Cane23

You’ve dragged me into reading hell @Topher Lydon... I had no idea this was Book 2, so I started with The Estate and just hoped I’d figure things out as I went along. The first book kept insisting “this is not a love story” … but this one doesn’t say anything - so now I’m suspicious. Is this the love story?

And paradoxically, I find him somewhat likable in this chapter, even though he’s described as a sociopath - someone supposedly without feelings or a conscience.

“What does your conscience say? — ‘You should become the person you are.’” ― Friedrich Nietzsche For Nietzsche, this isn’t about becoming socially better. It’s about stripping away illusion, fear, and borrowed values until what remains is unmistakably yours - and then owning it. That is exactly what Daniel, the main protagonist, does in this novel. Because literature doesn’t offer salvation - it offers clarity. It shows us how someone can come undone… and still move forward. Still choose love. Or solitude. Or silence. ( @CasualWanderer82 'A Bad Education') The Malady of Hunger is not a story about desire, sex, or obsession - it is about the pain of being disconnected from ourselves, and the difficult, often frightening process of becoming whole. But becoming whole doesn't mean a completion - the hunger is never completely satisfied. As @CasualWanderer82 writes in ABE: “I don’t know if anyone becomes complete,” … “But I do believe suffering reveals the architecture beneath the façade. And sometimes, what we find underneath… is more beautiful than what we had before.” If in A Bad Education the author offers a diagnosis - “Desire isn't always a fire that consumes. Sometimes it's a slow, cold hunger that devours you from the inside.” - then this novel offers a way forward. You don’t cure the malady of hunger. You don’t satisfy it or escape it - you become the person who can live with it. The cure for the malady is the malady itself. The hunger is the medicine. The hunger drove me through the glass. (@CasualWanderer82 'The Malady of Hunger'). So why read this book? Because it is “beautiful,” … “sharp. Honest. And just the right kind of cruel.” (@CasualWanderer82 'A Bad Education').

I understand why they oppose the financial demand (souls or whatever), but I’m not sure about their position on Cecil - do they want to keep him, or give him back to his mother?

Is Ben mildly OCD - or maybe not so mild? At first, I thought he was just a kind of “Princess and the Pea” type in beast’s clothing… but there’s something more to him.

Maybe Cecil is not so bad...he could have been Damian!

Thanx but...I think I need to slightly ruin that image 😄 Now that the story is finished, I have to admit I wasn’t such a great mind reader after all - I got a couple of important things completely wrong. First, Daniel and Malik. I really thought it would end with that distant, almost ghost-like moment...just seeing him with a wife and children. I didn’t expect Daniel to go all the way, to actually meet him, step into his life, and have that final encounter. But I realized that my own discomfort with that didn’t matter. It mattered to Daniel. And, honestly, it mattered to the author too - because that hotel scene felt like the moment where Daniel’s soul is pulled out of him and put on the page. One of the most striking “mirror” scenes I’ve read. And I completely misread Margot. Before her conversation with Nora, I saw her as almost Shakespearean or Faulkner-like...a kind of Lady Macbeth figure, someone orchestrating everything from above. But she turned out to be something much more human… and much sadder. Not the architect, but someone trying to preserve a structure that was already built around her. So yes - less mind reading, more learning along the way 🙂

I love this because it shows something we need... Daniel, well...the word “happy” is almost the wrong instrument to measure Daniel with. Happiness implies satisfaction, stability, some sense of completion... but Daniel’s state is clarity + acceptance + ongoing hunger. He explicitly says, “It’ll never be satisfied.” That line alone prevents a conventional reading of happiness, so, no - Daniel is not “happy” in the usual sense. At the end, Daniel is not at peace, he is not fulfilled and not complete. But he is aligned with himself, there is no longer internal lying, self-betrayal and pretending to want what he doesn’t want. That alignment can feel better than happiness, in a certain sense - because it’s real. There is also the price - no traditional relationship, no stable exclusivity...likely no family in the conventional sense. But the deeper price is not social - it’s existential, he gives up the possibility of being completed by another person. Most people build their lives around that hope - Daniel explicitly rejects it. Finally, we can say - Daniel is not happy, but he is no longer lost...and that may be the most he can reach without betraying himself. In previous chapter, Alec asks Daniel, "Are you happy". Daniel answers, “I’m learning to live” ... It's process without clarity. In final scene Daniel says “This is who I am” ... It's clarity without resolution. So, his road is from uncertain existence to conscious existence. Daniel doesn’t arrive at happiness - he arrives at a form of life he can consciously choose, fully aware of its limits and its cost, and that’s why the ending feels both grounded (no illusion) and unsettling (no promise of fulfillment).

There's a protagonist hidden in every sidekick! Riley has this amazing quality, a sort of survival mode, where he keeps you guessing if he’s being serious, joking, or just messing with you.

Charlie was a pretty reckless teenager - I hope Cecil is the only baby arriving at Hartly’s! 😜

I like what you pointed out in your Review: While Daniel is not in my top 2, he is one of the most interesting characters (if not the most). His imperfection and his journey to eventually recognise and accept it are one of the best highlights of the story. Daniel isn’t the most psychologically complex character @CasualWanderer82 has ever written, but he is the most transferable one - the one that carries the widest emotional resonance because he’s built from common human fractures, arranged with extreme clarity. That’s why the ending feels less like the conclusion of a plot, and more like the conclusion of an inner process most people recognize, even if they’ve never lived it at that intensity. Most readers don’t identify with Daniel’s life; we identify with being split between roles, wanting something that destabilizes structure, confusing intensity with truth or reaching a point where understanding replaces pursuit. So, Daniel becomes less a “person to observe” and more a pattern of self-recognition. That’s why the final mirror scene lands so strongly - it’s not just his moment; it’s structurally designed as the moment we recognize the pattern in ourselves and watch it resolve.

