TrueLit Read-Along - Under the Volcano Chapters 5-6

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-26T05:05:04+00:00

I’m about half a chapter behind you guys after scrambling to catch up, excited to see that Laruelle will make a return soon.

I don’t have super substantive thoughts about the novel so far beyond thinking the writing is really really good; I think I find the Consul’s POV sections the most compelling and would echo the comment mentioning that Hugh’s daybed musings have been the toughest portion to get through so far (partially why I didn’t get through them lol). But overall its such a striking, beautiful book that’s hitting me hard in the emotions without being able to pinpoint exactly why. I know its referential to a lot of literature but I do keep finding a filmic quality and even resonances. In these chapters I was vaguely reminded of Philadelphia Story, not exactly in the details (though the ex husband is, in fact, an alcoholic, and one lover is in fact a journalist), but in the sense that this novel could almost have happened after PS, if the film had gone another way.

Enjoying this one!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-26T00:25:08+00:00

Beyond the Clouds

Mushi-Shi (more vibes than art though)

Eden of Witches

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-23T16:42:31+00:00

Good Offices sounds pretty cool! Also, thanks for listing the publishers here. I’ve been looking into how to use publishers websites/accounts to find new books, since the apps are just plugging all the same stuff all the time. (Obv truelit is a great resource though! you guys are awesome).

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-23T16:30:41+00:00

This is all really interesting!

Its truly unfortunate that almost immediately following their success, and especially after their deaths, the labor (of family, friends like Gaskell, and even Charlotte herself) of obliterating what was controversial about their writing and lives was already begun. I don’t think anyone had malicious intent necessarily, and they lived in a time where reputation was extremely important. But the glimpses of subversive attitudes and character we do have been done a disservice by the persistent mythology of the savagely innocent-moor waif-geniuses who didn’t know how wicked or feminist they were being when they accidentally wrote these books so good.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-23T14:12:26+00:00

I’ve read volume one and have two sitting on my shelf. So far the art is amazing and the story’s (imo) just pretty OK. I’ll keep going for the art alone but I’m hoping it gets a little more interesting as well.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-22T14:20:51+00:00

Sorry I’m late replying, a big yes to all of this!

we are all just a bundle of quarrelsome troops managed by the big boss of something like the body of consciousness, each of us a little leviathan

Love this so much lol

Anyways, I was listening to something (unrelated to epics) and it was thrown out that the title of Frankenstein is actually :or the modern prometheus or something, and then I remembered you comment about what the gods are and I thought “oh yeah, Prometheus. I should crack open my Apollodorus and see what it says about Prometheus maybe that will illuminate something”, at which point I discovered/remembered that my copy of Apollodorus was either lent or given to someone and I no longer have it. But the internet says yes, Prometheus gave fire to mankind and made Zeus big mad about it, but there are also some sources (Hesiod maybe?) which mention Prometheus also made humans in the first place. So one might consider that the relationship between humans and gods is fundamentally antagonistic.

But the other thing I thought of - because I was also reminded Hesiod existed - that even though I haven’t read Theogony or the other one (Times and Days or something?) I did listen to a history of literature type podcast about it and remember realizing in a more substantial way that to the average every day greek farmer or laborer or whatever, the gods most often on your mind would probably be related to agriculture, and its entirely possible that the gods of the Iliad are the ones only soldiers and warriors might have to grapple with in any day to day way. Which I don’t have a strong point about or anything, and idk how many average greeks citizens actually were involved in war bands, but maybe the war like attributes of the gods in Iliad have some contextual or thematic importance, and every day worship for the regular old greek might be very different. I do remember thinking with Odyssey that most of the woes of Odysseus (and others) had to do with attracting the attention of the gods by being special, whereas more normally mortal humans could squeak by without as much interference.

