 2. Carrie puts on a pad before she puts on her underwear (what on earth does he think it's attaching to?????) 3. There's a passing comment about how her period made Carrie's genitals hurt (while I understand it may look horrific, no, our pussy does not hurt. Cramps are a pain in the lower abdomen.) 4. While I do know women who didn't know what a period was when they had theirs for the first time, they were all quite young when it happened. The thought of a 16 year old not knowing about it, however, stretches credulity. I'll buy there's someone as fucked up as Margaret White wouldn't tell their kid, but then Carrie would certainly have been taught it at school.

Also King simply cannot stop describing women's breasts. We are told about the boobs of every female character we meet, often in ways that are comically unnecessary. Mis Desjardin isn't just 'wearing a whistle', "her silver whistle dangled between her small breasts". King's extensive descriptions of boobs is such that even Margaret's obsession with 'dirtypillows' feels like an extension of the author's fixation.

Here's just a sampling of women breasting boobily:

Miss Desjardin, their slim, nonbreasted gym teacher Carrie stood swaying between the showers and the wall with its dime sanitary-napkin dispenser, slumped over, breasts pointing at the floor, her arms dangling limply. ‘What are those?’ “I looked down and saw that my top had slipped while I was asleep. So I fixed it and said, ‘Those are my breasts, Carrie.' Her breasts were milk-white, upright and smooth. The nipples were a light coffee color. She was looking exceptionally pretty, her black hair held by a shamrock-green band and a tight basque blouse that accentuated her firm, upthrust breasts. A baggy sweater concealed her breasts except for token nubs. She backed away from him, breasts swelling into her bra

I know this sin isn't exclusive to King, but for the life of me I cannot think of anything I've ever read that was so glaring in it's male authorship. Straight up, this is embarrassing and I kinda can't believe they got Atwood on the introduction.

Speaking of things Stephen King doesn't understand: that's not how the inheritance of hemophilia works. I don't know why but this really did big me immensely so... uh.... time to put those three years of med school to use with a lengthy and unnecessary explanation:

LENGTHY AND UNNECESSARY HEMOPHILIA TANGENT: Hemophilia is linked to the X chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes (XX)***, both of which would have to be affected by hemophilia in order for them to have the disease. If they only inherit one affected chromosome, then the healthy copy will cover it. Although they won't have hemophilia themselves, these women are still carries for the affected gene and could pass it on to their kids. Men, on the other hand, only have one X chromosome (XY), so if they inherit an infected X, they have no extra copies to fall back on and will therefore have hemophilia. With this context in mind: "This disease is generated only if an afflicted male marries a woman carrying the recessive gene. If the offspring of such union is male, the result will be a hemophiliac son." Wrong. The health status of the father is IRRELEVANT here. Fathers only pass on their Y chromosomes to their sons, not the affected X. The affected X would instead be passed on to this daughters, which would all be carriers for the disease (or, since the mother herself is a carrier, may even get two affected Xs and be hemophiliacs themselves. "It should be emphasized that the hemophilia gene may be carried recessively in the male as a part of his genetic make-up." Wrong. Men cannot carry hemophilia recessively. They either have the gene (in which case they are hemophiliacs), or they don't (in which case they are healthy). ***Note that while I am using the terms 'men' and 'women' here get my point across, chromosomal sex and gender identity are two different things, and anyone who tells you otherwise is no friend of mine. ***

For visual learners:

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If they said too little, they would regret it forever. If they said too much, they’d never bring themselves to part.

Babel, RF Kuang

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'And what did I do? I lived a life I shouldn't have, I had what millions of people didn't– all that suffering, Victoire, and the whole time I was drinking champagne–'

Babel, R.F. Kuang

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✺ Notes on the Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo✺

The coolest setting I've ever encountered /5 Ideal for when you're lost in the desert, you're shaking out your canteen out for the last drop of water, and you can no longer tell mirage from reality. Also if you like haunting stories with fragmented narratives. Further Media Recs † Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada [eng: Chronicle of a Death Fortold] by Gabriel Garcia Márquez † Orpheus (1950) † The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald † The Lion King (1994)

Ranting and Spoilers Below the Cut

Over all, did I understand everything? No. But boy is it a book that begs to be re-read. I love you fragmented narratives, I love you magical realism, I love you gothic novels.

And yes, Pedro Páramo is a gothic novel.

