Take a photo of a barcode or cover
I read this for a book club, otherwise it would not have been a book I picked up. It's an odd combination of essay and short story that is just not my cup of tea.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
I felt this book keenly, appreciated the intersections, the lack of answers, the lack of closure. It’s a beautiful meditation on journeys through space, time, and our own interiors - but it’s quite up to the reader to figure out the themes and connections.
This deserved a much more careful read/listen from me. I think there were some themes and points I missed the nuance in. Some parts I didn’t love.
I continue to enjoy working my way through Olga T.’s stories.
I continue to enjoy working my way through Olga T.’s stories.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
I kept waiting and waiting for it to all come together
and finally in the very last story it did.
maybe now I can read it again and appreciate it more for the journey, I think my above attitude made me impatient to the book.
and finally in the very last story it did.
maybe now I can read it again and appreciate it more for the journey, I think my above attitude made me impatient to the book.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
informative
reflective
“This is why tyrants of all stripes, infernal servants, have such deep-seated hatred for the nomads - this is why they persecute the Gypsies and the Jews, and why they force all free peoples to settle, assigning the addresses that serve as our sentences.
What they want is to create a frozen order, to falsify time's passage. They want for the days to repeat themselves, unchanging, they want to build a big machine where every creature will be forced to take its place and carry out false actions. Institutions and offices, stamps,newsletters, a hierarchy, and ranks, degrees, applications and rejections, passports, numbers, cards, elections results, sales and amassing points, collecting, exchanging some things for others.
What they want is to pin down the world with the aid of barcodes, labelling all things, letting it be known that everything is a commodity, that this is how much it will cost you. Let this new foreign language be illegible to humans, let it be read exclusively by automatons, machines. That way by night, in their great underground shops, they can organize reading of their own barcoded poetry.
Move. Get going. Blesses is he who leaves.”
What they want is to create a frozen order, to falsify time's passage. They want for the days to repeat themselves, unchanging, they want to build a big machine where every creature will be forced to take its place and carry out false actions. Institutions and offices, stamps,newsletters, a hierarchy, and ranks, degrees, applications and rejections, passports, numbers, cards, elections results, sales and amassing points, collecting, exchanging some things for others.
What they want is to pin down the world with the aid of barcodes, labelling all things, letting it be known that everything is a commodity, that this is how much it will cost you. Let this new foreign language be illegible to humans, let it be read exclusively by automatons, machines. That way by night, in their great underground shops, they can organize reading of their own barcoded poetry.
Move. Get going. Blesses is he who leaves.”