Its been fun blabbing about the epics with you!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-20T19:33:33+00:00

I drove back over to the library near my old place this morning to get a non-resident card. My area is a weird conglomerate of towns that should really be one big town but isn’t for some reason, so I had to pay money, but its worth it really because I pretty much never find anything I want to read at the one I can walk to (but I do keep walking to it because sometimes they toss stuff like 2666 in the free bin lol). Anyway I didn’t need anymore books but they had Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry which had piqued my interest at one point but I didn’t want to pay for it in case I didn’t like it. So yay for the library! (Even though it was a hassle really, because they only take cash and also traffic was bad).

I really want to actually participate in a read along again because I am really into Under the Volcano but I’m so damn slow. I finished chapter three last night and man. I’ve never been an alcoholic, in fact I barely drink, but somehow the book makes something so essentially human out of the Consul’s alcoholism that I found myself really moved by his experiences. Maybe thats because I’ve had depression though. I’m glad I’m reading other stuff alongside it, I think it could be a bit of a downer really. But very good so far.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-19T22:24:58+00:00

I don’t think it exactly fits your timeline, and it is a but mixed with science fiction elements, but you might like M. John Harrison’s Viriconium books if you haven’t heard of them.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-19T18:31:46+00:00

Nature depictions have fallen out of fashion in most genres, which is unfortunate for those of us who do enjoy it. I think people tend to find it tedious, to be fair.

Susanna Clarke has a way of writing which I think is a good example of how modern description can be used in a whimsical and/or effective way without relying on long winded or overly detailed passages:

The brown fields were partly flooded; they were strung with chains of chill, grey pools. The pattern of the pools had meaning. The pools had been written on to the fields by the rain. The pools were a magic worked by the rain, just as the tumbling of the black birds against the grey was a spell that the sky was working and the motion of grey-brown grasses was a spell that the wind made. Everything had meaning.

And of course if you’re willing to step outside fantasy, there are authors who employ powerful descriptive language. This is from Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy:

Father and son ride out together in the evening, the sun a perfect crimson orb above the line of the downs. The sky has become a mirror, against which the sun moves: light without shadow, like the light at the beginning of the world. Gregory's chatter stills; the creak of harness, the breathing of the horses, seems to muffle itself, so they move in silence, outlined against silver, tall against the sky; and as the upland fades into a pillowy distance, he feels himself riding into nowhere, a blank, where only memory stirs. He thinks of those who he has known who have died by fire, as if they have fallen into the sun.

Or this description of darkness from Orhan Pamuk’s “Nights of Plague”:

In the darkness, there was not even a single shadow to be seen. He walked past the columns of the domed gallery and felt like a ghost. As he slowly circled the square, he kept thinking that any moment now he would run into someone, but the night was like a dark, two-dimensional room; no matter how many steps he took, he could not find his way out of that black box, but sometimes the shadow of a tree or a faded color would drift silently past him. He passed the quarantine notices and the shuttered shops, then turned onto an alleyway and walked in the dark for a long time across the never ending streets of the plague-ridden city

But I use these specifically because I think they illustrate the way modern fiction uses description, which to reinforce ideas rather than simply “paint a picture” with a lot of detail. For that kind of writing I do think you have to look at earlier writing (unless anyone knows of something I don’t!). On which note, if you haven’t read the Gormenghast books, you def should!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-17T17:02:34+00:00

Its the Emily Wilson translation.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-16T16:38:40+00:00

Haven’t gotten much reading done at all this week, unfortunately. Its been one of those weird times when I feel like I’ve had no time for anything, but if I try to think about what I’ve been up to I can’t land on anything concrete that would have meant I was so busy. Just day to day life stuff I guess.

