David's Updates en-US Sun, 20 Apr 2025 17:27:10 -0700 60 David's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7502324279 Sun, 20 Apr 2025 17:27:10 -0700 <![CDATA[David added 'Orlando']]> /review/show/7502324279 Orlando by Virginia Woolf David gave 4 stars to Orlando (Paperback) by Virginia Woolf
bookshelves: classics, female, lgbtq
Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography is Wolf’s fantastical take on the non-objective nature of reality and the intersection between society’s norms and what we perceive as “constants.� The novel combines a heady exploration of gender fluidity, the influence of clothing and other cultural products, and the intersection of fiction and nonfiction with the cheekiness of frothy Edwardian romp. A novel that confidently asserts itself as a biography, Orlando continuously challenges this notion through its shifting styles and thematic elements.
This mélange of styles and ideals makes the book challenging in both the positive and negative sense of the word. The reader constantly must grab their bearings and ask “what is Woolf doing here?� Often this exercise yields rewarding results. Woolf’s takes on gender, time, and the nature of biography, for example, will stay with me. Yet, the complexity often leads to confusion, and it was easy to skim over sections.
Clothing and Identity � The Clothes Do Make the Man
One of the central themes of the novel is the tension between essential character and societal assumptions. Orlando’s identity evolves with the change in clothing, gender, and epochs. Are the changes to her character or simply to how society perceives her? Initially, the narrator declares, “He � for there could be no doubt of his sex.� P.1 However, midway through, Orlando awakens as a woman “Truth!, Truth!, Truth!, we have not choice left but confess � he was a women.� P.102
It is likely this central section of the book that the reader in the 2020’s will find most compelling. The narrator declares that Orlando remained fundamentally the same person after the switching genders. “Orlando had become a woman there was no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatsoever to alter their identity. Their faces remained as their portraits proved, practically the same.� PP 102-03. The biographer basically punts on the question on Orlando’s real sex and whether there was a change, “stat[ing] the simple fact; Orlando was a man till the age of 30; when he became a woman and has remained so ever since.”pp103, Note that Woolf uses gendered and ungendered pronouns to describe Orlando’s new state.
But the change in gender leads to differences in treatment and perceptions based the underlying assumptions about women “the whole edifice of female governance is based on that foundation stone that Chastity is their jewel, their centerpiece which they run mad to protect.� P. 113. And Orlando’s circumstances have changed regardless of the consistency of their character. Orlando cannot own property, attain the same titles, or have her writing taken seriously. By the novel's end, Orlando marries a man with effeminate traits, highlighting the ongoing fluidity of gender roles.
But Woolf understands that the change in perception, in clothing, in expectations do impact how Orlando thinks about themselves. Woolf uses clothing as a metaphor for societal expectations, demonstrating how clothes both mask gender and create our attitudes. Orlando grows into the role assigned to women, enjoying a “pleasant, lazy way of life,� which requires “the most tedious discipline…hairdressing.� PP. 114-116. This transformation underscores the novel's exploration of gender fluidity and the impact of societal expectations on individual identity. Orlando’s position is both clear and unclear. “[I]t would seem from some ambiguity � that she was censuring both sexes equally as if she belonged to neither; and indeed, for the time being she seemed to vaccinate; she was a man; she was a woman; she knew the secrets shared in the weaknesses of each. It was a most bewildering and whirligig state of mind to be in. The comforts of ignorance seemed utterly denied to her.� 117.
In 1928, this scenario might have seemed fanciful as the trans experience likely had no name. Today, especially for trans people involved in 2025's political debates, the middle section provides both a creative explanation of their experience and challenges fixed gender roles, showing they are more societal than biological.
The musings on gender are part of the novel’s musings on how form influences perception. The novel explores how the form of books influences their substance, contrasting manuscripts with mass printing, and reflecting on Orlando’s epic poem that remains perpetually incomplete.


