Read The Bloody Chamber and Other Short Stories because of PHIMBO 's post

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He strips me to my last nakedness, that undersign of mauve, pearlized satin, like a skinned rabbit; then dresses me again in an embrace so lucid and all encompassing it might be made of water.

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Nothing about her is human except that she is not a wolf.

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I was so unused to my own skin that to take off all my clothes involved a kind of flaying.

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Everything flowers; no harsh wind stirs the voluptuous air. The sun spills fruit for you. And the deathly, sensual lethargy of the sweet South infects the starved brain; it gasps: ‘Luxury! More luxury!’ But the snow comes, you cannot escape it, it followed us from Russia as if it ran behind our carriage, and in this dark, bitter city has caught up with us at last.

I read a lot of non-fiction and research articles. Somehow dodged acquaintance with Robert Greene, the ‘Modern Machiavelli’ and his book The 48 Laws of Power until this year. Finished it last night. It’s a clever trip through a selection of history’s lessons, providing both pertinent advice on how to behave and (mostly) how not to act but be aware others in your everyday life might.

This is one of those books that’s so stimulating, almost everything merits quoting. And if any of you are into social sciences and aren’t coming into any of this blind, you’ll go through it with much amusement.

It’s hard to select any one section to provide an actual teaser, but I’m going to pick:

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Law 19. Know Who You’re Dealing With – Do Not Offend The Wrong Person

Judgement
There are many different kinds of people in this world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs’ clothing. Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then – never offend or deceive the wrong person.

OPPONENTS, SUCKERS, AND VICTIMS: Preliminary Typology
In your rise to power you will come across many breeds of opponent, sucker, and victim. The highest form of the art of power is the ability to distinguish the wolves from the lambs, the foxes from the hares, the hawks from the vultures. If you make this distinction well, you will succeed without needing to coerce anyone too much. But if you deal blindly with whomever crosses your path, you will have a life of constant sorrow, if you even live that long. Being able to recognize types of people, and to act accordingly, is critical. The following are the five most dangerous and difficult types of mark in the jungle, as identified by artists -con and otherwise- of the past.

The Arrogant and Proud Man.
Although he may initially disguise it, this man’s touchy pride makes him dangerous. Any perceived slight will lead to a vengeance of overwhelming violence. You may say to yourself “But I only said such-and-such at a party, where everyone was drunk…” It does not matter. There is no sanity behind his overreaction, so do not waste time trying to figure him out. If at any point in your dealings with a person you sense an oversensitive and overactive pride, flee. Whatever you are hoping for from him isn’t worth it.

The Hopelessly Insecure Man.
This man is related to the proud and arrogant type, but is less violent and harder to spot. His ego is fragile, his sense of self insecure, and if he feels himself deceived or attacked, the hurt will simmer. He will attack you in bites that will take forever to get big enough for you to notice. If you find you have deceived or harmed such a man, disappear for a long time. Do not stay around him or he will nibble you to death.

Mr. Suspicion.
Another variant on the breeds above, this is a future Joe Stalin. He sees what he wants to see- usually the worst- in other people, and imagines everyone is after him. Mr. Suspicion is in fact the least dangerous of the three: Genuinely unbalanced, he is easy to deceive, just as Stalin himself was constantly deceived. Play on his suspicious nature to get him to turn against other people. But if you do become the target of his suspicions, watch out.

The Serpent with a Long Memory.
If hurt or deceived, this man will show no anger on the surface; he will calculate and wait. Then, when he is in a position to turn the tables, he will exact a revenge marked by a cold-blooded shrewdness. Recognize this man by his calculation and cunning in the different areas of his life. He is usually cold and unaffectionate. Be doubly careful of this snake, and if you have somehow injured him, either crush him completely or get him out of your sight.

The Plain, Unassuming, and Often Unintelligent Man.
Ah, your ears pick up when you find such a tempting victim. But this man is a lot harder to deceive than you imagine. Falling for a ruse often takes intelligence and imagination- a sense of the possible rewards. The blunt man will not take the bait because he does not recognize it. He is that unaware. The danger with this man is not that he will harm you or seek revenge, but merely that he will waste your time, energy, resources, and even your sanity in trying to deceive him.

It follows to give historical examples of these.

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

“You don’t blame humans for what you were forced to do? For what happened to you?”

This is why I’m glad I’m not human. They come up with stuff like this. I said, “No. That’s a human thing to do. Constructs aren’t that stupid.”

What was I supposed to do, kill all humans because the ones in charge of constructs in the company were callous? Granted, I liked the imaginary people on the entertainment feed way more than I liked real ones, but you can’t have one without the other.”

Finished Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Historical novel, very straightforward writing style but fascinating deep dive into aspects of modern Korean and Japanese history and society I'd never been aware of. As always, a handful of favorite bits.

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Save your family. Feed your belly. Pay attention, and be skeptical of the people in charge. If the Korean nationalists couldn't get their country back, then let your kids learn Japanese and try to get ahead. Adapt. Wasn't it as simple as that? For every patriot fighting for a free Korea, or for any unlucky Korean bastard fighting on behalf of Japan, there were ten thousand compatriots on the ground and elsewhere who were just trying to eat. In the end, your belly was your emperor.

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The penalties incurred for the mistakes you made had to be paid out in full to the members of your family. But she didn't believe that she could ever discharge these sums.

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All her life she had heard this sentiment from other women, that they must suffer—suffer as a girl, suffer as a wife, suffer as a mother—die suffering. Go-saeng—the word made her sick. What else was there besides this? She had suffered to create a better life for her son, and yet it was not enough. Should she have taught him to suffer the humiliation that she'd drunk like water? In the end, he had refused to suffer the conditions of his birth. Did mothers fail by not telling their sons that suffering would come?

And from a few books ago, because this passage came for my throat. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

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"Drudgery accompanied by very occasional moments of happiness, but when I say happiness, I mostly mean distraction... Say you go into the break room, and a couple people you like are there, say someone's telling a funny story, you laugh a little, you feel included, everyone's so funny, you go back to your desk with a sort of...afterglow, but then by four or five o'clock the day's just turned into yet another day, and you go on like that, looking forward to five o'clock and then the weekend and then your two or three annual weeks of paid vacation time, day in day out, and that's what happens to your life... That's what passes for a life. That's what passes for happiness, for most people... They're sleepwalkers, and nothing ever jolts them awake."

A few gems from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Lydia Davis

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He was so angry he was quoting Latin. He would have quoted Chinese or Greenlandic, had he known the languages; for he was in the throes of the sort of crisis in which one's entire soul shows indiscriminately what it contains, just as the Ocean during a storm, gapes open from the seaweed on its shore to the sand in its abysses.

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"Your father-in-law is dead!"

The pharmacist had pondered his announcement, he had rounded it, polished it, cadenced it; it was a masterpiece of discretion and transitions, of subtle phrasing and delicacy; but rage had swept away rhetoric.

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Her poor hands wandered over the sheets with that hideous gentle motion of the dying, who seem already to be trying to cover themselves with their shrouds.

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One had to discount, he thought, exaggerated speeches that concealed mediocre affections; as if the fullness of the soul did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest of metaphors, since none of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to move the stars to pity.

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Vilifying those we love always detaches us from them a little. We should not touch our idols: their gilding will remain on our hands.

Circe by Madeline Miller!! THE. PROSE. I. JUST. LOVE. THE. PROSE. SO. MUCH. The sentences don't run you on a chase, but are as short as the steps you take on a journey. AND THEY"RE JUST SO CLEVER AND POETIC. HOW. She's literally a writing goddess, you cannot tell me otherwise

Though the quotes listed here are all about motherhood, the story's about SO MUCH MORE. Its just the most beautiful sentences (to me) are written when Circe gave ____ to _____.

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I made a sling to carry him, so he might lie against my heart. I gave him soothing herbs, I burned incenses, I called birds to sing at our windows. The only thing that helped was if I walked—walked the halls, walked the hills, walked the shore. Then at last he would wear himself out, close his eyes, and sleep. But if I stopped, if I tried to put him down, he would wake at once. Even when I walked without ceasing, he was soo
n up, screaming again. Within him was an ocean’s worth of grief, which could only be stoppered a moment, never emptied. How often in those days did I think of Odysseus’ smiling child? I tried his trick, along with all the rest. Held my son’s floppy body up into the air, promised him he was safe. He only screamed louder. Whatever made the prince Telemachus so sweet, I thought, it must have come from Penelope. This was the child I deserved.

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We did find some moments of peace. When he finally slept, when he nursed at my breast, when he smiled at a flight of birds scattering from a tree. I would look at him and feel a love so sharp it seemed my flesh lay open. I made a list of all the things I would do for him. Scald off my skin. Tear out my eyes. Walk my feet to bones, if only he would be happy and well.

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I felt each breath in his thin chest, how improbable it was, how unlikely that this frail creature, who could not even lift his head, could survive in the harsh world. But he would survive. He would, if I must wrestle the veiled god myself.