Daniel's encounter with Malik (Cameron) and his family is the core ethical and psychological gamble of the entire chapter - and @CasualWanderer82 wants us to feel that discomfort. Daniel’s visit to Malik’s home is a trespass. It’s invasive, destabilizing, and - on a purely moral level - hard to defend. Author doesn’t try to clean that up. Instead, he reframes it retroactively through what it produces. Daniel crosses a boundary that Malik has spent years constructing - the partition (family vs. work), the rule system (no repetition, no attachment) and the controlled narrative (Cameron vs. Malik). By entering the apartment, Daniel doesn’t just “find” Malik - he collapses the architecture Malik depends on. That’s why Malik’s strongest reaction isn’t about himself, it’s about “my children… my wife… my home” ... So yes - this is not neutral curiosity, it’s an act of pressure. But the story reframes this as mirroring, not intrusion. Here’s the key shift - Daniel isn’t doing something foreign to Malik, he is doing to Malik what Malik did to him, just in a different domain. Malik entered Daniel’s body and psyche - Daniel enters Malik’s life and structure. Malik’s “honesty” in the penthouse wasn’t harmless - it was invasive, transformative, destabilizing...it unmade Daniel. So, when Daniel shows up in the kitchen, the narrative suggests - this is not cruelty out of nowhere...this is reciprocity of impact. Not revenge - completion of a circuit. At the end of the previous chapter, I've asked myself - could Daniel have reached this final peace without confronting Malik? Probably not, because Malik was not just a person - he was a symbol. For eighteen months, Malik functioned as projection surface, a frequency and myth of completion. Without confronting the real man (Cameron in a kitchen), Daniel would remain in love with an abstraction, and you can’t integrate yourself through an abstraction. The kitchen scene does something brutal but necessary...It collapses myth (man) and replaces fantasy (structure). It forces Daniel to see - this is not transcendence, this is maintenance...without that, Daniel would still be chasing. This final chapter is about one thing - turning desire inward instead of outward. But, to do that, Daniel must fully understand - Malik is not the answer or unique in essence. Malik is another version of the same cage! That realization only becomes real when Daniel sees wife, children, routine...the lie. So yes, this 'visit' was ethically messy, but psychologically essential. Malik is honest about his role, rules and system...but he is not honest about his life as a whole, because his entire existence depends on partitioned truth. Daniel, by the end, rejects partial honesty. That’s why his final stance is so uncompromising “I can’t respect that.” This is not moral superiority - it’s a difference in stage of integration. The most important shift isn’t the confrontation, it’s what happens after - in the hotel room. Malik offers 'an exception' - and for the first time, Daniel doesn’t take it. That proves that the confrontation was not about getting Malik - it was about seeing Malik clearly enough to let him go. This is the last test, and it’s not small - it’s enormous...breaking the no-repeat rule means risking everything and inviting Daniel back means opening the system. This is, in a way Malik’s version of love, but expressed in the only language he knows with controlled exception, negotiated access and structured desire. “Eighteen months ago, this offer would have ended Daniel.”- this is brutally honest. Because earlier Daniel needed a fixed point and meaning from outside himself. He would have turned Malik into purpose, identity, orbit...another form of imprisonment. Finally, sometimes, in narratives about identity and transformation, the act that looks like violation is the act that breaks illusion. And once the illusion breaks, the story no longer needs Malik, which is why, in the end, Malik exits quietly - and Daniel doesn’t even turn around.

I’d call him more sophisticated and delicate than effeminate - but that’s just my impression, probably shaped by his other skills (knife fighting, self-defense, etc.). By the way, he looks beautiful in this picture.

@Topher Lydon brings an exciting new adventure - a historical fantasy that blends real events from the Crusades with a vivid world of magic, mages, and wizards. The mix of history and fantasy works really well, giving the story a strong, believable background while still feeling imaginative and fresh. At its core, this is a story about friendship, loyalty, and honor. It shows that true nobility doesn’t come from family name, but from courage, heart, and the choices people make. A great start to what feels like a very promising series.

Are Ser Val and the guys basically the first historical example of GBF? 😁

There’s something eccentric, aristocratic, and faintly wild in Basien's attitude-stubbornly...almost spitefully so - that reminds me of Lord Sebastian Flyte from Brideshead Revisited.

New start, new genre... Let's take this ride... 🙂

Bravo @CassieQ & @BendtedWreath! It is not secret how much I like good reunion stories an yours is...perfect!

Baldwin or...bald win?! 🤔

The squad is back, with new members and fresh adventures. What happens when a wicked plant and an overly ambitious butcher join forces and start delivering dangerous meat to unsuspecting customers…? The team will be ready - but are they mature enough to handle matters of the heart as well? Enjoy the latest story from @Topher Lydon and the continuing adventures of Charlie & Co.

Wow, so many traditional Christian values! 🤪

Mee too...great story indeed!

Behind him, returning to his father's chambers, Rashid was weeping.