DDR: The Warlord by Mike Grell, Omnibus Volume I

 

Y'know, I've bought a few of these Omnibus collections. Without getting up from my comfy chair, I can think of twelve, and my memory's not very good, so it could be a lot more than that. But I know exactly how many I've read: one. And since they go for close to $100 a pop, that's just a sad waste, isn't it? So when my copy of The Warlord Omnibus arrived a few days ago, I resolved that I would start reading it immediately and wouldn't stop until I'd reached the end. However, I kept being pulled away to read other things, and saw that I was not going to be finishing this up anytime soon...if ever.

So I asked myself, "Self, how can I actually get through an entire omnibus in a reasonably short period of time?" The answer was obvious.

Day 1 (DDRD 2,981) December 31, 2025

This 👶 is 735 pages long. I was going to figure out some equivalency thing, but you know what? Fuck that. 735 pages it is.

The quality of Grell's art varies wildly. There are panels that could stand next to Neal Adams (albeit a head shorter), but there are also panels that are just woefully out of proportion. Check out this shot, for instance:

The Warlord looks like a scrawny old man...and he has no butt at all.

And check out the follow-up panel, in which Warlord's head has swollen to enormous size:

(In the interest of full disclosure, I AI-ed that picture to remove word balloons.)

The story? Well, it's comic booky as a hell, of course, but not without its charms. I hadn't read enough of the series previously to know that there was an Atlantis connection, or that there was higher technology involved beneath the surface (so to speak). I'm definitely interested enough to want to read more later today.

For now, though...read to page 123 (the First Issue Special and issues 1 through 5).

 

Day 2 (DDRD 2,982) January 1, 2026

Read to page 231. But I'll probably read more later.

I have to say I'm pretty impressed with how much progress I'm making through this massive tome. To be honest, it's not that good, but I am a pretty big Mike Grell fan, and my enthusiasm for him carries me through gaping plot holes and bad moments in art, which continue. There are frequently panels in which the character's legs are too short for the body, and the heads are often too large. When it comes to two page splash panels, however, the art is usually quite good. I suppose that's because Mister Grell took his time on those. 

By the way, it is interesting to see that Grell featured a black character prominently from early on in the series. And even though the women are almost always depicted in clothing which leaves them looking more naked than if they were naked, they are not fainting victims. And to be fair, the men are pretty naked too.

Here's an interesting thing. At the end of Issue #10 there's a blurb which says DON'T DARE MISS WARLORD #12! At first I just assumed it was a stupid mistake. Then, I wondered if it was a mistake caused by the fact that the first issue of Warlord was actually First Issue Special #8, thus making the next issue the 12th issue. But after the first 2 pages of issue #11, Morgan begins to remember what led him into the underground world, and I thought the art looked awfully familiar. I went back and checked and sure enough, though the panels had been recolored in places, the rest of the issue, except for the final couple of panels, was taken from the First Issue Special. There was maybe 2 1/2 pages of new stuff in this issue. I guess deadline doom hit. (But I read those pages again, anyway, just to keep to the straight and narrow.)

Speaking of which...here's a pretty big fuck up. Before the flashback / First Issue Special reprint, Morgan was in a cave with Tara and Machiste, both of whom were asleep:

After the flashback / reprint, there's just one panel:

I think Mr. Grell and editor Larry Hama forgot to tell us something. I dug out my DC Showcase Presents The Warlord Volume 1 to see if that would shed any light on this, but it only had the cover of issue #11, skipping the contents entirely. 

🤔 

Day 3 (DDRD 2,983) January 2, 2026

Read to page 369.

There have been several times when Grell completely skips over big moments in this story. For instance, we're told that Travis and Tara were married in a one panel flashback. What's up with that? I guess Grell sees that as a "distraction" from the story, but to me it's a missed opportunity. I'd much rather have read a full issue of a marriage and buy out one of the dinosaur battles. 

Day 4 (DDRD 2,984) January 3, 2026

Read to page 534.

Grell likes to do these "sideways" pictures. Unfortunately, it's harder to enjoy them when you're holding a book this size. When Dave Sim fif this in Cerebus*, he did the whole issue in this format. I think John Byrne did a sideways Fantastic Four at around the same time. It does have the advantage of doing a big picture without burying part of it in the gutter between pages (as in a two-page spread), but to me it's just kind of irritating. 

