John Neeleman
@johnneeleman.bsky.social
Lawyer; volunteer, ABA Death Penalty pro bono representation project; novelist, author of “Logos”
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John Neeleman
@johnneeleman.bsky.social
· Nov 15
I'm delighted to announce the release of my second novel, CHILDREN OF SATURN, a tale of the French Revolution published by Open Books, a stellar literary press. I feel honored and fortunate to join the ranks of Open Books' outstanding authors of distinction. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...
#rachelcusktogether The story about the woman who gives in to her children’s pleas for a puppy, then regrets it once the dog grows up, was excruciatingly banal. I’ve heard that story a countless times. 2/
November 9, 2025 at 4:27 PM
#rachelcusktogether The story about the woman who gives in to her children’s pleas for a puppy, then regrets it once the dog grows up, was excruciatingly banal. I’ve heard that story a countless times. 2/
#rachelcusktogether Interesting. "The polarisation of man and woman was a structure, a form: she had only felt it once it was gone, and it almost seemed as though the collapse of that structure, that equipoise, was responsible for the extremity that followed it." 2/
November 9, 2025 at 4:19 PM
#rachelcusktogether Interesting. "The polarisation of man and woman was a structure, a form: she had only felt it once it was gone, and it almost seemed as though the collapse of that structure, that equipoise, was responsible for the extremity that followed it." 2/
Reposted by John Neeleman
She's only a part of the outline to HIS STORY
#rachelcusktogether
#rachelcusktogether
What wounds her isn’t only what he says, but the collapse of that self-image—the realization that she’s peripheral to his story.
November 1, 2025 at 6:52 PM
She's only a part of the outline to HIS STORY
#rachelcusktogether
#rachelcusktogether
#Rachelcusktogether The narrator tells us Elena is beautiful but never shows us how. Saying a woman is beautiful without even a gesture toward what makes her so is a pet peeve of mine. It doesn’t need to be Tolstoyan detail—just something that earns the word. I happened to read this in Mann's 2/
November 1, 2025 at 5:04 PM
#Rachelcusktogether The narrator tells us Elena is beautiful but never shows us how. Saying a woman is beautiful without even a gesture toward what makes her so is a pet peeve of mine. It doesn’t need to be Tolstoyan detail—just something that earns the word. I happened to read this in Mann's 2/
Reposted by John Neeleman
#rachelcusktogether #Pilgrimage
'The word ellipsis...could literally be translated as "to hide behind silence"'
'The word ellipsis...could literally be translated as "to hide behind silence"'
October 29, 2025 at 3:47 PM
#rachelcusktogether #Pilgrimage
'The word ellipsis...could literally be translated as "to hide behind silence"'
'The word ellipsis...could literally be translated as "to hide behind silence"'
#Rachelcusktogether I don’t think Elena’s hurt is as pure as it seems. She begins by showing Konstantin off, half-hoping Yanna will envy her. When he says he doesn’t want more children, the pain isn’t just about motherhood—it’s the recognition that he doesn’t imagine a future with her.
October 31, 2025 at 7:03 PM
#Rachelcusktogether I don’t think Elena’s hurt is as pure as it seems. She begins by showing Konstantin off, half-hoping Yanna will envy her. When he says he doesn’t want more children, the pain isn’t just about motherhood—it’s the recognition that he doesn’t imagine a future with her.
#rachelcusktogether How sad. Ultimately, potential for highest satisfaction in a relationship is in the story that develops. "If the relationship is going to end, in other words, I want to know it and confront it as soon as possible...Very often I have felt that my relationships have had no story."
October 31, 2025 at 6:51 PM
#rachelcusktogether How sad. Ultimately, potential for highest satisfaction in a relationship is in the story that develops. "If the relationship is going to end, in other words, I want to know it and confront it as soon as possible...Very often I have felt that my relationships have had no story."
#Rachelcusktogether Cusk claims she doesn't believe in "characters", but predictably she turns her "neighbor" into a grotesque caricature.
October 25, 2025 at 5:05 PM
#Rachelcusktogether Cusk claims she doesn't believe in "characters", but predictably she turns her "neighbor" into a grotesque caricature.
@literaturesc.bsky.socia"I’m not interested in character because I don’t think character exists anymore."
This explains a lot.
"I Don’t Think Character Exists Anymore”: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
This explains a lot.
"I Don’t Think Character Exists Anymore”: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“I Don’t Think Character Exists Anymore”: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk
An interview, from June, around the publication of “Kudos,” the final book in Cusk’s “Outline” trilogy.
www.newyorker.com
October 23, 2025 at 5:10 AM
@literaturesc.bsky.socia"I’m not interested in character because I don’t think character exists anymore."
This explains a lot.
"I Don’t Think Character Exists Anymore”: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
This explains a lot.
"I Don’t Think Character Exists Anymore”: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
#rachekcusktogether "He could have it all again, with the difference that this time he would want what he had. ‘Though I have discovered,’ he said, touching his fleshy upper lip, ‘that that is harder than it sounds.’"
Happiness is appreciation.
Happiness is appreciation.
October 3, 2025 at 3:51 AM
#rachekcusktogether "He could have it all again, with the difference that this time he would want what he had. ‘Though I have discovered,’ he said, touching his fleshy upper lip, ‘that that is harder than it sounds.’"
Happiness is appreciation.
Happiness is appreciation.
Reposted by John Neeleman
this will start oct 1 -- join us!
#rachelcusktogether
#rachelcusktogether
i'm thinking the outline trilogy
#rachelcusktogether
#rachelcusktogether
September 20, 2025 at 4:26 AM
this will start oct 1 -- join us!
