NOW READING

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I'm 96 pages into A Collumn of Fire (10% of the book) and after a rocky start it picked up quickly. It takes place between 1558 and 1606 or a tad beyond. It is by far the grandest in scope of all three novels in the trilogy. We have main characters in England, France and Spain. It all centers around the succession of Mary Tudor who is by now 41 years old and childless, if she dies without an heir the crown will go to her sister Elizabeth. This builds the tensions among the populace with the whole protestant v. catholic crap started by Henry VIII, in England anyway. I already know it's going to be sad, because one of the characters we actuallly follow early on is Mary, Queen of Scots and well... if you know anything about history you know it doesn't end well for her. She is 15 when we meet her which mean she's only going to be around for 3 more years or so of a book that spans over fifty years. It took me one paragraph to be fully engrossed in Pillars of the Earth, about 200 pages to really like World Without End and this one about 30. I feel better about deciding to go with this one as my final book before going back to work. I'm reading about a chapter a day, some are short 20 pages others are 40, so it's a decent pace. If I end up not being able to put it down I may read more per day.
 
Love how biographies of U.S citizens love to insert something like, "Thomas Jefferson: American Architect" or "Henry Ford: Quintisential American" Or "Teddy Roosevelt: American Giant" Like... well yeah, mofos weren't Russian.
 
Onhell said:
Love how biographies of U.S citizens love to insert something like, "Thomas Jefferson: American Architect" or "Henry Ford: Quintisential American" Or "Teddy Roosevelt: American Giant" Like... well yeah, mofos weren't Russian.
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:lol: It's true. Also, Franklin did write an autobiography; I guess I could have read that one instead. Isaacson is a good biographer. He's written a number of them. I may read his book on da Vinci next.
 
Bluefish said:
:lol: It's true. Also, Franklin did write an autobiography; I guess I could have read that one instead. Isaacson is a good biographer. He's written a number of them. I may read his book on da Vinci next.
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Autobiographies are so unreliable. You do get a good insight on the inner workings of the individual, but they are seriously biased.
 
Well, I lost my illusions. From a modern-age musical Picasso he turned into a foul-mouthed, absurdly narcissistic pimp without culture or anything intriguing about him. It also felt afterwards like his music is heavy on the brain completely by accident.

However, some of it was not even about him, it was reading his description of Charlie Parker getting head in the back of the cab while eating fried chicken and the confusing mix of the resulting sounds that made me ... somewhat predisposed to dislike the book in general.
I don't care if it really happened, I don't fucking need to read about this.

Also his constant complimenting of his own looks, his own apparel...

And yeah, the pimping.

I can tolerate bad people (Dylan), uncultured people (Lemmy) and everything in between, but the combination that presented itself in this book in his own words kinda... made me actually respect him less. I know it probably shouldn't, but I couldn't help it.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Also - what’s with Bowie? Never cared for him enough to read more than your regular reviewer’s info...
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I should say it isn't just Bowie, but he was one of many to routinely have sex with underage girls. And I don't mean 17 about to be 18 year olds. I mean 14/15 year olds when he was like 25. Completely turned me off his stuff.
 
Onhell said:
I should say it isn't just Bowie, but he was one of many to routinely have sex with underage girls. And I don't mean 17 about to be 18 year olds. I mean 14/15 year olds when he was like 25. Completely turned me off his stuff.
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Ah, well, we have age of consent 15 and many people kinda ignore it and have sex when their 14 or even 13, so it's kinda a cultural thing. Same go for the age difference.

I'm not saying it's good in any way (my other posts around here probably show my opinions in this regard enough), it's just we're kinda used to it.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Ah, well, we have age of consent 15 and many people kinda ignore it and have sex when their 14 or even 13, so it's kinda a cultural thing.

I'm not saying it's good in anyway (my other posts probably show my opinions in this regard enough), it's just we're kinda used to it.
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I've never understood that. Why have an age of consent when it is still illegal to have sex with children? like, in the U.S age of consent varies from state to state from 14 in some (usually the south) to 16 in others, but if a 19 year old boy has sex with a 15 year old girl even though she has age to consent, it is still statutory rape.
 
We don't have it like that - once it's age of consent, it's legal and they're not technically children, sex-wise. The only thing that would complicate it would be rape or pornography (which is illegal under 18), but you can bang a 15 year old when you're 30 and many people won't even bat an eye.

Europe, man.

But as for your question, in America I think it's to mitigate the legal aspect between two people who are both still minors. Like 16 and 16. But I might be wrong.
 
Anxious People by Fredrik Backmann.
(In Bulgarian, I see the English translation will be published in September).
Recommended.
 
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