Well...I spoke too soon. Shortly after ☝, Grell went to two-page sideways spreads, once again buring the center of the image in the gutter. I'd take a picture for illustrative purposes, but I need to grow a third hand first.

* Still one of the greatest comic books of all time. Maybe I should DDR that some day. 6,000+ pages of story...that'd take a little while. 

Day 5 (DDRD 2,985) January 4, 2026

Read to page 735, The End.  And wouldja look at that. 5 days. And it was do easy. I never felt like I was pushing myself, never felt a strain. Never felt like stopping, either. The only other omnibus I bought and read was the first Milestone Compendium, and even though I liked those characters and enjoyed the stories, it took me months to finish it off. That's the difference between making something a side-read as opposed to a DDR. So of course now I'm thinking I should do another omnibus--not right away, but this is definitely the way to read a comic book collection of this size.

Hmm. Just did a quick scan of the upstairs omnibuses...knowing I missed some, and that there are more downstairs...and found

1

2

3

4

5, 6, & 7

8 & 9

10

11

12

13, 14, & 15

16 

So obviously I have more of these things than I thought. (And when I work up the energy, I'll see what is in the basement.)

17, 18, & 19

20, 21, & 22

And I didn't even count all of the Marvel Essentials or DC Showcase Presents volumes...and there are a lot of them. I could probably do a whole year of DDR-ing with comic books if I did all of those, too.

Pachelbel's Canon Conundrum

 A long time ago (but in this galaxy) my soon to be daughter-in-law asked if I would do the father-daughter dance with her at her wedding. Of course,  I was honored to do so. She also wanted me to pick out the music for us to dance to. When I asked if she wanted serious or silly, she left it completely up to me, so I decided to use "Pachelbel's Canon," but then to splice it into "Gangnam Style" a minute or so in. The result was a hit with the crowd and brought everybody onto the dance floor for the rave up, then we ended with a quiet return to Pachelbel.

Fast forward a decade plus change.

📰

📰

📰

A new Goodwill had just opened beside my beloved Half- Price Books when my daughter and I stopped by to see what we could see. We went into the Goodwill first and as my daughter searched for dolls I looked around at the shelves. I spotted this:

From a distance, my aged eyes thought it was an alicorn (a winged unicorn), which my granddaughter recently told me was her favorite animal, so I went to investigate. When I got closer, I picked it up and saw that it was "just" a horse with wings, but I also saw that it was a music box, so of course, I twisted the thingy to see what song it would play.

It played "Pachelbel's Canon." I thought that instead of buying it for my granddaughter, I would buy it for my daughter-in-law, but as I looked at it more closely, I saw that there was a stain on the bottom of it. I tried to scratch off the brown spot with my fingernail and couldn't do it. So I put it back on the shelf and started to walk away. At that moment the store's background music started playing a new song: "Pachelbel's Canon." Assuming that no one would believe me, I caught a bit of it on video:

Of course I went back and bought it. 

And when I got home I got to work. I tried a Magic Eraser. No effect on the stain. Soap, no effect. Alcohol, no effect. Hydrogen peroxide, stain gone. 

I only have one question.

What the fuck?*

* My epitaph, by the way.

Trump

I saw it on Facebook and since so many things on Facebook are not real, I didn't believe it. Surely even Trump couldn't be such a silly little bitch as to do something like this. But a little bit of Googling brought me to a website that was trustworthy, and sure enough...

https://www.wric.com/news/politics/ap-trumps-white-house-adds-partisan-plaques-to-newly-installed-presidential-walk-of-fame/

God help us all.

Seriously.

DDR: Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante

 

This is a book I picked up from the library because (1) it's put out by my favorite publishing house, New York Review Books (anytime I see that title and author box partially obscuring the cover art, I stop for a look) and (2) I thought Lies and Sorcery was a cool title. I'd never heard of the book or the author. So...is it a good choice for my next DDR? You've got me.

So let's go.  xiv + 775 = 789 pages. Pretty hefty. 🤔 

Day 1 (DDRD 2,964) December 14, 2025 

Read to page 12. Interesting start. I like stories about people who pull away from the world. For some reason.

