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badspringbye's reviews
194 reviews
The Promised Neverland, Vol. 4 by Kaiu Shirai, Posuka Demizu
3.0
I want to know more about the other children, they're mostly only on the background. the outside world as well, at least some bits of puzzle pieces to keep my interest going.
The Sandman Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections by Neil Gaiman
at first I find the nonlinear structure of almost-independent one-shots intimidating for the fear of being unable to catch up w/ the story. apart from those I (subjectively!!) did not like much, I think it's still possible to find at least one or two appealing stories from this compilation. issues #40 & #50 are my personal picks!
p.s. I struggled a lot with those cursive fonts on one chapter AND did they really have to make those disgusting blisters on another!!!
issue #30
"We write our names in the sand; and then the waves roll in and wash them away. But we leave things behind us. I am leaving an empire."
"No man knows the future. It behooves us all to walk with care."
issue #31
"Without dreams, there could be no despair."
"His madness... his madness keeps him sane."
p.s. I struggled a lot with those cursive fonts on one chapter AND did they really have to make those disgusting blisters on another!!!
issue #30
"We write our names in the sand; and then the waves roll in and wash them away. But we leave things behind us. I am leaving an empire."
"No man knows the future. It behooves us all to walk with care."
issue #31
"Without dreams, there could be no despair."
"His madness... his madness keeps him sane."
The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman
3.0
least volume I like so far because I personally do not have a strong connection and feelings toward Barbara's 'The Land' and I find the characters the weakest from structure to development
issue #34
"You know the really scary thing about bad dreams? [...] It's that something's going on in your head and you can't control it. I mean, it's like there's these bad worlds inside you. But it's just you... it's like you're betraying yourself."
issue #36
"You weren't abused as a child, Barbara. Your childhood was dull, quiet and boring. You had two dull parents, and a dull house. And an overactive imagination. [...] They couldn't understand where this fascination of yours for the fantastic came from and it scared them. So you began to defend yourself."
issue #34
"You know the really scary thing about bad dreams? [...] It's that something's going on in your head and you can't control it. I mean, it's like there's these bad worlds inside you. But it's just you... it's like you're betraying yourself."
issue #36
"You weren't abused as a child, Barbara. Your childhood was dull, quiet and boring. You had two dull parents, and a dull house. And an overactive imagination. [...] They couldn't understand where this fascination of yours for the fantastic came from and it scared them. So you began to defend yourself."
The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3.0
excerpts:
p. 11 "...a house of the living dead, with its own unique life and special inhabitants. This is the special little corner of the world I am setting out to describe."
p. 20 "We're broken people," they would say. "We've had the insides beaten out of us — that's why we cry out at night."
p. 27 "...in addition to loss of freedom and penal servitude, prison existence had one other element of torture almost more terrible than the rest: forced co-existence."
p. 11 "...a house of the living dead, with its own unique life and special inhabitants. This is the special little corner of the world I am setting out to describe."
p. 20 "We're broken people," they would say. "We've had the insides beaten out of us — that's why we cry out at night."
p. 27 "...in addition to loss of freedom and penal servitude, prison existence had one other element of torture almost more terrible than the rest: forced co-existence."
In the Presence of Absence by Mahmoud Darwish
one of the most difficult things I have read this year and in my entire reading journey generally. challenging to a great extent but always worth the time delving through the meaning behind the metaphors thrown down on every corner of every chapter. it's either you get lost in between words and sentences or find yourself floating on top of them and see it through with outmost clarity. I think the best way to understand the context/sense of this whole thing is to consume the writing yourself first-hand and let the writing consume you.
more excerpts:
"And you must defend the discrete letters of your name as a cat would its kittens. Do what you must: defend the window's right to look at passerby. Do not ridicule yourself if you are incapable of providing proof."
*
"Letters are restless, hungry or an image, and the image is thirsty for a meaning. [...] Rub one letter against another and a star is born. Bring a letter close to another and you can hear the sound of rain."
