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what i'm reading (not) wednesday 23/1/2025
I got lazy yesterday, but here I am today!
What I finished:
+ The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Shockingly, this was the first time I read this book. I can see why it was so hugely influential and beloved to many fantasy writers coming up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. For one thing, the prose is just gorgeous. So many unexpected sentences! And yet it never seems purple--it's too clear and straightforward for that. "Pure" is the word that comes to mind, though I'm not exactly sure why. It's astounding that someone in their mid-20s could write like that.
Equally astounding: that a man in his mid-20s could write Molly Grue. The same way I reacted to Tamsin with "how did this man who was never a teenager girl write a teenage girl so well?" I reacted to Molly Grue with, "how did this young man write an aging woman so well?" Her reaction when she first meets the unicorn...how did he know to write those words??? A miracle.
The book is an interesting mix of the high and low (the butterfly scene threw me for a loop, but the more I think about it, the more I like it) and overall a lovely reflection on how love can ennoble. I enjoyed it very much and wish I'd read it at 12 or so, when I could have integrated it into my personality.
+ The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World... by David Graeber. What is that ultimate hidden truth? That the world is something we make, and could just as easily make differently, which was Graeber's whole thing and why I love him. [I might quibble with the "easily," but I understand what he's getting at.]
This is a collection of various essays he wrote through the 2000s-2010s. As such, it's kind of all over the place, but mostly in a good way--in the same way that Graeber's mind was all over the place. I am a huge Graeber fan, as he was the first person who actually introduced me to what anarchism really is and made me realize I was an anarchist. As I said the other day, every time I start to think I'm not, I read some of his work and think, "Oh, no, I definitely am."
Some of the essays were short enough that I was like, "No wait! Come back! Tell me more!" whereas others were the length they needed to be. Obviously some resonated more with me than others, as is always the case with a collection of written works, but I appreciated all of them.
There are some more expected pieces, like those in conversation with his book on debt and his thoughts on the violence of bureaucracy, but there are others that were totally unexpected, like the one about the use of giant puppets in radical protests (I didn't know this was a thing, but now I am a puppet fan).
I especially appreciated "There Never Was a West," "Culture as Creative Refusal" (I want more of that! There's some of it in The Dawn of Everything, but it's clear this was an idea he was still exploring at his death and there was so much more to come), and "What's the Point If We Can't Have Fun?"
Rebecca Solnit's foreward is titled "With Ferocious Joy" and I think that joy was one of Graeber's great gifts. What an extraordinary person--to have been able to look at the world from a different angle than most other people; to write with great clarity and style; to commit himself to the hard work of activism; and to be so in love with the world, human communities, and all of their potential.
I took away two things from this book: a sense of how beautiful the world is (the last essay about viewing play as central to the makeup of the universe in particular inspired this sense in me) in all its potential and a great grief that Graeber's mind and heart are lost to us. I'm thankful for the writing he left behind and anticipate a few more collections, but we'll never know what else he might have written and done, and it breaks my heart. We need him.
+ The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth. My reading of the Miss Silver books continues apace. This was one of the stronger ones; I liked it a lot.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Doppelganger by Naomi Klein. I'd meant to get around to this one from the time it was published but never did. Then earlier this week I listened to an interview with her for the On the Nose podcast (from Jewish Currents) and was so taken by what she had to say about IsraelPalestine that I was like, "Oh I've got to read this book now."
I haven't gotten very far yet, but as with all her other books I've read, I love her writing and the way her mind works.
What I finished:
+ The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Shockingly, this was the first time I read this book. I can see why it was so hugely influential and beloved to many fantasy writers coming up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. For one thing, the prose is just gorgeous. So many unexpected sentences! And yet it never seems purple--it's too clear and straightforward for that. "Pure" is the word that comes to mind, though I'm not exactly sure why. It's astounding that someone in their mid-20s could write like that.
Equally astounding: that a man in his mid-20s could write Molly Grue. The same way I reacted to Tamsin with "how did this man who was never a teenager girl write a teenage girl so well?" I reacted to Molly Grue with, "how did this young man write an aging woman so well?" Her reaction when she first meets the unicorn...how did he know to write those words??? A miracle.
The book is an interesting mix of the high and low (the butterfly scene threw me for a loop, but the more I think about it, the more I like it) and overall a lovely reflection on how love can ennoble. I enjoyed it very much and wish I'd read it at 12 or so, when I could have integrated it into my personality.
+ The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World... by David Graeber. What is that ultimate hidden truth? That the world is something we make, and could just as easily make differently, which was Graeber's whole thing and why I love him. [I might quibble with the "easily," but I understand what he's getting at.]
This is a collection of various essays he wrote through the 2000s-2010s. As such, it's kind of all over the place, but mostly in a good way--in the same way that Graeber's mind was all over the place. I am a huge Graeber fan, as he was the first person who actually introduced me to what anarchism really is and made me realize I was an anarchist. As I said the other day, every time I start to think I'm not, I read some of his work and think, "Oh, no, I definitely am."
Some of the essays were short enough that I was like, "No wait! Come back! Tell me more!" whereas others were the length they needed to be. Obviously some resonated more with me than others, as is always the case with a collection of written works, but I appreciated all of them.
There are some more expected pieces, like those in conversation with his book on debt and his thoughts on the violence of bureaucracy, but there are others that were totally unexpected, like the one about the use of giant puppets in radical protests (I didn't know this was a thing, but now I am a puppet fan).
I especially appreciated "There Never Was a West," "Culture as Creative Refusal" (I want more of that! There's some of it in The Dawn of Everything, but it's clear this was an idea he was still exploring at his death and there was so much more to come), and "What's the Point If We Can't Have Fun?"
Rebecca Solnit's foreward is titled "With Ferocious Joy" and I think that joy was one of Graeber's great gifts. What an extraordinary person--to have been able to look at the world from a different angle than most other people; to write with great clarity and style; to commit himself to the hard work of activism; and to be so in love with the world, human communities, and all of their potential.
I took away two things from this book: a sense of how beautiful the world is (the last essay about viewing play as central to the makeup of the universe in particular inspired this sense in me) in all its potential and a great grief that Graeber's mind and heart are lost to us. I'm thankful for the writing he left behind and anticipate a few more collections, but we'll never know what else he might have written and done, and it breaks my heart. We need him.
+ The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth. My reading of the Miss Silver books continues apace. This was one of the stronger ones; I liked it a lot.
What I'm currently reading:
+ Doppelganger by Naomi Klein. I'd meant to get around to this one from the time it was published but never did. Then earlier this week I listened to an interview with her for the On the Nose podcast (from Jewish Currents) and was so taken by what she had to say about IsraelPalestine that I was like, "Oh I've got to read this book now."
I haven't gotten very far yet, but as with all her other books I've read, I love her writing and the way her mind works.
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— Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn: Deluxe Edition
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