The Intersection of Fiction and Nonfiction
Woolf’s work blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Although the book presents itself as a biography, complete with an index and photographs. But Orlando is a fictional biography that mocks the form. The prose ranges from expository to the imaginary, using poetry, drama, and steam of consciousness that could not have been known to the narrator. Ostensibly neutral, the narrator offers a perspective that is anything but impartial. The novel admits that certain historical details cannot be known, yet proceeds to fictionalize them, akin to the speeches found in Thucydides� History of the Peloponnesian War. Furthermore, Woolf’s narrative acknowledges that the protagonist Orlando is based on her lover, Vita Sackville-West. So, Orlando is a fake biography that is also based on a real person. The narrator, who, at the novel’s beginning is so confident of the biographical form ends up suggesting that an author's works might offer a truer picture of the artist than the biographer’s factual account. P. 153. Woolf’s questioning of biography is part of the novel’s larger questioning of the ability of words to describe reality.
Time and Place
Time in Orlando is experienced rather than factual, with Orlando aging only a few years over 300 years. Woolf contrasts contemporary London, where “everything shrunk,� p. 217 with earlier times, yet asserts that “the names were different, the characters were the same.� P 205. This perspective highlights the fluidity of time and the continuity of human nature. Woolf captures the existential weight of the present moment, stating, “for what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survived the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side, the future on another.� P.219
Conclusion
This is the fourth time I’ve attempted to read Orlando. Watching the documentary Orlando: My Political Biography, I was struck by how moved contemporary trans folks were by Orlando’s acknowledgment of gender as a construct versus an essential characteristic and her description of Orlando’s feeling. Upon finishing, I can see why. Yet, Orlando is more than a commentary on current arguments ripped from the past. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography is an early example of metafiction, questioning the nature of art and selfhood. Woolf challenges the reader to consider whether there is a central truth or merely a multitude of perspectives, weaving together themes of gender fluidity, societal expectations, and the interplay between fiction and reality.
I didn’t� love the novel the way some have. To many parts come across as didactic. Even though we live in Orlando’s head almost the entire time, Orlando’s character comes across as thin � more of an idea. But I am glad I read Orlando - for its creativity, its rich use of language, and ideas. ]]> Review7504409332 Sun, 20 Apr 2025 14:29:15 -0700 <![CDATA[David added 'Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 1: Fears and Hates']]> /review/show/7504409332 Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 1 by Peach Momoko David gave 4 stars to Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 1: Fears and Hates (Paperback) by Peach Momoko
A fantastic start to one of the few completely new takes on the X-Men. Using some of the characters from the Japanese X-Men, Peach Monoko’s take puts the action squarely in high school. Turning the X-Men into a manga-style school/horror mystery is a brilliant move as we identify with the characters� struggles to find out the mystery behind their powers. And with all Peach Monoko works, the visuals are amazing, surreal but still very grounded in character. This volume includes books 1-4. While wildly creative, the plot doesn’t move quickly, and very little is revealed. I’m up to book 7 in the individual issues, and the plot picks up. So hand some patience with v1 and enjoy the ride. ]]> Review7502324279 Sat, 19 Apr 2025 18:27:06 -0700 <![CDATA[David added 'Orlando']]> /review/show/7502324279 Orlando by Virginia Woolf David gave 4 stars to Orlando (Paperback) by Virginia Woolf
bookshelves: classics, female, lgbtq
Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography is Wolf’s fantastical take on the non-objective nature of reality and the intersection between society’s norms and what we perceive as “constants.� The novel combines a heady exploration of gender fluidity, the influence of clothing and other cultural products, and the intersection of fiction and nonfiction with the cheekiness of frothy Edwardian romp. A novel that confidently asserts itself as a biography, Orlando continuously challenges this notion through its shifting styles and thematic elements.
This mélange of styles and ideals makes the book challenging in both the positive and negative sense of the word. The reader constantly must grab their bearings and ask “what is Woolf doing here?� Often this exercise yields rewarding results. Woolf’s takes on gender, time, and the nature of biography, for example, will stay with me. Yet, the complexity often leads to confusion, and it was easy to skim over sections.
Clothing and Identity � The Clothes Do Make the Man
One of the central themes of the novel is the tension between essential character and societal assumptions. Orlando’s identity evolves with the change in clothing, gender, and epochs. Are the changes to her character or simply to how society perceives her? Initially, the narrator declares, “He � for there could be no doubt of his sex.� P.1 However, midway through, Orlando awakens as a woman “Truth!, Truth!, Truth!, we have not choice left but confess � he was a women.� P.102
It is likely this central section of the book that the reader in the 2020’s will find most compelling. The narrator declares that Orlando remained fundamentally the same person after the switching genders. “Orlando had become a woman there was no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatsoever to alter their identity. Their faces remained as their portraits proved, practically the same.� PP 102-03. The biographer basically punts on the question on Orlando’s real sex and whether there was a change, “stat[ing] the simple fact; Orlando was a man till the age of 30; when he became a woman and has remained so ever since.”pp103, Note that Woolf uses gendered and ungendered pronouns to describe Orlando’s new state.
But the change in gender leads to differences in treatment and perceptions based the underlying assumptions about women “the whole edifice of female governance is based on that foundation stone that Chastity is their jewel, their centerpiece which they run mad to protect.� P. 113. And Orlando’s circumstances have changed regardless of the consistency of their character. Orlando cannot own property, attain the same titles, or have her writing taken seriously. By the novel's end, Orlando marries a man with effeminate traits, highlighting the ongoing fluidity of gender roles.
But Woolf understands that the change in perception, in clothing, in expectations do impact how Orlando thinks about themselves. Woolf uses clothing as a metaphor for societal expectations, demonstrating how clothes both mask gender and create our attitudes. Orlando grows into the role assigned to women, enjoying a “pleasant, lazy way of life,� which requires “the most tedious discipline…hairdressing.� PP. 114-116. This transformation underscores the novel's exploration of gender fluidity and the impact of societal expectations on individual identity. Orlando’s position is both clear and unclear. “[I]t would seem from some ambiguity � that she was censuring both sexes equally as if she belonged to neither; and indeed, for the time being she seemed to vaccinate; she was a man; she was a woman; she knew the secrets shared in the weaknesses of each. It was a most bewildering and whirligig state of mind to be in. The comforts of ignorance seemed utterly denied to her.� 117.
In 1928, this scenario might have seemed fanciful as the trans experience likely had no name. Today, especially for trans people involved in 2025's political debates, the middle section provides both a creative explanation of their experience and challenges fixed gender roles, showing they are more societal than biological.
The musings on gender are part of the novel’s musings on how form influences perception. The novel explores how the form of books influences their substance, contrasting manuscripts with mass printing, and reflecting on Orlando’s epic poem that remains perpetually incomplete.


