whetstone.bsky.social

Klein is an exceptionally interesting thinker and her perspective on the current political moment is fascinating. There were parts that felt a little weaker to me, but the overall framework of "the mirror world" is something I'll be thinking about, and slotting my own understandings into, for some time. The book evokes many things about the early pandemic era and dives into the import of that ongoing global catastrophe on politics and culture.

This is a really thought-provoking read. I'm way over on the left end of the spectrum (and also the "libertarian" end according to Stenner's scale, which doesn't overlap much with the Libertarian Party in my opinion), but her description of how conservatism can be marshaled against fast-moving authoritarianism was really interesting. I had assumed there was more overlap between conservative and authoritarian thinking than there seems to be. Her contention that these personality types are pretty much evenly distributed throughout human populations (and that politics must therefore contend with them rather than trying to change people's underlying orientations) suggests a very different way of going about making the world I want to live in than I would have advocated before reading the book.

Robin's section of the story is a reasonably satisfying end to the trilogy but it somehow left me a little flat — I enjoyed spending time in Miles and Grace's heads more. This trilogy has a quality I've noticed recently in the fiction I come across, of incorporating the politics of the author in a way that feels... I don't know, a little too obvious or neat for me? Even though I agree with those politics it felt a bit pat, like the politics drove the story's conclusion. Maybe it's just an issue sensing the presence of the author too strongly (for me). But I liked these books, and they're not a polemic or anything.

This part of the trilogy was read by one of my favorite readers, which made it so much more fun. Dame Grace is a lovely character and watching her progress over the course of these books is a delight. Her romance in this one is also lovely.