This was required reading at some point in school, and I really liked it back then. More so now, I think, with some years on me. I read something recently that had a quote that went something like, it is always easy to forgive other peoples’ parents. Very clever that, between all the characters in the book, this is augmented.

Many explain why their mothers behave as they do in, I think, humanizing ways. The audiobook makes a good pairing with this because the narrator is great with changing her voice for each character. When there’s some broken English I actually find it more comfortable hearing it from a narrator too, then self-generated, which feels a bit stereotypical, feeding into defaultism.

I thought each story dovetailed very well into the other and I had seen the movie maybe a year or two ago, and was very curious about the interiority of the characters, which is what this book is predominantly concerned with. In some ways, not much happens in a few. But that access to them always made it feel compelling to me. Great adaptations of source material, I think, should be like that this: companion pieces to one another - feeding into the strength of the particular medium.

Almost a 5 star read, maybe I’ll bump it up if I continue to think about it. It’s difficult for a story you’ve read and viewed before to supply me with the X factor I typically give 5 star reads.

It’s disconcerting that this isn’t shelved as fiction. It’s absolutely exceptional historical fiction with a pretty heavy tongue-in-cheek narrator. It is absolutely scathing and not at all like a nonfiction book. Though, it does chronicle a few pivotal years in the fascist uprising in Italy, as you might expect, and in probably as edifying as a textbook. It’s just obviously a narrative with a dog in the race. A dog that calls others dogs racist, sexist, idiot pigs when they behave like that.

Truth be told, I am not much of a reader of history because my brain is just not good with dates, and because I consumed the (excellent) audiobook, with impeccable narration, mostly what I got from it was the excellent major “plot” beats that one assumes are factual, and a high enjoyment factor from the prose styling. This is wildly good in every form of the craft I can spot and has that weird crossover thing, kind of like When We Cease To Understand The World, not quite narrative nonfiction, but leans heavily on fact and real people. Sooo, really high end literary historical fiction, I guess? Whatever it is, I’m down for more.

2022 re read: Yep, still an all-time favourite. I don’t know that I have more thoughts, since I left quite a bit with the last read. But I think it is a singular experience. I am never surprised when people don’t like it. After all, it is tongue-in-cheek, withholds catharsis, subverts pretty much every expectation, and has a thick coating of verisimilitude on 17 through 21 year olds, who behave poorly and make bad decisions. None of them are aspirational and the world is cruel. Fantasy is usually an escape from the very things Grossman is most interested in interrogating. But that is what makes it resonate with me so much, at a deeply personal level. So.

Honestly, my favourite books are just a new sub genre called ‘Getting What You Want Fucks You Up’.

I can see why this is so polarizing for people. It is entirely from the perspective of a young, privileged, cis het, borderline depressive straight up asshole. And that’s trying at times. No doubt about it. He doesn’t really have the wherewithal to view himself or other people clearly, especially his friends. And his friends, the type a, just as privileged, high functioning young pricks, are the embodiment of problematic societal structures along with him!

It’s not a ‘fun’, relaxing read. But it is cathartic—at least for me. More than any other fantasy book like this, I can relate to Quentin, especially, company as well, but less so. Q is exactly the way I was from the 17-21 years in this book. Maybe some white boys had it together at that time but I sure didn’t. And I coped exactly like he does. Poor communication skills, jumping from one obsessive thing to the next, never processing or being aware of others very well, or their needs, let alone my own.

Additionally, it has something far more compelling being explored than others. What would magic due to personalities like this, and children, though we don’t think of ourselves that way, at that age, we are. The idea that there is an adventure or cure all for the human condition or the conditioning we have ingrained in us, where everything will be okay if you’ve got pals, is interrogated in this really well, imo.

I have always found that permanent, substantive change comes only when you do it for yourself by yourself, and sometimes it’d hard to realize when you’re changing for someone else and not yourself.

Q doesn’t even know he’s an asshole for most of it. He doesn’t know who the real enemy is. He doesn’t know how unprepared they all are. Much of this is book is only about substantive things and skips right over what would be traditionally interesting in favour of asking some interesting questions about the condition of the average white male, academia, the purpose of stories, and what conditions are needed to ‘grow up’.

For those reasons this story will always personably resonate with me in a way others can’t hope to. It would be hard to ever top, too, since it is a cautionary story and a reminder of why we should be constantly paying homage to our former selves even as we bury them to, hopefully, be far better than we were at that age. I know for me, age has felt like a process where I just keep realizing why I was stupid or shitty, both to myself and to others, every few years—and then I try to change as best I can. Especially when I feel numb.

2022 reread: I love all my children equally, meaning this trilogy. On a second re read though, I must say I found this even more enjoyable. The first book is still the most “literary” to me, but the amount of growth and the messaging in this book being as nuanced as it is—bundled into a magical heist to boot—really resonated with me. A lot of people think Lev Grossman is just shitting on Narnia/portal fantasy, and the messaging there, but that’s pretty disingenuous. There is a deep love and value of escapism and the role it plays in the characters, but they also develop beyond that because that is not enough, in the long-term, to function well enough. It is a bandaid or the start of something. It is not the end, because fantasy, when pierced with verisimilitude, always are a bubble that burst, and there are so many reasons to keep going when it does. Growing up doesn’t mean the fantasy is over, it means it needs to evolve beyond the simplistic. And that complexity is the stuff of life, to strive for. It’s the magic of actually growing up.

I enjoyed this a lot more with the reread. It’s far more apparent how thematically appropriate everything is and it feels much better paced for the simple fact that I knew why everything was pertinent, when before some parts felt like they were just there.

