2025, Q3 - I Dropped A Book

"Across the Blocs" by Patrick Major is perhaps as close as one can get to applied Neo-Marxism. For someone who is at least sympathetic to the movement, I think it makes some interesting points, but symptomatically works primarily for application on a hyper-individualized level. The book is an inspection of fiction as propaganda, which can range from explicit allegory, over censorship by omission during the adaptation process, to the use of metatextual information.

"String" is a graphic novel by Paul Tobin, Carlos Javier Olivares, Sara Colella and Taylor Espocito of the supernatural investigation flavor. I've read the first volume, and it was, very much a first volume kind of experience. It provides strong characterization of the protagonist, and establishes the rules of the world - or at least of the portion that we get to see - and wraps up more or less neatly at the end. I don't begrudge first volumes for feeling like a pilot, because I imagine that they kind of are what pilots are for limited series, but I'd be willing to read further volumes of these eventually.

"The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball" is a sequel season to a mixed media cartoon I've loved when it first came out. Perhaps it's because it's been the better part of ten years since the original run ended on Cartoon Network, but I find lacking some of the charm I remember. I'm sure some of it is due to its limited episode number, but while I like the Wattersons as an episode focus, this season was perhaps too much of a good thing, and I feel like much of the supporting cast was too ancillary for the majority of the season.

"White Nights" by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a short novella (I believe) about loneliness. Dostoevsky is an author who agrees with me in most literary aspects, but not so much in philosophy. The idea at the center of "White Nights" is, in a way, muddled for me as a statement about the intrinsicality of loneliness. He has put two socially inept people at the center of the story, which make it a difficult read. The literary subject especially seems to me like he would be an incel in modern times, not because of his inability to speak to women, but in the way the attempt this story chronicles smells like desperation. He does ingratiate himself toward the end, and the story ends on a bittersweet note. If I were more of a scholar on the author's worldview, I might be able to estimate whether I was meant to read this story as anything more than a romantic drama, or whether the narrator is meant to reflect on some aspect of the times he lived in.

"Memoirs of a Snail" is an Australian stop-motion animation that I saw in a charming little movie theater in a central European college town. The venue did perhaps skew it in my favor, even though I'm apparently reaching the age at which popcorn stops being an enjoyable snack. The movie itself is a fictional biography of an aspiring artist living through a turbulent youth in a growing Autralian metropole. It deals with the different ways of love, but doesn't make any broad statements about it, which is fine. Sometimes a portrait doesn't need to wax philosophical about its subject matter. It's overall a heartwarming story, but I was actually most impressed by the dark humor that was sprinkled between the scenes, stuff that can be found in the details of the frame, like the license plates of cars. These snapshots of indie animation makes me want to seek out movies like these more actively, though I still have to figure out how to do that.

"Tod in Venedig" or "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann was not an easy read for me. It felt similarly sobering as did the "Luzhin Defense", though without the narrative arc that made it pick up toward the end. This seems really more of a portrait than a novel, though perhaps 'novella' better describes it. Perhaps I am just a little detached from the subject, that is the ennui of the mundane, and the sense that the problem is ones character and not the location one finds oneself in. It's a sentiment that has grown more present, though I wouldn't feel equipped to speak on its relevance, with the rise of travel culture especially among the young, which has invited ample criticism from generations with more experience, but likely a very similar history, if I were to hazard a guess. Part of the impression is Mann's dense writing of which I've been made aware by friends in the past, and didn't do the subject any favors. It is, at least good prose, I suppose, which is worth a lot these days.

"Something is Killing the Children" is a series of graphic novels by James Tynion VI and published by Boom! Studios. Series like these are very interesting to me from the world-building perspective, detailing a form of urban horror-fantasy not unlike early seasons of Supernatural, though a good deal more folksy. It's still running, and I read it by volume, so I don't know the full story yet, but so far the scope of each case is fairly limited, and the factions acting in the background are designed strikingly. It makes for a compelling read, and lends itself to a form of exposition only really available to a medium like comics. To this point, many details of the fundamental world building have been shown, but never directly explained, which I find interesting.

"The Sandman Season 2" is a follow-up to the first season of the Netflix Limited Series inspired by the Neil Gaiman novel. Suffice to say that I found a stat-less way to watch the property to avoid whatever fraction of a cent Gaiman would get from a regular Netflix watch. I like the world building of his novels, even though it's now somewhat tainted by its creator, and while I thought the first season had more interesting moments just through the graces of the length of the season, it sets up a very interesting potential third season that I would be interested in watching, but ambivalent about looking forward to.

"Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night" is an original Anime that aired fairly recently. It centers art as a theme, though arguably it's a backdrop for a story about healing and the importance of a support network that understands the value of ones passions and ambitions. It's grounded, in the human element, if not in most aspects of the plot, which I think is fine. I tend to approach anime with a fairly large leeway for magical realism, seeing as it's typically one of the more trope-driven forms of media out there. The scene that makes me think the most is one of objective artistic failure though, which includes singing. It was barely listenable, which, I'd argue, was the point, and yet it was so sincere in its execution that it tugged on my heartstrings, not that that's terribly difficult to do. It's perhaps not central in anything but the specific plot-line it helped resolve, but I suspect I will remember the show for it.

"The Gorilla-God's Go-To Girl" is a charming, unambitious little series. Watching stories like these as a person with anti-establishmentarian values, knowing full well that it's not likely to get a second season to resolve the ideological tensions that are often part of settings like these. The story itself is mostly tensionless otherwise, which makes it comfortable second-screen content.

"Dinner Table Detectives" is another detective series with a different coat of paint. It's perhaps akin to Sherlock Holmes by way of Black Butler. It features a mystery over the course of three or four mysteries, but it gives enough time to lay out clues to the audience in ways that a good detective story is meant to. It doesn't feature the most interesting cases, and the character work takes a back seat to the formula, but that is fine, for a series I'm assuming will have a single twelve episode run and nothing beyond that.

The seventh season of Game Changer features two episodes in particular that I think were a highlight even across recent seasons. One of them is the series finale, which is traditionally a large send-off anyways, but this time is themed in a way that just happens to align strongly with my interest. The other one is the stand-up comedy one. It's really good, by the contestants alone, and the concept is also very funny in the way it escalates.

"The Drug and Other Stories" by Allister Crowley is the first book I dropped in a long while. It's already pretty long, and while I was aware of Crowley being regarded as a pretty terrible person, even by modern practicioners of magic, I was somewhat unprepared by how notably bad his writing is. It's not just that writing about magic is already a little nonsensical, especially if one is not emerged in the scene, which I am not, it's also that both the narrative and the prose is wildly oscillating between bad and mediocre. Having the motifs of the narrative veer off into explicity sexist and racist plot threads is perhaps saved by Crowley's inability to stay on topic. He's not a very descriptive writer either way, preferring to write through references to mythology I'm not too versed in, and - by what I'm assuming about the kind of person he was - might be wholly incorrect and read through the classic 1900s orientalist lens. It's probably an interesting document in the way that there's not a lot of popular writing of this kind readily accessible out there, but reading the entire collection for leisure is just not possible for me.

"The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" by Le Carre is one of those titles that get referenced a lot more than it gets read. I myself only stumbled across a copy of this book by chance, while browsing a local free book exchange shelf. It tells a realist spy story set in divided Germany during the Cold War. It certainly makes for a very interesting read, and the intuitive cultural understanding carries a good amount of the novel. For anyone picking up the book in modern days, I think it should be good to note that the depiction of the conflict is portrayed far less black and white than the works that would later borrow its aesthetics and title tend to. It makes me wonder what Le Carre's personal stance and history was toward the tension between the iron curtain. I'm probably going to take some time looking into him, and his other works.

"Ishura" could be an interesting story, but it takes its sweet time to get going. The entire season makes the same impression as the first episode of Fate/Zero. There is also a case that it benefits the worldbuilding. The worldbuilding is interesting - with one very frustrating exception that comes down to me not really liking the Isekai concept. What holds back this show, I'd argue, is its aesthetics. I'm not sure about the Manga, I'm assuming it doesn't have that same problem, but in the Anime, Ishura comes with a generic style, that has been adapted in almost all generic Isekai shows, and has come to imply a lot about the details of the world building. What's worse, is that Ishura sometimes leans into the implication, which slightly takes the edge off the creative and interesting choices it makes. There's a second season out, but I've gotten stuck somewhere in there, the same way I did for the first.

"Dungeon People" decidedly does not have the problem Ishura has. For one, it's beautifully animated. The style is soft and simple, occasionally interspersed with the Anime hyperviolence that one gets used to after a while. It doesn't really mean to tell a large overaching story, but focuses on the worldbuilding instead. It's perhaps a cozier version of Dungeon Meshi, but it very firmly has a place.

Another show that returned after a long period of radio silence is "Panty & Stocking". Studio Trigger's crude take on Western animation returns with the same out of pocket style that it became known for, and it also managed to expand its cast by some interesting choices. There was always a good amount of queer subtext to this show, though this time around it feels more deliberate. Did I enjoy it as much as I did the first run of the show? No, but then again I was maybe 14 when I watched the original. It's almost entirely "more of the same", and at least it's not terrible. For the show it was, I think, that's fine.