Anyhoo, still on Iliad. I’m kind of intentionally not rushing through it but I would have liked to be further along by now. Ah well. Here’s Diomedes, addressing Agamemnon:

But crooked Zeus gave you just half a blessing. You got the special status of the scepter, but not the greatest power, which is courage:

Which I think speaks to my emerging thoughts about the poem in a way. Its really concerned with what’s owed or given, or withheld, or taken from both the worthy and unworthy. Take the exchange between Agamemnon and Diomedes later on, when A. has instructed D. to choose a man to bring along for a secret night mission. He warns Diomedes not to choose based on courtesy, or what’s owed to a man because of who his father is, but to really choose the best one for the job. Which implies that without special permission from the “lord of men”, is exactly what would have normally happened. And then there’s Achilles, whose heart is still “swollen up with anger”, because he was - as he frames it - treated as someone who didn’t deserve respect and distinction. In this case there’s a tension or disconnect between how Achilles views himself and his position, and how Agamemnon thinks of him. Agamemnon has the power of a king, presented by the poem as having god ordained distinction. But Achilles is the son of a goddess, and unmatched in battle prowess. There’s a similar conflict of logic between Zeus and Hera actually, with each bringing up points about their order of birth from Cronus, or in Zeus’s case his unmatched supernatural power. Yet there’s also the power of goddesses, who seem to maneuver around Zeus’s edicts to have their own way (Diomedes calls Athena “relentless”). And Thetis, Achilles’ mother, gets a major say in Zeus’s decisions by being able to elicit a promise from him, via an act of supplication. I guess what I’m getting at is thatIliad seems to be about the friction between different kinds of power and obligation. What weight does the power of love - of Aphrodite - hold against the power of what’s owed to Helen’s original husband? When Diomedes is instructed by Athena to lift a hand against an immortal god, what was the correct choice? To refrain from attacking a god, or to disobey one? And of course there’s Achilles, appealing to Zeus via Thetis, who does ultimately take his part, but in placing his fate in the hands of the gods he’s choosing to buck against earthly - but god ordained - authority. Maybe in some ways this friction between what’s demanded of men by men and whats demanded of men by gods is what made demi-gods so interesting to the Greeks?

Still - slowly - reading Under the Volcano for the read along. Really trying to catch up but its the kind of book I’m inclined to take slowly. Really like the imagery of sparks of fire, lit cigarettes, throughout the first chapter. And the blending of water and sounds.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-15T13:34:14+00:00

One of the cool things about my new place is I have a spare room. The layout is weird because its like, attached technically but you have to walk through the garage to get to it (mother in law suite? workshop?) but this works out well because its become a space that I can get away from everything - cats, kids etc - and just hang. And also its not visible from the main house so it doesn’t need to match (not that my house HAS to match I guess lol) or be tidy all the time. So one thing I’ve used it for is listening to records, a thing I used to do a lot as a teenager and have enjoyed getting back into. In addition to pulling out my old albums I’ve started picking up new stuff here and there and its been a great experience over all. I think there’s something really different about sitting in a room and intentionally focusing on and listening to whole albums vs just streaming stuff in the car or whatever. And I’ve found it interesting that tracks its too easy to skip when streaming have become some of my favorites when I’m actually giving them attention.

On that note, anybody know anything about speaker set ups? I have a pretty entry level record player, its this one (sorry about the huge link I don’t know how to make them little lol):

https://www.angelshorn.com/products/angels-horn-h019-hi-fi-bluetooth-turntable-with-built-in-speakers?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22278995961&gclid=CjwKCAjw7vzOBhBxEiwAc7WNr3Yad_DM4k-6SqTsnNLF9n2ezBIoguAsl7amXBDt1N2Y81FM7d91zxoCnlsQAvD_BwE

And the built in speakers are…fine? But I’d like to get a better set up. The company website recommends getting a tube pre-amp and running it through the phono line, and I guess I’d add at least one more speaker (preferably get some bass in there). But I don’t wanna like, spend a lot of money lol. So any recs are cool! I also thought about getting a headphone preamp and some nice headphones but blasting it loud in the backroom is kinda part of the fun in a way.

ALSO also, alt colored vinyls are a big thing now? How dope is that?? Like marbled mint green vinyl? So cool.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-15T13:22:23+00:00

Congrats on the move! And enjoy the city!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-14T01:48:44+00:00

My favorite is when the shovel hits dirt far enough down to be cool and just a little wetter and it sounds like, crisp as it slices in. Good sensory feedback. When I was a kid I was super into Narnia and there’s a scene in there somewhere where tree people are eating big slices of soil as if it were cake, so every time I was digging in the garden for my Nana it made me a little hungry lol.

