What are you reading these days?

Just finished Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon the other day. I knew it was his simplest novel, and that it was a stoner noir pastiche, but, somehow, I didn't expect the first chapter to hit, beat-for-beat, every single trope and cliche. As the book went on, it loosened up, became more of a true satire than a goofy "what if the hardboiled PI was actually just baked as hell?" I think, had I recorded the data, I'd find I laughed aloud every other paragraph or so. Probably the funniest novel I've read yet. Despite the light tone and relatively easy going prose, if you had to say the book was about anything in particular, you might go with "a dissection of how moneyed interests and the government may have conspired to distract and dismantle the US midcentury counterculture in the pursuit of kneecapping civil rights and any long term hope of effective policy". But it's mostly a stoner scrying his decayed memory for connections and purpose to the utter chaos of deception, misapprehension, conflated and divided identity, and the chocolate-covered-frozen-banana-chomping quasi-fascist LAPD detective that hound him throughout the plot.

Beyond the book itself, the protagonist is clearly based on the author, and that ended up helping me build a deeper understanding of Pynchon's philosophy, on a human level, than any of his other books I've read except Mason & Dixon, and this one was a whole lot more accessible. It also illuminated his statement regarding The Crying of Lot 49 being a book wherein he seemed to have forgotten what he'd learned about writing.

Anyway, that's all for this quarter's update on my Pynchon obsession. Hope to see you 'round these parts again soon.

Currently, I'm reading The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño and The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati.

Having heard a lot of great things about Bolaño over the years, and always looking for more reasons to love latinoamerican culture, when I heard that The Savage Detectives had snapped Marlon James out of a period of writer's block, I put it on my list. Later, when, scrolling through various literary websites and subreddits, I saw numerous people claiming the book had inspired them to begin writing, I knew I had to start it soon. Well, 30% through, I don't know about all of that.

But it is a very interesting book. The first quarter of it is basically a novella about a 17 year old kid going off on a coming-of-age journey of lechery and pretense throughout Mexico City, ingratiating himself with a fictionalized rendition of the young author's failed artistic movement, the visceral realists (based on the infrarealists). This kid fucks, first of all. He also is a little asshole who needs to get over himself. He spins a web of relationships, platonic and romantic, meaningful and transient, true and false friendships, eventually getting so tangled up by half-hearted commitments that he's miserable. So he absconds with the leaders of the visceral realists, fiction-Bolaño and his BFF.

As far as I can tell, the rest of the novel is patchwork interviews with characters who appear or are mentioned in the first section, discussing the visceral realists from all sorts of points of view. I'm having a ton of fun piecing together their adventures and interests, it's a lot like reminiscing on the fun of later adolescence with a large group of friends. Everyone has different stories, about the same events, but unlike that, where all that matters is that everyone had a good time, I get the sense some linchpin is going to fall.

The Tartar Steppe is a lot less fun. I went into it completely blind, but the first couple chapters did an incredible job at building a nearly slapstick kafkaesque setting and mindset, only for that paranoia and intentionality to fall away, leaving a skeleton of absurd horror. I'm only about a third through this one too, so it has plenty of room to evolve however it will from here, and that's kind of awesome. On the other hand, it's deeply, deeply unsettling, in ways similar to a Shirley Jackson. I expect to love, or at least respect, it by the end, but for now, I'm really dragging my heels with it compared to the quick-paced thrill of following a bunch of pretentious 20 year olds around Mexico.

I'd been bouncing around a number of different books until my partner Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller for her father last weekend. I've been wanting to read it and knowing I had 5 days to finish it before it was gifted lit a fire under my butt. I think it took 3 sessions and it was pretty good. I really enjoy Lulu Miller when she hosts Radio Lab and her light hearted, self deprecating humor made the story very enjoyable. All in all a really fun dive into David Star Jordan and science at the turn of the 20th century.

Alternating between Dracula Daily and The Last Graduate. Dracula is getting pretty intense. The Last Graduate is okay, but less good than its predecessor. The pacing in the first book was such a wild ride, and this one has a lot less urgency.

I really need to pick my next audiobook. I tend to have at least one going, but I haven’t started another after I finished my last one a few weeks ago.

Have been reading 海辺のカフカ (Kafka on the Shore) as part of a book club for a few weeks now. I'm finding the language surprisingly approachable; sometimes omitting kanji (main characters young age) is even sometimes annoying, but it's a different kind of 'workout'. He writes very straightforward, it's the themes that seem to be difficult instead.

Hit my first 'Murakami' scene, which was a bit weird as expected, but nothing too bad. There's a lot of mystery and weirdness; really enjoying it!

In English I'm reading the Expanse, on the third book now. I watched Season 3 of the show so nothing new yet, but it's still quite an enjoyable read.

I'm reading The Complete Robot, a collection by Isaac Asimov which contains most of his short stories about robots. I've read 18 of the 31 stories.

I found the book very cheap at a used bookstore. It was in a good state and cost me 3 dollars -- a steal. The translation is very good, there are minor mistakes but generally, the translator reproduced the poetry and beauty of the prose very well. I compared a few excerpts and got the impression that the translated version was even more beautiful than the original, but this may be due to the fact that I am more familiar with my native language.

Many of these stories are quite old (they range from 1939 to 1977), and, maybe because Asimov was so influential, they often fail to surprise in a substantial way. This makes me wanna stop reading sometimes, but there is more to fiction than twist endings. The more endearing stories are the ones that really get me, like the young kid who cries when his beloved robot dog is replaced by a real one. But it does have some bangers, don't get me wrong!

The stories are organized by themes instead of chronologically. On the one hand this is good because you feel like you're learning something about the how Asimov approaches a theme or a set of characters, but sometimes stories with varying quality are presented side by side, representing different stages of the author's career. Each section is introduced by Asimov's commentary, with behind the scenes anecdotes and the reasoning for why those stories are grouped together.

The release date of each story is not provided, which is a mistake in my view, so I looked up the dates on the book's Wikipedia page and discreetly added them by pencil at the beginning of each story.

All in all, reading this book is reading the very story of how science fiction approaches artificial intelligence. I enjoy filling these gaps, I always have. Knowing the classics is a huge advantage in the field of writing as well as in other arts. I'm fulfilling a prerequisite for things to come.

I've read Catch-22 and in short it was hilarious.

I finished reading "The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie and dove right into the next book 📖 n the series "Before They Are Hanged". I enjoy that all the main characters have some general flaws and the world feels well developed. There is a lot of history that is hinted at and revealed bit by bit. Not in big lore dumps, but flowing naturally from the conversations and story in the book.