The Intersection of Fiction and Nonfiction
Woolf’s work blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Although the book presents itself as a biography, complete with an index and photographs. But Orlando is a fictional biography that mocks the form. The prose ranges from expository to the imaginary, using poetry, drama, and steam of consciousness that could not have been known to the narrator. Ostensibly neutral, the narrator offers a perspective that is anything but impartial. The novel admits that certain historical details cannot be known, yet proceeds to fictionalize them, akin to the speeches found in Thucydides� History of the Peloponnesian War. Furthermore, Woolf’s narrative acknowledges that the protagonist Orlando is based on her lover, Vita Sackville-West. So, Orlando is a fake biography that is also based on a real person. The narrator, who, at the novel’s beginning is so confident of the biographical form ends up suggesting that an author's works might offer a truer picture of the artist than the biographer’s factual account. P. 153. Woolf’s questioning of biography is part of the novel’s larger questioning of the ability of words to describe reality.
Time and Place
Time in Orlando is experienced rather than factual, with Orlando aging only a few years over 300 years. Woolf contrasts contemporary London, where “everything shrunk,� p. 217 with earlier times, yet asserts that “the names were different, the characters were the same.� P 205. This perspective highlights the fluidity of time and the continuity of human nature. Woolf captures the existential weight of the present moment, stating, “for what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survived the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side, the future on another.� P.219
Conclusion
This is the fourth time I’ve attempted to read Orlando. Watching the documentary Orlando: My Political Biography, I was struck by how moved contemporary trans folks were by Orlando’s acknowledgment of gender as a construct versus an essential characteristic and her description of Orlando’s feeling. Upon finishing, I can see why. Yet, Orlando is more than a commentary on current arguments ripped from the past. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography is an early example of metafiction, questioning the nature of art and selfhood. Woolf challenges the reader to consider whether there is a central truth or merely a multitude of perspectives, weaving together themes of gender fluidity, societal expectations, and the interplay between fiction and reality.
I didn’t� love the novel the way some have. To many parts come across as didactic. Even though we live in Orlando’s head almost the entire time, Orlando’s character comes across as thin � more of an idea. But I am glad I read Orlando - for its creativity, its rich use of language, and ideas. ]]> Comment289677268 Sat, 19 Apr 2025 18:26:07 -0700 <![CDATA[David made a comment on Steve’s status]]> /read_statuses/9308601214 David made a comment on Steve’s status

