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.
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