Interesting to see that a lot of what is often quoted from Woolf comes from here. I assumed some of them must have been from letters or a biography.

Hopefully no one these days needs convincing of the main points she makes here; perhaps some incels with Peterson at the helm, or something. It is more than just disconcerting that some of the completely ignorant arguments men make, quoted by Woolf here, resemble or could be taken whole cloth with those people who think women lesser. Some kinds of ignorance are undoubtedly hereditary.

It’s a well constructed essay made even more interesting to get a snapshot of life at the time. I especially appreciated the end, with her specific takedown of a particularly disposable character.

Just like Daisy Jones & The Six, Opal & Nev initially present similar stories. Both are about bands in adjacent, fictional music history. Both present a hook for the story and pick at it via an oral history interview-style transcript. But similarities end there.

The music scene is different, Nev being a British acoustic act coupled with the Motown and gospel Opal. And the interviewer has a more interesting lens too, planted in the forward. We know that, for some reason, the story as the interviewer envisioned it never came to be for some reason. We know this is "as close to the truth as she was able to get." And we know that she is the daughter of a band member we don't even know about until things start going.

Though it takes a bit to do so, once it gets going, this is very addictive and consumable. I love this format for how dynamic it can be. Threads and tangents are more likely and forgivable--even encouraged!--in this format. When it lands well, you really feel like these are real-life people, meandering about the 70s, ribbing each other as they interject with anecdotes or elucidate events others have brought up.

What is really smart about this is how it uses it as a vehicle for the dark sides of the scene, as well as the overall times. Opal talks about her childhood and the context gets a footnote where it talks about a historical event in the neighborhood that expands on what Opal was talking about. Riots, race-relations, and racism inform this story, and it works in reiterating a theme, educating the reader in a historical context, and buttresses the fiction with actual events. Through much of it, Opal feels immediately more vibrant and alive and real than Nev, who feels fairly generic for a while. His voice is distinct... yet I only got a clearer picture of him later because his story feels like something I've read often in biographies.

The hook does the initial work, then, around 20% of the way in, and you know the character's relatively well, things start to really get going and that is when it becomes very hard to put down. Highly recommend this one. What is even more exciting for me is that an audiobook with a full cast of this is going to be out. I'll be picking that up for sure. The audiobook was the perfect way to consume Daisy Jones as an oral history, and I imagine that will hold true for this as well. If done right, this has the potential to be more stylish, prescient, and moving than Daisy--and I don't say that lightly; it was one of my favorite books of that year.

I received this advanced copy through Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

This is now my absolute favourite book he’s written. It’s very dense and abstract, and it took me a lot longer to finish it that I needed to due to how much I needed to be paying attention to it. But it absolutely nails the themes, the characterizations. It’s got some of the best prose—truly next level, compared to the previous books. Which is not to say they lacked, just that that is how good this is.

It’s also biopunk right off the bat. With these humans who are engineered and wildly different in ways I’ve never before seen in fiction. An actual moss person/identity. Another who is like a codification of data. Theres a mission to stop the corporation taking place chronologically before Borne, through multiple time streams. Which you will know because some passages have version ID numbers attached. They scale or up or down.

Then sometimes it goes into the perspectives of the other ecological beings and horrors they’ve faced. Some of which (whom?) are the personification of nature itself: it’s unknowability and adaptability dwarfing the protagonists and the company itself.

It’s just really, really good. It’s not an “easy” novel and to be honest, I’ll probably need to read it one more time just to understand the actual plot because it’s so abstracted I am certain I did not pay enough attention to the first third of it or so for me to grasp some of the things that were call backs to what happens later. Because it’s a timey whimey loop!

This will either really excite you or make you dip out probably after part 1. Luckily it’s a small book with not that many pages and you’ll find out if you’re into it fairly quickly; so there’s that. But yeah. As I said: I love it. Evocative, thematic with the rest of his work, and the absolute pinnacle of it so far, imo.

Witchmark was a pleasant surprise and this is, happily, is a great follow up. Though the previous is a bit more charming because there is an ‘everything is fine’ first quarter where it’s just Miles telling you about bike edict and old London things. This picks up right where the last left off, give or take, and so it is directly after the shit has hit the fan.

There is court intrigue and politics and sorcery and classism and more queer romance. It’s got great pacing and focuses on Mile’s sister this go around. There is a murder mystery element and a conspiracy. It’s all very much my jam. Will be checking out the next one too, once my library gets the audiobook.

This is even more haunting now. Lot of similarities between the fever and COVID, strangely. Maybe the most likely scenarios to play out did? I’m not sure. But it’s eerie!

We follow Candace in the present, with a group of survivors trying to find a specific safe place under the leadership of a man simply named Bob. She also recounts her story. How she came to leave NYC and how the fever broke out, what it is (more-or-less), and her, mm, personal situation, without spoiling things somewhat.

It’s an immigrant story and a zombie apocalypse (though not the zombies you are thinking of) and a bit of a realistic romance. It’s unique and it just works despite never being thrilling. Neither is it plodding, though. It’s mellow and matter-of-fact, the voice and craft is strong. There is always more of her past to unravel, sure, but it’s just a very pleasant reading experience you want to continue with.

I instantly clicked with the prose. There are no quotes for dialogue but it flows brilliantly anyhow. Sally Rooney vibes with dynamics somewhat as well, and stylistically.

