#paul murray

[dk-thrive]

The past remains with us, in all kinds of unexpected ways. if we haven't made peace with it, it will come back again and again.

— Paul Murray, The Bee Sting: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, August 15, 2023)

[masterhallmark]

Read through the 1960's Paul Murry comic "Disney Masters" collection today, wanted to share some thoughts

Even though the stories are much lighter hearted and silly in tone, I like that The Blot is still smart, and he's brave as well, even standing his ground when faced with a foe trying to steal the same thing as him. They didn't reduce him to a purely comedic, goofball villain.

Loving how Scrooge accidentally let the Blot know he had something more valuable than his money bin by not putting any guards around anything else. The Blot was like, "...Well CLEARLY he's got something better in there, so let's go find out what it is."

I see why he prefers to work alone. It goes terribly when he doesn't. Also, apparently the newspaper has no problem printing ads for villains seeking henchmen.

Why is Mad Madam Mim not evil in these comics??? Why did The Blot have to convince her he was going straight?! She literally sings a song about how she loves being gruesome! Also, poor Blot.

I appreciate that in the first of the comics they give a reason his face is never shown as "he hates being unmasked" which is a completely conceivable reason for him to stay masked throughout the series (though imo he should have been unmasked when in jail). That being said, it is so funny to imagine him unmasked in a lot of the comic panels, and what his facial expressions probably are. Ya just know his jaw dropped a few times.

[disneyweirdness]

If you ever come across the Gladstone Digests, snatch them up because they are a great source of oddball comics.

For example:

Mickey Mouse Super Secret Agent!

This shit is wild.

Mickey Mouse Family Album AND Phantom Blot meets Super Goof? Yes please!

OK, Uncle Boomer

[fruitarchive]

the bee sting, paul murray

[meat-loving-meat]

Does anyone who has read The Bee Sting by Paul Murray want to tell me what year it’s set in???

SO this book talks A Lot about some economic recession but everyone has smartphones, so immediately this narrows down the possibilities: 2008-2012 or 2020-2022. No talk of the pandemic, so 2020 is out. Obviously it’s 2008-2012, probably closer to 2011 because of these moments:

Angry Birds topped the app store in about 2010, and Instagram was started and became popular in 2010. 2011 also lines up with the Irish banking crisis, which makes sense since this is set in Ireland. Also, none of the characters talk about Snapchat, Tiktok/Musical.ly, or any other more recent social media.

BUT THEN

A Switch? A Nintendo Switch??? Like the one first manufactured in 2017??

A soyboy? As in the term first used on 4chan in about 2017??? Hire a better fucking proofreader paul

[apesoformythoughts]

“The paradox of the believer's experience,

Augustine

nailed it in a sentence.

To the one who has doubts,

to Thomas Didymus,

the risen Lord declares

"Here, touch me!'

But to the one who believes and who seeks,

to Magdalen

who found Him in the garden,

Christ says

"Do not touch me!'”

— Paul Murray, OP: “Noli me tangere”

[frankenstein-was-a-grad-student]

The hardest era to write about from a technology standpoint must be 2008-2015. Shockingly small changes in narrative can have a dramatic impact on the accuracy of your setting and the tools your characters can deploy. I cannot figure out when Paul Murray thinks he’s set his book The Bee Sting. It’s described as “post 2008 financial crash Ireland” with a car dealership going under. Yet, everyone seems to have a smartphone (glass screen for typing so I’d assume iPhone which is insane from both a class perspective and a European perspective) with mostly reliable internet, Instagram is the app of choice for the teen protagonist (despite not even existing until October 2010), memories from years before including Minecraft (released 2011), characters text each other gifs, and the teen boy wants to buy the Nintendo switch. Leads us to believe we’re in minimally 2017 (by the switch), or at least late 2010 (by use of Instagram forgiving the switch). In the latter most generous scenario we need to believe that this teenager in Ireland downloaded Instagram almost immediately after it came out as well as all her friends AND her 12-13 year old little brother already has a burner account. Moreover, we need to believe her phone internet was good enough to constantly have access to it. It all seems rather unlikely.

I was very excited to read this book because it existed in such a fun era for children and young adults: the tackiest phones (give me a Razr or a T Mobile sidekick), the joy of logging onto the internet to check 9gag or Imgur, T9 texting, the displays of class and wealth evident from the type of phone you had or whether or not your parents had fast enough internet to watch YouTube in anything other than 360p.

Being a kid in this era was strange—technology grew with you in a 0-60 kind of way. Sad to see Murray hasn’t quite captured that in this otherwise lovely work.

[bookishnotes]

I was so tempted to buy this.

[ijustkindalikebooks]

current listen.

[rughydrangea]

This must be what it feels like to be dying, he thinks; the world remains around you, like a lover who does not want to hurt you by leaving, but in spirit it's already gone, taking with it the meaning of everything you shared. In truth it is already transforming into a future you will never be part of; and you realize only then that it has been transforming all of this time, throughout your whole life, and you with it; and that, in fact, is life, though you never knew, and now it is over.

Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Bee Sting | Author: Paul Murray | Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2023)

[dk-thrive]

We’re all different, but we all think everybody else is the same, he said. If they taught us that in school, I feel the world would be a much happier place.

— Paul Murray, The Bee Sting: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, August 15, 2023)

[ivystitches]

just finished the bee sting, brilliant read, incredible ending. come talk to me about it please if you’ve read it i’d love to hear your thoughts and get mind straight cause my head is buzzing

[heresay]

To believe in explanations is good, because it means you may believe also that beneath the chaotic, mindless jumble of everything, beneath the horrible disjunction you feel at every moment between you and all you are not, there dwells in the universe a secret harmony, a coherence and rightness like a balanced equation that’s out of reach for now but some day will reveal itself in its entirety.

Paul Murray, Skippy Dies

[fruitarchive]

the bee sting, paul murray

[justforbooks]

Irresistibly funny, wise and thought-provoking - a tragicomic tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart...

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under - but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewellery on eBay while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way to her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favour to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil - can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written - is there still time to find a happy ending?

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