Left on Read: The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuściński
November and Riley have read another book - a piece of highly fictionalised reportage on the collapse of the Ethiopian Empire in 1974. It's a book about court politics, political theatre, and state (de)formation. Inevitably, our thoughts turn to our own crumbling polity at the end.
(Technically, this is April's second LoR!)
Comments (19)
November teasing the bitter tears of Petra von Kant, this is the film KJB needs, I was hoping it would feature in pride month!!
Novembers pronounciation of Polish surnames getting better and better
I semi- often think about my last purchase at the grocery store. I’m almost certain it’s not going to be flour or bread or canned beans or anything you’d expect- no, it’s definitely going to be the worst flavor of the most obscure energy drink. The type of thing that’s too gross for even the looters
I've been reading Cadillac Desert (just got it today) and I'm sure it'll appear here sometime. That sense of impending doom, the downfall of a once proud empire, it's gonna happen first in the desert. I feel like Cassandra telling my sister to get the hell out of Arizona while the getting is good, but it feels deeply weird knowing that I'm living at the end of an age. I'm glad so many of these episodes have touched on this feeling, this theme because I think if you really pay attention, it's inescapable. I still remain optimistic that whatever new world emerges from this imperial decline is gonna be a better one. If nothing else, if the world ends, being right and winning that bet is meaningless. I dunno. I look around, knowing in my bones and in my mind that this shit can't possibly last, the numbers just don't work and I wonder how long it'll be.
'do you ever wonder what your last purchase at a supermarket will be' Christ that's bleak
An endcap for breakfast cereal, the only thing I ever buy there.
I wonder if either of you have read Carl Neville's blisteringly grim novel Resolution Way or its queasily utopian twin Eminent Domain. I think you'd enjoy them (in the sense of admiring the writing and the worldbuilding, while feeling a wrenching and familiar series of horrors)
"one had the impression that even as they fell, they were standing."(appx) i'm so proud of these random peasants. Even as they felt the need to prostrate themselves in front of their ruler for safety or for money, they remain proud and retain their senses of self <3
May I recommend Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia by Brendan Simms? Depressing subject matter, but it describes how aggressive lobbying isn't really necessary for a countries foreign policy to end up supporting genocide de facto so long as an accommodating set of beliefs about the world are crossed with the elite British tendency to condescend whilst reading an upside down book.
If you are looking for something short but meaty to read the short stories of Lu Xun feel very relevant today. Lots of short stories about an out of touch elite class desperately trying to cling on to their traditional signifiers of power and struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world.
The depressing episodes are the best ones, because they are correct. The TF patreon is one of the few places I feel emotionally sane.
Feeling quite Gormenghast now with shades of The Handmaid's Tale before transphobic idiots ruined it. I also hope the football stadium is nice but I'll probably just be quietly dying in a gutter somewhere.
The NEOM book was going to be a 15-volume series but they just announced they're only going to do 150 pages
A deposed monarch aka a Birthday Boy Moder.
trashfuture: ahhhh we're so sorry to have slipped off the bonus schedule, half our staff is dying of shitting themselves on travel wtyp: there will be Episode at some Point
I think the title is wrong. Book is called The Emperor. Kapuściński also wrote book called Imperium but that's for another time.
Good spot thank you!
The last thing I will buy at a grocery store will almost certainly be a case of Pepsi
I liked the lazytown reference from November