There’s no judgement to the gaze, which is very interesting considering it’s all Candace and she has plenty of reasons to be judgemental and she’s smart and observant. It’s off kilter, emotionally, and it always made me wonder if she too is fevered, who are endlessly playing out a loop. It’s a very clever criticism of capitalism. Ended up being a pleasant surprise that, like all books I tend to like, end up being rich. You just sort of sink into it.

The narration was good and the exploration of gender roles and feminism/equality are interesting, but I had a hard time connecting to the setting otherwise. Whereas the series I read before from this author is grounded in a lot of historical details and description, this felt a lot more nebulous and a lot more courtly intrigue and romance, which I just wasn’t as invested in. Still enjoyable, but probably expected it to be too much like the Witchmark series.

The narration in each of these books is absolutely perfect. I skipped Mrs Dalloway, as I’d already read that, but am sure to return to it at some point, as I’d love to see what it’s like via narration. I listened just enough to know that it’s got a wonderful performance.

To the Lighthouse 5 stars
An easy 5 stars too. I read that the prose are quite dense on page? Well try it narrated, because it absolutely flew when read aloud. Jessie Buckley did a phenomenal job. I had my covid shot and was feeling sick, so just lay in bed listening, doing nothing else whatsoever, and consumed it whole in one sitting.

A Room of One’s Own: 4 stars
I liked this quite a bit but it is, literally, listening to an essay, so while it’s got Woolf’s prose and an engaging subject, it’s not as meaningful to me as others. This was more like 3.5 rounded up, for me. Especially because it followed To the Lighthouse, which completely took me by surprise.

The Waves 5 Stars
Another easy 5 stars, cementing Woolf as a favourite of mine. I suspect just through prose work alone I could read anything by her, and plan to consume more of her work. Structurally engaging, fantastic character work, meaningful, poignant. I can’t say enough good things about this. It has To the Lighthouse beat, probably. But mostly because of the interesting concept and structure and genre bending weirdness that works.

I hardly know where to begin. This is pretty much what I want from my reading, though there is even more prescriptivism in this than I’d have liked. Though, it is done in a way that expresses the authors views on numerous themes introduced, so I don’t mind that at all. Even when you disagree with some of the conclusions it is such a character drive, more so even psychologically driven plot, that you can at least understand them very well.

There’s very wide ranging topics that are contemplated and impressively contrasted between Levin and Anna. There’s symmetry and dissonance and, to be honest, some well founded side eye for views on women in some instances. It’s hard for me to draw the line at exactly where the misogyny is because Tolstoy also acknowledges a lot of sociological factors that make it much harder for women to self actualize. So, does the ending and the withholding of Levin’s spiritual enlightenment with his wife, and Anna’s spiralling that mirrors a children’s understanding of life; not truly understanding what is nourishing them and not encompassing other people into a lived experience.

A very prescriptive thing, which I disagreed with. It conflates enlightenment with the wisdom a human being naturally feels with something granted by a man made institution. I think Levin’s crisis of faith could have much more easily gone toward a spiritual take, but in the time of place of writing, though it acknowledges other religions and theology, it feels like the stem of the famous conclusion Levin has, is a rather feeble and fumbling thing to me. Perhaps a product of age.

When thinking about Anna’s storyline, it’s interesting and a foregone, foreshadowed conclusion that her story ends the way it does. Her ascent and fall is grounded in living for oneself and pursing passion recklessly. I suppose we must give a bit of credit, as it is not only Anna who suffers in the novel while driving for these things we want. The men who do it are far from happy. Some ruined, some lifeless and completely uncaring for their own self preservation, and attach themselves to external forces to feel any sense of their previous whole.

But we sure experience it more acutely with Anna. Her being boxed in after being free of everything that made her miserable, basked in a new love, is a prednisone enjoyed solely by her as a woman. Whereas the men essentially have all the agency and still are the architects of their doom, Anna feels deeply and is never really treasured by anyone. She’s subjected to barbs on all fronts. Even when her lover seems to be acting rationally and she seemingly has no reason to react poorly toward him and does anyways, it’s because no one seems to be able to intuit who she is as a person or what she’s really saying.

This made it really interesting to me because it kind of feels like Tolstoy has no real faculties to process Anna, other than it’s a course that leads on to destruction. But it isn’t as if that is understood. The core downfall is from the way other people treat her and the contrast for how they treat her lover. It’s a man made thing that kills, then. Whereas Levin is off somewhere serene, having found sustenance in “simply living”, something Anna was trying to do her entire life.

So is it misogynistic? Yes and no, I guess?

My primary pleasure came from the deep psychological expressions of the characters that were often contrasted with events occurring. My favourite being the courtship of Anna and her lover being mirrored in the horse race, which served so many purposes at once, it was maybe the most satisfying scene I’ve ever read!

It’s also just strangely accessible on every level to me. The diction and prose are not difficult. The hardest thing about it, for me, was wrapping my head around so many themes introduced to make up the sum of Levin and Anna. Every scene was pertinent and the novel becomes this complex onion that feels considerable but still transparent.

The human heart and experience is well represented and, again, I love that it’s a novel where you come away knowing Tolstoy’s thoughts at the time on multiple subjects. Art, love, labour, systems of government, spirituality, materialism, there are just so many things that nest in characters and their development. It’s quite a feat of writing and I am very surprised that I was entertained equally by social faux pas and rich boy problems LARPing as a farm hand. Couldn’t be anything but 5 stars from me.