Day 2 (DDRD 2,965) December 15, 2025 

Read to page 51.

"Anyone who happened to see me paralyzed for entire days, my eyes wide open yet dreaming, might have thought I was immersed in some ethereal meditation, but instead, like a raving drunk, I was roaming amid a witch's coven of my elaborate lies." (18) *

Well. On the one hand, that seems like some serious mental illness...although the self-awareness that's implied makes that less than definitive. On the other hand (I hope), I feel great kinship with this "person." I, too, often slip into fantasies of what was, what could have been, and what could still be.   It also reminds me of my daughter, who spends a great deal of her waking hours conversing with saints, churches, and people that she cares about. (Not to mention villains she conjures up for specific occasions, such as Thunderella for storms, the Snow Queen for bad winter weather, and St. William** for everything else.)

Of course we all visit our own fantasy worlds on a regular basis, but this character — and perhaps myself and my daughter —can't really be said to be visitors.

*

** 

Day 3 (DDRD 2,966) December 16, 2025 

Read to page 107. Busy day.

Day 4 (DDRD 2,967) December 17, 2025 

Read to page 131.

Day 5 (DDRD 2,968) December 18, 2025 

Read to page 211. So...quite a nice little canter. I'm starting to think I might be able to finish this before the year's end.

This blooming romance between Edoardo and Anna is quite well done...so affective that I find myself engaging in remembrance of kisses past. It's not hard to remember those feelings, those sensations, those pleasures. But it's also not hard to remember the cruelties that followed hard upon. It's true (as was said earlier on in this book) that when you give someone else power over you, when you make yourself vulnerable to the other person, that it is not uncommon for them to respond with cruelty. Been there, done that, got the souvenirs. 💔 

Speaking of which...

"... From the first moment he fell in love, an evil and imperious desire to subjugate his beloved was born; this desire went hand in hand with the perpetual fear that his slave would escape him."

&

"...every obstacle that got in the way of his total domination over her filled him with indignation." (156)

Yep. I've definitely spent some time with that person. 

Day 6 (DDRD 2,969) December 19, 2025 

Read to page 250. So...525 pages to go, and 12 days left in the year. If I can read 44 pages per day, I can finish this off on New Year's Eve. Sounds do-able. And just to see, im going to read at least 5 more pages today.

"...the vast majority of men were born servants and would die servants, and when this greatly heralded liberty finally came, they would still be servants, no happier than they were when slaves in chains. Many of them would refuse to be set free since, for most, servitude was their only purpose, their only pleasure, and they much preferred to obey a master, be he good or evil, than to enjoy a freedom that they had no idea how to use." (252)

That pretty much explains the whole Trump thing, I think.

ADDENDUM: 255.

Day 7 (DDRD 2,970) December 20, 2025 

Read to page 308. [467 & 11 days to go = 42.5 ppd.]

Not to mention that I'm coming down hard on DDRD 3,000...so don't let me break you. (That's 8.2 years...with only one missed day.)

"There is one hypothesis that no one could possibly suggest other than myself, since I am aware of what is going to happen later in this story, and it is due to my incurable partiality for my characte Edoardo. The hypothesis is the most generous and pathetic, the most tenderly tragic of all possible hypotheses, but please forgive me, dear readers, if I don't want to divulge it. If I were to reveal it now, I would be revealing too much regarding the whole rest of my story, and that I cannot do. As this story unfolds, my readers will be able to figure out my hypothesis for themselves. However, if they are unable, well, then, farewell to them, in the sense that if they can't figure it out, they really don't deserve to be my readers."  (305?)

Well. THAT'S telling them. Um...me.

Day 8 (DDRD 2,971) December 21, 2025 

Read to page 360. [420 & 10 days to go =  42 ppd.]

Francesco has boarded a train for a trip to his birthday home, and after much searching, Edoardo sees him in the window and says to him, "I love you more than any of my other friends: more than my mother! more than my sister! more than my girlfriend!" (342) 

On the one hand, Edoardo is a total con man, but his tearfilled eyes suggest that this is a moment of sincerity. Interesting.

Day 9 (DDRD 2,972) December 22, 2025 

Read to page 410. [365 & 9 days to go = 40.56  ppd.]