Wow. How did you pick up this one? ]]> Rating849032116 Sat, 19 Apr 2025 18:25:50 -0700 <![CDATA[David Goldman liked a readstatus]]> /
David Goldman liked Steve’s status update
Steve LaFollette Steve LaFollette is currently reading The Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul
]]> Rating849032059 Sat, 19 Apr 2025 18:25:31 -0700 <![CDATA[David Goldman liked a review]]> /
David Goldman liked Candice's review of None of This Is True:
None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
]]> Rating849031987 Sat, 19 Apr 2025 18:25:12 -0700 <![CDATA[David Goldman liked a review]]> /
David Goldman liked Marc's review of A Concise History of Ancient Israel: From the Beginnings Through the Hellenistic Era (Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible Book 11):
A Concise History of Ancient Israel by Bernd U. Schipper
"This primarily is a political history of early Israel, roughly the period 1200-63 BCE. You will find little here on religious evolution. Bernd Schipper (° 1968, professor of Old Testament at the Humboldt University in Berlin) clearly belongs to the minimalist movement. That is to say, for him the historical value of the Hebrew Bible is very limited, if not non-existent. “The history contained in the Hebrew Bible offers little in the way of solid foundations upon which to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel, though in particular cases one might still look its theologically-influenced depiction of history in hope of finding a historical kernel�. Time and again in this book he points out which passages in the Bible are completely fabricated, or anachronistic. And of course one should certainly approach the historical value of the Bible critically. But to my taste he assumes a bit too much that non-Biblical sources, textual or archaeological, are almost by definition reliable. This does not take away from the fact that this still offers a concise and interesting overview of the earliest history of Judaism. More in my History account on ŷ: /review/show...."
]]> Review7501965147 Sat, 19 Apr 2025 15:23:58 -0700 <![CDATA[David added 'The Pedestrian, Volume 1']]> /review/show/7501965147 The Pedestrian, Volume 1 by Joey Esposito David gave 4 stars to The Pedestrian, Volume 1 (Paperback) by Joey Esposito
The Pedestrian by Joe Esposito is an odd and thought-provoking graphic novel that follows the intertwined lives of down-on-their-luck characters who are trying to make something of their lives and do some small but good deeds along the way. These characters are surrounded by two opposing characters: the mild-mannered Pedestrian, who intervenes when needed, and a malevolent force that invades others. The novel explores the question of how much we follow the rules and how much that gives us the right to hurt others when life is unfair. It also questions what is permissible in fighting evil. Despite incorporating some of the techniques and themes of noir, the novel is not a traditional noir. It’s an interesting start to what could be a longer series. ]]> Review457632816 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 23:02:06 -0700 <![CDATA[David added 'The Magic Mountain']]> /review/show/457632816 The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann David gave 5 stars to The Magic Mountain (Kindle Edition) by Thomas Mann
The Magic Mountain Revisited
I first read Thomas Mann’s groundbreaking modernist novel, Magic Mountain, in December 2007. I appreciated the book’s daring structure, its meditations on the nature of illness and time. When Trump got elected (for the first time �) in 2016, I thought of MennHerr Peeperkorn, the “personality� with no substance who dominates the more traditional left/right protagonists. Yet, I never loved the novel the way I do other “classics� like Moby Dick, The Brothers Karamazov, and To the Lighthouse. Even the even more mammoth In Search of Lost Time had a stronger pull on my imagination (despite a few volumes I barely got through). In short, these novels were on the perpetual “I can’t wait to read this again� list. � Magic Mountain� was not.
Then the 2024 election happened. Noted Hannah Arendt scholar Samantha Rose Hill said the MM helped her understand the current moment more than Arendt’s Totalitarianism, a class she had just taught. And Mann himself said that MM had to be read twice. So when Sam offered to do a facilitated reading of MM for her Substack subscribers, I once again ascended the mountain. (sorry -last mountain analogy)
With the help of Sam and other online participants, I found new levels in MM and I can see why so many others did love the book and found it discussed the right issues for our disturbing moment. If you are interested, please subscribe to Sam’s Substack. .

