sooner or later somebody was bound to say it

[smilebackwards]

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Space explorers are tortured with hallucinations by a semi-sentient alien ocean. This was pretty fucked up and I enjoyed it. Watched the George Clooney film after reading the book and I think the film tried to match the vibe but somehow it was too idk sleek(?) to be appropriately unsettling to me.

[DNF] Dubliners by James Joyce. Series of kind of vaguely dark, disconcerting slice of life short stories set in Dublin. Not enjoying it so I'm DNFing it halfway through.

[DNF] House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I'm letting myself DNF this one too unfortunately. This is my second read attempt and I got farther this time but despite magical realism being interesting to me, I just don't care for it. It reminds me of One Hundred Years of Solitude which I was forcing myself through a bit toward the end.

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In TV, I finished Bridgerton (season 4). The first half felt kind of wooden to me but I liked the second half a lot better. Except that they hid a scene at the end of the credits which is annoying to me! (I was trying to remember which other shows I've watched did this and one of them was X-Men '97.) Why do this? Anyway, Francesca has become one of my favorites and I'm excited for the expected continuation of her storyline.

Comments

[ailelie]

Stanislaw Lem is fantastic. If you get a chance, definitely read something of his translated by Michael Kandel (Cyberiad if you enjoy humor; His Master's Voice if you want serious are my recs). I tried reading Solaris previously, but I feel like the translator had no idea how to handle Lem's prose. Kandel, though, is a very deft and thoughtful translator who ensures Lem's brilliance shines. (I probably would have been fine if I'd started with Solaris, but going from Kandel to not-Kandel led to DNF).

[smilebackwards]

Oh my god, I did not even clock that this was a translation. I looked it up and the copy I read was translated by Kilmartin and Cox. Thanks for the recs, I will look more carefully at editions if I come back to read more by Lem.