The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas by Rick Harsch

If you read more Russian literature you’ll eventually get used to it. Some books have a character list with their name and patronymic which is super useful.

I enjoy expanding my vocabulary, it’s one of the great things about reading, but it definitely takes patience because I never remember what a word means after looking it up only once.

And I highly recommend rereading the great books. Your patience will be rewarded.

I go back if I noticed I zoned out. The books I want to read will always be larger than my ability to read them so to the extent I can I just don’t worry about it. I’ll try to fully enjoy the ones I do get to.

Nice! It’s only I’ll be returning to before long for many reasons. There’s a good podcast that has an episode worth listening to as well. The Great American Novel podcast.

I read Moby Dick at 40 based on an article talking about that being the best age to read it. I think there’s some truth to it. Younger readers can understand it too but it does take a certain mindset going in and some reflection afterwards.

Snorri Sterlusun is prose and poetic eddas are the biggest giants. I loved Egil’s saga the most that I’ve read.

Do you want to read the real thing or something like a history of Norse mythology?

Search the Norse Sagas and you’ll see a lot of penguin classic editions of the most well known sagas

I’m definitely not and I enjoyed it. There’s a lot of Escher drawings that are fascinating and the concept linking the three is real interesting. And the alternating chapters should make it alright. There will be some chapters where it’s just over your head most likely but that’ll happen with most anyone I think. Still worth reading in my opinion.

It’s primarily a mathematical theory book. Just the desire for something more and more brain crunching is what will inevitably lead you there lol. I’ve heard Hegel (I think it’s Hegel) might be the most impenetrable philosopher out there so maybe that’s the endgame lol.

It alternates chapters between Achilles and The Tortoise and mathematical theory, the former serving as your guide and it really helps make the book tolerable for the layman 😂 definitely worth reading but not easy by any means.

Literary fiction and a lot of history will give that feeling. You get a bit used to it and then dive in deeper and deeper until you hit Gödel, Escher, Bach. GEB is irrevocable so beware.

I give people books but it’s rarely based on my experience of reading the book, sometimes i’ll give a book I didn’t particularly even like because I know their taste and mine differ, sometimes one I haven’t read.

I give books based on what I know of them and their reading habits. Sometimes I nudge them in a direction they’ve never tried before but I know it offers something they would enjoy, say certain historical fiction for a solely romance reader.

I agree that A Pale View of Hills is the best starting point for Ishiguro but I’m afraid to say The Unconsoled is my favorite so far, I think I have the last 4 left to read.

Silmarillion

I’ve not read any. I’m sure they work for a lot of people even if they are saying things you kinda already know, it reinforces and helps focus.

The Analects by Confucius which I’m reading now and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius are more my style. I pick and choose little bits from many philosophers, historians, and thinkers and overall I think that method serves well.

I read it six years ago so my memory of specifics is pretty fuzzy but I loved the novel. The multiple narrators kept the story moving, Count Fosco is a great character, especially for readers of the modern Pendergast novels, and I found the comedic parts quite hilarious. And to quote from the review I wrote years ago, now I must go because "my hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody."

It’s an intentional decision on his part to write the characters like that. It’s part of what gives you a picture of these characters. If you look up an old Russian version of the movie you’ll see just how unhinged they appear in the Russian as well.

Dostoevsky himself had a crazy life, ordered to be executed with a last minute reprieve, suffered epilepsy, depression, and paranoia. He wasn’t going for realism but more in conversation with other writers of the time and probably his own experience of life.

Other highly regarded novels you didn’t list would be Once An Eagle which is basically about what a good military leader should be like. And Matterhorn which is a novel set in the Vietnam War

Yeah it’s unlike anything else out there really. With the absurdity, the most impactful thing is how close to reality it actually is at times. Really gets across how a bombadier would have felt in wwii.

Catch-22 stands alone in American military literature.

In a chair with blanket or pillow propping the book up, sometimes sitting at a table like a proper student, and also just holding it while I circumambulate my furniture.

Set it aside, you can come back to it later if you want. Or you can start another book as your main book and read this one slowly and see if you ever get into it.

I always recommend challenging yourself with your reading, not every book but enough so that you expand what you’re comfortable with.

The biggest hang up some people have is the Russian naming system. And the writing itself is different than modern writing but by no means impossible.

His Notes from Underground is short and worth reading to get used to his writing. But I jumped right into Crime and Punishment and loved it without fully taking everything in. Dostoevsky is one of my favorites.

It’s definitely wild. It’s magical realism so to us many things that happen are strange, but in-world it’s just part of life. You never know what the rain may bring.

It’s among my favorites, I think I’ve read the first nine. Norwegian Wood is my favorite so far, that one does not have the bonkers world to contend with. Elegiac would be the word to describe that one.

And don’t worry there’s plenty more! I definitely have a western centric list that I at least attempt to rectify but it’s a slow process.

But slowly the pieces begin to fit together, not because of any one book but the accumulation and maintaining an objective view rather than being heavily invested in YOUR view. Just my take.

I’d suggest reading history and philosophy, literature and probably some psychology. Read widely about the world and it’s people. You may never agree with other people’s views but that’s not really the goal, the goal is to understand other people and live your best life.

Some writers to read over a lifetime, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, De Tocqueville, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Wollstonecraft, Thoreau, Melville, W.E.B. du Bois, James McPherson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Toni Morrison, Nietzsche, Barbara Tuchman, Zizek among many many others.