to finally catch up on this thing, I mean.

Blood Meridian: FINISHED

again, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but it's one of the most remarkable books I've read

the great American novel if you believe there is and was not anything great about America

the sheer impact of finding out what the protagonist really felt, _through other people_ and so near the end, was devastating

This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald: FINISHED

read this because of the resurgence in interest in his stuff lately (and I'd already read Gatsby)

it's definitely an early-seeming work and again, not something I'd really recommend, but I found it interesting

very much autobiographical, and written at a point where he knew fuck all about what to do with himself

I didn't know anything about the book going in (not even that it did have elements of his own life), which made it more enjoyable I think

that said it meanders a lot, and if you don't like to hear the Intellectual History of a pretentious protag you probably won't like this

yet in spite of his upper-class affectations and later disillusions it captures that quintessential something, a vibrancy and futility that's almost universal to the college experience

a sort of "oh god this is so true" and "what the hell was wrong with us" all at once

there's no satisfactory conclusion, and that's honest I think

Against the Grain (A Rebours) by Joris-Karl Huysmans: IN PROGRESS

picked this up because it was "the book that corrupted Dorian Gray" which I'm revisiting now as well

it's an interesting contrast to the previous book because both are seemingly plotless novels about the internal life of a young, disaffected protagonist

only the fellow in A Rebours is more obviously pathological of course

so far it's interesting and not even in the trainwreck way

but I think Dorian got this book all wrong

nor should he be turning to it in the first place given the life he supposedly wanted to lead

it details a lifestyle born out of a loathing for reality, humanity, and nature, and even if that was Dorian's state of mind I don't think he was consciously aware of it

the protag only went for this because he could not deal with anything else, it has no bearing on an extravagant and publicly toxic presence that Dorian was bent on living

might change my mind as I continue though