Blood Meridian. I second the Bataille as well.

"The Song of Ice and Fire"

I watched the series a couple of times, and last month I thought it's time I read the books it's based on.

I'm in the middle of "A Clash of Kings" now

A 1921 poetry volume by Osip Mandelstam, published in Berlin rather than in Russia for obvious reasons. Absolutely stunning like almost everything authored by Mandelstam (including the poem mocking Stalin that cost him his life).

https://www.rusbibliophile.ru/netcat...ia_kryshka.jpg

Stalin was such a pussy.

He had the old dictator's paranoia, yeah. But when he was young he did some things that showed him to be no pussy. Had many other bad qualities though...

Yeah he would rob trains with grenades, right?

Yeah lots of high-stakes armed robberies, including with explosives involved. And some ridiculous number of prison breaks. Not exactly a pussy.

Yeah assuming he's a sociopath they don't really feel fear like that and can be drawn to danger for the thrill. Serial killers don't go after easy targets cause they're cowards but because it's expedient.

I think he was a sociopath, yeah maybe pussy wasn't the right way to phrase it. He was just completely paranoid, I think he thought everyone was as ruthless as he was. I remember reading the story about how his son was captured by the nazis, Yukov I think was his name. Nazis thought they could use him as a bartering chip - and Stalin legit didn't care. He was absolutely fine with him dying in that camp. The only family member of his he showed affection for was his daughter Svetlana. After his wife died (suicide I think it was), he had essentially all of his wife's family members sent to the gulag.

I've read a lot about Stalin and he's fascinating subject matter. I believe his dad was an alcoholic and would regularly beat him - and his mom was a disciplinarian. She wanted him to become a minister - but I believe he essentially got kicked out of the ministry because of his obsession with Marxism (or was it he left of his own accord?). It would be interesting to see how history would've changed if Stalin did end up becoming a minister instead of the leader of the USSR during WW2.

I only know a bit about his upbringing but I think I remember hearing that since the ministry was one of the few places in rural Georgia where there was literacy it also happened to be a hotspot of banned socialist literature so it would make sense.