The narrative opens in the decade before World War I. We are introduced to the central protagonist of the story, Hans Castorp. Mann started writing MM before the Great War intending it as a short follow-up to Death in Venice. Yet the War changed Mann’s thinking, and his novel changed as well, as did other so many others such as To the Lighthouse, The Rainbow/Women in Love, and In Search of Lost Time. Mann came to believe that literature should not be separate from world events and his nationalism tempered.
And MM reflects this change. We encounter Hans when he is in his early 20s, about to take up a shipbuilding career in Hamburg, his hometown. He’s set for a standard, unspectacular bourgeoisie career. Indeed, Hans, at the novel’s beginning, is set up to be unremarkable.


. For a person to be disposed to more significant beyond what is simply required of him—even when his own times may provide no satisfactory answer to the question of why—he needs either a rare, heroic personality that exists in a kind of moral isolation and immediacy, or one characterized by exceptionally robust vitality. Neither the former nor the latter was the case with Hans Castorp, and so he probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word. (31)


Just before beginning this professional career he undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim, who is seeking a cure in a sanatorium in Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps. In the opening chapter, Hans is symbolically transported away from the familiar life and mundane obligations he has known, in what he later learns to call "the flatlands", to the rarefied mountain air and introspective little world of the sanatorium.

Castorp's departure from the sanatorium is repeatedly delayed by his alleged failing health, although it’s never clear how ill Hans really is. What at first appears to be a minor bronchial infection with slight fever is diagnosed by the sanatorium's chief doctor and director, Hofrat Behrens, as symptoms of tuberculosis. Hans is persuaded by Behrens to stay until his health improves. Joachim makes the decision to leave, returns to dies of TB.


In the end, Castorp remains rarified atmosphere of the sanatorium for seven years. At the conclusion of the novel, the war begins, Castorp is conscripted into the military, and his imminent death on the battlefield is suggested. The final words, ambiguous to end, is provides a ray or hope (or not?) “Out of this universal feast of death, out of this extremity of fever, kindling the rain-washed evening sky to a fiery glow, may it be that Love one day shall mount?�
The novel moves through a dialectic approach � pairs of opposites forcing the reader not to choose sides but to explore. Hans and Jochim; Hans and Cladvia, Naphta and Settenbrini, these two pedagogues and Peeperkorn, the good and bad Russian table, up in the mountains and down there, Western enlightenment (love of life) vs eastern (fascination with death), the Appolonian vs the Dyonisan, illness and health, order vs randomness, east/west for example. In all these battles, the characters, particularly Hans (and to some extent Hans� foils Joachim and Claudia) are in the middle.
Life on the Mountain. Hans’s development from budding shipbuilder to thinker and soldier would not have happened in the world below. But is release from the everyday liberating and an escape from it? Hans finds himself in the middle of this argument. During his extended stay, Castorp meets and learns from a variety of characters, who together represent a microcosm of pre-war Europe. These include the secular humanist and encyclopedist Lodovico Settembrini (a student of Giosuè Carducci), the totalitarian Jesuit Leo Naphta, the “great personality� Mynheer Peeperkorn, and his romantic interest Madame Chauchat. After Mynheer’s death, several fights break out, including the duel between Hans and Naphta, in which N commits suicide, certainly a metaphor for the entire novel. Hans is attracted to both. And yet, in a major turn, it is the romanticism of Peeperkorn whose “personality� transcends them. As Samanath Rose Hill said

Peeperkorn represents what happens when sheer charisma is able to overpower common sense. He is not motivated by reason or logic but by instinct—a man who moves from his body, creating a forcefield around him. His long-winded, inarticulate sentences, full of passion and a sense of purpose (without content), dazzle even Hans Castorp, who finds himself a bit confused by Peeperkorn’s appeal.