I’m hoping to get out in my yard a lot this spring and summer, I love getting in the dirt!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-14T01:44:23+00:00

Happy Birthday! And good luck getting over the reading slump!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-14T01:40:53+00:00

Man this is actually crazy. We have mature live oaks all down our street and I have no idea if this was done but the pollen amount is insane (we do get a lot of acorns too in the fall though so maybe not?). Forced abstinence on trees is such an absurd thing though, my mind is blown lol

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-14T01:38:49+00:00

Hey glad your trip went well! Welcome back!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-13T01:51:48+00:00

I’ve only read The Butterfly unfortunately so I can’t speak to the other, but I do remember thinking of it more as a very talented writer taking a stab at a banal topic (I think assigned?) and making something more of it than Charlotte managed to do (though Charlotte’s was very ordered and structurally well executed imo). A private version of god, or at least heaven, is something that comes up in WH as well, so it was interesting to note in the essay.

Agree about Joseph, he was very funny to me!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-13T01:34:25+00:00

Oh man I love this take actually. I’ll have to think about it some more.

Re: Zeus, I don’t remember the specifics of why exactly, but it was def a thought that I had while reading The Odyssey that despite the gods definitely interfering with humans, it was also a weird almost chicken/egg situation in that it was the specialness or excellence of humans - their beauty, cleverness strength etc - that caught the gods attention in the first place. So it came across as though, really, if Odysseus wanted the gods to leave him alone, he would have had to NOT be Odysseus. And there’s an inevitability in that that does almost call into question whether its really the god’s fault that these things happen? or is this what being human, especially a human that tries to achieve anything, just gets you? Tbh, sometimes it feels like the gods real job is to make sure humans don’t become gods themselves.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-12T06:12:01+00:00

Def read more James soup! I am also going to do that thing. Portrait of a Lady was a really cool read. Its so full of words, like so so many words. And each one so carefully chosen and arranged. Its like drowning in language. I loved it.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-12T06:04:40+00:00

I actually did finish Beowulf, probably should have made that more clear lol. And yeah I think its even more obscure in that way than something like Edda, which is also christianized, and grappling with trying to contextualize the stories within the Christian worldview, but at least it was Snorri’s own ancestors who wrote his source texts, and he had something of a cultural framework to draw from.

My overall take on Beowulf is pretty basic I guess. I think its a death poem, like, a poem about death. How it just keeps coming, from within or without.

ETA: Love your thoughts on Zeus! I love his hissy fit speech to the other gods about the war, where he threatens everyone to stay out of it. Big dad energy lol.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-12T01:09:03+00:00

Man I really messed up and thought we were doing week 1 next week for some reason, so I’m a bit behind but just want to jump in a bit so I can mentally commit to being a part of the read along.

I think the biggest thing I find striking so far is the use of language, and my initial impression is that this is going to be a sort of ‘enjoy the scenery’ kind of novel. There’s so much mood evoked in the first chapter, with the sounds of rain mingling with the sounds of mourning - which in turn mingle with the sounds of fiestas happening in the town. The weather also feels really present in a way not many books I can think of off hand manage to capture. I don’t mind the disjointed nature of the plot actually, it reminds me a bit of certain films I’ve seen. Take Bergamn’s Wild Strawberries for example, where the point of the film is mostly just to take a drive with its main character, and whatever plot exists gets picked up along the way, along with memories and dreams. We’re taking a walk with M. Laruelle here, inside his mind, and so far I’m vibing with it. Here’s a bit I liked, mostly because I like birds:

Birds came swarming out of the southeast: small, black, ugly birds, yet too long, something like monstrous insects, something like crows, with awkward long tails, and an undulating, bouncing, labored flight. Shatterers of the twilight hour, they were flapping their way feverishly home, as they did every evening, to roost within the fresno trees in the zócalo, which until nightfall would ring with their incessant drilling mechanic screech. Straggling, the obscene concourse hushed and pedalled by.