So. Passed the halfway point today. 🥳🎉 And I've cut down the page per day rate needed to make it to the end of the book by 12/31 by 4 pages per day. 

🥳🎉

Day 10 (DDRD 2,973) December 23, 2025 

Read to page 470. [305 & 8 days to go = 38.125 ppd.] Woot, woot!

I'm pretty sure that should be "in to."

Day 11 (DDRD 2,974) 🎄🤰December 24, 2025 🎄🤰

Read to page 522. [253 & 7 days to go = 36.14 ppd.]

Looks like our girl Elsa Morante was quite the cat fan:

That's always a plus for me for some reason. 

Day 12 (DDRD 2,975)🎅December 25🎅, 2025

Read to page 536. [239 & 6 days to go = 39.83 ppd.] Had a bit if a fall off t'day. Football, kids, sister, Deltas 8 and 9. Sometimes you've just got to.

 

 

Day 13 (DDRD 2,976) December 26, 2025

Read to page 610 [165 & 5 days to go = 33 ppd.]  You know, there have been plenty of lues in these 610 pages...but no sorcery at all. 

Day 14 (DDRD 2,977) December 27, 2025

Read to page 645 [130 & 4 days to go = 32.5 ppd.] 

I'm pretty sure this is the first reference to "sorcery" in this book: reference poor children's concept of Heaven, Elisa thinks "The Virgin possesses the qualities of a sorceress queen...." (615)

And after that (⬆), all kinds of sorcery references spill out.

Ya know, on the one hand, this book has been pretty interesting. But on the other hand, it's like reading a soap opera. There doesn't seem to be any particular depth to the narrative...it's just about a bunch of self-absorbed people colliding. I don't think I will need to read any more of Elsa Morante's books. However, all the talk of Edoardo's time spent in a mountain sanatorium has got me itching to read Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain again.

Addendum: read to page 660 [115 & 4 days to go = 28.75 ppd]

Day 15 (DDRD 2,978) December 28, 2025

Addendum: read to page 693 [82 & 3 days to go = 27.3 ppd]

Might read some more today, but there are football games to be watched first.

Also, time to start thinking about what comes next. Might be Of Human Bondage, which has been on my.mind a lot lately...and which I picked up today at Half-Price Books for $2.49 with 20% off =  $1.99 + tax = $2.11...about half the price of a comic book. 

Hmmm. Is it just me, or does the art on these covers look like it was by the same same artist?

Let's see. Well...no. But close, eh?

"She wanted to fall in love with a phantom and become delirious with the inventions of her own mind. Yes, she wanted to believe in deceit and be blind to the reality that she found so squalid and intolerable ever since he had honored her with his promise." (667)

This is certainly me in some ways. Looking past faults that a sensible person would see, blinded by love. But not anymore.

Day l6 (DDRD 2,979) December 29, 2025

Read to page 745. So a mere 30 pages left, and I might even take a chunk of those out tonight.

"You hate who loves you the most, and since this mindless little puppy adores you, worships you like a god, you mistreat her." (695)

This sounds crazier than fuck all, but I think it explains how the great love of my life turned into a flaming hell pit. She even once said to me in a lightning flash of honesty  that she had problems with people who loved her. Maybe deep down she felt that she wasn't worthy of love. At any rate, she turned from a sweet, kind, loving person into a hateful harpy.

Speaking of which...reading about Francesco's attempts to hold onto Anna, I realize what a fool I have been in trying to hold onto love and honor. How I wish I had known better, how I wish I could have said, "Fuck you" and walked away without looking back. Next life, maybe.

Day l6 (DDRD 2,980) December 30, 2025

Read to page 775...The End.  I average over 48 pages per day on this book, finishing in 16 days what "should" have taken 26. Yet at the end of it, I have to wonder if it was worth doing. A 775 page book that ends with an ode to a cat? It feels like I just did a weekend binge of a ten season soap opera. It passes the time, but leaves you with a handful of dust. 

No, I would not recommend that you read this one...and I wonder why NYRB,  my favorite publisher, bothered with this one. 

I need something more substantial.

DDR: The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump by Michiko Kakutani

208 pages

Day 1 (DDRD 2,962) December 12, 2025 

Read to page 57.

