Woah. I think I'm just fundamentally a sucker for this sort of metafiction (see: Pale Fire). Obviously this adds a lot on top with the physicality of Woah. I think I'm just fundamentally a sucker for this sort of metafiction (see: Pale Fire). Obviously this adds a lot on top with the physicality of it all, which is also cool! Definitely lived up to the trippy hype, and also like I said, I'm a sucker for this sort of thing. Found myself rather shook at a few points, which is cool.
Anyway, it's certainly not for everyone (the top reviews going 5*, 1*, 5*, 1*, 5* is honestly so funny to me), but I liked it quite a bit....more
Another Moshfegh romp for all ages here, and boy has she done it again with a cast of characters who really are a barrel of laughs.
Honestly I've run oAnother Moshfegh romp for all ages here, and boy has she done it again with a cast of characters who really are a barrel of laughs.
Honestly I've run out of steam after that elegant & well-thought out jape, but yeah. It's definitely in the same vein as the rest of her stuff, where no one is really fun or likable but they're so multi-faceted and full of interiority -- in truth, more than I'd prefer at points, Eileen is GROSS -- that it gives her prose a real thrust to it, even when there's very little plot to speak of (true in both of her books I've read).
The climax is also bonkers but I really respect it purely as, like, an authorial decision. Also there's something deeply funny to me about the narrator of a novel saying she doesn't like novels, so there's another bonus point. ...more
This one sure evokes a lot of strong opinions! Picked this up on like one random tweet recommendation and that was the extent of my knowledge, so I haThis one sure evokes a lot of strong opinions! Picked this up on like one random tweet recommendation and that was the extent of my knowledge, so I had no CLUE what I was getting myself into until much later. I would like to acknowledge that the question of stewardship and what is moral & just to be told is rich and up for a lot of debate (clearly), but that's also not something the book is itself grappling with, so within context I just don't personally think it's very important. But I understand why it's galvanized so much conversation.
(Context, since half the time I write these solely for my own perspective and don't explain what I'm even talking about: Molly is a memoir about the author's frequently rocky, not at all perfect, but loving relationship with his wife and the aftermath of her taking her own life in early 2020. Soon after her death, when looking through her phone for photos for the funeral, he discovered barely-hidden evidence of her rampantly cheating on him throughout their marriage, continuing to discover more as he dug deeper. This has inspired........many opinions.)
And ultimately, what's funny is I don't care about any of that at all, because that was the only section of the book that I did not find incredibly compelling. My two cents: without weighing in on the deeper philosophical questions, because those are much too thorny for a goodreads review written at 1am, I do not think Butler is here to demean and defame Molly. He is very honest about his shortcomings as well, this isn't a one-sided narrative about her flaws from the perspective of a saint. And he so often refuses to put a name to Molly's behavior in a way that I don't think someone looking for "literary revenge porn" as some have put it would be capable of. Maybe I'm naive, but that's how I feel about it.
But again, it's a real shame to spend almost this entire review talking about that. So, the other stuff: Butler writes with such dazzling poignancy about losing Molly and the world of pure chaos and devastation it thrusts him into that I couldn't help but treat this as an absolute page turner. It's incredibly captivating stuff, despite the horrible nature & toll it takes on the reader in a lot of ways. As the saying goes, to be loved is to be seen, and Butler clearly sees & attends to Molly in such detail in the pages within that it's very clear he still loves her deeply, which makes it all more difficult to read as well.
The last chunk unfortunately lost that momentum, especially in the finishing pages, where the beautiful lyricism was ramped up to 100 in a way that felt very self-consciously poetic and lost that connection....more
Good! Read this after watching the movie which took away from the whodunit sort of angle the book approaches the story with, but that's fine -- the moGood! Read this after watching the movie which took away from the whodunit sort of angle the book approaches the story with, but that's fine -- the movie pretty clearly shows that's not a necessity for telling the story properly. I liked being able to dive in deeper and learn further details about this horrific story, as well as the FBI's role. I also read this over a year ago oh gosh my review backlog has spiraled so far out of control, so everything I can say at this point is pretty surface level anyway.
Read the book, watch the movie, whatever. Just glad this story is being told because wow. 3.5 rounded down but still a valuable read that was pretty quick and well-told (I cannot say enjoyable for obvious reasons). ...more
Very good and easy to see why it holds the place it does in pop culture. Of note: I read this as a part of Dracula Daily, a neat newsletter that takesVery good and easy to see why it holds the place it does in pop culture. Of note: I read this as a part of Dracula Daily, a neat newsletter that takes the book and rearranges it to be completely chronological, releasing each day's entries on the day of the year that it is dated in the book. From what I can glean, this doesn't change a ton, especially in the latter half, but it was a fun experience!
The thing that I most want to remark on is that this book is, more than spooky monsters or anything else, about the power of friendship? And it's not even close? Like that is harped upon again and again and it's actually kind of astonishing that I didn't know that. The thing that permeates today's culture is Dracula/Van Helsing, not much else, despite Dracula being little more than an undertone for a huge chunk of this book. This leads to its biggest drawback as well, which is the repetitiveness and sloooooooooooooow build, apart from Friendship Is Magic. Lord knows I'm not against flowery or descriptive prose, but Bram needed an editor, at least by today's standards.
I have thought about this a lot and don't know where I fall on how reading it chronologically affects this -- on one hand, I think it's heightened, because as you go day-by-day instead of by character and at whatever pace the reader likes, you're liable to get repeated explanations amongst characters in your daily missives. On the other hand, it imbues the book with such a heightened sense of tension (at one point as we're really ramping up, I went a few days without an email and was genuinely worried about what was currently happening to our characters) that it helps to alleviate that feeling.
Another thing that surprised, though maybe it shouldn't have cause Vampires Be Suckin': pretty erotic! And not necessarily in the ways you'd think! We got dudes suckin' dudes, ladies suckin' dudes, dudes suckin' ladies, all sorts of suckin' for Victorian England! Somewhat similarly, I was interested to see how empowered our female characters were in lots of ways, with someone like Mina openly wondering why should couldn't just marry three fellas (presumably for more suckin') (not really) (I'm sorry, I ruined the empowerment). On the flip side, feels like we might be a little nativist here and on neither of those sides, this has gotta be the first book I've read that has a plot point ruined (okay, maybe not exactly ruined, but it's very clear it was written without certain knowledge) by scientific advancement in the years after publishing? Not an enormous spoiler, but I'll leave it at IYKYK since Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ for unknown reasons lets you tag specific sentences with spoilers and then seemingly just ignores that completely when warning other people about the whole review that contains spoilers. (I'm actually not 100% on this but I've done enough yelling at Grant to think it is the case, maybe we should test this)
Lastly, I wanna know exactly how much of today's vampire myth was shaped specifically by this book and how much was pre-existing (or evolved after); would be interested to read some scholarship on this!
Oh, one random aside that doesn't fit the review really: fun lil' coincidence that the Boat Dracula movie (alt: Let The Right One Swim) came out in theatres at the same time as we were getting that substory in the chronology...more
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