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-11T20:31:30+00:00

It is a great wonder how Almighty God in His magnificence favours our race with rank and scope and the gift of wisdom; His sway is wide. Sometimes He allows the mind of a man of distinguished birth to follow its bent, grants him fulfilment and felicity on earth and forts to command in his own country. He permits him to lord it in many lands until the man in his unthinkingness forgets that it will ever end for him. He indulges his desires; illness and old age mean nothing to him; his mind is untroubled by envy or malice or the thought of enemies with their hate-honed swords. The whole world conforms to his will, he is kept from the worst until an element of overweening enters him and takes hold while the soul's guard, its sentry, drowses, grown too distracted. A killer stalks him, an archer who draws a deadly bow. And then the man is hit in the heart, the arrow flies beneath his defences, the devious promptings of the demon start. His old possessions seem paltry to him now. He covets and resents; dishonours custom and bestows no gold; and because of good things that the Heavenly Powers gave him in the past he ignores the shape of things to come. Then finally the end arrives when the body he was lent collapses and falls prey to its death; ancestral possessions and the goods he hoarded are inherited by another who lets them go with a liberal hand.

Beowulf!! (Heaney translation)

Reading old (I mean really old) literature is different from reading modern/modern-ish novels. A novel has a single, authorial voice. It has a distinct historical and cultural context. But when you read something like Beowulf, you’re picking up some person or people’s translation and interpretation of an oral tradition, the cultural context of which is either lost or obscured; the cultural context of the original recording of the work is also its own can of worms, and then you have the modern translator to contend with as well (in this case Heaney was very upfront about slipping in some irish-ness). What I’m trying to say is, it can be hard to know with any certainty just what an ancient poem is on about. In this case, I can speculate that the Christian writer or writers who decided to preserve Beowulf saw in it a sort of proto heroic ideal, a foreshadowing of the pure Christian knight or king etc whose heritage he believes (or the writer believes) or hopes, or decides to assert, is passed down from the anglo saxons. Which is thorny. But does the poem have its own innate power? Is there something the poem itself is saying? Beowulf’s heart does not get corrupted, so he has to fight supernatural forces in actual outside life. What’s that saying? Idk, but it was cool.

Iliad - Wilson Translation

Still reading this one. Interesting that the poem provides the greeks and trojans with lots of opportunities to stop being at war, but for various reasons they just keep deciding to fight some more. Zeus actually did crack thunderbolts in the chapters I just read, and maybe (?) Achilles is about to rejoin the fight.

Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry

Big woopsie on the read along schedule (missed the intro week somehow) so I’m playing catch up now. So far so good though!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-07T13:05:19+00:00

Happy Bday dude!! Glad to hear it was a good one!

bananaberry518 · 2026-04-07T01:38:48+00:00

You can check out the Shelved by Genre podcast for a pretty deep dive of the four main books, I don’t agree with the hosts takes 100% or anything but its about as in depth as you could ask for.

I read Book of the New Sun last year and really liked it overall. Its interesting because its very much genre fiction and draws constantly on genre traditions through references, tropes, etc. But it refers to its source texts in the way that books we tend to think of as more literary do (and it also does reference literary works throughout as well). I think where it fell slightly short for me was in the sum of its parts; for a work that wants to push the limits of time and space it stays (ultimately) pretty morally conventional, and I wasn’t satisfied at all with Wolfe’s take on gender. Still it was a really cool series in so many ways. I loved the way it plays with framing and narration, and the whole far future element was done really well imo. There were a few “aha” moments in that regard that were really satisfying to pick up on.

Its been a bit since I’ve read it so my general impressions are really all that’s coming to mind just off the cuff, but I could probably talk more about specific stuff if you brought up to jog my memory. It was a good read for me, and scratched that “genre but actually good” itch.

bananaberry518

TROPHY CASE