Quoting Hannah Arendt:

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is...people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist." (11)

I keep running into Hannah Arendt. Might be time to take that road.

And here's a banger from Tom Nichols's The Death of Expertise: "If citizens do not bother to gain basic literacy in the issues that affect their lives...they abdicate control over those issues whether they like it or not. And when voters lose control of these important decisions, they risk the hijacking of their democracy by ignorant demagogues, or the more quiet and gradual decay of their democratic institutions into authoritarian technocracy." (35)

Hmm. This--

           --rubs me the wrong way. I hate Trump and I think he is an idiot, but this kind of snide assumption is still not okay...even if I agree with it 100%. "I doubt if" would have been preferable, even though it says pretty much the same thing. Or is it Science

Kakutani essentially proposes that the idea of relativism, which was once the province of the Left / Liberal world (as a way to defend against racism, imperialism, etc.) has now become the Holy Land of the Right, where it serves to dismiss expertise, science, and truth itself.

Day 2 (DDRD 2,963) December 13, 2025 

Read to 

 150. Well...they are little pages plus I had a long wait before The Nutcracker.

From page 73:

How a Fascist State May Be Created by Democracy.

Nicholas Carr says, "We don't see the forest when we search the Web. We don't even see the trees. We see twigs and leaves." (121)

Day 3 (DDRD 2,964) December 14, 2025 

Read to page 208, The End.

"There are no easy remedies, but it's essential that citizens defy the cynicism and resignation that autocrats and power hungry politicians depend upon to subvert resistance." (171)

One thing that this book has taught me is that my exhaustion with the news media is exactly what Trump and his cronies want. As hard as it is to continue to pay attention to the news ("news"),  Kakutani seems to think it is very important to keep tuning in. And I think she's right. So once more into the breach?

And some final words from Thomas Jefferson: "I hold it therefore certain...that to open the doors of truth, and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason, are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent." (172)

That's worth shouting, isn't it?

"I hold it therefore certain...that to open the doors of truth, and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason, are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent." 

Amen, amen.

DDR: 🤡 Town by Mick Herron

Hadn't planned on this being my next DDR, but Tom's Crossing was due with no more renewals, and I'm still hoping to get back to that as soon as possible...plus this was on hand and I won't be able to keep it for very long, either. So...awaaaay we go.

Day 1 (DDRD 2,956) December 6, 2025 

Read to page 47.

Day 2 (DDRD 2,957) December 7, 2025 

Read to page 90.

"And it won't be difficult to construct a sound, real-world reason why Britain should want to ally itself with the next great global power, instead of the United Fading States." (79)

Well. That's a big 🔥, ennit?

Day 3 (DDRD 2,958) December 8, 2025 

Read to page 150. Of 340, btw.

"...our first betrayal is always of ourselves." (112)

For some reason, I'm not really getting into this book. I don't know why, since I have loved the previous Slough House novels and was anxious to read this new one, but there it is.

Day 4 (DDRD 2,959) December 9, 2025 

Read to page 210. This still feels a little off, but obviously (check daily page counts) I'm not bored with it. I guess no matter the plot, these characters are just so great that you can't help but keep turning the pages.

Day 5 (DDRD 2,960) December 10, 2025 

Read to page 260. 

Day 6 (DDRD 2,961) December 11, 2025 

Read to page 340, The End.

Excellent line: "...here's heart was, if not necessarily in the right place, at least somewhere in that vicinity...." (275)

Old Man Take a Look at Yourself...

 This is a close-up of a picture posted on Facebook as "Trump in Mar-a-Lago this weekend" or something of that nature. In addition to cropping the picture,  I also used A.I. to remove a guy who could be seen in the window behind Trump in the original. Using A.I. for that gave me an idea: what if I used A.I. to remove the red cap from Trump's head? So I did that. Here's what emerged:

Some words from Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan occurred to me: "Wow-ee. Pretty scary."

And I know it is not really fair to use A.I. on someone's image like that, but one thing that occurs to me is that this is what A.I. predicted that head would look like. 

Just sayin', sir.

Anti-diarrhea Pills

Serious question: why do they make it so difficult to remove these pills from their packaging? Don't they realize we're in a hurry?