Again, the strength of the series is that the author wanted to communicate something important about himself, imo. About growing up and the nature of things, but especially about what kind of a person believes in fairy tales and magic. Most importantly, why a fantasy like these can matter so much while at the same time being critical of the fiction and ourselves. It’s mostly successful.

Like everything there are some blind spots; specifically with a couple of the women who feel a bit too much like they exist for the purposes of the protagonist. But there’s a luminal space there because the books are unabashedly from his perspective (except for a few chapters from some of the others, but mostly it’s all Q, all the way through).

The ending, after reading all of them in a row, actually feels perfect this time too. There are some nice subversions, some badass stuff. Character arcs happening for more than just Q. A cyclical tidiness that plays out throughout that is extremely satisfying at the very end. It might actually beat out the first one, even though I really like how the first one is a freakish mix of literary/contemporary and portal genre fiction.

This felt pretty fresh, examining crowd dynamics and social engineering to interrogate, and possibly solve, a case of mob “Justice”. It does a good job of keeping narrative tension too, as the residents of the area do their best to obfuscate the well intentioned, but somewhat naive set of protagonists. Where it somewhat falter, for me, is the subplot, which never really felt all that believable.

At the same time as this assignment he also sees his wife in the embrace of another man. And so the dreaded inability to communicate strikes in fiction again. Rather than simply talk to his wife he decided to ignore her and let it fester, and on the flight to the community he meets a gorgeous and mysterious source of temptation (though, it’s unclear what her own interests are). It felt like padding.

The prose work was fine, serviceable, and sophomoric elements pervade the work, I think. But the plotting is good, characters operate believably, typically, and the themes are stand-out, especially in this super saturated genre. The conclusion felt pretty good, though tied up with a bow a bit to pat, for my tastes. But my overall positive opinion of it bumps it from a 3.5 to a 4.

After Silence of the Lambs this was certainly a change in tac. It’s much more cinematic and over-the-top, though there are a few really great scenes with Hannibal. The largest departure (from what I remember) from the movie is the ending. And I can’t decide if I prefer either or, despite the pretty major differences. Actually, reading this has enriched my love for the Hannibal TV, which honestly transcends all of these books and show adaptations—and kind of remixes bits from all places, including stuff that was solely in this novel. So, that’s neat.

This feels significantly more meandering, self-indulgent, and fairly devoid of interesting themes. It’s meant to be just fun, I think. Near the end it does try to establish something… but I don’t think it really quite hits home. Pulling from the former book and relationship with Hannibal, I do like that this effort tries to take Clarice someplace in the future, rather than releasing the narrative tension and ending. It’s more satisfying even though the ending feels suspect. And Clarice feels less well realized. Her attractiveness is weirdly annunciated too, where the previous book is much better at building her character and being less male gaze and feeling respectful. And that’s why this feels a lot more Hollywood, primarily.

A highlight is the mind palace and what’s done with it, with some literature being sighted with that. I know some iteration, maybe the original?, Sherlock Holmes also utilized this. Under the cognition of Hannibal it becomes much more interesting, and it transitions to something more pertinent than expected. It’ll be interesting to see how this one settles, with the ending tugging at me. Undeniably though, I think it’s a weaker effort than the previous two books.

Interesting premise and strong themes around dehumanization of immigrants and the “naturalization” process but, for me, it’s a bit too hyperbolic an allegory, when a more realistic and grounded story with similar themes—perhaps even plot—would have made the larger points even better. I’m not sure it does the topic service or proper respect, extrapolating it to something this outlandish, though the end result is probably a more on-the-nose, unmissable, conclusion. It is pretty novel, though.

I am predisposed to largely interior, high specificity and diction, with the plot/pacing being secondary. Naturally I loved this very much. The prose work is immaculate and provides excellent characterization; it respects the readers’ intelligence and it provides an aspect of soft worldbuilding. Speaking of, usually I find soft worldbuilding to be difficult, and a method of eschewing a really comprehensively thought out world bible, or something to that effect. But in this context it made a lot of sense to me, since we learn that the protagonist wasn’t really politically aware or engaged, and the process of her rights being stripped away and society being shifted feels really quick to her, even though if you pay attention it actually took many years and was steeped in a reaction to fear. Not to mention, famously, Atwood kept clippings of actual stories where all the things womens are subjected to actually already have happened, at the time of writing.

I also thought the ending was quite good, though jarring. It was the most unexpected part of the book for me, since I have seen the first season of the TV show, which, as far as I can recall, seemed to follow this pretty exactly, at least plot-wise. I liked the novel far and away better though, since the show cannot provide the same interiority, and the rendering of the world feels far more comprehensive and believable. Though, her oppression is a lot more keen, learning about what she thought and felt as she was being indoctrinated.

Glad I finally got around to reading this. I’ve had it, and the sequel on my shelf for years now. I put it off because I wasn’t in the right headspace for it, but in a lot of ways this has more humanity in it than the show, so I needn’t have worried. Exceptional stuff.

Competent craft and great narration, but in many of the stories I couldn’t help but feel an element of contrivance injected into it for no discernible reason, which, because they are so short, was enough to turn off my suspension of disbelief. Even with the small knowledge of the characters I would feel like it was an odd thing for them to have done, which perhaps is a hallmark of the author; I’ve only read one other book by them, I think.

You’d think with so little information you would be able to roll with whatever decisions and reactions a character has, but it had the opposite effect on me. It’s true that my short story “muscles” are basically atrophied next to the amount of thought and volume of content I’ve consumed for long form work, though. So it may well be a “me” problem.

DNF 20%, despite good narration I found the protagonist really uninteresting and didn’t catch a whiff of something compelling coming down the pipe. Life is too short.