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I read The Bostonians coming fresh off of reading Cloud Cuckoo Land and I am a bit astonished at the contrast. The latter is a contemporary novel with an obvious underlying ethos which I am predominantly in line with, but feels flat and a bit lifeless. The Bostonians has the two strikes against it of being both old (as in of-a-time-that-is-difficult-to-inhabit) and spending its time making the repugnant argument that women are less then men. And yet - its characters are alive, are real people with great depth. I immediately fell into and was consumed by the story. And yeah, at the end, there is a kinda Atlas Shrugged-type ending where the unabashed misogonyst persuades the impressionable young woman to leave her life for him. And along the way there are a lot of confused arguments that are mostly nonsense now. I'm not really sure how it stood up in the context of its time, I am inclined to believe that James meant it to appeal to both "sides of the woman question" whatever that means. I mean all in all, it was more sympathetic to lesbians than you expect from a 19th century writer? Politics aside, it beats out Atlas Shrugged in at least being an admirable work of art.

An interesting, well-researched, well-put together history of travel in the Amazon that I think unfortunately I read too shortly after reading The River of Doubt which is just kind of ultimately a better story about historical travel in the Amazon.

I think a book with these ambitions needs to be warm, organic, feel alive - but it is surprisingly cold and clinical. I'm not really sure what makes it so, maybe the storylines are too flat, maybe the characters lack depth. I think it was an admirable effort, well written and enjoyable and with am interesting goal, but ultimately I think it fell a bit flat

There is a bit here of the young-adult, which of course is nothing to be ashamed of, but means that it is a bit simplistic, a bit stilted, and a bit preoccupied by its own project. Which like, it's a good project! Anticolonial linguistic magic in Victorian Oxford is fun! I like the project, I didn't love the book.

Good, sweet story, a bit trite and maybe a bit patronizing, but mostly empathetic, well put-together and a good modern Dickens.

Just good old fashioned juicy drama, a tragic soap opera, a tale of woe that is as scintillating now as it ever was. I mean, quite long-winded, it could be less long-winded. But brilliant, it sucks you in and surrounds with the history of this young lady, just doing her damndest so survive some horrible people.

Manic, wonderfully manic, brilliant.

Based on its snappy title, I was expecting this to be a study of a particular form of non-western ecological philosophy - but the first chapter claimed the book would be a provincialization of European thought! Not merely other ideas but new ways of having ideas! An ambitious goal! In the end, it was neither.

Pale Fire is a delightful escape-room of a novel, with layers of meaning, unreliablility, and puns that might seem a bit highfalutin but crucially does not take itself seriously. The conceit of a somewhat crazy man telling a story through the footnotes of an unrelated poem is good fun. Also helpful is the fact that Nabokov has maybe the best grasp of language of anyone ever? And the poem is actually quite good.

There is something half-full about books by Amor Towles, and I can't quite place it. Maybe it is just an undue obsession with trappings of wealth? Or maybe they are just without objectionability - feels like most proper literature is a bit more transgressive, pushes the bounds some how, does something a bit more. Which is not to say its not good! It is quite good (perhaps not quite as good as _A Gentleman in Moscow), engaging, easy to digest. I think there is something to the well-read protagonist's predilection for Agatha Christie; the reading experience is not so different, and at the end you are left with a pleasant sense of conclusion.