Believe it or not — 2.5.

Brandon learns a new word, and we might all wish him a very happy emulsifier. Exhausting read, but if there is one fallacy I believe in wholeheartedly it is sunk cost. Perhaps mere exposure as well, because I am fairly certain at this point that I do like all of the characters (save Shallan and Wit in any context but solitude). That said, if you give me twenty chapters of Venli kind of having kind of the same moral crisis she has kind of had for four hundred accumulated pages now, I will fall asleep. I also don’t need the equivalent word count of a normal-sized novel for Navani to build the atom bomb. Someone tell Brandon he can throw his worldbuilding Google Doc into the index for all the nerds who care about that stuff, and let’s pick up some speed please.

Interesting ending, which is about all I can consistently expect, so let’s see how it plays out in the next.

Checking off yet another eidolon amongst the performative-male-library-of-feminist-literature, and can once again flippantly though apologetically confirm that the girls are not having a very good time at all. Really, really lonely book.

Selfless in its most literal meaning, empty and impotent. Selfless because I cannot quite hold my own, not anything of my own. Selfless in the negative: erasure, removal.

Hard to divorce from the hard story of its author. Hope here, but a hope not chosen, in pieces. And such a brilliant mind and heart to lose.

Believe it or not — 2.5.

Brandon learns a new word, and we might all wish him a very happy emulsifier. Exhausting read, but if there is one fallacy I believe in wholeheartedly it is sunk cost. Perhaps mere exposure as well, because I am fairly certain at this point that I do like all of the characters (save Shallan and Wit in any context but solitude). That said, if you give me twenty chapters of Venli kind of having kind of the same moral crisis she has kind of had for four hundred accumulated pages now, I will fall asleep. I also don’t need the equivalent word count of a normal-sized novel for Navani to build the atom bomb. Someone tell Brandon he can throw his worldbuilding Google Doc into the index for all the nerds who care about that stuff, and let’s pick up some speed please.

Interesting ending, which is about all I can consistently expect, so let’s see how it plays out in the next.

Presumptuous, in the French national fashion, to set out to compete with Moby Dick and only offer a volume half the size. And we are competing: see for example the corpse of the sperm whale, our dead deity, supplanted by the monster of self-realization, great clasping hand thrusting into the sky.

Cut with precision. We are building a tabernacle, least we could do is keep it up to code. I want to be able to bear the onslaught of every kind of glory. The hubris!! The hope!! The plea of Moses, show me Your glory; promise of God to pass before, to say His name and be heard, and to hide you with His hand, because no one can see His face and live. Gideon — ”Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face.” And God to him — ”Do not fear; you shall not die.” Shall I not?

It is a grace that God shows us a glimpse of His glory, and a grace that He only ever shows us a glimpse of His glory.

A grace and a wind blowing down, from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. A grace and a wind hovering over the face of the waters, breathing life into blind vessels.

It is a grace and it is not enough if we cannot face the abyss and survive it and claim it for ourselves — the godless, the deified, the evening watch.