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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
i found it quite entertaining to READ the simplified English in the book---the english that non-native speakers speak. Or, in my case, the English that Nigerians speak (as their 8th language, of course---this is not a slight!!)
Finished You Shall Know Our Velocity and really enjoyed it! More so than Heartbreaking Work… but not as much as What Is the What. I started out marking a few quotes, but then just got into reading:
“I was feeling everything much too much. Everything was pulling at my eyes. I spent hours floating in pools. I sat on terraces and stared for afternoons at mediocre views. I was feeling overjoyed for happy couples. I would see or hear people, usually people I hardly knew or didn’t even like, getting together, finding each other after so much groping, and I would feel bliss. I was being blind-sided by familiar things. I was pulling over to the side of the road, my head resting on the side window, trying to understand why things could be so green. Songs were knocking me from wall to wall, certain songs in certain progressions strained my eyes, roughed up my throat, brought me near tears without delivering me to any kind of catharsis. I was shaking my head to how perfect some song was, and then I was in the car, on the way to Kmart to buy a lesson kit, convinced I could teach myself piano and with my exceptional taste, make an album and then I would double back and think Fuck, I should learn to fly airplanes. that’s the thing I Really want to do. Fly planes. But it would take years, and I needed it quicker. What I wanted to do was take a course in the bar, take it and then practice law, all without having done law school at all. It was possible. Or maybe I should just open the police souvenir store, as planned in eighth grade, or the general store in New Mexico with the local handicrafts. And marry a woman cop. She would be huge and strong and named Heather and would be such a good woman.”
I’ve definitely felt this way to vary degrees of intensity.
“Where was teleporting, for fuck’s sake? Should we not have teleporting by now? The promised us teleporting decades ago! It made all the sense in the world. Teleporting. Why were we spending billions on unmanned missions to Mars when we could be betting the cash on teleporting, the one advancement that would finally break us all free of our slow movement from here to there, would zip our big fat slow fleshy bodies around as fast as our minds could will them-which was as fast as they should be going: the speed of thought. Fuck regular movement. Fuck cars, rental cars, and wheels, and engineering, and great metal machines that were always too loud and used this ridiculous kind of fuel, so goddamned medieval-”
This cracked me up, and I’ve totally had this same conversation with myself tons of times. In fact just this last week coming back from the Modest Mouse show. Seriously. Let’s get this rolling!
“Not the first world, she continued, the world we are from, not the second or third world, so many people treading water. This is different. The fourth world is voluntary. It is quick small steps from the other worlds…Everyone is sleeping and we are here, in the sea. That is the fourth world. The fourth world is present and available. It’s this close. But it’s different. It’s passive. We are make the action here. We come and then we create things that will happen. The fourth world is half thought, half actual. It’s a staging ground”
I’m really intrigued by this idea. I’ve really been trying to appreciate the present in front of me lately. I tend to dwell or over-think things. I’m much reformed though.
“I was feeling everything much too much. Everything was pulling at my eyes. I spent hours floating in pools. I sat on terraces and stared for afternoons at mediocre views. I was feeling overjoyed for happy couples. I would see or hear people, usually people I hardly knew or didn’t even like, getting together, finding each other after so much groping, and I would feel bliss. I was being blind-sided by familiar things. I was pulling over to the side of the road, my head resting on the side window, trying to understand why things could be so green. Songs were knocking me from wall to wall, certain songs in certain progressions strained my eyes, roughed up my throat, brought me near tears without delivering me to any kind of catharsis. I was shaking my head to how perfect some song was, and then I was in the car, on the way to Kmart to buy a lesson kit, convinced I could teach myself piano and with my exceptional taste, make an album and then I would double back and think Fuck, I should learn to fly airplanes. that’s the thing I Really want to do. Fly planes. But it would take years, and I needed it quicker. What I wanted to do was take a course in the bar, take it and then practice law, all without having done law school at all. It was possible. Or maybe I should just open the police souvenir store, as planned in eighth grade, or the general store in New Mexico with the local handicrafts. And marry a woman cop. She would be huge and strong and named Heather and would be such a good woman.”
