NYT:

Many of the people Mr. Trump has said are victims of weaponization faced enough evidence against them that they were convicted at trial or pleaded guilty. His defenses of them, by contrast, have often relied on conspiracy theories, and some Republican officials have balked at his efforts to excuse or reward them.

Started: May 10, 2026

Finished: ?

Review

At the outset - I haven't read an Oates sentence in a couple of years - after LENGTHY detours down Ferrante dr. and Roth ln. and Karl Ove ave. Returning to the discursive and sidewinding language and shifting perspectives taxed my brain at the start.

The Child (1932-1938)

May 12, 2024

p. 45 — "She did specialty ironing for an Ocean Avenue laundry and specialty sewing for a local seamstress and, when she couldn't avoid it, she watched babies in her apartment: she coped."

p. 47 — Norma Jea-nnne witnesses her grandma's death, wedged between the toilet and the shower.

p. 51 — "No one knew whether Gladys was being playful and provocative or deadly serious ... Gladys did scenes"

• touring the hills and the homes of the stars on a Sunday.

p. 56 — "Glady's voice conveyed reverence and enthusiasm as always, but beneat there was a calm implacable rage." 'Remember Norma Jeana—die at the right time.

We known the outcome early - and we get to see it bearing down bit by bit over 800 pages.

My review: I started taking notes almost 300 pages in, so I missed recording many trains of thought. But the book was engrossing, in that specifically mundane Karl Ove kind of way. I wasn't sure where he was taking me - jumping from perspective to perspective is a different mode for him. But by the end, I felt that the pieces had been aligned for something big moving forward. We aren't going to get aliens landing - we're just going to get piles and piles of the most normal life that can be put to a page, mixed with linguistic trickery to make us think we're getting philosophically deep - when what we are truly receiving is more stream of consciousness thought from small minded characters who are out to serve their own ends, create their own little worlds. One feels these characters are headed for the judgment seat, in the great unveiling to come. But I also have a feeling that KO will stop short of such a catharsis.

Katherine

• the mentions of soda in Karl Ove. Someone should write a thesis on soda in KO. Gulping down soda. Lots of gulpers in this novel.

Egil

• this is the doppelganger of Karl Ove. and maybe i shouldn't have been surprised at how much the novel, in the end, centered upon him, and hinged around him.

I am the bright Morning Star, Jesus said.
But in Isaiah the Morning Star was the Devil.
Wasn't that right?
I'd have to check.

p. 377

My Iowa English prof Ed Folsom makes a brief appearance.