To discuss your weekly readings. Be it books, papers, taextbook’s, etc.
Started Hamlet yesterday, still on act one, Bernardo, Marcellus and Francisco were kind of funny.
Weekly “what are you reading” 
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Finished Anna Karenina - felt meh at the end.
Also finished Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) - right book for where I am at in life, it resonated deeply with me. It’s basically Japanese monks writing down their shower thoughts.
Currently reading Delfines by Alberto Vazquez Figueroa mostly to improve my Spanish. Want to start reading philosophy literature that’s in Spanish and not translated yet, particularly the works of Nicolás Gómez Dávila.
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Reminder that Aleksey Karenin did nothing wrong. Anna was just a bored and spoiled upper class foid and her own undoing.
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Karenin was always going to be a bad guy because Tolstoy hated spineless bureaucrats. Which is very fair and based. But as modern readers, he seems like a great guy until the weird scene at the end where he becomes a man baby god lover.
As for Anna, I think she was always doomed. Her fundamental flaw was always feeling like she was on the verge of achieving happiness through outside means. Any time she gets what she wants she realizes the happiness is temporary and immediately starts seeking a new shiny toy. Vronsky, leaving Russia, charity work in the country, divorce, her children, the English girl. Lots of times her life is by anyone elses definition good. But her refusal to look inward and find a shred of meaning in her existence, and if I pretend to be Tolstoy instead of a heathen her refusal to come to terms with a higher power, will always leave her empty. She's basically the opposite of the good guy characters like Levin and Dolly. This culminates of course in her thinking she can find peace under a train, which ultimately like everything before, she immediately regrets. lol woman moment
Of course she does have some valid points. Her brother can sling all the peepee he wants with considerably less noticeable consequences and society does treat her completely unfairly. But in the end I don't think any of that mattered because she was just a fundamentally miserable person. Unless she had have dated me, I could have fixed her.
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What Karenin did wrong was not putting any effort in creating excitement in Anna’s life…that’s why his character was written that way. Just think of your female (XX) SO as a pet dog - it is abusive to leave it home alone all day, let alone for many days at a time. You need to spend time and play with it to make it feel like it’s doing something useful (go fetch, good boy!). You can see Anna desperately looking for shit to do even with Vronsky, going so far as to writing a children’s book.
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Yeah, I like to joke around but understand what you mean. Karenin and Anna would never have gotten married nowadays, they had very distinct personalities and a big age gap, that’s probably why he was so careless with her and such a workaholic, but in the 19th century world of arranged marriages it could have been way worse for Anna. Just compare Karenin with his brother in law, Stiva was an indiscreet serial cheater.
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But she would be marrying someone of her social class so it could equally have been better. She could’ve been arranged with a Levin-tier guy and she’d probably have had a better life.
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I got a feeling that guys like Levin were rare. Something interesting about marriages on that book is that most pretenders aren’t much older than the woman, but Anna and Aleksey Karenin had a 20 year age gap. I have a feeling the Oblosnky’s were some very old and prestigious family but with little money (Stiva got his job in the ministry because of his brother in law lmao), and that’s why Anna’s parents though Karenin was a great match.
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I started reading a book by a fella named Guy Gavriel Kay because I've seen a lot of people on the internet praise his use of historical settings. I now know how women feel when a man recommends them an actually super deep anime and then its just some stoic male self insert and lots of boob grabbing. What I'm trying to say is that his books are anime for women.
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Enjoy Hamlet! I plan to finally begin Soldier in the Mist by Gene Wolfe tonight, which I've been putting off. I've heard mixed things tbh.
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Thanks! I also think I’m gonna start reading my Paraguayan War book I bought a year ago. Fiction with non fiction simultaneously can be handled, though it will probably take over a month with that big history book.
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history books can definitely be a chore but are quite rewarding imo. are you saying yours is a mix of fiction/non-fiction or talking about Soldier in the Mist?
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I meant the fiction/non-fiction mix. I’ve always read more non fiction books than novels, but this year I wanted to read more novels, specifically the classics of english lit.
Just checked it on wikipedia, sounds like an interesting premise.
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Beware! You will lose your nerd
credentials if you don't like a Gene Wolfe book
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I finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Lord's of uncreation.
It was super predictable and not particularly good. I think I've read too much of his work as now it's all starting to feel the same.
I just got this book about Economic Sanctions. Should be interesting and hopefully decently dumbed down for us non economistcels
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I struggled reading through “The Wages of Destruction” for the same reasons.
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I've read toozes other book about post WW1 Europe. Really interesting, but I had to stop reading constantly to Google things
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My wife (male) likes watching mystery shows, so I’m going to pick up Last Bus to Woodstock. I’ve watched a bunch of detective TV, but I haven’t read many detective novels yet
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Just started Solaris. Only a few chapters in but it's great and already much better than the Tarkovsky film
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Looking forward to this next week. Cradle #12 comes out, great progression fantasy series, maybe my #4 favorite. And Wandering Inn back from a month break next week too.
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Art of the Deal by DDR
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