jakej's Reviews (94)

Saccharine and unnecessarily quirky, and the central metaphor of magical abilities -> marginalized identities has been overdone for at least a decade.

There are some genuinely tender moments but it's so completely of the zeitgeist, not merely a fantastical story but a delusional one.

Way too long and circuitous, barely feels like a story. The prose is horrendous:

"This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work."

"The homage of which they were so lavish succeeded, in truth, for my nerves, quite as well as if I never appeared to myself, as I may say, literally to catch them at a purpose in it."

Only read if you want to engage in the inexplicably vast critical literature analyzing it.

There's several different books here: a coming of age story, a romantic comedy, and a blistering societal critique focused not only on the economics of the landed gentry, but the complete cultural hellscape that they inhabit.

This final prong is what interests me most: the hammering home that there is a total lack of substance in every act we witness. None of the characters actions amount to anything tangible. They compete with each other in a sandbox so siloed and irrelevant it could be bombed into oblivion and humankind wouldn't miss a thing.

Sensational. My new favorite non-fiction book. Essential reading for anyone interesting in anthropology, politics, economics, and morality. There's a fundamental truth in every chapter.