DDR: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

11/15/25 I had some serious misgivings about A Little Life. Someone had recommended it to me, so I went to GoodReads to see what My People thought about it. One reviewer  said that it was the best book he'd ever read, but that he couldn't recommend it. Say what? A review from "Thomas" said, "Highly recommended to anyone who wants their heart both filled and destroyed." Well...that's not me. So I scratched this one off of my Must Read  list. But I didn't stay away for long. After a little persistent searching, I found a copy of the book on Internet Archive...and I began to read.

On page 19 I was delighted to find this: "One of his earliest memories had been a trip with her to the Museum of Modern Art, where he clearly remembered staring at One: Number 31, 1950, dumb with awe, barely listening to his aunt as she explained how Pollock had made the painting." I was delighted because just a week before reading this, I'd been in New York City's Museum of Modern Art, looking at

 So I continued to read.

"Would he someday have the courage to give up, and would he be able to recognize that moment, or would he wake one day and look in the mirror and find himself an old man, still trying to call himself an actor because he was too scared to admit that he might not be, might never be?" (48) Ouch.

🛑57

Got the one volume paperback version of this book from the library today (11/17/25). Pages are different from the Internet Archive version, so now I'm on page 58.

"...he needed to feel that something lay beneath their imperturbable calm, that somewhere within them ran a thin stream of quick, cool water, teeming, with delicate lives, minnows and grasses and tiny white flowers, all tender and easily wounded and so vulnerable you couldn't see them without aching for them." (58)

"...his childhood might well have been spent in the nineteenth century, not the twenty-first, for all he had apparently missed, and for how obscure and merely decorative what he did know seemed to be." (106)

"In those moments, he wished, perversely, that he had never met her, that it was surely worse to have had her for so brief a period than to never have had her at all." (122)

That's a tune quite familiar to me. To have loved intensely and to have lost is decidedly not better than not to have loved at all. It's like being a star football player in high school, then going on to a tedious and humdrum life. You can't help but think back on your "glorious" past and feel that the rest of your life has been a waste. It allows sorrow to seep into every moment.

Jude asks himself, "How much of who he was was inextricable from what he was unable to do?" (163)

🛑 174

When thinking about his love for his child, Harold opines, "...it is a singular love because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent. Every day, your first thought is not "I love him" but "How is he?" The world, overnight, rearranges itself into an obstacle course of terrors. I would hold him in my arms and wait to cross the street and would think how absurd it was that my child, that any child, could expect to survive this life. It seemed as improbable as the survival of one of those late spring butterflies--you know, those little white ones--I sometimes saw wobbling through the air, always just millimeters away from smacking itself against the windshield." (186)

I don't think that's 100% true for me. But it is well over 50%.

🛑 229

11/22 I'm actually having to force myself to stop reading this book so that I can give a little attention to Tom's Crossing, which is (ostensibly) my current DDR. The character of Jude is so puzzling, so pitiful.... 

🛑 280 (8 days, 35 pages per day average)

11/23/25 🛑 351 for mass, which was when I started reassessing my current DDR.  I'm still thinking that Tom's Crossing  might be a book worth reading, but I'm really drawn to A Little Life, and I'm thinking about jumping 🚢.

Day 10 (DDRD 2,943) November 23, 2025

Read to page 351. Yep, 🌊🌊🌊🌊

Day 11 (DDRD 2,944) November 24, 2025

Read to page 411. 60 pages. And yet I still want more.  And will, indeed, read more after some dad duties.

ADDENDUM: When I was dating Patty, I'd sometimes run into a friend of hers, a work colleague. I found this woman attractive, so I tried not to talk to her very much or even look at her too often. (I am a loyal fellow, and have never cheated on any of my romantic partners.) Also, she was quite a bit younger than me, and though I wasn't averse to that (at the time; I've since learned my lesson), I wouldn't have felt I had anything to offer to a young woman. She had a limp. Nothing extreme, but something you would notice. Once Patty told me that "Lisa" had gone on a blind date with a guy, to a restaurant. Before their meal came, the guy said he had to use the restroom. He was gone for a long time...and then Lisa got a text. It said, "I don't go out with cripples."