*
"You are you, and more.
You are you, and less.
You are you and not you at the same time."
*
"Are we what we do with time, or are we what time does with us? Finding a response does not interest you as much as slowing down time. You do not want this autumn to end, just as you do not want the poem to grow to fullness and end. You do not want to reach winter. Let autumn be your private eternity."
*
"Death does not pain the dead, it pains the living."
*
"Longing lies and never tires of lying, because it lies honestly."
*
"Are you what you were, or what you are now? You fear you will forget tomorrow while mired in the question: In which time do I live?"
4.5
"When asleep, you are your own overlord and sovereign. Alive, but without life's burdens."
"...you tell reality: You are only a figment, and tell imagination: You are the only reality I can depend on."
"You lived at zero, perhaps less, perhaps more."
one of the most difficult things I have read this year and in my entire reading journey generally. challenging to a great extent but always worth the time delving through the meaning behind the metaphors thrown down on every corner of every chapter. it's either you get lost in between words and sentences or find yourself floating on top of them and see it through with outmost clarity. I think the best way to understand the context/sense of this whole thing is to consume the writing yourself first-hand and let the writing consume you.
more excerpts:
"And you must defend the discrete letters of your name as a cat would its kittens. Do what you must: defend the window's right to look at passerby. Do not ridicule yourself if you are incapable of providing proof."
*
"Letters are restless, hungry or an image, and the image is thirsty for a meaning. [...] Rub one letter against another and a star is born. Bring a letter close to another and you can hear the sound of rain."
*
"You are you, and more.
You are you, and less.
You are you and not you at the same time."
*
"Are we what we do with time, or are we what time does with us? Finding a response does not interest you as much as slowing down time. You do not want this autumn to end, just as you do not want the poem to grow to fullness and end. You do not want to reach winter. Let autumn be your private eternity."
*
"Death does not pain the dead, it pains the living."
*
"Longing lies and never tires of lying, because it lies honestly."
*
"Are you what you were, or what you are now? You fear you will forget tomorrow while mired in the question: In which time do I live?"
The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman
slow-paced
5.0
the book of destiny has been revealed among other things that will eventually affect another phase of Dream's life decisions reflecting on his past then attempts to mend the unsettled damage that has been overdue for centuries, as this (and he) will play a huge role on spheres beyond his own realm. I have to mention my personal favorite from this volume: the art style!!! the conversation with Lucifer!!! the distinctive attributes of all the characters inside and out!!! love love love it so much what the heck
issue #21
"The Garden of Destiny. You know it if you saw it. After all, you will wander it until you die. Or beyond. For the paths are long, and even in death there is no ending to them."
"We do what we must do, Lucien. Sometimes we can choose the path we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all."
issue #23
"And the mortals! I ask you—why? Tell me that—why? Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them. And then they die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution."
issue #25
"Anyway, I don't feel ill anymore. I feel fine. Dead, but fine."
issue #21
"The Garden of Destiny. You know it if you saw it. After all, you will wander it until you die. Or beyond. For the paths are long, and even in death there is no ending to them."
"We do what we must do, Lucien. Sometimes we can choose the path we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all."
issue #23
"And the mortals! I ask you—why? Tell me that—why? Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them. And then they die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution."
issue #25
"Anyway, I don't feel ill anymore. I feel fine. Dead, but fine."
The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman
slow-paced
4.0
consists of only four issues with varying setting, subplot, and storyline wholly different from the past two volumes while still preserving the themes that mostly center around death, dream, desires, and a mix of all three.
issue #20
"I have only two kinds of dreams. The bad and the terrible. Bad dreams I can cope with. They're just nightmares, and they end eventually. I wake up. The terrible dreams are the good dreams. In my terrible dreams, everything's fine. I'm still with the company. I still look like me. None of the last five years ever happened. [...] Everything's wonderful and normal and fine. And then I wake up. And I'm still me."
"You people always hold on onto old identities, old faces and masks, long after they've served their purpose. But you've got to learn to throw things away eventually."
"I'm scared of noises in the night-time, scared of telephones and closed doors, scared of people... scared of everything. Not of death."
issue #20
"I have only two kinds of dreams. The bad and the terrible. Bad dreams I can cope with. They're just nightmares, and they end eventually. I wake up. The terrible dreams are the good dreams. In my terrible dreams, everything's fine. I'm still with the company. I still look like me. None of the last five years ever happened. [...] Everything's wonderful and normal and fine. And then I wake up. And I'm still me."
"You people always hold on onto old identities, old faces and masks, long after they've served their purpose. But you've got to learn to throw things away eventually."
"I'm scared of noises in the night-time, scared of telephones and closed doors, scared of people... scared of everything. Not of death."
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3.0
excerpts:
p. 230 "If I did not believe in life, [...] if I were to lose faith in the order of things, even if I were to become convinced, on the contrary, that everything is a disorderly, damned, and perhaps devilish chaos, if I were struck even by all the horrors of human disillusionment—still I would want to live, and as long as I have bent to this cup, I will not tear myself from it until I've drunk it all! However, by the age of thirty, I will probably drop the cup, even if I haven't emptied it, and walk away... I don't know where. But until my thirtieth year, I know this for certain, my youth will overcome everything - all disillusionment, all aversion to life."
p. 693 "But what, one might think, is so surprising, what is so especially horrifying about it? [...] We're so used to all that! And here is the real horror, that such dark affairs have almost ceased to horrify us! It is this, and not the isolated crime of one individual or another, that should horrify us: that we are so used to it."
p. 230 "If I did not believe in life, [...] if I were to lose faith in the order of things, even if I were to become convinced, on the contrary, that everything is a disorderly, damned, and perhaps devilish chaos, if I were struck even by all the horrors of human disillusionment—still I would want to live, and as long as I have bent to this cup, I will not tear myself from it until I've drunk it all! However, by the age of thirty, I will probably drop the cup, even if I haven't emptied it, and walk away... I don't know where. But until my thirtieth year, I know this for certain, my youth will overcome everything - all disillusionment, all aversion to life."
p. 693 "But what, one might think, is so surprising, what is so especially horrifying about it? [...] We're so used to all that! And here is the real horror, that such dark affairs have almost ceased to horrify us! It is this, and not the isolated crime of one individual or another, that should horrify us: that we are so used to it."
The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan
4.0
"Fair... You'd be amazed how often I hear that word, Frank Zhang, and how meaningless it is. Is it fair that your life will burn so short and bright? Was it fair when I guided your mother to the underworld? No. Not fair. And yet it was her time. There is no fairness in death."
The Trial by Franz Kafka
slow-paced
2.0
dnf at 80%, read the rest from summarized notes
this worsened my physical and mental condition at the moment (literally was giving me headaches from time to time I pick it up)
never seen this type of approach before. everything is merged into a single paragraph: thoughts, actual narration, dialogues/conversations? I don't understand? if it was actually written like this in its original language then it's terrible. also, since it's an unfinished novel the main subject is mostly still filled with unresolved issues so, meh
excerpt:
p. 42 "What has happened to me is only a single instance and as such of no great importance, ... but it is representative of a misguided policy which is being directed against many other people as well. It is for these that I take up my stand here, not for myself."
this worsened my physical and mental condition at the moment (literally was giving me headaches from time to time I pick it up)
never seen this type of approach before. everything is merged into a single paragraph: thoughts, actual narration, dialogues/conversations? I don't understand? if it was actually written like this in its original language then it's terrible. also, since it's an unfinished novel the main subject is mostly still filled with unresolved issues so, meh
excerpt:
p. 42 "What has happened to me is only a single instance and as such of no great importance, ... but it is representative of a misguided policy which is being directed against many other people as well. It is for these that I take up my stand here, not for myself."