Books

Faust

The devil convinces a scholar to swap his soul for knowledge and worldly pleasure; scholar discovers it was a bad decision. 

I wanted so badly to love it.

The synopsis is so tantalizing. All my favorite German authors act like Goethe is the greatest of all time. @july even named his company after it. 

But the actual text was just more than I could handle. You have to grind hard to extract the ideas, even those that aren’t wrapped in allegories. And tracking down all the obscure allusions would require tens, maybe hundreds of hours. It jumps from character to character and fantasy to reality at a head spinning rate.

It strikes me as the kind of text you take a four credit seminar on, not the kind of text you’d read like just another book. 

I’ve read two different translations (separated by a decade or so) and neither one clicked for me. It presumably comes across better in the original German.

If you’re going to try it, know what you’re getting into. Not for the faint of heart.

Neverwhere 

A country boy moves to London and discovers a much darker and more complex world beneath street level.

I never get tired of listening to Neil Gaiman answering the question “What if the modern world were as thoroughly imbued with magic and as densely populated with fairies as mythical ancient times?”

He’s peerlessly good at it.

The magical layer of the modern world naturally have changed, he posits. One wouldn’t expect to encounter forest nymphs and ladies of the lake beneath London’s urban sprawl. You’d notice the impact of industrialization and urbanization, just as you do above ground.

But there are certain rules of magic that cross over equally. And human nature doesn’t really change.

Whether the context is urban or rural, industrial or agricultural, magical or not, the story of a boy facing the challenges of adulthood, struggling, growing stronger, and overcoming his obstacles will always be a meaningful one.

Great story, well written. Highly recommended.

artist. cat. jazz fiend.

https://linktr.ee/TruptyS

You can’t leave me hanging. What’s #1?

cliched but american gods, mainly because of how he’s personified the idea of each deity and how he ties up the details. but i have too many gaiman favourites, ranking them doesn’t feel right

It was a formative book for me as a teenager. Changed the way I thought about people and myth. I’ve been telling myself recently that The Ocean at the End of the Lane is my favorite but now that I think about it I’m kidding myself. It’s American Gods. 

Have you read the Sandman series? That was another work that hit like a ton of bricks back in the day

i loved Ocean at the End of the Lane too :) i don’t think i could compare the two books though, they feel like they’re from two very different realms and it wouldn’t do justice. 

no i haven’t read the series , it was highly recommended but they cost way more than a novel back then and i couldn’t afford them. 
i should probably get into them now