Fiammetta Rey

Flowery prose, not much substance

Revisado: 03-04-23

I fully admit that I’m on a Borgia binge right now because I finished Soryo’s series and I’m desperate for more. So far, every other book I’ve read has felt shockingly flat and empty compared to Soryo’s. At first, this one felt like the exception. A deeper look into Alexander’s thoughts! Finally, someone acknowledging that Cesare and Michelotto had a past together! But as it went on, everyone seemed to flatten out into types or roles. Cesare isn’t Juan’s murderer here, but by the end, he’s become the “monster” everyone always said he was, even though the author claims not to be caught up in the rumors. Lucrezia is too much the pure innocent victim here. She becomes best friends with every other woman her age, because “female friendship is empowering”, only to end up crying at night over the sins of said married women sleeping with the priests in Lucrezia’s family. The narration tells us she’s the most politically astute of them, but she cries when her father asks her to lie. Michelotto is also cardboard here, as he is in every other piece of fiction but Soryo’s. Furthermore, this book is full of the kind of flowery language a lot of popular authors use to cover up a lack of substance, and I hated realizing that that was what was happening here.

This was published in 2012, and Soryo’s series ran from ‘05-‘21. I’d like to think they read each other and were inspired by each other. The scene near the end when Lucrezia sees the Pieta reminded me of something Soryo would depict, though I can see why Dunant chose to give a scene like that to Lucrezia instead of her version of Cesare. Also, the first scene of this book also happens in the last book of Soryo’s series, and I’ve never heard anything about it happening that way in real life, so I’m wondering if Soryo was inspired by Dunant in that.

There were also some interesting perspectives about the motivations of some of the people involved, which cast a new light on those interactions for me.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Simplistic perspective

Revisado: 02-25-23

If you thought, from the length, that it would be simplistic, you were right. No insight into Machiavelli’s time. Beautifully written, though.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Atrocious Italian pronunciation is almost funny

Revisado: 01-26-23

“VAIconti” (like the English title); “chiZARy”; there are many, many more. The book is a basic rundown of the events in question, and it’s good enough as that, but what stands out is the pronunciation issues.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

More Holes Than Plot

Revisado: 11-13-22

I know this is a classic. When I started it, the atmosphere of the beginning reminded me of a much more recent, well-reviewed book that I hated, and I worried that it would be like that. In the interest of not spoiling a separate book, I won’t name it. I’ll just say it followed that circa-2014 hipster trend of starting with a simple country house in the woods somewhere in the 20th century and ending up with aliens, time travel, and/or zombies.

This had, I guess, the opposite problem. It presents technologies as having existed a hundred years ago when, if that were the case, the main character’s present (circa 1990?) would not look recognizable to the readers. I know nerds think Tesla was some sort of god, but come on. He plays the role of a kind of fairy godmother, or genie, or Baba Yaga in this. I think, perhaps, the rivalry between the magicians was meant as a parallel of Tesla’s own life? If so, it’s clumsy.

(In any case, there’s another famous, well-acclaimed, more recent book that has an interesting setup involving magicians, that I’ve always known to be ripped off of a book that’s “low brow” and “for kids”, so it can’t claim anything. But after reading The Prestige, I now know where that ripoff book gets its other half.)

It would have been better if both journals had ended up being a game of one-upmanship in outlandish lies and death-faking. It would have made more sense that way.

The threads from the prologue — the “bilocating” preacher, the (frame story?) main character’s feelings about his adoption, his ex Zelda (*tick off a bingo square*), the possibility of his birth father being alive — are all abandoned. I was bothered, at first, by the way the beginning implied that he *must* be curious about his birth family, *must* want to reconnect with them, must *need* that, since plenty of adopted people don’t. The fact that it’s essentially, irrelevant, doesn’t make it any better.

I’m sure a lot of hipsters are going to tell me I’m missing the point or whatever, if I’m not mind-blown by all of this. I… don’t particularly care.

Hey, I did give it at least 2 stars. It’s well-written enough, in its sentences.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Religious nut

Revisado: 11-02-22

Author is a religious nut who says the most backwards things about anyone who isn’t “pure”. Disgusting.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Glurge

Revisado: 04-21-22

Very little technical information, just a bunch of glurgey memoir trash. If you have gravel for brains, you might be interested.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Racist conspiracy theories

Revisado: 04-18-22

Tl;dr — Europeans are actually descended from the Norse, and Homer was actually Odin on a drug trip, and this is all superior wisdom, but don’t worry, this author is totally not racist like the actual nazis who believed this stuff. Totally not racist. Totally free of racism, promise.

Right.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Why is he ranting?

Revisado: 04-10-22

200 years after the fact, why is it that scandalous to think Mozart had lovers?

Everyone looks at Cosi fan tutte all wrong. I agree with Despina, having only one lover is an inhuman expectation, and no one holds men to it, so why do they try to hold women to it?
Polyamorous opera deserve more respect as such (see also The Pearl Fishers).

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Worthwhile as a historical document?

Revisado: 02-26-22

She wrote from a place of looking at a world where things were just starting to open up in certain ways, and her perspective a lot of the time seems to be “wait, is this really as open as you think it is? Is it really possible to live without those traditional restrictions, or were our ancestors right that those restrictions are hard-baked into the fabric of the universe?”

In a time some 50-60 years later where more things have opened up, but people — intellectually limited people who have never lived outside of America and Europe, never lived outside of the dominance of the tyranny of YHWH-worshippers — are still asking the same questions, doubting whether or not openness is really possible, these essays seem restrictive.

On the other hand, no one asks deep questions at all anymore. They just live their lives with a fake façade of openness when deep down, they’re terrified of anything outside of the cultural boundaries they’ve been taught.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Only one issue

Revisado: 02-10-22

This professor says that Western history writing focuses on wars because Herodotus and Thucydides did so, but don’t they all write primarily about wars because their cultures value war above all else? This professor literally just pointed out how Herodotus said that nothing should be more important to a society than having strong warriors. That’s the problem, Herodotus didn’t invent it. Most societies — not just Western ones — are poisoning their souls with love of war, whether directly, or indirectly (the fact that fighting characters and combat stories make up most of mass media). This is still true, and it needs to be questioned more, to be changed for the sake of the future.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña