paigeweb's reviews
99 reviews

Daydream and Drunkenness of a Young Lady by Clarice Lispector

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5.0

"The cruelty of the world was tranquil. The murder was deep. And death was not what we thought."

"Just when does a mother, holding a child tight, impart to him this prison of love that would forever fall heavily on the future man."
The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil

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4.0

"Is it the gods who put this fire in our minds, or is it that each man's relentless longing becomes a god to him?" woahhhh
Heroides by Ovid

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5.0

Incredible. 

Female grief, female rage, female adoration. Women in love!

"My plea is not that you should love but rather that you let yourself be loved by me."
T Zero by Italo Calvino

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3.75

Lost me and then found me again and I'm so glad it did. One of those books that is entirely unique from any other and completely possessed of itself. I didn't know language was capable of what Calvino has made it do in this.
The Infinite Moment: Greek Poetry by

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4.0

who knew that people who lived 2500 years ago had such a sense of humor... delightful and wholly unexpected.
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

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challenging

3.0

I came expecting the physics, was pleasantly surprised by the philosophy:

"Our present swarms with traces of our past. We are histories of ourselves, narratives... I am my thoughts full of the traces of the phrases I am writing; I am my mother's caresses, and the serene kindness with which my father calmly guided me; I am my adolescent travels; I am what my reading has deposited in layers in my mind; I am my loves, my moments of despair, my friendships, what I've written, what I've heard; the faces engraved on my memory... If all this disappeared, would I still exist? I am this long, ongoing novel. My life consists of it." (178)

"Because everything that begins must end. What causes us to suffer is not in the past or the future: it is here, now, in our memory, in our expectations. We long for timelessness, we endure the passing of time: we suffer time. Time is suffering. Such is time... that to which we owe our being, giving us the precious gift of our existence, allowing us to create the fleeting illusion of permanence that is the origin of all our suffering." (190)



The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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emotional hopeful sad
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

revisiting this after reading the Iliad for the first time... didn't think I could love patroclus more but I somehow do. he's my son. best of the myrmidons, best of the greeks, best of men.