banssheedemon
they/them | mood-reader of all stripes | audhd 🐈🐍🐦⬛ ♌️☀️ ♉️🌘 ♐️🔺️...🤷🏽
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4.40 average · 51 reviews
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As human beings, when we no longer want to be nourished by art, by human connection, when we no longer want to be moved and inspired, that's when we know we are truly dying.
a final quote poignant for its expansive applicability to all walks of human existance. especially relevant in the face of genAI and the epidemic of anti-intellectualism sweeping Western societal systems right now.
i've always deeply loved System of a Down; they're one of the artists that kept me going when things were at their worst. this book has given a renewed fervor to this and no small amount of inspiration for action.
i will be picking this book at some point as i would very much like to be able to revisit it when im struggling with the weight of this as i often find myself.
BOOKS 1 AND 2: tutorial sequence of a video game—even after reaching floor 3, the crawlers are still figuring out how they are meant to fit into the world and its "gameplay loop"
BOOK 3: we are being introduced to the plot; much like with FromSoft games, only the most tenacious, determined, unwilling-to-remain-confused players will really figure out the purpose of the guidance within the basic gameplay loop to see the design/goal of the story-makers. Katia is this person. I bet she would like puzzle games.
BOOKS 4+: the unravelling of the game maker's plot/story as intended by them—obv barring crawler/player sentience extending outside of what they, the dev, thinks they've given their players—; i assume these will be progression of the story threads we are being introduced to in Book 3.
i have seen some people complaining that a reader shouldn't have to wait for the third book for a story to "get good;" i would wager these people largely fall into the camp of Not Liking video games. this book isn't just a reality tv show/game show mash-up; it's a video game—or really any type of RPG—when experienced by the crawlers (players).
if you don't enjoy that type of story progression, these books will not be for you.
Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)
Octavia E. Butler
two things i am struggling with:
- the religiosity of this narrator and story is not smth i particularly enjoy. im willing to suspend my ("brainwashed" since childhood) aversion to religion in the name of understanding the difference in perspective. i also understand needing something greater than yourself and your lived reality to keep the shadows of humanity at bay, if that serves you. personally, i cant; it feels too much like absolving myself of responsibility as a member of the systems we all find ourselves beholden to.
- (less of an actual issue, as it is smth i have to wrap my head around as someone reding this 33 years after its publication) the dystopian aspects of this story do not feel dystopian as much as a slightly overexaggerated account of the present. 😬 like its too close for comfort.... we should be doing better guys! we've had 30-50 years of knowing shit was sideways—literally mine or my mum's whole lifespan—and to adjust our collective behaviour.
im so fucking exhausted
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banssheedemon commented...
its not that i want to relate with the character; i just find that kind of "blind" religiosity unbearable to be around. it reaks to me of ostriching—like how the narrator has described her father's relationship with religion. i definitely empathise more with the narrator's concept of religion than with that of her father; however, at the end of the day, i do feel handing responsibility to some ephemeral, omniscient, omnipresent non-entity does a disservice to the very human causes for such struggles and responsibility in managing and correcting for the consequences. we have no right to pass off responsibility for any of this mess. tldr; i am distasteful of what i see as the reason(s) humans turn to religion.
now, this is from someone raised by aggressively atheist parents and a pair of evangelical grandparents. what i have encountered of religions other than christianity (and possibly, simply abrahamic religions)—arguably, non-capitalist religions or more communal religions—i can generally get behind bc they dont seem to see their deity/deities as The Answer, but rather a path to an answer or a cause.