Hans goes from being the pupil who can’t really grasp either side (“a docile pupil to his teachers�) to a real student who can question his teachers. During this time, Hans also becomes a student of the Sanatorium � following “his duty� to the cure and fending off attacks (his parents attempt to end the treatment) from below.
Hans� intellectual growth is set off by his stunted emotional growth, which is set off by the novel’s chaos agent, Caudvia. His encounter with her, like Proust, brings back his one childhood moment of “romance.� For Hans, past and future merge as Clavdia repeats the very words Pribislav Hippe once said to him when he asked to borrow a pencil.
Hans Castorp, however, was standing in the brick schoolyard, staring from close up into a pair of blue-gray-green, epicanthic eyes above prominent cheekbones; and he said, “Do you have a pencil, perhaps?�
He was pale as death, as pale as on the day when he had returned from his solitary walk, still splattered with blood, to attend the lecture. Nerves controlling the blood vessels to his face were so successful at their task that the skin of his young face was drained of blood, turned pallid and cold, making the nose pinched and the area under his eyes so leaden that he looked almost like a corpse. But Hans Castorp’s sympathetic nerves kept his heart thumping so hard that regular respiration was out of the question, and a shudder ran over the young man, the work of his body’s sebaceous glands, which stood erect now, along with their hair follicles.
The scene ends with Hans Castorp’s declaration of love for Clavdia, and originally marked the end of the first part of the novel. After, Hans because more engaged with the thoughts and people around him.
And he finally recognizes that “their arguments and contradictions are nothing but a guazzahuglio, the hubbub and alarum of battle, and no one whose head is a little clear and heart a little devout will let himself be dazed by that. With their question of ‘true aristocracy�! With their nobility! Death or life—illness or health—spirit or nature. Are those really contradictions? I ask you: Are those problems? No, they are not problems, and the question of their nobility is not a problem, either.(p. 486).
Finally, in Snow, Hans goes from defiance to his own synthases of their ideas.
Man is the master of contradictions, they occur through him, and so he is more noble than they. More noble than death, too noble for it—that is the freedom of his mind. More noble than life, too noble for it—that is the devotion of his heart. There, I have rhymed it all together, dreamed a poem of humankind. I will remember it. I will be good. I will grant death no dominion over my thoughts. For in that is found goodness and brotherly love, and in that alone. Death is a great power. 487
Mann’s novel is never didactic or straight forward. Hans moment of triumph and insight are fleeting. “An hour later he was cradled in the highly civilized atmosphere of the Berghof. He did justice to his supper. His dream was already beginning to fade. And by bedtime he was no longer exactly sure what his thoughts had been.� (p. 489). To me, this was more crushing than his eventual death.
Hans soon returns to world and is quickly killed in battle.
He is soaked through, his face is flushed, like all the others. He runs with feet weighed down by mud, his bayoneted rifle clutched in his hand and hanging at his side. Look, he is stepping on the hand of a fallen comrade—stepping on it with his hobnailed boots, pressing it deep into the soggy, branch-strewn earth. But it is him, all the same. What’s this? He’s singing? � He stumbles. No, he has thrown himself on his stomach at the approach of a howling hound of hell, a large explosive shell, a hideous sugarloaf from the abyss.

Hans meet the similar fate as his cousin earlier
The body triumphs, has other plans than the soul, and gets its way—quite a comedown for high-minded types who teach that the body must obey the soul. It seems they don’t know what they’re talking about, because if they were right, a case like this would cast a dubious light on the soul. 490
So much for escaping the world. So much for engaging in it. As colleague in class put it, in the end, the world always wins.
Most readers will be in the place of Hans. What does it mean to be here at this moment in time. The novel begins with assent and ends with a decent. (Opposite of Zarathustra). But a decent into what � death? Rewal? Hans enters hermetic world where time moves differently. The mountain - sealed romantic reflection. Yet, it doesn’t provide an escape. Is there any value to the intellectual musing of Naphta and Settembrini? Or is is just silence allowing the forces of death win.
Western silence: tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.� “So, then, God would be evil?� “Metaphysics is evil. For it serves no purpose except to lull us to sleep, to sap us of the energy we should bring to building the temple of society�. “You are silent,� Herr Settembrini said, deeply moved. “You and your country allow unconditional silence to reign, a silence so opaque that no one can judge its depths. 506-08