#rachelcusktogether
#rachelcusktogether
#TheBorderTrilogy This ought to be an epigraph in some great novel to come. "He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity /2
June 15, 2025 at 6:31 PM
#TheBorderTrilogy This ought to be an epigraph in some great novel to come. "He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity /2
#TheBorderTrilogy Cormac McCarthy, the anti-blood and soil novelist. Late in All the Pretty Horses: 2/
June 15, 2025 at 6:19 PM
#TheBorderTrilogy Cormac McCarthy, the anti-blood and soil novelist. Late in All the Pretty Horses: 2/
#TheBorderTrilogy John Grady and Suttree seem to me McCarthy’s most decent characters and they have similar pasts. Both had privileged lives and escaped a larger than life self-absorbed parent to find authenticity in wilderness and an alien place
June 8, 2025 at 6:49 PM
#TheBorderTrilogy John Grady and Suttree seem to me McCarthy’s most decent characters and they have similar pasts. Both had privileged lives and escaped a larger than life self-absorbed parent to find authenticity in wilderness and an alien place
#TheBorderTrilogy I’ve had to admit that women who are fully rounded characters are few in McCarthy's works (making recent speculations about a female muse kind of laughable). But in All the Pretty Horses Alejandra and grandaunt Duena Alfonso are terrific. Not till Stella Maris will he match them.
June 8, 2025 at 6:48 PM
#TheBorderTrilogy I’ve had to admit that women who are fully rounded characters are few in McCarthy's works (making recent speculations about a female muse kind of laughable). But in All the Pretty Horses Alejandra and grandaunt Duena Alfonso are terrific. Not till Stella Maris will he match them.
#TheBorderTrilogy Another aspect of All the Pretty Horses that stands out is meticulous depiction of manual labor. Here, horses and ranching. This is a feature of McCarthy’s writing I’ve always loved, which seem to me influenced by the Iliad and the Odyssey and Moby Dick.
June 8, 2025 at 6:46 PM
#TheBorderTrilogy Another aspect of All the Pretty Horses that stands out is meticulous depiction of manual labor. Here, horses and ranching. This is a feature of McCarthy’s writing I’ve always loved, which seem to me influenced by the Iliad and the Odyssey and Moby Dick.
#TheBorderTrilogy I’ve thought that one feature of McCarthy’s novels is that there is this sea of cruelty punctuated by discrete and unexpected acts of kindness. Discrete and unexpected helps make them sublime. However, it seems there is more kindness in All the Pretty Horses than his other works.
June 8, 2025 at 6:45 PM
#TheBorderTrilogy I’ve thought that one feature of McCarthy’s novels is that there is this sea of cruelty punctuated by discrete and unexpected acts of kindness. Discrete and unexpected helps make them sublime. However, it seems there is more kindness in All the Pretty Horses than his other works.
Reposted by John Neeleman
Reposted by John Neeleman
For us Univ. of Chicago readers!
March 28, 2025 at 6:41 PM
For us Univ. of Chicago readers!
#anthonypowelltogether Soldier's Art ends with Widmerpool recovering, appearing to be back on his feet. Obnoxious as he is, he's mastered habits that help one recover and
March 28, 2025 at 12:50 AM
#anthonypowelltogether Soldier's Art ends with Widmerpool recovering, appearing to be back on his feet. Obnoxious as he is, he's mastered habits that help one recover and
Reposted by John Neeleman
Last mention of Barnaby? His Donners-Brebner mural being bombed? Last encounter? On the street as Nick is heading to the course at Aldershot? All the questions Nick would have asked himself. . . . #anthonypowelltogether
March 25, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Last mention of Barnaby? His Donners-Brebner mural being bombed? Last encounter? On the street as Nick is heading to the course at Aldershot? All the questions Nick would have asked himself. . . . #anthonypowelltogether
#anthonypowelltogether Poor Priscilla. I liked her. I was thinking how Tolstoy to kill off the adulteress. Then I realized she'd have been killed by the other bomb had she been with her husband. Her death a butterfly effect of fleeing humiliated from her brother-in-law and lover.
March 15, 2025 at 4:13 AM
#anthonypowelltogether Poor Priscilla. I liked her. I was thinking how Tolstoy to kill off the adulteress. Then I realized she'd have been killed by the other bomb had she been with her husband. Her death a butterfly effect of fleeing humiliated from her brother-in-law and lover.
#anthonypowelltogether I remember negatively comparing Powell to Proust because Powell didn't write about death. Nick is his same self opaque about his sister-in-law's death and and how to address his wife's sister's death with her and the need to console his wife. Such a weirdo.
March 15, 2025 at 4:02 AM
#anthonypowelltogether I remember negatively comparing Powell to Proust because Powell didn't write about death. Nick is his same self opaque about his sister-in-law's death and and how to address his wife's sister's death with her and the need to console his wife. Such a weirdo.
Reposted by John Neeleman
Emily Wilson is my new favorite classicist. My review of her translation of the Odyssey.
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Hibou le Literature Supporter's review of The Odyssey
5/5: A stunning new translation by Emily Wilson. By favoring simplicity and directness, she brings out the motif of storytelling, and how clever strategist Odysseus lies / deceives / manipulates. I fo...
www.goodreads.com
March 15, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Emily Wilson is my new favorite classicist. My review of her translation of the Odyssey.
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
#anthonypowelltogether I would not have been so philosophical.
‘Strange those young Germans up there trying to kill me,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Ungrateful too. I've always had such good times in Berlin.’
‘Strange those young Germans up there trying to kill me,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Ungrateful too. I've always had such good times in Berlin.’
March 13, 2025 at 5:18 PM
#anthonypowelltogether I would not have been so philosophical.
‘Strange those young Germans up there trying to kill me,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Ungrateful too. I've always had such good times in Berlin.’
‘Strange those young Germans up there trying to kill me,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Ungrateful too. I've always had such good times in Berlin.’