Reviews and Comments

finished reading kallocain during lunch, it has such luscious sentences

it feels like a poem wearing the guise of a novel. the first time i tried to read it, i read like i would any other novel. but for me, it only revealed itself, and was frankly only understandable, when taking the pace down a few notches

i don't know what translation keeps the dreamy poetry of its sentences intact; you could always learn swedish

Superb book, absolutely addictive, and wonderfully written. For other readers of a similar specious worry: it does not take place on a spacestation, but very much so on planet Earth.

started this a while back, bounced hard. saw rave reviews on bookwyrm and went "wait a minute... maybe it's Actually Good?" so i took another go at it. it was indeed actually good!!

read about half and felt "yup! i'm done with this book"

not bad, not great. very much wears its serializiation origins on its cuffs so to speak

felt like a re-read of this for some reason :~

absolute banger, hard to believe this was written before the first world war because god dang it describes many facets of modern society exceedingly well

i thought this would be a potentially dry account of his golden globe race, but it is nothing of the sort.

it's full of warmth. tales from his youth in "indochina", as he calls it, woven seamlessly with descriptions of the warm relationships he forms with the animals he comes across during the voyage. there are fantastic tips scattered among the different chapters, expert advice snuck in between two paragraphs musing about the weather. he often yearns for updates on his friends taking on the same voyage, cursing bbc for not including updates on them during their broadcasts. the book is lovely all around

ahhh: it's always so refreshing to start reading a book that just hits home. apparently well-written and coherent plots are important for this reader X)

my strong feeling about this book is that it's like The Crying of Lot 49 for people who couldn't get past Pynchon's style

also this is coming from someone who couldn't get past Pynchon's style, so i dunno a lot about lot 49

digging this a lot. sometimes in a "i don't know what take this is even going for?"-way

often in an "octopods are freaking cool"-way

as sci-fi goes, plenty of interesting perspectives and ideas and parallels getting thrown your way, liking the structure as well

looking fwd to this!