So it's not hard for me to believe how cruel people are to Jude. I don't understand the depravity, but I believe it. As Springsteen sang, "there's just a meanness in this world." Which is the main reason why I am barely hanging on myself. And wht I'll never allow myself to be pulled into another romantic relationship. Too much meanness. Too much sorrow. If it works for you, God bless you soul. I'm out, though.

Read to page 463. So 112 pages today. You can see why I didn't have room for Tom's Crossing.

Day 12 (DDRD 2,945) November 25, 2025

Read to page 540. And I'm taking Jacqueline to choir practice tonight, which means at least another 70 minutes of reading time. Also, I just found this on my phone:

...which I'd meant to post...yesterday? Day before? I don't remember. But when Jacqueline and I were in New York a few weeks ago, we stayed at Hotel St. James

And we walked past (and into) that Barnes & Noble several times.

I'm beginning to think I was meant to read this book.

ADDENDUM: read to page 567.

Day 13 (DDRD 2,946) November 26, 2025

Read to page 607. Then had chores. Done with them. Going to read some more now.

"After he had eaten, he went

downstairs with the book and sandwich and lay in bed, and he was reminded of how much he had missed reading, of how grateful he was for this opportunity to leave behind his life." (624)

Well...ouch. Bearing in mind, however, that for Jude this means "a respite from the horror of my life."

One of the saddest lines I've ever read: "But he didn't cry: his ability to not cry was his only accomplishment, the only thing he could take pride in." (632)

Read to page 636. So a mere 69 pages today.

Day 14 (DDRD 2,947) 🦃November 27, 2025🦃

Read to page 717. Less than 100 pages to go now. 😔 

Of late I've been thinking about some of the things I've read about this book...such as "it goes from dark to darker." Well...I've still got about 180 pages to go, so I don't know where we're going to end up, but at this point I'm thinking that despite all of the horror, Jude came through it...terribly damaged, but still capable of functioning,  of succeeding,  of falling on love. Which is what lies behind this thought in Willem's mind: "The awe he had felt for him, then, the despair and horror,  was something one felt for idols, not for other humans, at least no other humans he knew." (638)

Is this true? "...he was old enough now to know that within every relationship was something unfulfilled and disappointing, something that had to be sought elsewhere." (641) I hope not...but it would explain the high divorce rate and cheating,  wouldn't it.

"Wasn't it a miracle to have survived the unsurvivable?" (650) At this point, I'm thinking that's a valid statement of theme for this novel.

I thought this was interesting:

The operation and the first months of recovery occur in the white gutter between these lines--not even any empty space as you might expect. Now that I think on it, this is a technique that Hanya has used several times. It makes the climax of the scene evaporate, and yet it still seems very effective.

"Was that them, really, those people back then? Where had those people gone? Would they reappear? Or were they now other people entirely? And then he would imagine that those people were so much gone as they were within them, waiting to bob back up to the surface, to reclaim their bodies and minds; they were identities now in remission, but they would always be with them." (703)

Two thoughts: (1) I keep wondering if Jude is paying Andy for his medical treatments. There's never been a mention of it. (2) I really don't feel like going back to Tom's Crossing after I finish this book. Would I push myself to get over this or just let myself off the hook? (Try to think like an anal retentive, OCD nerd as you ponder this question.)

"...he needs the world to not come too close to him." (728) I know that tune. Know it quite well.

Day 15 (DDRD 2,948) November 28, 2025

Read to page 816, The End.  And quite the journey it was. Compelling, for sure...averaging almost 55 pages a day,  and it was only in the past sux days that I made it my main book. Horrifying at times, for sure, but none of the brutality seemed gratuitous to me. More later, I think. For now:

I really don't like the cover picture on this book:

(The A.I. tag is because I eliminated the cover copy.) I suppose that this picture is supposed to represent Jude's pain & suffering, but (1) it looks fake to me and (2) to me, this is a book about overcoming pain & suffering, not about succumbing to it. (Caveat: I still have 100 pages to go as of this writing.)

"...he knows now that he has to be careful: he has tasted anger, and he knows he has to control it. He can feel it, waiting to burst from his mouth in a swarm of stinging black flies." (775)

"Straight pork truck." 😋  Jacqueline was saying something as I was about to record,  and this is how my phone interpreted it.

"...He feels...that his life is something that has happened to him, rather than something he has had any role in creating." (784)