Neocities.org

thank you! i really like your essays and reviews, especially the one on bell's aesthetic hypothesis. i also think your review of flowers of algernon was very insightful, it's been over a year since i last read it so my memory is murky of some of the finer details but i definitely see the points you're making.

i think the premise and theme was the main thing i liked too, as it was very different from anything else i had read, easily digestable, and evoked an emotive response. i guess i just wasn't too bothered by some of the flaws you pointed out. perhaps my opinions will change when i reread it as i feel like some of the initial surprises or plot twists in the book won't hit as hard, and i'll be more focused on

the little details. i’ll also look into your reccommendation at the bottom of the review! i’ve had some ted chiang works on my to-read list for a while now but i've never gotten around to actually reading anything.

chiang is cool but I'm not sure my recommendation as a substitute for algernon makes much sense, I was too hung up on his portrayal of intelligence which isn't the main focus. ig that's the thing with writing, it sticks around even when you wouldn't entirely agree anymore. but yeah I like chiang but his stories are more 'exploring this intellectually interesting idea' and his characters end up extremely secondary to

that. ..why is this text field a single scrolling line instead of the standard box? and can we get a character count, maybe? lol

also bell's whole thing, well.. I've held vague materialist assumptions for a long time but I guess there was this subconscious hope about platonic underpinnings to everything. so thinking about that stuff more directly caused me to end up with a pretty unfun wakeup call. It did change my perspective on art quite a bit, one way or another. good times... (not really)

yeah neocities is a little ridiculous. i often end up reading 'exploring this intellectually interesting idea' books and well. they're interesting and usually well written and i like them. but it's hard for me to find well written books i like where i can in some way emotionally connect to characters and just simply enjoy the content instead of constantly actively thinking about it, if that makes sense

thanks!