Greg Kanyicska

a coward to the end

Revisado: 02-09-22

Hard to believe this was written nearly 70 years ago. It's frank in a direct way even today's writers seldom are, maybe because it didn't have decades of baggage to deal with about how "this sort of story" should be told. A lot of it feels like an accusation, or accusations Baldwin levels at Americans, himself (through his blond-haired protagonist's narrative, no doubt chosen to separate and explore this part of his identity apart from [most] questions of race, though this avoidance itself implies something in that vein), accusations at all manner of societies and society, and the lies, the damning lies we tell each other and ourselves that leave so much wreckage in our wake, whether deliberately or as an unavoidable consequence of making or not having made decisions. This is perhaps the central question of the work, a damning accusation and a pointed direction towards absolution, if forgiveness for oneself for living, loving, and failing at both, is at all possible. 9 minutes left, so my analysis might change by the time the knife drops and Giovanni's Room begins to both fade in memory and grow in personal legend in rethinking and reshaping, as doomed firey flings all tend to do.

David, the book's protagonist, was a coward to the last page, but his cowardice, active as it was, leads me here to reflect on my own passive, inactive cowardice. At least he had dared to do, briefly, disastrously, in his dalliances and deeper dips into matters, flirting sometimes even with finding himself, before, as he was warned, reaching the deadlands beyond 40, but he never allowed himself to be there, an eye always looking back to the security of insecurity.

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was great to hear Terry

Revisado: 12-31-21

Wish it would have included all 4 poems from the book. And they left in the announed breaks between the original disc 3 and 4. Bit jarring.

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get in, listener, we're going to sack Troy

Revisado: 06-03-21

an immersive and informative tale of heroes and gods and a story about storytelling

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It picks up if you give it a chance.

Revisado: 03-03-21

Not sure why I stuck with it. Kidman wasn't clicking in the first few chapters. I was surprised they didn't go back and rerecord them later to get a better take. But when she found her voice I got drawn in more and more. Woolf's rhythmic and repetitive writing is hypnotic, like waves in a sea of words, but never overwhelming. While I didn't really know what was what or who was who in the first part, like I was eavesdropping on strangers' conversations and town gossip while on summer vacation, the second part of the book clicked for me psychologically, deftly adding details to the canvas to make an impressive impressionistic collage of images and thoughts.

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