Are we living in a hermetically sealed world playing by the rules, pretending the world is ruled by fact and reason, only to leave us vulnerable to the mindless romanticism of Peeperkorn?
In the novel’s final line, Mann (in a nod to Hamlet) ask one of the few questions worth asking:
And out of this worldwide festival of death, this ugly rutting fever that inflames the rainy evening sky all round—will love someday rise up out of this, too?
Mann is not writing a self-help book. There is no final chapters with a checklist on what do. Mann pushes his through this bildungsroman from the Apollonian to Dionysian at a time he was reassessing what his role in the world was and the role of art in a world that had changed from when he started. A world that mechanized, dominated by power and personality, where humans seemed much smaller. Sound familiar?
At six pages, this is one of the longest reviews I’ve written outside of a class. And there is much I’m not focusing on � the subjective nature of time, illness as a metaphor, and the mechanization of medicine (Did Mann write the first satire of the wellness industry?), the disenchanting and reenchanting of the world, the role of art, and yes, what it means to sit at the bad Russian table. Someday I’ll write a whole essay on Magic Mountain and Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. But I focused on the political and moral struggles of the characters because that’s where we find ourselves at the end of 2024.
]]> Review7463557019 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:52:28 -0700 <![CDATA[David added 'Orbital']]> /review/show/7463557019 Orbital by Samantha Harvey David gave 4 stars to Orbital (Hardcover) by Samantha Harvey
bookshelves: contemporary
“In 1957, an earth-born object made by man was launched into the universe, where for some weeks it circled the earth according to the same laws of gravitation that swing and keep in motion the celestial bodies—the sun, the moon, and the stars.(p. 1).� Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition

Arendt saw this change of perspective, from the human looking out to looking back from a universal perspective, as crucial development in human thought. I thought of Arendt’s prologue to the Human Condition often when reading Orbital.

Orbital is the rare contemporary that has the strength of its convictions to tell a quiet, profound story without melodramatic plot twists, or speculative fiction tricks. Instead, it simply chronicles 8 astronauts from different countries orbiting the Earth one by one - experience 16 sunrises as the Earth turns under them. We learn some backstory of the 8 astronauts, but there is a sameness that is part of the theme of the novel. As they all perform their functions, the 8 are presented as part of a system rather than individual characters. They are some of the important and watched people but interchangeable and functional. Beautifully written, the novel focuses on perspective - how so much of what we think of the world is imposed by where we stand. Yet the book’s beauty is offset by this bleak view of humanity. “How are we writing the future of humanity? We’re not writing anything; it’s writing us. We’re windblown leaves. We think we’re the wind, but we’re just the leaf. And isn’t it strange, how everything we do in our capacity as humans only asserts us more as the animals we are?�

Early on, the novel contrasts two paintings. Diego Velázquez’s 1656, “Las Meninas,� and a 1969 photograph taken by astronaut Michael Collins. In the photograph, Collins, the only person not present in the frame, captures the lunar module Eagle carrying Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong back from the Moon, with Earth beautifully framed in the background.

The stark contrast between painting and photography is evident. Velázquez subverts the traditional narrative of the royal portrait, shifting the focus away from the monarch and towards the titular ladies-in-waiting, court players, and even the royal dog. This intricate puzzle of perspective teems with life and depth. In contrast, Collins’s photograph presents a comparatively straightforward scene, encompassing every soul on Earth yet showcasing none. It embodies the impersonal nature of space itself. An orbital thrives on showing us how different everything looks from space. Sleeping floating in cots, continents that bleed into each other, days/nights pass by in hours. We “see how the continents run into each other like overgrown gardens.� The distinction we take as foundational is a matter of convention. And these conventions shape us as they shape the world.

“The planet is shaped by the sheer amazing force of human want, which has changed everything, the forests, the poles, the reservoirs, the glaciers, the rivers, the seas, the mountains, the coastlines, the skies, a planet contoured and landscaped by want�


There is an ambivalence to the characters� relationship to Earth. They are “ambush[ed] by happiness, …springing forth the blandest of places � from the experiment decks, from within the sachets of risotto and chicken cassoulet, from the panels of screens, switches, and vents, from the brutally cramped titanium.� “It isn’t so much that they don’t want to go home but that home is an idea that has imploded � grown so big, so distended, and full, that it’s caved in on itself.�

Earth is newly ravishing every moment as it moves with “ringing, singing lightness� through the “ballroom of space�. Sometimes the observers want to see the planet’s most theatrical displays, but often it’s the small things (“the lights of fishing boats off the coast of Malaysia�) that most affect them. Sometimes the descriptions do come off as trite, and even at 132 pages, the book can be repetitive. Yet the book is so full of indelible images from the grand to the minute (I’ll always remember the floating mice). And the book’s perspectives on the astronomers might apply to all of us.

Some alien civilisation might look on and ask: what are they doing here? Why do they go nowhere but round and round? The earth is the answer to every question. The earth is the face of an exulted lover; they watch it sleep and wake and become lost in its habits. The earth is a mother waiting for her children to return, full of stories and rapture and longing. Their bones a little less dense, their limbs a little thinner. Eyes filled with sights that are difficult to tell.
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