A Circus Library - quick recommendations of short stories, poems, comics and novels I've recently read #1
Hello there! I'm the circus resident poltergeist, Eliott, managing this blog until Lav comes back. Today I offer you a slightly different formula of my super awesome super rare super bookclub post, as Lav would say!
Hello hello hello! Is this a bookclub?! Is this chaotic ramble?! Ding ding! You got it wrong!
Writing full on reviews is tiedous and long, and while I appreciate doing it, I'm myself not always in the mood to read a long post explaining why a book is genius. Do I love that from time to time? Yes! Do I have the attention span to write one now? Nope! However, I still wanted to share some titles I recently (re)discovered, and that I think are marvellous reads for anyone wanting to dive into something new.
Here you'll find a few recommendations with the shortest of words to tell you why they are great, or just scream about it.
short disclaimer before I begin because this is tumblr and while I forgot a lot about this website, I remember how the TW thing works lol, it's at your own discretion to search for the works beforehand if you have any trigger you don't want to encounter.
Jack Spicer - Billy the kid
The master of my fate, captain of my soul as Timothée Chalamet would say idk I barely know the guy. Classic and gold, Spicer is an amazing writer and this poem is phenomenal. It's quite short and perfect if you want to know more about the wonder that was US American poetry during the 20th century. Of course I'd encourage you to read all of his works, but Billy the Kid is perfect to start somewhere.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa - Hell Screen
Classic and iconic, I've recently pushed further than Rashomon and boy oh boy am I never turning back. Hell Screen is a phenomenal short story displaying all the elegance and cruelty Akutagawa can incorporate in his works. It's mesmerizing, it aches, it's everything I love. I read this story in Jay Rubin's translation (Penguin Classics), and even though I do not speak Japanese so I cannot compare, I dare say it's a very good one.
Lucie Bryon, Thieves
I never recommended comic books before but I wanted to for a change! I am a huge comic book lover, but most of the ones I usually read are not available in english language. This one is, though. Thieves is a beautiful comic about growth, falling in love and finding acceptance in others and in yourself. It's light and heartwarming, like eating candy.
Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona
Now, this book exploits one of my biggest plot weaknesses ever, and that is fucked up people in medieval settings. Lapvona tells the story of Marek, a sheperd's son, who'll be caught in a series of unfortunate events, political struggles, and secrets, all inside the town of Lapvona. It's dark and unsettling, the characters are scandalous and horrible, yet sickeningly human. Now, I said to check the TW yourselves, but be very careful with this one, if you can think of a TW, then it's certainly in this book.
Osamu Dazai, Early Light
In the Storybook ND series, this book contains three short stories : Early Light, Three Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, and Villon’s Wife. I'd recommend the three of them, as it's a fantastic dive into Dazai's shorter works. I think that reading his short stories is very important to understand his work and the width of the subjects and stories he wrote about. It helps that once again, in my opinion, the translation chosen by this publishing house is so good.
This is it for today! Here you have five of the works I read (or re-read) this summer, and that I'd warmly recommend. There are two short stories (Dazai, Akutagawa), a comic book (Bryon), a novel (Moshfegh) and a poem (Spicer). 'Till next time!
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fuck colleges that dont give you the schedule info until literally the day before the semester starts
as someone who needs to know the start and end times, approx size, setting details, etc., WELL IN ADVANCE of every function i attend/activity i take part in just to keep myself from ripping my chest open i cannot comprehend how ppl can live SO last-minute
its not even just about a person living this way. how is it okay for an academic administration to run this way? did someone greenlight this and say yeah thats no big deal? or did we all collectively agree its insane and just no one has said anything?
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*scream*
(ventpost)
"you know you're getting a bit old for meeting people if you want kids"
WHO'S FAULT IS THAT?!
Who chose to raise us in the middle of the the fucking woods?!
Who actively deliberately isolated us from our ethnic community because you were embarrassed by how we were failures and your internalized self racism makes you think all brown men as skeevy and you specifically wanted to keep us away from them and put effort into achieving that and cutting us off from all community connection?
Who let me switch to correspondence school and study alone at home because I said I was bored, instead of giving a single solitary fuck about me and noticing I was obviously depressed?
Who raised us abstinence only to the point that any mixing with the 'opposite' sex was unacceptable?
Who actively shut down any attempt I made to develop or act on hobbies or personal interests, because the only think I should be doing is studying?
Do you think that somehow the negative effects of keeping kids at home only allowed to do schoolwork and chores and unable to drive unable to leave the house unable to get a job unable to engage in hobbies unable to engage in community unable to leave the house... somehow the negative effects only apply if you're deliberately doing it for patriarchal cult reasons?
Bitch managed to raise us fully traditional entirely by accident
With a good dash of learned helplessness with constant messaging that were incapable of managing to do anything or survive by ourselves
I've only been out the house for 3 years! And 2 of that was the last year of the degree and the first year of the job being a new grad Covid nurse in peak Covid!
I've only been able to breathe for one year!
I've had one year of freedom and I've been using it to learn how to be human for the first time!
And you've spent that year telling me to break up with everyone I happen to meet!
Don't fucking tell me I'm too old now
You were supposed to help me!
You knew I wanted kids! Why didn't you help me earlier!
You did everything you could to keep me isolated because you were projecting your own trust issues onto me and never stopped to think what effect that might have when you're raising someone!
Why does generational trauma have to be so mundane
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