https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/ Recent content in Fictions on Jan Savage Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC 4.0</a> Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:41:29 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/framley_parsonage/ Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:41:29 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/framley_parsonage/ Summary: A deep psychological study of control, power, and Trans-Per. Pages: 700+ Rating: 8/10 Here I am again, surprising my ADHD self with yet another thick novel under the belt, and that too without a serious disruption of my daily schedule. How is it possible? If someone had told me it was easily possible, due to how constancy (I will define this soon) works, I would have yawned and never believed them; this is like the feeling of becoming a parent. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/he_knew_he_was_right/ Sat, 22 Aug 2026 20:40:00 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/he_knew_he_was_right/ TLDR in summary: Better than expected. Pages: 800+ Rating: 7/10 Finally! I started HKHWR in early 2019, but life happened and back it went into my library. In the meantime, seven years passed and I became a rather sophisticated reader. And since I don&rsquo;t like loose ends, I decided to finish it, once and for all. I say that phrase because back in 2019, I read all the way near the second half, but somehow I couldn&rsquo;t go further. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/the_eustace_diamonds/ Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:51:08 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/the_eustace_diamonds/ Rating: 7/10 On a whim, I had bought several Penguin Classics editions of Anthony Trollope&rsquo;s novels, but several years ago when I picked one randomly, I had chanced upon &lsquo;He knew he was right&rsquo;, and I confess that at roughly 800+ pages, it seemed kind of slow-moving. As you probably know, I (am proud to) have ADHD, so it&rsquo;s really not easy to do anything&ndash; let alone read. But as those who know how ADHD really functions already realize, once we&rsquo;re certain our energy is not wasted, we pour it all in&ndash;what is called hyperfocus in certain circles. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/the-monk/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 16:05:27 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/the-monk/ Rating: 7/10 Despite the fact that Lewis&rsquo;s work has been unfairly villified by readers with substandard comprehension and critical thinking skills, one day when I finally regained access to my Penguin Classics library (it&rsquo;s a long story and I don&rsquo;t care to mention it), I decided it was time I read it. As soon as I read the introduction, I realized the book and its author were presented in an overly negative light&ndash;perhaps unintentionally or even unconsciously. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/a_hero_of_our_time/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:24:05 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/a_hero_of_our_time/ Rating: 9/10 What a fantastic find! Lermontov is a poet at heart and his prose shows it. The story was unputdownable, but at the same time, made me imagine, think, and even learn some real-world wisdom. Though he claimed that he was not using himself in the protagonist, he was subtly using the protagonist to express his own opinions. I know this because some of the things his protagonist was saying or thinking were almost similar to some ideas I had been entertaining, ideas that you can&rsquo;t have unless you think them over for a very long time, and in response to vagaries of the social environment. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/queen_of_spades/ Sat, 08 Mar 2025 20:17:04 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/queen_of_spades/ Rating: 9/10 Pushkin doesn&rsquo;t need an introduction even to English-reading audiences, because of how great of an artist he is. And although I have read his works in good English translations by Penguin, one has to sadly admit that a lot can be lost even in the best of translations. For one, even merely re-arranging words and meanings in a sentence can change its poetic aspect. There is an energy detected in &rsquo;never stop improving&rsquo; but none in the trite-sounding &lsquo;always keep improving&rsquo;. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/the_italian/ Sat, 18 Jan 2025 19:49:54 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/the_italian/ Rating: 5/10 In others, kinda meh, but better than a bad book. That really is not praise in my book. It&rsquo;s just one star shy of becoming a bad book. Still, I give it five instead of four stars because the book is not boring, if you look at it from a story-telling angle. But any critic or critically-thinking reader worth their salt already knows that fiction is not &lsquo;made up stories&rsquo;, nor we read it for the story-telling value only. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/adjustment_team/ Sun, 10 Nov 2024 20:22:08 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/adjustment_team/ Rating: 7/10 It&rsquo;s been a while. Out of pure randomness, I ran into PKD&rsquo;s short story &ldquo;The Adjustment Team&rdquo; which was intriguing and interesting. The scenery was described quite artistically, and only some of the characters were properly described, such as the old man with &lsquo;his faded blue eyes mild&ndash; a deep, ancient mildness that made the Clerk tremble even more&rsquo;. I think this selective description was on purpose, to show relative importances in a social hierarchy. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/dune/ Tue, 05 Mar 2024 14:40:17 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/dune/ -1/10 Finally, it&rsquo;s over. But was it worth it? And why did I put up with it? On Amazon, Dune has 99000 or so reviews, 97% of them five-star. I had to read this stupid book just in the interest of science, to see whether I should trust a large number of positive reviews in 2024. It turns out, my poor opinion of this book is also, indirectly, an indictment of the intellects of those people who found the book worth five stars. https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/diary_of_madman/ Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:47:46 +0800 https://dersavage.github.io/main/fiction/diary_of_madman/ Rating: 9/10 Before reading a translated work, I often find as many translations as I can in order to choose the best. To me, the best means close to the original in both how words must have sounded in the original, but also rendering it in English in such a way that it should, by itself, have its own literary merits in English. Translations of foreign novels rare rarely loyal but everytime I find a good translation, it confirms my hunch that the translator must be a writer and an artist of a high caliber.