The book opens with an honest to god katabasis with a psychopomp and everything and already that's sick as fuck. Juan Preciado, caught at a literal crossroads, is picked up by Abundio who leads him down into Comala sits, a place that sits not just out of time, but also exists below the reach of the wind and weather that passes above it's head. There's also this one line about how the way there is downhill whereas to leave is an uphill climb which is such a cool wink-nudge at the notion of Comala as a sort of underworld/purgatory. It's also a pretty early indicator that Juan's not gonna make it out.

El camino subía y bajaba: "Sube o baja según se va o se viene. Para el que va, sube; para el que viene, baja." The path went up and down: "It goes up or down depending on if you're coming or going. For those that leave, it's up; for those that are coming, it's down."

This is maybe one of the coolest fictional settings I've ever read. A ghost town haunted by it's past inhabitants, stuck recounting their sins and replaying their lives... Like, that's already cool as fuck. But then Rulfo goes sicko mode by telling you that Comala is also full of non-human hauntings. There's the phantom horse that gallops past every night, the barking of dogs that are no longer there, and (my absolute favorite) you can see fallen leaves skitter past on the ground even though there are no longer any trees. Like.... Comala is haunted by leaves.... That's such an incredible detail I cannot stop thinking about it.

Aside from how cool all those details are, it also helps solidify this notion that Comala is a ghost town not just in that it's inhabited by ghosts, but because the town itself is a ghost.

We're kinda hit with this notion of Comala being haunted by itself/and it's past from the moment Juan lays eyes on it, where he can't help but imagine it through his mothers eyes. Comala's past and present are overlayed, at once the luscious green valley and the barren deserted town.

Yo imaginaba ver aquello a través de los recuerdos de mi madre; de su nostalgia, entre retazos de suspiros. Siempre vivió ella suspirando por Comala, por el retorno; pero jamás volvió. Ahora yo vengo en su lugar. Traigo los ojos con que ella miró estas cosas, porque me dio sus ojos para ver: "Hay allí, pasando el puerto de Los Colimotes, la vista muy hermosa de una llanura verde, algo amarilla por el maíz maduro. Desde ese lugar se ve Comala, blanqueando la tierra, iluminándola durante la noche." I imagined I saw it through my mother's memories; through her nostalgia, amidst shreds of sighs. She spent her life sighing for Comala, for her return; but she never went back. Now I've come in her place. I bring with me the eyes with which she saw things, because she gave me her eyes to see: "There is, past the gate of Los Colimotes, a very beautiful view of a green valley, a little yellow with ripe corn. From there you can see Comala, whitening the earth, lighting it at night."

Comala as a whole is just so surreal and atmospheric literally the only way I can explain it is that it felt like the underworld scenes in Cocteau's Orpheus .

In my opinion, the book is at it's absolute strongest when it deals with the topic of religion and the character of Padre Rentería. His scenes all packed a punch and I think it's a fantastic exploration of the ways in which religion as a tool for the oppressor. Also I think it's really cool thematically that Renetería leaves Comala, as if god himself has abandoned the town.

Comala really lends itself to be read as a purgatory. I quickly became convinced that this was because the ghostly townsfolk were being punished for their complicity in the crimes of the Páramo family. Eduviges turns a blind eye to the murder of Toribio Aldrete, Dorotea aided Miguel Páramo by finding him women to assault, Damiana Cisneros worked for the Páramo family for years and turned a blind eye to the way Pedro treated women and conducted his business.

That theory doesn't hold up to scrutiny, I fear. Truly guilty parties (like Fulgor Sedano) are absent from the town while genuine victims (like Toribio) still haunt the town. I think the textual explanation is more so that Rentería's abandonment leaves the dead stuck where they are, without final rites. Still, I'm sure there's something to the whole town complicity angle, it's too pervasive to be nothing.

ALSO the whole notion that Miguel canonically gets to go to heaven despite being an absolute monster because his father pays the Rentería to bless him anyways is just such a cool/unique portrayal of Christianity and god have I mentioned how much I love the way this book deals with religion?

You know who's absence drives me a little crazy? Pedro Páramo's. His ghost's absence is so very tantalizing yet I don't know what to make of it, of him crumbling like stones upon his death. There's something there and I can't quite put my finger on it it's driving me crazy. Time to hit up jstor.

I haven't mentioned Susana at all this review despite her being an integral part of Pedro's motivations and a crucial part of the story. The truth is I have no idea what to make of her. Forgive me.

[quotesfrombooksarchive]

I inspected the knife in my hand. .................................. "I'm TifAni FaNelli."

Luckiest Girl Alive, Jessica Knoll First and Last Sentence