Okay so I finally got around to reading an actual fiction novel with my ereader, which so far has just been serving me as a means to not have to lug 5 books with me to uni.

I thought the reading experience would be worse off cause of the near-random page breaks, my expectations was that it'd mess with the pacing of a text. Turns out it ain't that baddddd I was just being a babyyyy...

On the topic of the book itself it's quite alright, great in places even! It does read like a visual novel a lil bit which is interesting rather than a value judgement, and I'm excited to see where everything will move and end up. Right now I'm not sure how it'll keep up for another 250? pages but time will tell.

Wow! Tore through that one in what, 6 days? Fueled by a deep desire to see where the hell it's going with its seeming change in tone and I think I've made peace with it after sleeping on it.

Guide is about adults and their adult relationships, entirely from the perspective of the author, making it sort of faux-biographical? His seeming omniscience has a haunting aspect to it, his both always and not being aware what his friends are up to on their own. It can have a presumptious tone to it as well at times, where his reading of the people around him can be eerily accurate (at least from his point of view).

It always seemed like a sort of superpower to me, to be able to tell what someone's thinking from the equation of their mannerisms. Maybe this is where his infatuation with Luke both comes from and ebbs away from again, where his unreadable face is a point of appeal until he 'figures him out'. I can relate heavily to this novelness of strangers, vaguely familiars, and friends of friends. It's a detrimental thing to get bored of the people you feel like you've figured out, and for me it has resulted in me being attracted (romantically or not) to increasingly out-there types.

I see the appeal of Chris, problematically so, and Luke's mysticism. Even a mess like Drew I can see the appeal of, albeit hardly a person to begin with. It's novelness, and it's intriguing.

Blur and Silverchair getting renamed to Smear and Tinselstool is also incredibly funny, no doubt to avoid legal issues; especially considering the whole arc around Alex James and the backstage meet. Ultimately the book winds up being both horrifying and incredibly silly, banal violence is all over the book but none of it turned as gut-wrenching as what I found in Try. This is probably in thanks to the book adopting the point of view of an inflicter, rather than a receiver.

It was notable how dehumanized all of the boys are. They are little more than boy-shaped totems for the older men to profess and perform their lust to, while Luke being the only of-age love(?) interest makes this even more palpable. Dennis is shocked by a seeming flash of interiority of Drew, which soon is defused by his admitting it was just something his art collector dad said one time. In a lot of ways Drew is the perfect sex object for men like these, the perfect Grindr twink who will enjoy basically anything, because receiving attention is the only thing he needs.

Scott was such an annoying pathetic sad faggot!!!!! It's incredible how accurately he encapsulates the mannerisms of what seems like ~20% of (gay) people.

Ultimately this seems to be the most blatant and direct negotiation between the author and his complicated relationship to sex and violence in the george miles cycle so far. If anything it got me excited to read Period, and from what people have said it definitely won't disappoint. After that I think I'll write more specifically about this sado-murder fantasy running through the series, maybe make it a more extensive blog post on the main site :v

Written while listening to: Jamie Paige -- Bittersweet // awakebutstillinbed -- what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you

Reading Guide and... the start feels a bit weird? The writing style is a lot more conventional, and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. The topics are similar but maybe this is in part related to how this story follows a majority of adults rather than the volatile adolescents of most of the george miles cycle. It feels like something was lost but I hope that's just early onset fears of starting a new book.

Also apparently this works?

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awesomeeee

First post from mobile, awesomeeee

finished reading Try by Dennis Cooper. Ripped through the last half of it like pulling a band-aid. It's so hauntingly deadpan in its cruelty and horror that at times you forget that what's going on is a nightmare. I could compare it to like, traumatic experiences, which sounds stupid but the experience of the book is a lot like getting assaulted. You nod off back into your own mind off somewhere entirely different.

Horrifying! Anyways! Looking forward to moving on to Guide, hopefully I can find a copy of Period sometime.