Reviews and Comments

It wasn't really terrible, but it wasn't good enough to even really speculatively recommend. The writing is difficult, but not bad. Much of the book is just a slog of not that important nothingness happening (which I have had other books where not much really happens, but they are enjoyable because the writing itself is enjoyable). The writing might not be the worst I've seen in terms of weird dropping of strange language that I'll do myself, when I'm drafting something (or just not wanting to spend the time to find the right word despite not likely going back to it).

I may continue but if the following two books are as "productive" I would say it should have been a novel about 300 pages for the combined stories.

I feel the nice writing was good. Not sure what it was about it. But really? It is otherwise not much worth it. And not like some of the "not much worth it" books I've read which it has felt like, "at least I can say that I've read that, and give an honest opinion of it." It feels like the only way that's going to be a topic of discussion would be if suddenly I became less than half my current age...

There is a rather diverse selection of topics, some of them I disagreed with, but then this was published 1985, and I have to say that part of the disagreement, is changes that have occurred since that time. Other sections I had a hard time reading. I have tried to read this before and it's a big book... And I think part of what makes it hard, is that the tone/topic can change and become "boring" for a longer period than is really comfortable to really read through. It was a nice deck reading book where I'd read a bit, take a break and get back to a bit later in the nice weather.

This is a book that I probably wouldn't have picked up if it wasn't at the library's "free books" shelf. Not really because it wasn't good, it was pretty good, but other than being poetry I wouldn't have even picked it up there, as I know nothing really about this. So... Was it good? Yes, mostly. It's just that it wasn't as much to my liking (and it could have been the time I was reading as it wasn't the good reading time of year exactly.

I have read this multiple times and probably will continue to read it. I have found it interesting, there's times in the story that I go... "no that's not right..." But that is also part of the story.

Or maybe not, I shouldn't judge your experience, but made me cry multiple times. Sometimes because bad things happen, sometimes because good things happened. Sometimes because it was just beautiful. The stories tend to mostly pretty good, and I'm sure some people will find different ones good. There were a couple that fell flat for me, but it could well be just when I was reading it.

Read the whole thing, and will admit that I liked slogging through the whole thing in certain ways. It's 853 pages, and I would say the 'good parts' could fit easily into about 50 pages. There are some interesting bits I'll admit. The chasing of the mushroom around the plate, that was interesting. Various bits of "philosophy" presented are actually interesting, but presented so superficially that they are more a prod to look up more about that, and the horse race was interesting.

Other than that, there's a lot of dull, nothing happens for 20 pages, and then the thing that happens, is essentially a scene change... Most of the novel is dull, and pedestrian. Maybe that's why it's so "good"? Because it's nothing fancy, but this is very much the bourgeoisie we're talking about. Even if they want to believe they are "poor".

This one was a bit of a weird one... Bits were really tough, bits were like, "thank god someone's saying this." Because it is an anthology of stories, it will often switch fairly quickly, and not really clearly in parts. There are 24 (I think) stories in 270 pages, and there is front and back matter. So about 10 pages per story. A bit over, and some are really short.

Many of these also feel like they could be part of an entire story of 100+ pages (as a graphic novel at least). Which I think is partially due to some of these artists having already done such themselves. Or maybe not.

Given the title, you should probably expect that this is a sad book. It's beautifully drawn and told. I have looked for the film, but haven't watched it yet. I really wish I could say more about it, without being overly spoilery. It's just a good book, but certainly a sad one.

I'd say it's not really what I'd hoped it would be, it was not really any "whole" thing from any author (as best I can tell). It does end up covering a huge range of Homeric (translations, rewriting, allusions) that might be interesting if you're looking for some version of Homer to pick up something to read.

It also is probably pretty good if you want to study the range of versions of Homer that are in English (I understand this is really a tiny sampling).

I thoroughly enjoyed this and felt that it was a "Very British Humour" book. Some of it seems to be in bad taste, though it isn't clear if that is as a way of mocking those bad things, or if it is honouring them. I feel it leans more toward mocking than honouring.

This isn't Douglas Adams. It's Terry Jones. But they are compatible. I feel there was another book trying to continue the Douglas Adams legacy which felt rather incompatible. It was trying to honour him, but ended up feeling mocking, because it fell so short of what his style is, while clearly trying to duplicate it.

It's also been a long time since I've read any Douglas Adams.

This book was really hard to read. The writing nicely flows, but there's language and themes that make it really difficult. There were some really disturbing things that happened which sort of just gets dumped there... Then it's done. No processing. I was not much enjoying it, was feeling like maybe abandoning it... Then continued then it went from, "man this isn't much good, why am I reading this..." to "wow that was really shitty... Now I have to read this..." I don't think it makes sense. But it's what happened.