I’ve definitely felt this way to vary degrees of intensity.
“Where was teleporting, for fuck’s sake? Should we not have teleporting by now? The promised us teleporting decades ago! It made all the sense in the world. Teleporting. Why were we spending billions on unmanned missions to Mars when we could be betting the cash on teleporting, the one advancement that would finally break us all free of our slow movement from here to there, would zip our big fat slow fleshy bodies around as fast as our minds could will them-which was as fast as they should be going: the speed of thought. Fuck regular movement. Fuck cars, rental cars, and wheels, and engineering, and great metal machines that were always too loud and used this ridiculous kind of fuel, so goddamned medieval-”
This cracked me up, and I’ve totally had this same conversation with myself tons of times. In fact just this last week coming back from the Modest Mouse show. Seriously. Let’s get this rolling!
“Not the first world, she continued, the world we are from, not the second or third world, so many people treading water. This is different. The fourth world is voluntary. It is quick small steps from the other worlds…Everyone is sleeping and we are here, in the sea. That is the fourth world. The fourth world is present and available. It’s this close. But it’s different. It’s passive. We are make the action here. We come and then we create things that will happen. The fourth world is half thought, half actual. It’s a staging ground”
I’m really intrigued by this idea. I’ve really been trying to appreciate the present in front of me lately. I tend to dwell or over-think things. I’m much reformed though.
I think you're supposed to hate the main characters of this book and if that was the goal, then the author definitely succeeded.
I know main characters aren't meant to be perfect or need to grow, but I was actually just wishing for them to get punched in the face again. Everything they do is so 'creative' and 'free' and 'full of meaning' while they insult everyone around them for basically doing the same thing. For example, the narrator complains about a group of female tourists who are upset because their credit card wouldn't work. Something about them 'begging to be hated' or something like that. Then the main characters spend the rest of the book verbally abusing a clerk who wouldn't change their traveller's checks.
The main character reminded me of every annoying expat guy in Asia who thinks he's going to change the world, but then basically just ends up insulting the locals, hanging out with prostitutes, and then whimpers about people not understanding him.
And just when I didn't think I could hate reading about this guy enough, he shared a story about how they had set a cow on fire.
The writing is good and there was some creative aspects of the book, but I just couldn't wait to get it over with.
I know main characters aren't meant to be perfect or need to grow, but I was actually just wishing for them to get punched in the face again. Everything they do is so 'creative' and 'free' and 'full of meaning' while they insult everyone around them for basically doing the same thing. For example, the narrator complains about a group of female tourists who are upset because their credit card wouldn't work. Something about them 'begging to be hated' or something like that. Then the main characters spend the rest of the book verbally abusing a clerk who wouldn't change their traveller's checks.
The main character reminded me of every annoying expat guy in Asia who thinks he's going to change the world, but then basically just ends up insulting the locals, hanging out with prostitutes, and then whimpers about people not understanding him.
And just when I didn't think I could hate reading about this guy enough, he shared a story about how they had set a cow on fire.
The writing is good and there was some creative aspects of the book, but I just couldn't wait to get it over with.
I abandoned this book mid-read because the characters were insufferable. I hated their quest, their naivete, & their barely acknowledged US privilege. I found myself dreading having to read another chapter. Life's too short to read shit books.
I couldnt read this for long periods of time at first because it was making me anxious--the main characters are constantly rushing and waiting and rushing and waiting and making dumb little mistakes and it was kind if driving me crazy. Also, i feel like the more I read, the less I like the characters. I could barely stand to read some of the dialogue without cringing. Meh
"I have had visions of that cow for ten years now, twelve. I see its eye, I see it just burning and its eye seemed awake, alive for so long. That black liquid eye."
"I have had visions of that cow for ten years now, twelve. I see its eye, I see it just burning and its eye seemed awake, alive for so long. That black liquid eye."
After a young man dies, two of his friends travel overseas to give away $32K. It was ok.