semi-critical reflection

 

 12/04/2025

At home, on my couch

 

I've been upward struggling between two books recently: Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, not only are these two books dense both philosophically and dramatically, I'm also bogged down by study, work and the encroaching and be-loathed winter :(

Despite having all the time in the world when there's nothing to do, I simultaneously feel that if I don't do nothing now, I'll never have time to do nothing later.

On that note: the most recent books I finished were Hechemi's Living Things and Murata's Earthlings.

Living Things was a 3.75/5 for me, though I loved the character drama which felt like a heavenly anchoring point in the loopy, suspenseful atmosphere the book goes for as it explores the French countryside during a hot summer, I wished that the answer to the suspense matched the creeping dread that permeates the book, however that complaint feels over-bloated as the banal human apathy that runs through the experiences of our main characters just as succinctly sums up the themes of the story and horrors we inflict on all living things. Liked it :)

Earthlings was a 4.5/5: Unlike Living Things, Earthlings does not care about anchoring you, instead it grabbed me by the neck and threw me headfirst into the mind of it's main character, an outcast, a observer and an alien. An absolute roller-coaster that did not care whether I was comfortable, Earthlings is a mind-opening, mind-boggling observation of the social gender mores that puppeteers all of us and the vow of silence we inflict on those who do not engage. Liked it (be warned, it is not for everyone) :)