post 57: how to easily reflect on stuff

background

• ok i’m getting close to finishing private citizens, by Tony Tulathimutte. this novel was super dense i felt like which made me really happy but also a bit overwhelmed. it also might be my favorite book of all time so far

• like it’s very meta and pOsTmoDeRn in its narration

  • if you don’t believe me, there’s a section where one of the characters is, herself, a writer, and makes a critique of storytelling and prose and the “oppression of the narrative” and the whole “postmodern” meta (which i secretly think might be tulathimutte criticizing HIMSELF and his OWN narrative voice as he freaking writes the book). like, if “postmodernism” is characterized by “meta” narration, what the fuck is this? post-post-modernism?? either way, that was just like, SO juicy and fun

• but that’s just an example. the entire book is like that

what to do

• so i think what i have to do is take all my highlighted sections and notes, which is my point-in-time snapshot reflections of the book, and then do a reflection of my reflections (fuck — does that make me a postmodernist). but there is a caveat:

  • this is excruciatingly mechanical. bezos is a complete pain in the ass (i use a kindle). this is because i can export my annotations ONLY but i cannot export the entire book file with my annotations inline. this means i have two choices

    • 1. have the epub open on my computer and then manually add the annotations, associated context, and reflections onto a google doc (there are, like, hundreds of annotations)

    • 2. devise a way to add my reflections on my annotations in-line while scrolling through the book and then be able to export them into a single doc where each highlight is accompanied by the original note, my notes on my original notes, and some additional associated context on the highlighted portion so that someone else reading it for the first time doesn’t have to have read the book to understand the analysis

      • this will literally require writing new interactive software with a gui lol

      • hmm

      • i’m going to ask a friend what to do maybe

      • maybe there’s a 3rd option i’m not considering that maybe doesn’t involve this

      • or maybe this software wouldn’t take that long to write and i can just write it

      • but, like, i can’t let having written the software block my entire reflection — like i probably have to make some progress somehow

        • so, maybe temporarily, i’ll manually do what the software does in a google doc and then when i get tired/bored of that, i’ll make some progress on the software

      • also, i’m surprised this shit doesn’t exist lol — like, people re-read books multiple times all the time! surely their opinions and perspectives change, right? how come no one has an easy way to track that???

      • maybe i’ll literally dump this entire blog post into perplexity and see what “he” says idk